With like zeal the ill-starred Latians in a different quarter set up countless piles; of the multitude of corpses some they bury in the earth, some they lift up and carry off to neighbour districts, and send them home to the city; the rest, a mighty mass of promiscuous carnage, they burn 15 uncounted and unhonoured; and thereon the plains through their length and breadth gleam with the thickening rivalry of funeral fires. The third morrow had withdrawn the chill shadows from the sky: the mourners were levelling the piles of ashes and sweeping the mingled bones 20 from the hearths, and heaping over them mounds of earth where the heat yet lingers. But within the walls, in the city of Latium’s wealthy king, the wailing is preëminent, and largest the portion of that long agony. Here are mothers and their sons’ wretched brides, here are sisters’ 25 bosoms racked with sorrow and love, and children orphaned of their parents, calling down curses on the terrible war and on Turnus’ bridal rites; he, he himself, they cry, should try the issue with arms and the cold steel, who claims for himself the Italian crown and the honours of 30 sovereignty. Fell Drances casts his weight into the scale, and bears witness that Turnus alone is challenged by the foe, Turnus alone defied to combat. Against them many a judgment is ranged in various phrase on Turnus’ side, and the queen’s august name lends him its shadow; many 35 an applauding voice upholds the warrior by help of the trophies he has won. Amid all this ferment, when the blaze of popular turmoil is at its height, see, as a crowning blow, comes back the sorrowing embassy with tidings from Diomede’s mighty town: the cost of all their labours has gained them nought: gifts and gold and earnest prayers are alike in vain: the Latians must look for arms elsewhere, or sue for peace 5 from the Trojan chief. King Latinus himself is crushed to earth by the weight of agony. The wrath of the gods, the fresh-made graves before his eyes, tell him plainly that Æneas is the man of destiny, borne on by heaven’s manifest will. So he summons by royal mandate a mighty 10 council, the chiefs of his nation, and gathers them within his lofty doors. They have mustered from all sides, and are streaming to the palace through the crowded streets. In the midst Latinus takes his seat, at once eldest in years and first in kingly state, with a brow that knows not joy. 15 Hereupon he bids the envoys returned from the Ætolian town to report the answers they bear, and bids them repeat each point in order. Silence is proclaimed, and Venulus, obeying the mandate, begins to speak: