United States or Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
With that he summoned the dismayed followers of Lausus, and with his own hands raised from the ground the comely body, all disfigured with blood and wounds. Meantime Mezentius had retreated to the bank of the Tiber, where he took off his armor, and bathed his wound with water.
He had been the chief of one of the neighboring cities, but his people drove him out. With him was joined his son Lausus, a generous youth, worthy of a better sire. Camilla, the favorite of Diana, a huntress and warrior, after the fashion of the Amazons, came with her band of mounted followers, including a select number of her own sex, and ranged herself on the side of Turnus.
Yet AEneas, admiring his courage and filial devotion, would fain have spared the brave youth. "Why do you attempt," said he, "what you have not strength to accomplish? You do but rush to your own destruction." Regardless, however, of danger, the gallant Lausus fought till he fell lifeless on the earth.
Naught forbids my slaughter; neither on such terms came I to battle, nor did my Lausus make treaty for this between me and thee. This one thing I beseech thee, by whatsoever grace a vanquished enemy may claim: allow my body sepulture. I know I am girt by the bitter hatred of my people.
Lausus, his son, could not bear the sight, but rushed forward and interposed himself, while the followers pressed round Mezentius and bore him away. AEneas held his sword suspended over Lausus and delayed to strike, but the furious youth pressed on and he was compelled to deal the fatal blow. Lausus fell, and AEneas bent over him in pity.
First encountering Abas, leader of the Populonians, he slew him with a single blow of his sword, and followed up his success with a furious slaughter of Arcadians and Etrurians. Thus the battle continued: on the one side Pallas impetuously urged the attack; on the other Lausus not less obstinately maintained the defense.
Then the Trojan chief rushed, sword in hand, upon his fallen foe, and the brave Mezentius died asking only the favor of burial for his body. "For this, this only favor, let me sue; If pity can to conquered foes be due, Refuse it not; but let my body have The last retreat of human-kind, a grave. This refuge for my poor remains provide; And lay my much-loved Lausus by my side."
O Christ! my very heart doth bleed With Sorrow for thy Sake; For sure a more renowned Knight Mischance did never take. That beautiful Line, Taking the dead Man by the Hand, will put the Reader in mind of AEneas's Behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain as he came to the Rescue of his aged Father.
I name, therefore, these two men, because they are the two most accomplished Artists, merely as such, whom I know in literature; and because I think you will be afterwards interested in investigating how the infinite grace in the words of the one, and the severity in those of the other, and the precision in those of both, arise wholly out of the moral elements of their minds: out of the deep tenderness in Virgil which enabled him to write the stories of Nisus and Lausus; and the serene and just benevolence which placed Pope, in his theology, two centuries in advance of his time, and enabled him to sum the law of noble life in two lines which, so far as I know, are the most complete, the most concise, and the most lofty expression of moral temper existing in English words:
Unawed by the prospect of an encounter even with so terrible a foe, Mezentius stood firm, and poising a huge spear in his hand, exclaimed, for he was a contemner of the Gods, and never offered invocations to them, "Now let this right hand and this good dart be my aid; and then I vow that my son, my dear Lausus, shall be clad in the bright arms torn from the body of yon Trojan pirate."
Word Of The Day