The Aeneid (51 page)

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And now envoys appeared from the city of the Latins bearing
                olive branches wreathed in wool and asking for a truce. The
                bodies of their dead were all over the plain where the steel had
                laid them, and they begged Aeneas to give them back and let
                them go to their graves in the earth, for he could have no quarrel
                with men who were defeated and had lost the light of life; he
                must show mercy to those who had once been called his hosts
                and the kinsmen of his bride. Good Aeneas could not refuse this
                petition. He honoured the envoys, granted what they asked and
                added these words: ‘What cruel Fortune is this, men of Latium,
                that has embroiled you in war and made you run away from us,
110         who are your friends? You ask me for peace for the dead, whose
                destiny has been to die in battle: I for my part would have been
                willing to grant them peace when they were still alive. Nor
                would I ever have come to this land if the Fates had not offered
                me a place here to be my home. I do not wage war with your
                people. It was your king who abandoned our sworn friendship
                and preferred to put his trust in the weapons of Turnus. It is not
                these men who should have risked their lives but Turnus. If it is
                his plan to put an end to this war by the strength of his arm,
                and drive out the Trojans, he should have faced me and these
                weapons of mine in battle. One of us would have lived. God or
                our own right hands would have seen to that. Go now and light
120         fires beneath the bodies of your unfortunate citizens.’ Aeneas
                had spoken. They were astonished and stood looking at each
                other in silence.

                Then Drances, an older man who had always hated the young
                warrior Turnus, and spoken against him, began to make his
                reply: ‘O Trojan great in fame, and greater still in arms, what
                words of mine could raise you to the skies? What shall I first
                praise? Your justice, or your labours in war? Gratefully shall we
                carry these words of yours back to our native city, and if Fortune
                shows us a way, we shall reconcile you to our king Latinus.
130         Turnus can make his own treaties. We shall do more. We shall
                delight to raise the massive walls Fate has decreed for you and
                lift up the building stones of Troy on our shoulders!’

                All to a man they murmured in agreement when he had
                finished speaking. Twelve days they decided on, and during that
                
time, with peace as mediator between them, Trojans and Latins
                were together in the hills and wandered the woods, and no man
                harmed another. The iron axe rang upon tall ash trees and
                brought down skyward-thrusting pines. They never rested from
                their labours, splitting the oak and fragrant cedar with wedges
                and carrying down the ash trees on carts from the mountains.

140         But Rumour was already on the wing, overwhelming Evander
                and the house and city of Evander with the first warnings of
                anguish. The talk was no longer of Pallas, conqueror of Latium.
                The Arcadians rushed to the gates, snatching up funeral torches
                according to their ancient practice. The road was lit by a long
                line of flames which showed up the fields far on either side.
                Nearer and nearer came the throng of Trojans till it joined the
                columns of mourners. When the mothers of Pallanteum saw
                them entering the walls, the stricken city was ablaze with their
                cries. No power on earth could restrain Evander. Coming into
                the middle of the throng where the bier had been laid on the
150         ground, he threw himself on the body of Pallas and clung to it
                weeping and moaning until at last grief freed a path for his
                voice: ‘O Pallas, this is not what you promised your father! You
                said you would not be too rash in trusting yourself to the cruel
                God of War. I well knew the glory of one’s first success in arms,
                the joy above all other joys of one’s first battle. These are bitter
                first fruits for a young man. A hard schooling it has been in war,
                and you did not have far to go for it. None of the gods listened
                to my vows and prayers. O my dear wife, most blessed of
                women, you were fortunate in your death, in not living to see
160         this day. But I have outstayed my time. A father should not
                survive his son. If only I had followed our Trojan allies into
                battle and the Rutulians had buried me under their spears! If
                only I had given up my own life and this procession was bringing
                home my body and not the body of Pallas. I would not wish to
                blame you, Trojans, nor our treaties, nor regret the joining of
                our right hands in friendship. The death of my son was a debt I
                was fated to pay in my old age. But if an early death was his
                destiny, I shall rejoice to think that first he killed thousands of
                Volscians and fell while leading the Trojans into Latium. Nor
                would I wish you any other funeral than this, Pallas, given you
170         
by good Aeneas and the great men from Phrygia, the leaders of
                the Etruscans and all the soldiers of Etruria, bearing the great
                trophies of the warriors your right hand has sent to their deaths.
                And you too, Turnus, would now be standing in the fields, a
                huge headless trophy, had Pallas been your equal in age, had
                the years given you both equal strength. But why does my grief
                keep the Trojans from their arms? Go now, take this charge to
                your king and do not forget it. If I drag out my hated life now
                that Pallas is killed, the reason, Aeneas, lies in your right arm.
                You know it owes the life of Turnus to the son and to the father.
                This is the one field where you must put your courage and your
180         fortune to the test. I seek no joy in life – that is not what the
                gods have willed – only to take this satisfaction down to my son
                among the dead.’

