Aeneid Book 11, lines 24 - 58

Mourning for Pallas

by Virgil

As Book 11 begins, there has been a shift in the balance of fortunes for the Trojans and the Italians in their war against one another. Until now, the battle has been fought outside, and even inside, the beleaguered camp of the Trojans, while now Aeneas is able to advance on King Latinus’s stronghold. But first the dead must be honoured and buried, and Pallas, the fallen son of Aeneas’s ally, King Evander, must be brought home to his father.

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The English is from the translation by the 17th century poet, John Dryden.

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“Ite,’ ait ‘egregias animas, quae sanguine nobis
hanc patriam peperere suo, decorate supremis
muneribus, maestamque Evandri primus ad urbem
mittatur Pallas, quem non virtutis egentem
abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo.’
Sic ait inlacrimans, recipitque ad limina gressum
corpus ubi exanimi positum Pallantis Acoetes
servabat senior, qui Parrhasio Evandro
armiger ante fuit, sed non felicibus aeque
tum comes auspiciis caro datus ibat alumno.
circum omnis famulumque manus Troianaque turba
et maestum Iliades crinem de more solutae.
ut vero Aeneas foribus sese intulit altis
ingentem gemitum tunsis ad sidera tollunt
pectoribus, maestoque immugit regia luctu.
ipse caput nivei fultum Pallantis et ora
ut vidit levique patens in pectore vulnus
cuspidis Ausoniae, lacrimis ita fatur obortis:
‘tene,’ inquit ‘miserande puer, cum laeta veniret,
invidit Fortuna mihi, ne regna videres
nostra neque ad sedes victor veherere paternas?
non haec Evandro de te promissa parenti
discedens dederam, cum me complexus euntem
mitteret in magnum imperium metuensque moneret
acris esse viros, cum dura proelia gente.
et nunc ille quidem spe multum captus inani
fors et vota facit cumulatque altaria donis,
nos iuvenem exanimum et nil iam caelestibus ullis
debentem vano maesti comitamur honore.
infelix, nati funus crudele videbis!
hi nostri reditus exspectatique triumphi?
haec mea magna fides? at non, Evandre, pudendis
vulneribus pulsum aspicies, nec sospite dirum
optabis nato funus pater. ei mihi quantum
praesidium, Ausonia, et quantum tu perdis, Iule!’

“That conquer’d earth be theirs, for which they fought,
And which for us with their own blood they bought;
But first the corpse of our unhappy friend
To the sad city of Evander send,
Who, not inglorious, in his age’s bloom,
Was hurried hence by too severe a doom.”
Thus, weeping while he spoke, he took his way,
Where, new in death, lamented Pallas lay.
Acoetes watch’d the corpse; whose youth deserv’d
The father’s trust; and now the son he serv’d
With equal faith, but less auspicious care.
Th’ attendants of the slain his sorrow share.
A troop of Trojans mix’d with these appear,
And mourning matrons with dishevel’d hair.
Soon as the prince appears, they raise a cry;
All beat their breasts, and echoes rend the sky.
They rear his drooping forehead from the ground;
But, when Aeneas view’d the grisly wound
Which Pallas in his manly bosom bore,
And the fair flesh distain’d with purple gore;
First, melting into tears, the pious man
Deplor’d so sad a sight, then thus began:
“Unhappy youth! when Fortune gave the rest
Of my full wishes, she refus’d the best!
She came; but brought not thee along, to bless
My longing eyes, and share in my success:
She grudg’d thy safe return, the triumphs due
To prosp’rous valor, in the public view.
Not thus I promis’d, when thy father lent
Thy needless succor with a sad consent;
Embrac’d me, parting for th’ Etrurian land,
And sent me to possess a large command.
He warn’d, and from his own experience told,
Our foes were warlike, disciplin’d, and bold.
And now perhaps, in hopes of thy return,
Rich odors on his loaded altars burn,
While we, with vain officious pomp, prepare
To send him back his portion of the war,
A bloody breathless body, which can owe
No farther debt, but to the pow’rs below.
The wretched father, ere his race is run,
Shall view the fun’ral honors of his son.
These are my triumphs of the Latian war,
Fruits of my plighted faith and boasted care!
And yet, unhappy sire, thou shalt not see
A son whose death disgrac’d his ancestry;
Thou shalt not blush, old man, however griev’d:
Thy Pallas no dishonest wound receiv’d.
He died no death to make thee wish, too late,
Thou hadst not liv’d to see his shameful fate:
But what a champion has th’ Ausonian coast,
And what a friend hast thou, Ascanius, lost!”

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  2. Signs of bad weather
  3. New allies for Aeneas
  4. Rites for the allies’ dead
  5. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  6. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  7. Storm at sea!
  8. Dido’s release
  9. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  10. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  11. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  12. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  13. Into battle
  14. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  15. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  16. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  17. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  18. Catastrophe for Rome?
  19. Aeneas and Dido meet
  20. The farmer’s happy lot
  21. Juno is reconciled
  22. Aeneas is wounded
  23. The death of Pallas
  24. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  25. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  26. The Trojans reach Carthage
  27. The Aeneid begins
  28. Juno’s anger
  29. King Mezentius meets his match
  30. Turnus at bay
  31. Turnus is lured away from battle
  32. The infant Camilla
  33. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  34. Rumour
  35. Dido’s story
  36. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  37. Laocoon and the snakes
  38. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  39. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  40. The death of Priam
  41. The natural history of bees
  42. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  43. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  44. Virgil begins the Georgics
  45. Charon, the ferryman
  46. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  47. Dido falls in love
  48. Juno throws open the gates of war
  49. The portals of sleep
  50. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  51. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  52. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  53. Cassandra is taken
  54. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  55. Aeneas’s oath
  56. The Syrian hostess
  57. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  58. Turnus the wolf
  59. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  60. Jupiter’s prophecy
  61. In King Latinus’s hall
  62. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  63. The journey to Hades begins
  64. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  65. Love is the same for all
  66. Vulcan’s forge
  67. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  68. Aeneas joins the fray
  69. Aristaeus’s bees
  70. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  71. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  72. The Harpy’s prophecy
  73. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  74. The Trojan horse opens
  75. The farmer’s starry calendar
  76. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  77. What is this wooden horse?
  78. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  79. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  80. The death of Dido.
  81. Sea-nymphs
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