"O son, and do I see thee so? Thou rest and last relief 480 Of my old days! hadst thou the heart to leave me lone and spent? O cruel! might I see thee not on such a peril sent? Was there no time for one last word amid my misery? A prey for Latin fowl and dogs how doth thy body lie, On lands uncouth! Not e'en may I, thy mother, streak thee, son, Thy body dead; or close thine eyes, or wash thy wounds well won, Or shroud thee in the cloth I wrought for thee by night and day, When hastening on the weaving-task I kept eld's cares at bay? Where shall I seek thee? What earth hides thy body, mangled sore, And perished limbs? O son, to me bringest thou back no more 490 Than this? and have I followed this o'er every land and sea? O pierce me through, if ye be kind; turn all your points on me, Rutulians! Let me first of all with battle-steel be sped! Father of Gods, have mercy thou! Thrust down the hated head Beneath the House of Tartarus with thine own weapon's stress, Since otherwise I may not break my life-days' bitterness." Their hearts were shaken with her wail, and Sorrow fain will weep, And in all men their battle-might unbroken lay asleep. But Actor and Idæus take that flaming misery, As bade Ilioneus, and young Iulus, sore as he 500 Went weeping: back in arms therewith they bear her 'neath the roof. But now the trump with brazen song cast fearful sound aloof, Chiding to war; and shouts rise up and belloweth back the heaven, And forth the Volscians fare to speed the shield-roof timely driven. Some men fall on to fill the ditch and pluck the ramparts down; Some seek approach and ladders lay where daylight rends the crown Of wall-wards, and would get them up where stands the hedge of war Thinner of men: against their way the Teucrian warders pour All weapon-shot: with hard-head pikes they thrust them down the steep. Long was the war wherein they learned the battle-wall to keep. 510 Stones, too, of deadly weight they roll, if haply they may break The shield-roof of the battle-rush; but sturdily those take All chances of the play beneath their close and well-knit hold. Yet fail they; for when hard at hand their world of war was rolled, A mighty mass by Teucrians moved rolls on and rushes o'er, And fells the host of Rutuli and breaks the tiles of war. Nor longer now the Rutuli, the daring hearts, may bear To play with Mars amid the dark, but strive the walls to clear With storm of shaft and weapon shot. But now Mezentius otherwhere, a fearful sight to see, 520 Was tossing high the Tuscan pine with smoke-wreathed fiery heart: While Neptune's child, the horse-tamer Messapus, played his part, Rending the wall, and crying out for ladders to be laid.