                Aurora meanwhile had lifted up her life-giving light for miserable
                mortals, bringing back their toil and sufferings. Both Tarchon
                and Father Aeneas soon built funeral pyres on the curving
                shore and carried there the bodies of their dead, each after the
                fashion of their fathers. They then set black-burning torches to
                the fires and the heights of heaven were plunged into pitchy
190         darkness. Three times they ran round the blazing pyres in gleaming
                armour. Three times they rode in solemn procession round
                the fires of the dead with wails of lamentation. Tears fell upon
                their armour and fell upon the earth beneath. The clamour of
                men and the clangour of trumpets rose to heaven as some threw
                into the flames spoils torn from the corpses of the Latins, their
                splendid swords and helmets, the bridles of horses and scorching
                chariot wheels, while others burned the familiar possessions of
                their dead friends, the shields and spears which Fortune had not
                blessed. All around, oxen were being sacrificed and their bodies
                offered to the God of Death, while bristling swine and flocks
                carried off from the fields were slaughtered over the fires. All
200         along the shore they watched the bodies of their comrades burn
                and tended the dying flames, nor would they be torn away till
                dank Night turned over the heavens and showed a sky studded
                with burning stars.

                The mourning Latins too had built countless pyres some
                distance apart from the Trojans. Many bodies of men they
                
buried in the earth; many they took up and carried back to the
                city or to their homes nearby in the countryside. The rest they
                burned uncounted and unhonoured, a huge pile of jumbled
                corpses, and all the wide land on every side was lit by fire upon
210         fire, each brighter than the other. When the third day had risen
                and dispersed the chill darkness of the sky, the mourners levelled
                on the pyres the deep ash in which the bones of the dead were
                mingled, and weighed it down with mounds of warm earth.
                That day in their homes in the city of king Latinus, famous for
                his wealth, the noise of grief was at its loudest. That day their
                long mourning reached its height. Here were the mothers and
                heart-broken wives of the dead. Here were loving sisters beating
                their breasts, and children who had lost their fathers, all cursing
                this deadly war and Turnus’ marriage; he was the man who
                should be deciding this matter with his own sword and shield
                since he was the man who was claiming the kingdom of Italy
220         and the highest honours for himself. The bitter Drances heaped
                fuel on the fire and swore that Turnus was the only man whose
                name was being called; nobody else was being asked to fight.
                But at the same time many voices were raised for Turnus and
                much was said on his behalf. The great name of the queen cast
                its protecting shadow and also in his favour was all the fame
                and all the trophies he had won in his wars.

