470'Greatest leader of the Teucrians, while you are safe I shall never admit that the fortunes or the realm of Troy are conquered; we have but small strength to help in war for so great a name: on this side we are shut in by the Tuscan river, on that the Rutulian presses us and makes our wall ring with arms. 475But I am preparing to join to you mighty peoples and a camp rich in kingdoms, a deliverance which unforeseen chance reveals: you come here at the call of the fates. 478Not far from here, founded on ancient rock, lies the inhabited site of the city of Agylla, where once the Lydian race, famous in war, settled on the Etruscan hills.
481This city, flourishing for many years, King Mezentius then held with arrogant rule and savage arms. 483Why should I tell of the tyrant's unspeakable murders, why his savage deeds? 484May the gods keep them in store for his own head and his race! 485He would even bind dead bodies to the living, fitting hands to hands and mouths to mouths, a kind of torture, and so, as they streamed with gore and corruption in that wretched embrace, he would kill them by a slow death. 489But at last the citizens, worn out, take up arms and surround him in his unspeakable frenzy, him and his house, cut down his followers, and hurl fire onto his roof.
492He, slipping away amid the slaughter, takes refuge in the fields of the Rutulians and is defended by the arms of his host Turnus. 494So all Etruria has risen in righteous fury: they demand the king for punishment with immediate war. 496To these thousands I shall add you, Aeneas, as leader. 497For their ships, packed close along the whole shore, are clamouring and calling for the standards to advance; 498an aged soothsayer holds them back, chanting the fates: "O chosen youth of Maeonia, flower and valour of men of old, whom just grief drives against the enemy and whom Mezentius kindles with deserved anger, it is not lawful for any Italian to subdue so great a people: choose foreign leaders."
503Then the Etruscan army settled down on this plain, terrified by the warnings of the gods. 505Tarchon himself has sent envoys to me with the crown of the kingdom and the sceptre, and entrusts me with the insignia, bidding me come to the camp and take up the Tyrrhenian realm. 508But old age, slow with frost and worn out by the years, and strength too late for brave deeds, begrudge me command. 510I would urge my son, were it not that, being of mixed blood through a Sabine mother, he draws part of his homeland from here. 511You, to whose years and race fate is kind, whom the gods call, go forward, bravest leader of the Teucrians and Italians.
514Besides, I shall join to you this Pallas, our hope and comfort; 515under you as his teacher let him grow used to enduring warfare and the heavy work of Mars, to watching your deeds, and let him admire you from his earliest years. 518To him I shall give two hundred Arcadian horsemen, the chosen strength of our youth, and Pallas in his own name will give you as many.'