P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid
Theodore C. Williams, Ed.

Swift to the tomb
of Sire Anchises, to the circus-seats,
the messenger Eumelus flew, to bring
news of the ships on fire; soon every eye
the clouds of smoke and hovering flame could see.
Ascanius, who had led with smiling brow
his troops of horse, accoutred as he was,
rode hot-haste to the turmoil of the camp,
nor could his guards restrain . “What madness now?
What is it ye would do?” he cried. “Alas!
Ill-fated women! Not our enemies,
nor the dread bulwarks of the Greek ye burn,
but all ye have to hope for. Look at me,
your own Ascanius!” His helmet then
into their midst he flung, which he had worn
for pageantry of war. Aeneas, too,
with Trojan bands sped thither. But far off,
the women, panic-scattered on the shore,
fled many ways, and deep in caverned crags
or shadowed forests hid them, for they Ioathed
their deed and life itself; their thoughts were changed;
they knew their kin and husbands, and their hearts
from Juno were set free.