The Aeneid (50 page)

                But when Aeneas, son of Anchises, saw the dying face and
                features, the face strangely white, he groaned from his heart in
                pity and held out his hand, as there came into his mind the
                thought of his own devoted love for his father, and he said:
                ‘What will the devout Aeneas now give to match such merit?
                What gift can he give that will be worthy of a heart like yours?
                Take your armour, that gave you so much pleasure. Now I
                return you to the shades and the ashes of your ancestors, if that
                is any comfort for you. In your misfortune you will have one
830         consolation for your cruel death, that you fell by the hand of
                the great Aeneas.’ At this he turned on Lausus’ comrades, railing
                at them as they hung back, while he lifted Lausus off the ground
                where he was soiling his carefully tended hair with blood.

                Meanwhile by the bank of the river Tiber Lausus’ father was
                staunching his wounds with water and leaning against the trunk
                of a tree to rest. Nearby, his bronze helmet hung from the
                branches and his weighty armour lay quiet on the grass. About
                him stood his chosen warriors as he bathed his neck, gasping
                with pain, and his great beard streamed down his chest. Again
                and again he asked about Lausus, and kept sending men to
840         recall him and take him orders from his anxious father. But
                Lausus was dead and his weeping comrades were carrying him
                back on his shield, a mighty warrior laid low by a mighty wound.
                Mezentius had a presentiment of evil. He heard the wailing in
                the distance and knew the truth. Then, fouling his grey hair with
                dust, he raised both hands to heaven and flung himself on his
                son’s body: ‘Was I so besotted with the pleasure of living that I
                allowed my own son to take my place under my enemy’s sword?
                Is the father to be saved by the wounds of the son? Have you
850         died so that I might live? Now for the first time is death bitter
                to me! Now for the first time does a wound go deep. And I have
                even stained your name, my son, by my crimes. Men hated me
                and drove me from the throne and sceptre of my fathers. I owed
                a debt to my country and my people who detested me, and I
                would to heaven I had paid it with this guilty life of mine by
                every death a man can die! But I am still alive. I have still not
                
left the world of men and the light of day. But leave it I shall!’
                Even as he was speaking, he was raising himself on his wounded
                thigh, and slow as he was with the violence of the pain deep
                in his wound, his spirit was unsubdued. He ordered his horse to
                be brought. This was his glory and his comfort, and on it he had
860         ridden home victorious from all his wars. Seeing it pining, he
                spoke to it in these words: ‘We have lived a long time, Rhaebus,
                if any mortal life is long. Either you will be victorious today and
                carry back the head of Aeneas with the blood-stained spoils
                stripped from his body, and you and I shall avenge the sufferings
                of Lausus; or else, if that road is barred and no force can open
                it, we shall fall together. I do not think, with courage like yours,
                that you will accept instructions from any other man or take
                kindly to Trojan masters.’ With these words Mezentius mounted
                and Rhaebus took on his back the weight of the rider he knew
                so well. Both his hands were laden with sharp-pointed javelins
                and on his head he wore his helmet of gleaming bronze with its
870         shaggy horsehair crest. So armed, he galloped into the thick of
                battle, fierce shame, frenzy and grief all seething together in his
                heart. Three times he shouted the name of Aeneas. Aeneas knew
                his voice and offered up this joyful prayer: ‘Let this be the will
                of the Father of the Gods. Let this be the will of high Apollo.
                Stand and fight with me.’ He said no more, but made for
                Mezentius with spear at the ready. Mezentius replied: ‘Now
                that you have taken my son, you savage, you need not try to
                frighten me. That was the only way you could have found to
880         destroy me. Death holds no terrors for us and we give not a
                thought for the gods. Enough words. I have come here to die.
                But first I have these gifts for you.’ He spoke and hurled a
                spear at his enemy, then another and another, planting them in
                Aeneas’ shield as he flew round him in a great circle, but the
                golden boss of the shield held fast. Aeneas stood there and
                Mezentius rode round him three times hurling his spears and
                keeping Aeneas on his left side. Three times the Trojan pivoted
                with him, turning his huge bronze shield, with its bristling forest
                of bronze spears. Then, weary of all the delay, weary of plucking
                javelins out of his shield and hard-pressed in this unequal battle,
890         Aeneas, after turning many plans over in his mind, at last burst
                
forward and threw his spear, catching Mezentius’ warhorse in
                the hollow between its temples. Up it reared thrashing the air
                with its hooves and throwing its rider. Then as it came down
                with all its weight, dislocating its shoulder, it fell head first on
                top of Mezentius and pinned him to the ground. The sky blazed
                with the shouts of Trojans and Latins as Aeneas rushed up
                tearing his sword from the sheath and crying: ‘Where is the bold
                Mezentius now? Where is that fierce spirit of his?’ The Etruscan
                looked up, drinking in the bright air of heaven as he came back
900         to his senses, and replied: ‘You are my bitter enemy. Why jeer
                at me and threaten me with death? There is no sin in killing. I
                did not come into battle on those terms and my son Lausus
                struck no such bargain with you on my behalf. One thing I ask,
                if the defeated can ask favours from their enemies, to let my
                body be buried in the earth. I know the bitter hatred of my
                people is all about me. Protect me, I beg you, from their fury
                and let me lie in the grave with my son.’ These were his last
                words. He then took the sword in the throat with full knowledge
                and poured out his life’s breath in wave upon wave of blood all
                over his armour.