                In the middle of this disturbance, while the dispute was still
                raging, to crown all, the envoys suddenly arrived back with a
                gloomy answer from the city of Diomede. They had achieved
                nothing for all the efforts they had expended; their gifts, their
230         gold, their earnest prayers had failed; the Latins would have to
                look elsewhere for reinforcements or plead for peace with the
                Trojan king. At this bitter blow even king Latinus lost heart.
                Aeneas was chosen by Fate and brought there by the express
                will of heaven – this was what the anger of the gods was telling
                them; this was the message of these tombs newly raised before
                their eyes. With such thoughts in mind he summoned a great
                council, commanding the leaders of his people to come within
                his lofty doors. They duly gathered, filling the streets as they
                streamed to the royal palace. Greatest in age and first of those
                who carried the sceptre, Latinus sat in the middle with sadness
240         
on his brow and asked the envoys who had returned from the
                city of the Aetolians to tell what reply they brought, demanding
                to hear every detail in due order. The assembly was called to
                silence. Venulus obeyed the command and began to speak:
                ‘Fellow-citizens, we have seen Diomede and the Argive camp.
                We have paced out the road and lived through all the chances
                of the journey. We have touched the hand that brought down
                the land of Ilium. There in the fields near Mount Garganus, in
                the Apulian kingdom of Iapyx, the victorious Diomede was
                founding his city called Argyripa after the home of his fathers
                at Argos. After we were admitted to his presence and given leave
                to speak, we offered our gifts, telling him our names and the
250         land from which we came, who had brought war among us and
                what had taken us to Arpi. He heard us out and made this reply
                in words of peace:

                ‘ “The peoples of your land are blest by Fortune. Yours are the
                kingdoms of Saturn, the ancient Ausonians, but what Fortune is
                it that disturbs your peace and persuades you to stir up wars
                you do not understand? Those of us whose swords violated the
                fields of Ilium – let me not speak of all we endured as we fought
                beneath her walls or of our men drowned in her river Simois –
                we are scattered over the round earth, paying unspeakable
                penalties and suffering all manner of punishment for our crimes.
                We are a band of men that even Priam might pity. The deadly
260         star of Minerva knows us well. So do the rocks of Euboea and
                Caphereus, the cape of vengeance. From that campaign we have
                been washed up on many a different shore: Menelaus, son of
                Atreus, is in exile in distant Egypt at the pillars of Proteus; Ulixes
                has seen the Cyclopes on Etna; shall I speak of the kingdom of
                Neoptolemus in Epirus? Of the new home of Idomeneus in
                Calabria? Of Locrians living on the shores of Libya? Even the
                leader of the great Achivi from Mycenae was struck down by
                the hand of his evil queen the moment he stepped over his own
                threshold! The adulterous lover had been waiting for Asia to
                fall. To think that the envious gods forbade me to return to the
270         altars of my fathers or to see the wife I longed for and my
                beautiful homeland of Calydon. Even now I am pursued by the
                sight of hideous portents. My lost comrades have taken to the
                
sky on wings. They have become birds and haunt the rivers – so
                cruelly have my people been punished – weeping till the rocks
                ring with the sound of their voices. From that moment of madness
                when I attacked the body of a goddess and my spear defiled
                the hand of Venus, I should have known that this was bound to
                come. Do not, I beg you, do not urge me to take part in any
                such battle. I have had no quarrel with the Trojans since the
280         uprooting of their citadel of Pergamum, and I do not remember
                old wrongs or take any pleasure in them. As for the gifts you
                bring me from your country, give them rather to Aeneas. We
                have faced each other, spear against deadly spear, and closed in
                battle. Believe me, for I have known it, how huge he rises behind
                his shield, with what a whirr he spins his javelin. If the land of
                Ilium had borne two other such heroes, the Trojan would have
                come in war to the cities of the Greek, the Fates would have
                changed and Greece would now be in mourning. As for all the
                long delay before the stubborn walls of Troy, it was the hands
                of Hector and Aeneas – both men noble in their courage, noble
290         in their skill in arms, but Aeneas the greater in piety – that held
                back the victory of the Greeks and did not let it come till the
                tenth year. Let your hands join in a treaty of peace while the
                chance is offered, but take care not to let your weapons clash
                on his!”