At once flies rumour, blazed through the little city, 20 that the horsemen are marching with speed to the gates of the Tyrrhene king. In alarm the matrons redouble their vows; fear treads on the heels of danger, and the features of the war-god loom larger on the view. Then Evander, clasping the hand of his departing son, hangs 25 about him with tears that never have their fill, and speaks like this: “Ah! would but Jupiter bring back my bygone years, and make me what I was when under Præneste’s very walls I struck down the first rank and set a conqueror’s torch to piles of shields, and with this my 30 hand sent down to Tartarus king Erulus, whom at his birth his mother Feronia endowed with three lives—fearful to tell—and a frame that could thrice bear arms: thrice had he to be struck down in death: yet from him on that day this hand took all those three lives, and 35 thrice stripped that armour—never should I, as now, be torn, my son, from your loved embrace. Never would Mezentius have laid dishonour on a neighbour’s crest, dealt with his sword that repeated havoc, and bereaved my city of so many of her sons. But you, great powers above, and thou, Jupiter, mightiest ruler of the gods, have pity, I implore you, on an Arcadian monarch, and give ear to a father’s prayer; if your august will, if destiny 5 has in store for me the safe return of my Pallas, if life will make me see him and meet him once more, then I pray that I may live; there is no trial I cannot bear to outlast. But if thou, dark Fortune, threatenest any unnamed calamity, now, oh, now, be it granted me to snap 10 life’s ruthless thread, while care wears a double face, while hope cannot spell the future, while you, darling boy, my love and late delight, are still in my arms: nor let my ears be pierced by tidings more terrible.” So was the father heard to speak at their last parting; his servants 15 were seen carrying within doors their fallen lord.