100And now envoys from the Latin city were there, veiled with olive branches and asking for grace: that he would give back the bodies which lay strewn over the plains by the sword, and allow them to go beneath a mound of earth; 104there was no quarrel with the vanquished and with those bereft of the upper air; 105let him spare men he had once called hosts and fathers-in-law. 106Good Aeneas grants them his grace, since they pray for what is not to be spurned, and adds these words besides: 'What undeserved fortune, Latins, has entangled you in so great a war, that you flee from us, your friends? 110Do you ask me for peace for the dead, for those cut down by the lot of Mars?
111I for my part would wish to grant it to the living too. 112Nor would I have come, had the fates not given me a place and a home, nor do I wage war with your nation: your king abandoned our ties of hospitality and trusted himself rather to the arms of Turnus. 115It would have been fairer for Turnus to face this death himself. 116If he means to end the war by force, to drive out the Teucrians, he ought to have met me with these weapons: he would have lived to whom a god or his own right hand had granted life. 119Now go and set the fire beneath your wretched citizens.' 120Aeneas had spoken.
120They stood dumbstruck and silent, and kept their eyes and faces turned towards one another.