Aeneas returns; Pallas dies

On Olympus, Jupiter calls the council of the gods together. He has forbidden interference once already and they have ignored him. He forbids it again, in plain terms: any god who continues to take a side will be punished. Venus pleads for the Trojans; Juno pleads for the Italians; Jupiter rules that fate will decide and goes silent. Aeneas, meanwhile, returns by sea with the Etruscan fleet — thirty ships of allies — and reaches the Trojan camp. He leaps from his ship into the surf in the new armor Vulcan made him, the shield with all of Rome on it on his arm. The Italians, pressing the camp, are caught between its defenders and Aeneas's relieving force. The line breaks.

Pallas, on his first major day in the field, kills several Italian warriors. His confidence rises. He is finally drawn into combat with Turnus himself — the older and far stronger Rutulian prince. Pallas's friends try to keep them apart; Pallas refuses. They throw spears. Pallas's spear glances off Turnus's armor; Turnus's spear goes through Pallas's chest. The boy falls. Turnus, looking down at him, says he is sending him back to his father. Then, in front of everyone, he strips the polished sword-belt from the body and buckles it on himself. Virgil pauses to address the reader: human minds, blind to what waits for them in success — Turnus will one day wish he had never seen this belt.

Aeneas hears within the hour. The grief that overtakes him is described in the language of madness. He goes through the field killing men he would otherwise have spared; he refuses to ransom prisoners. He meets Lausus, the young son of the Etruscan exile-king Mezentius — Lausus has thrown himself between his wounded father and Aeneas's spear. The boy keeps fighting; Aeneas kills him with a single thrust. Looking at the body, he is moved to pity — Lausus died in pietas, defending his father; Aeneas himself once carried his own father out of Troy. He gently lifts the body and gives it back. He then finds Mezentius and kills him too. The day ends with the Italian line broken and Aeneas in command of the field. But Pallas is dead.