was grief the less, when they on Rhamnes came
Bloodless; and many a chief cut off by one death and the same;
Serranus dead and Numa dead: a many then they swarm
About the dead and dying men, and places wet and warm
With new-wrought death, and runnels full with plenteous foaming blood.
Then one by one the spoils they note; the glittering helm and good
Messapus owned: the gear such toil had won back from the dead.

But timely now Aurora left Tithonus' saffron bed,
And over earth went scattering wide the light of new-born day:
The sun-flood flowed, and all the world unveiled by daylight lay. 460

Then Turnus, clad in arms himself, wakes up the host to arms,
And every lord to war-array bids on his brazen swarms;
And men with diverse tidings told their battle-anger whet.
Moreover (miserable sight!) on upraised spears they set
Those heads, and follow them about with most abundant noise,
Euryalus and Nisus dead.

Meanwhile AEneas' hardy sons upon their leftward wall
Stand in array; for on the right the river girdeth all.
In woe they ward the ditches deep, and on the towers on high 469
Stand sorrowing; for those heads upreared touch all their hearts anigh,
Known overwell to their sad eyes mid the black flow of gore.
Therewith in winged fluttering haste, the trembling city o'er
Goes tell-tale Fame, and swift amidst the mother's ears doth glide;
And changed she was, nor in her bones the life-heat would abide:
The shuttle falls from out her hand, unrolled the web doth fall,
And with a woman's hapless shrieks she flieth to the wall:
Rending her hair, beside herself, she faced the front of fight,
Heedless of men, and haps of death, and all the weapons' flight,
And there the very heavens she filled with wailing of her grief:

"O son, and do I see thee so? Thou rest and last relief 480
Of my old days! hadst thou the heart to leave me lone and spent?
O cruel! might I see thee not on such a peril sent?
Was there no time for one last word amid my misery?
A prey for Latin fowl and dogs how doth thy body lie,
On lands uncouth! Not e'en may I, thy mother, streak thee, son,
Thy body dead; or close thine eyes, or wash thy wounds well won,
Or shroud thee in the cloth I wrought for thee by night and day,
When hastening on the weaving-task I kept eld's cares at bay?