Yet another stroke fell on Latium’s wearied sons, shaking with its agony the city to her foundations. When 15 the queen from her palace saw the enemy draw near, the walls assailed, flames flying roofward, the Rutulian army, the soldiers of Turnus nowhere in sight, she deemed, poor wretch, her warrior slain in the combat, and maddened with the access of grief, cries aloud that she alone is the 20 guilty cause, the fountainhead of all this evil; and flinging out wild words in the fury of her frenzied anguish, rends with desperate hand her purple raiment, and fastens from a lofty beam the noose of hideous death. Soon as Latium’s wretched dames knew the blow that had fallen, 25 her daughter Lavinia is first to rend yellow hair and roseate cheek, and the rest about her ran as wildly: the palace re-echoes their wail. The miserable story spreads through the town: every heart sinks: there goes the old king with garments rent, all confounded by his consort’s 30 death and his city’s ruin: he soils his hoary locks with showers of unseemly dust, and oft and oft upbraids himself that he embraced not sooner Æneas the Dardan nor took him for son-in-law of his own free will. Turnus, meantime, is plying the war far away on the 35 plain, following here and there a straggler with abated zeal, himself and his steeds alike less buoyant. The air wafted to him the confused din, inspiring unknown terror, and on his quickened ears smote the sound of the city’s turmoil and the noise not of joy. “Alas! what is this mighty agony that shakes the walls? what these loud shouts pouring from this quarter and that?” So he cries, and drawing his bridle halts bewildered. His sister, just 5 as she stood in guise of Metiscus the driver, guiding car, horse, and reins, thus meets his question: “Proceed we still, Turnus, to chase the Trojans, where victory’s dawn shows us the way: others there are whose hands can guard the city: Æneas bears down on the Italians and 10 stirs up the battle: let us send havoc as cruel among his Teucrians: so shall your slain be as many and your martial fame as high.” Turnus answered: “Sister, I both knew you long since, when at first you artfully disturbed the truce and flung yourself into our quarrel, and now 15 you vainly hide the goddess from my eyes. But tell me by whose will you are sent from Olympus to cope with toils like this? Is it that you may look on the cruel end of your hapless brother? For what can I do? what chance is there left to give me hope of safety? With my 20 own eyes I saw Murranus die, his giant frame laid low by a giant wound: he called me by name, he, than whom I had no dearer friend. Dead, too, is ill-starred Ufens, all because he would not see me disgraced: his body and