868First, its mistress lost, Camilla's light-armed wing flees; 869the Rutulians flee in confusion, keen Atinas flees, and the scattered leaders and forsaken companies seek safety and, turning their horses, make for the walls. 872Nor can anyone hold back with weapons the Teucrians as they press on bringing death, or stand against them, but they carry back their slack bows on drooping shoulders, and the hooves of the horses shake the crumbling plain at the gallop. 876Thick with black gloom, the dust rolls towards the walls, and from the watch-towers the mothers, beating their breasts, raise a women's cry to the stars of heaven. 879Those who at a run first burst through the open gates, a hostile crowd presses close on them, mingled with their column; 881nor do they escape a wretched death, but on the very threshold, within their native walls and amid the safety of their homes, they are run through and breathe out their lives.
883Some close the gates: they dare neither open a way to their comrades nor admit them within the walls as they plead, and a most pitiable slaughter arises of those defending the entrance with arms and of those rushing upon the arms. 887Shut out, before the eyes and faces of their weeping parents, some roll into the steep ditches as the rout presses on; some, blindly and with loosened reins, charge at the gates and the doorposts hard with bars. 891The mothers themselves from the walls, in the utmost struggle (true love of country shows them the way), when they saw Camilla, hurl weapons from their hands in alarm, and with hard oak, with stakes and fire-hardened poles, imitate iron, headlong, and burn to be the first to die for their walls.