‘Alas! what honour, hapless youth,
To those great deeds, that soul of truth,
Can good Æneas show?
Keep the frail arms you loved to wear:
The lifeless corpse I yield to share
(If thought like this still claim your care)
Your fathers’ tomb below.
Yet take this solace to the grave;
’Twas great Æneas’ hand that gave
The inevitable blow.’
With that he chides his friends’ delay,
And rears from earth the bleeding clay,
Bedabbling as it lay with gore
The dainty locks so trim before.
Was staunching the yet flowing blood,
On tree’s broad bole recumbent stayed
And sheltered by its kindly shade.
High on the branches hangs his casque:
His arms, reposing from their task,
In meadow-grasses rest:
His mates stand round in friendly ring:
Panting and weak the wounded king
Eases his faint neck, scattering
His beard adown his breast.
Of Lausus oft he asks, and sends
Full many a charge by hand of friends
To call him back from field.
Alas! e’en then the weeping train
Were bearing Lausus o’er the plain,
The mighty by the mighty slain,
And stretched upon his shield.
The distant wail, prolonged and drear,
Smote on the sire’s prophetic ear.
At once in bitterness of woe
He mars with dust his locks of snow,
His hands to heaven despairing flings,
And fondly to the body clings.
‘My son! and held I life so sweet,
That I, your sire, could let you meet
For me the foeman’s steel,
By your last gasp preserve my breath,
Kept living by my darling’s death?
Ay, now is exile’s woe complete,
Now, now my wound I feel!
Dear child! I stained your glorious name
By my own crimes, driven out to shame
From my ancestral reign:
My country’s vengeance claimed my blood:
Wretch! had I suffered where I stood,
By all her javelins slain!
Now ’mid my kind I linger still
And live: but leave the light I will.’
Thus as he pours the bitter cry
He rears him on his crippled thigh,
And, though the deep wound slacks his speed,
Calls proudly for his warrior steed;
The warrior steed he wont to ride,
His consolation and his pride,
Which ever still, at fall of night,
Had borne him conqueror from the fight:
And thus bespeaks in kindly tone
The beast whose sorrow matched his own:
‘Long have we fared through life, old friend,
If aught be long that death must end.
Now, Rhæbus, will we twain to-day
A glorious trophy bear away,
The Trojan’s arms and severed head,
In vengeance for my Lausus dead:
Or if the vantage be denied,
We twain will perish side by side:
For ne’er, I ween, my gallant horse,
Will soul so generous stoop perforce
To other mastery, nor deign
That Trojan hand should sleek thy mane.’
He said, and mounting to his selle
Pressed the proud sides he knew so well,
In either hand a javelin took,
And his plumed crest disdainful shook:
So rushed he on the foe,
While kindling in each throbbing vein
A warrior’s pride, a father’s pain
With mingled madness glow
Three times he called Æneas’ name:
Æneas hears the loud acclaim,
And prays with fierce delight,
‘Grant, mighty Jove, Apollo, grant
This challenge prove no empty vaunt!
Begin, begin the fight!’
He said, and with uplifted spear
Confronts the foe in mid career:
But he: ‘What means this threatening strain
To fright me, now my child is slain?
’Twas thus, and thus alone your dart
Could penetrate Mezentius’ heart:
I fear not death, nor ask to live,
Nor quarter take from Heaven, nor give.
Forbear: I come to meet my end,
And these my gifts before me send.’
He speaks, and at the word he wings
A javelin at the foe:
Then circling round in rapid rings
Another and another flings:
The good shield bides each blow.
Thrice, fiercely hurling spears on spears,
From right to left he wheeled:
Thrice, facing round as he careers,
The steely grove the Trojan bears,
Thick planted on his shield.
At length, impatient of delay,
Wearied with plucking spears away,
Indignant at the unequal fray,
His wary fence he leaves,
And, issuing with resistless force,
The temples of the gallant horse
With darted javelin cleaves.
The good steed rears and wildly sprawls,
Distracted with its wound;
Then heavily on the rider falls,
And pins him to the ground.
Fierce shouts, enkindling all the air,
From either host arise:
Forth springs the chief, with falchion bare,
And thus triumphant cries:
‘Say, where is proud Mezentius now?
Where sleep the terrors of his brow?
Recovering sense, with upturned eye
The Tuscan, gasping, made reply:
‘Stern foe, why waste your threatening breath?
He wrongs me not, who works my death.
When late I dared you to the strife,
I made no covenant for life,
Nor he, my Lausus, e’er such pledge
Accepted from your weapon’s edge.
One boon (if vanquished foe may crave
The victor’s grace) I ask, a grave.
My wrathful subjects round me wait:
Protect me from their savage hate,
And let me in the tomb enjoy
The presence of my slaughtered boy.’
He said, and to the conqueror’s sword
His throat unshrinking gave:
The life-blood, o’er his armour poured,
Spreads wide its crimson wave.
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