No More Learning

Plead you for peace to the lifeless bodies that the battle-lot hath
slain? I would fain grant it even to the living. Neither have I come but
because destiny had given me this place to dwell in; nor wage I war with
your people; your king it is who hath broken our covenant and preferred
to trust himself to Turnus' arms. Fitter it were Turnus had faced death
to-day. If he will fight out the war and expel the Teucrians, it had
been well to meet me here in arms; so had he lived to whom life were
granted of heaven or his own right hand. Now go, and kindle the fire
beneath your hapless countrymen. ' Aeneas ended: they stood dumb in
silence, with faces bent steadfastly in mutual gaze. Then aged Drances,
ever young Turnus' assailant in hatred and accusation, with the words of
his mouth thus answers him again:

'O Trojan, great in renown, yet greater in arms, with what praises may I
extol thy divine goodness? Shall thy righteousness first wake my wonder,
or thy toils in war? We indeed will gratefully carry these words to our
fathers' city, and, if fortune grant a way, will make thee at one with
King Latinus. Let Turnus seek his own alliances. Nay, [130-163]it will
be our delight to rear the massy walls of destiny and stoop our
shoulders under the stones of Troy. '

He ended thus, and all with one voice murmured assent. Twelve days'
truce is struck, and in mediation of the peace Teucrians and Latins
stray mingling unharmed on the forest heights. The tall ash echoes to
the axe's strokes; they overturn pines that soar into the sky, and
busily cleave oaken logs and scented cedar with wedges, and drag
mountain-ashes on their groaning waggons.
And now flying Rumour, harbinger of the heavy woe, fills Evander and
Evander's house and city with the same voice that but now told of Pallas
victorious over Latium. The Arcadians stream to the gates, snatching
funeral torches after their ancient use; the road gleams with the long
line of flame, and parts the fields with a broad pathway of light; the
arriving crowd of Phrygians meets them and mingles in mourning array.
When the matrons saw all the train approach their dwellings they kindle
the town with loud wailing. But no force may withhold Evander; he comes
amid them; the bier is set down; he flings himself on Pallas, and clasps
him with tears and sighs, and scarcely at last does grief leave his
voice's utterance free. 'Other than this, O Pallas! was thy promise to
thy father, that thou wouldst not plunge recklessly into the fury of
battle. I knew well how strong was the fresh pride of arms and the
sweetness of honour in a first battle. Ah, unhappy first-fruits of his
youth and bitter prelude of the war upon our borders! ah, vows and
prayers of mine that no god heard! and thou, pure crown of wifehood,
happy that thou art dead and not spared for this sorrow! But I have
outgone my destiny in living, to stay here the survivor of my child.
Would I had followed the allied arms of Troy, to be overwhelmed by
Rutulian weapons! Would my life had been given, and I and not my Pallas
were borne home in this [164-198]procession! I would not blame you, O
Teucrians, nor our treaty and the friendly hands we clasped: our old age
had that appointed debt to pay. Yet if untimely death awaited my son, it
will be good to think he fell leading the Teucrians into Latium, and
slew his Volscian thousands before he fell. Nay, no other funeral than
this would I deem thy due, my Pallas, than good Aeneas does, than the
mighty Phrygians, than the Tyrrhene captains and all the army of
Tyrrhenia.