He saith, and open-eyed receives the sword-point in his throat, And o'er his arms in waves of blood his life and soul doth float. BOOK XI. ARGUMENT. TRUCE IS MADE FOR THE BURYING OF THE DEAD: THE LATINS TAKE COUNSEL OF PEACE OR WAR. CAMILLA'S DEEDS AND DEATH. Meanwhile Aurora risen up from bed of ocean wends, And King Æneas, though his grief bids him in burying friends To wear the day, and though his heart the death of men dismays, Yet to the Gods of Dawning-tide the worship duly pays. From a great oak on every side the branches doth he shear, And setteth on a mound bedight in gleaming battle-gear The spoils of King Mezentius: a gift to thee it stood, O Might of War! Thereon he set the crest with blood bedewed, The broken shafts, the mail-coat pierced amid the foughten field With twice six dints: on the left arm he tied the brazen shield, 10 And round about the neck he hung the ivory-hilted sword. Then to his friends, a mighty hedge of duke and battle-lord, He turned, and to their joyous hearts these words withal he said: "The most is done, and for the rest let all your fears lie dead: Lo here the first-fruits! battle-spoil won from a haughty king: Lo this is all Mezentius now, mine own hands' fashioning. Now toward the King and Latin walls all open lies the way; Up hearts, for war! and let your hope foregrip the battle-day, That nought of sloth may hinder you, or take you unaware, When Gods shall bid the banners up, and forth with men ye fare 20 From out of camp,--that craven dread clog not your spirits then: Meanwhile give we unto the earth these our unburied men, The only honour they may have in nether Acheron. Come, fellows, to those noble souls who with their blood have won A country for us, give those gifts, the last that they may spend. And first unto Evander's town of sorrow shall I send That Pallas, whom, in nowise poor of valour or renown, The black day reft away from us in bitter death to drown." With weeping eyes he drew aback, e'en as the word he said, Unto the threshold of the place where Pallas, cold and dead, 30 The old Acoetes watched, who erst of that Parrhasian King, Evander, was the shield-bearer, but now was following His well-belovèd foster-child in no such happy wise; But round him were the homemen's band and Trojan companies, And Ilian wives with loosened locks in guise of sorrow sore. But when Æneas entereth now beneath the lofty door From beaten breast great moan they cast up to the starry heaven; And wailing of their woeful cheer through all the house is driven. The King himself when he beheld the pillowed head at rest, 39 The snow-white face, the open wound wrought on the smooth young breast By that Ausonian spear, so spake amid his gathered tears: