468At once there is running to the walls all over the city. 469Father Latinus himself abandons the council and his great designs and, troubled by the grim time, puts them off, and blames himself much for not having welcomed Dardanian Aeneas of his own accord and adopted him as son-in-law for the city. 473Others dig trenches before the gates or haul up stones and stakes. 474The hoarse trumpet gives the bloody signal for war. 475Then matrons and boys ringed the walls in a motley circle: the final struggle calls everyone. 477And to the temple and the high citadel of Pallas the queen too is carried up, with a great company of mothers, bearing gifts, and at her side as companion the maiden Lavinia, cause of so great an evil, her lovely eyes cast down.
481The mothers go in and fill the temple with the smoke of incense and pour out mournful words from the high threshold: 'Mighty in arms, mistress of war, Tritonian maiden, break with your hand the spear of the Phrygian pirate, and lay the man himself prone on the ground and stretch him out beneath our high gates.' 486Turnus himself in his frenzy eagerly girds himself for battle. 487And now he had put on his ruddy breastplate and bristled with bronze scales, and had encased his calves in gold, his temples still bare, and had girded his sword to his side, and he shone golden as he ran down from the high citadel; he exults in spirit and in hope already seizes the enemy: as when a horse breaks his bonds and flees the stalls, free at last, and gaining the open plain either makes for the pastures and herds of mares, or, used to bathing in the water of the familiar river, darts out and neighs with neck held high, running riot, and his mane plays over neck and shoulders.