Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/290

BOOK XI

Meanwhile, the Goddess of Dawn has risen and left the
ocean. Æneas, though duty presses to find leisure for
interring his friends, and his mind is still wildered by the
scene of blood, was paying his vows to heaven as conqueror
should at the day-star's rise. A giant oak, lopped all 5
round of its branches, he sets up on a mound, and arrays
it in gleaming arms, the royal spoils of Mezentius, a trophy
to thee, great Lord of War: thereto he attaches the crest
yet raining blood, the warrior's weapons notched and
broken, and the hauberk stricken and pierced by twelve 10
several wounds: to the left hand he binds the brazen shield,
and hangs to the neck the ivory-hilted sword. Then he
begins thus to give charge to his triumphant friends, for
the whole company of chiefs had gathered to his side:
"A mighty deed, gallants, is achieved already: dismiss 15
all fear for the future: see here the spoils, the tyrant's
first-fruits: see here Mezentius as my hands have made
him. Now our march is to the king and the walls of Latium.
Set the battle in array in your hearts and let hope
forestall the fray, that no delay may check your ignorance 20
at the moment when heaven gives leave to pluck up the
standards and lead forth our chivalry from the camp, no
coward resolve palsy your steps with fear. Meanwhile,
consign we to earth the unburied carcases of our friends,
that solitary honour which is held in account in the pit 25
of Acheron. "Go," he says, "grace with the last tribute
those glorious souls, who have bought for us this our fatherland
with the price of their blood: and first to Evander's
sorrowing town send we Pallas, who, lacking nought of
manly worth, has been reft by the evil day, and whelmed 30
in darkness before his time."