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So he says weeping, and returns to his tent-door, where
the body of breathless Pallas, duly laid out, was being
watched by Acœtes the aged, who had in old days been
armour-bearer to Evander his Arcadian lord, but then in
an hour less happy was serving as the appointed guardian 5
of the pupil he loved. Around the corpse were thronging
the retinue of menials and the Trojan train, and dames
of Ilion with their hair unbound in mourning fashion.
But soon as Æneas entered the lofty portal, a mighty
wail they raise to the stars, smiting on their breasts, and 10
the royal dwelling groans to its centre with their agony
of woe. He, when he saw the pillowed head and countenance
of Pallas in his beauty, and the deep cleft of the
Ausonian spear in his marble bosom, thus speaks, breaking
into tears: "Can it be, unhappy boy, that Fortune at the 15
moment of her triumphant flood-tide has grudged you to
me, forbidding you to look on my kingdom, and ride back
victorious to your father's home? Not such was the parting
pledge I gave on your behalf to your sire Evander, when,
clasping me to his heart, he sent me on my way to mighty 20
empire, and anxiously warned me that the foe was fierce
and the race we should war with stubborn. And now he
belike at this very moment in the deep delusion of empty
hope is making vows to Heaven and piling the altars with
gifts, while we are following his darling, void of life, and 25
owing no dues henceforward to any power on high, with
the vain service of our sorrow. Ill-starred father! your
eyes shall see what cruel death has made of your son.
And is this the proud return, the triumph we looked for?
has my solemn pledge shrunk to this? Yet no beaten 30
coward shall you see, Evander, chastised with unseemly
wounds, nor shall the father pray for death to come in its
terror while the son survives. Ay me! how strong a defender
is lost to our Ausonian realm, and lost to you, my
own Iulus!" 35

So having wailed his fill, he gives order to lift and bear
the poor corpse, and sends a thousand men chosen from
his whole array to attend the last service of woe, and lend