Latin poetry -- Adaptations; Virgil -- Adaptations
So the battle had an end. And the next day, early in the morning,
Æneas paid his vows. For he took an oak-tree, and lopped the branches
round about, and set it on a mound. And thereon he hung, for a trophy
to Mars, the arms of King Mezentius, the crest dripping with blood,
and the headless spears, and the corslet pierced in twelve places.
Also he fastened on the left hand the shield, and hung about the neck
the ivory-hilted sword. And next, the chiefs being gathered about him,
he spake, saying, "We have wrought a great deed. Here ye see all that
remaineth of Mezentius. Now, therefore, let us make ready to carry the
war against the city of Latinus. This, therefore, will we do with the
first light to-morrow. And now let us bury the dead, doing such honour
to them as we may, for indeed they have purchased a country for us
with their own blood. But first will I send back Pallas to the city of
Evander."
Then he went to the tent where the dead body was laid, and old Acœtes
kept watch thereby--Acœtes, who had been armour-bearer to Evander,
and now had followed his son, but with evil fortune; and the women of
Troy, with their hair unbound, mourned about him. But when they saw
Æneas they beat their breasts, and sent up a great cry even to heaven.
And when the king saw the pillowed head and the great wound in the
breast he wept, and said, "Ah! why did Fortune grudge me this, that
thou shouldst see my kingdom, and go back in triumph to thy father's
home? This is not what I promised to Evander when he gave thee to my
charge, and warned me that the men of Italy were valiant and fierce.
And now haply, old man, thou makest offerings and prayers for him who
now hath no part nor lot in the Gods of heaven. Yet, at least, thou
wilt see that he beareth an honourable wound. But what a son thou
losest, O Italy! and what a friend, thou, Iülus!"
Then he chose a thousand men who should go with the dead and share
the father's grief. After this they made a bier of arbutus boughs and
oak, and put also over it a canopy of branches, and laid the dead
thereon, like unto a flower of violet or hyacinth which a girl hath
plucked, which still hath beauty and colour, but the earth nourisheth
it no more. And Æneas took two robes of purple, which Dido had woven
with thread of gold, and with one he wrapped the body and with the
other the head. And behind were carried the arms which Pallas had won
in fight; and they led the old man Acœtes, smiting on his breast and
tearing his cheeks, and throwing himself upon the ground; and the
war-horse Æthon walked beside, with the great tears rolling down his
cheeks. And also they bare behind him his helmet and shield, for all
else Turnus had taken; and then followed the whole company, the men of
Troy, the Arcadians, and the Tuscans, with arms reversed. And Æneas
said, "The same cares and sorrows of war call me elsewhere. Farewell,
my Pallas, for ever!" And he departed to the camp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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