Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/287

 stanching his wounds with water, and giving ease to his frame, leaning on a tree's trunk. His brazen helmet is hanging from a distant bough, and his heavy arms are resting on the mead. Round him stand his bravest warriors: he, sick and panting, is relieving his neck, while his flowing     5 beard scatters over his bosom: many a question asks he about Lausus, many a messenger he sends to call him off and convey to him the charge of his grieving sire. But Lausus the while was being carried breathless on his shield by a train of weeping comrades, a mighty spirit quelled by     10 a mighty wound. The distant groan told its tale to that ill-boding heart. He defiles his gray hairs with a shower of dust, stretches his two palms to heaven, and clings to the body. "My son! and was I enthralled by so strong a love of life as to suffer you, mine own offspring, to meet the     15 foeman's hand in my stead? Are these your wounds preserving your sire? is he living through your death? Alas! now at length I know the misery of banishment! now the iron is driven home! Aye, it was I, my son, that stained your name with guilt, driven by the hate I gendered      20 from the throne and realm of my father! Retribution was due to my country and to my subjects' wrath: would that I had let out my forfeit life through all the death-wounds they aimed! And now I live on, nor as yet leave daylight and humankind—but leave them I will." So     25 saying, he raises himself on his halting thigh, and though the deep wound makes his strength flag, calls for his war-horse with no downcast mien. This was ever his glory and his solace: this still carried him victorious from every battle-field. He addresses the grieving creature and bespeaks     30 it thus: "Long, Rhæbus, have we twain lived, if aught be long to those who must die. To-day you shall either bear in victory the bloody spoils and head of Æneas yonder, and join with me to avenge my Lausus' sufferings, or if our force suffice not to clear the way, we will lie down     35 together in death: for never, I ween, my gallant one, will you stoop to a stranger's bidding and endure a Teucrian lord." He said, and mounting on its back settled his limbs