                Meanwhile the Goddess of the Dawn had risen from Ocean,
                and anxious and eager as Aeneas was to give time to burying
                his comrades, distraught as he was in mind at their deaths, at
                first light the victor was paying his vows to the gods. Cutting all
                the branches off a huge oak, he set it up on a mound as a trophy
                to the great god mighty in war, and clothed it in the shining
                armour he had stripped from the body of the enemy leader
                Mezentius. There he set the hero’s crest dripping its dew of
10           blood, the broken spears and the breastplate struck and pierced
                through in twelve places. On the left he bound the bronze shield
                and from the neck he hung the ivoried sword. He then addressed
                his comrades (for all the Trojan leaders were pressing close
                around him), and these were the words he spoke to urge them
                on in their hour of triumph: ‘The greatest part of our work is
                done, my friends. In what remains there is nothing to fear. These
                are spoils I have taken from a proud king, the first fruits of this
                war. This is Mezentius, and my hands have set him in this place.
                Our way now lies towards the king of the Latins and the walls
                of their city. Make ready your weapons. Fill your minds and
                your hopes with the thought of war, so that no man shall hesitate
20           or not know what to do when the gods permit us to pull up our
                standards and lead the army out of camp. When that time
                comes, there must be no faintheartedness or sluggishness in our
                thoughts to slow us down. In the meanwhile, let us consign the
                unburied bodies of our comrades to the earth, for that is the
                only honour a man has in the underworld. Go,’ he said, ‘and
                grace these noble spirits with their last rites, for they have shed
                their blood to win this land for us. But first let Pallas be sent
                
back to the stricken city of Evander. This was a warrior who
                did not fail in courage when his black day took him from us and
                drowned him in the bitterness of death.’

                So he spoke, weeping, and made his way back to his own
30           threshold where the body of Pallas lay guarded by old Acoetes.
                Acoetes had once been the armour-bearer of Arcadian Evander,
                but the auspices were no longer so favourable when he was
                appointed as companion to his dear ward, Pallas. About them
                stood the whole throng of their attendants and all the Trojans
                and the women of Troy with their hair unbound in mourning
                after the manner of their people. But when Aeneas entered his
                high doorway, they beat their breasts and raised their wild
                lament to the sky till the palace rang with the sound of their
40           grief. When he himself saw the head of Pallas cushioned there
                and his white face, and the open wound torn in that smooth
                breast by the Italian spear, the tears welled up and he spoke
                these words: ‘Oh the pity of it! Fortune came to me with smiles,
                but took you from me while you were still a boy, and would not
                let you live to see us in our kingdom, or to ride back in triumph
                to your father’s house. This is not what I promised Evander for
                his son, when he took me in his arms as I left him, and sent me
                out to take up this great command, warning me with fear in his
                heart that these were fierce warriors, that this was a hardy race
50           I had to meet in battle. Even now, deluded by vain hopes, he
                may be making vows and heaping altars with offerings, while
                we bring him with tears and useless honours a young warrior
                who owes no more debts to any heavenly power. With what
                eyes will you look at the dead body of your son? Is this how we
                return from war? Are these the triumphs expected of us? Is this
                my great pledge? But you will not see a wound on him, Evander,
                of which you need to be ashamed. You will not be a father who
                has the terrible wish that his son who is alive were dead. The
                land of Italy has lost a great bulwark, and great too is your loss,
                Iulus.’

60           After he had his fill of weeping, he ordered them to take up
                the pitiable corpse, and from the whole army he sent a thousand
                chosen men as escort to pay a last tribute and join their tears
                with those of Evander, a small comfort for a great sorrow, but
                
a debt that was owed to the stricken father. Others were not
                slow to weave a soft wickerwork bier of arbutus and oak shoots
                to make a raised couch, shaded by a canopy of green, where
                they laid the young warrior high on his bed of country straw.
                There he lay like a flower cut by the thumbnail of a young girl,
70           a soft violet or drooping lily, still with its sheen and its shape,
                though Mother Earth no longer feeds it and gives it strength.
                Then Aeneas brought out two robes stiffened with gold and
                purple threads which Sidonian Dido had long since made for
                him with her own hands, picking out the warp in fine gold, and
                the work had been a joy to her. With grief in his heart he put
                one of these on the young man’s body as his last tribute and in
                a fold of it he veiled the hair that would soon be burned.
                Then he gathered a great heap of spoil from the battle on the
                Laurentine fields and ordered it to be brought to the pyre in a
80           long procession, adding to it the horses and weapons he had
                taken from the enemy. Then came the captives, whose hands he
                had bound behind their backs to send them as offerings to the
                shades of the dead and sprinkle the funeral pyre with the blood
                of their sacrifice. He also commanded the leaders of the army
                to carry in their own arms tree trunks draped with weapons
                captured from the enemy and inscribed with their hated names.
                Acoetes, worn out with age, was led along in the procession,
                beating his breast with clenched fists and tearing his face with
                his nails, but he collapsed and lay all his length on the ground.
                Chariots were drawn along drenched with Rutulian blood, and
                then came Pallas’ warhorse Aethon, stripped of all its trappings
90           with the tears rolling down in great drops and soaking its face.
                There were men to carry his spear and his helmet. The victorious
                Turnus had the rest. A great phalanx of mourners followed, all
                the Trojans and the Etruscans and the Arcadians with their arms
                reversed. After this procession of all the comrades of Pallas had
                marched well clear of the camp, Aeneas halted, and with a deep
                groan he spoke these words: ‘The same grim destiny of war calls
                us away from here to weep other tears. For ever hail, great
                Pallas, and farewell for ever.’ He said no more but set off
                towards his high-built fortifications and marched back into
                camp.