Mezentius and Lausus

Thus equal deaths are dealt, and equal chance;
By turns they quit their ground, by turns advance;
Victors and vanquished in the various field,
Nor wholly overcome, nor wholly yield.
The gods from heaven survey the doubtful strife,
And mourn the miseries of human life.
Above the rest two goddesses appear,
Concerned for each: here Venus, Juno there.
Amidst the crowd infernal Ate shakes
Her scourge aloft, and hissing crest of snakes.
Once more Mezentius, with a proud disdain,
Brandished his spear, and rushed into the plain,
Where towering in the midmost ranks he stood,
Like vast Orion stalking o'er the flood,
When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves,
His shoulders scarce the topmost billow laves;
Or like a mountain ash, whose roots are spread
Deep fixed in earth, in clouds he hides his head:
Thus armed, he took the field.
The Trojan Prince beheld him from afar
With joyful eyes, and undertook the war.
Collected in himself, and like a rock
Poised on his base, Mezentius stood the shock
Of his great foe: then measuring with his eyes
The space his spear could reach, aloud he cries:
"My own right hand and sword assist my stroke
(Those only gods Mezentius will invoke);
His armour from the Trojan pirate torn
Shall by my Lausus be in triumph worn.'
He said; and straight with all his force he threw
The massy spear, which hissing as it flew
Reached the celestial shield; that stopped the course,
But glancing thence the yet unbroken force
Took a new bent obliquely, and betwixt
The side and bowels famed Anthores fixed.
Anthores had from Argos travelled far,
Alcides' friend, and brother of the war,
Till, tired with toils, fair Italy he chose,
And in Evander's palace sought repose;
Now falling by another's wound, his eyes
He casts to heaven; on Argos thinks, and dies.
The pious Trojan then his javelin sent;
The shield gave way, through treble plates it went
Of solid brass, of linen trebly rolled,
And three bull hides which round the buckler fold;
All these it passed with unresisted course,
Transpierced his thigh, and spent its dying force.
The gaping wound gushed out a crimson flood:
The Trojan, glad with sight of hostile blood,
His falchion drew, to closer fight addressed,
And with new force his fainting foe oppressed.
His father's danger Lausus viewed with grief;
He sighed, he wept, he ran to his relief.
And here, O wondrous youth, 'tis here I must
To thy immortal memory be just,
And sing an act so noble and so new,
Posterity shall scarce believe it true.
Pained with his wound, and useless for the fight,
The father sought to save himself by flight;
Encumbered, slow he dragged the spear along,
Which pierced his thigh, and in his buckler hung.
The pious youth, resolved to undergo
The lifted sword, springs out to face his foe,
Protects his father, and prevents the blow.
Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field
To see the son the vanquished father shield.
All fired with noble emulation strive,
And with a storm of darts to distance drive
The Trojan chief, who held at bay, from far
On his Vulcanian orb sustained the war.
As when thick hail comes rattling in the wind,
The ploughman, passenger and labouring hind
For shelter to the neighbouring covert fly,
Or housed, or safe in hollow caverns lie;
But that o'erblown, when heaven above 'em smiles,
Return to travel, and renew their toils:
Aeneas thus o'erwhelmed, on every side
The storm of darts undaunted did abide,
And thus to Lausus loud with friendly threatening cried:
"Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage
In rash attempts beyond thy tender age,
Betrayed by pious love?' Nor thus forborne
The youth desists, but with insulting scorn
Provokes the lingering Prince, whose patience tired
Gave place, and all his breast with fury fired.
For now the Fates prepared their cruel shears,
And lifted high the conquering sword appears,
Which full descending with a fearful sway
Through shield and cuirass forced th' impetuous way
And buried deep in his fair bosom lay.
The springing streams through the thin armour strove,
And drenched the golden coat his careful mother wove;
And life at length forsook his heaving heart,
Loath from so sweet a mansion to depart.
But when, with blood and paleness all bespread,
The pious Prince beheld young Lausus dead,
He grieved, he wept; the sight an image brought
Of his own filial love, a sadly pleasing thought;
Then stretched his hand to raise him up, and said:
"Poor hapless youth, what praises can be paid
To love so great, to such transcendent store
Of early worth, and sure presage of more!
Accept whate'er Aeneas can afford:
Untouched thy arms, untaken be thy sword,
And all that pleased thee living still remain
Inviolate, and sacred to the slain.
Thy body on thy parents I bestow
To please thy ghost—at least, if shadows know
Or have a taste of human things below.
There to thy fellow ghosts with glory tell,
"'Twas by the great Aeneas' hand I fell.—'
With this he bids his distant friends draw near,
Provokes their duty, and prevents their fear;
Himself assists to raise him from the ground,
His locks deformed with blood that welled from out his wound.
Meantime the father, now no father, stood
And washed his wounds by Tiber's yellow flood;
Oppressed with anguish, panting and o'erspent,
His fainting limbs against a tree he leant;
A bough his brazen helmet did sustain,
His heavier arms lay scattered on the plain;
Of youth a chosen troop around him stand,
His head hung down, and rested on his hand;
His grizzly beard his pensive bosom sought,
And all on Lausus ran his restless thought.
Careful, concerned his danger to prevent,
Much he enquired, and many a message sent
To warn him from the field; alas, in vain:
Behold his mournful followers bear him slain
On their broad shields; still gushed the gaping wound
And drew a bloody trail along the ground.
Far off he heard their cries, far off divined
The dire event with a foreboding mind.
With dust he sprinkled first his hoary head,
Then both his lifted arms to heaven he spread;
Last, the dear corpse embracing, thus he said:
"What joys, alas, could this frail being give,
That I have been so covetous to live?
To see my son, and such a son, resign
His life a ransom for preserving mine!
And am I then preserved, and art thou lost?
How much too dear has that redemption cost!
'Tis now my bitter banishment I feel:
This is a wound too deep for time to heal.
My guilt thy growing virtues did defame,
My blackness blotted thy unblemished name.
Chased from a throne, abandoned, and exiled
For foul misdeeds, were punishments too mild:
I owed my people these, and from their hate
With less injustice could have borne my fate.
And yet I live, and yet support the sight
Of hateful men, and of more hated light!
But will not long.' With that he raised from ground
His fainting limbs that staggered with his wound.
Yet with a mind resolved, and unappalled
With pains or perils, for his courser called,
Well-mouthed, well-managed, whom himself did dress
With daily care, and mounted with success;
His aid in arms, his ornament in peace.
Soothing his courage with a gentle stroke,
The horse seemed sensible while thus he spoke:
"O Rhaebus, we have lived too long for me
(If "long' and "life' were terms that could agree!);
This day thou either shalt bring back the head
And bloody trophies of the Trojan dead;
This day, thou either shalt revenge my woe
For murthered Lausus on his cruel foe;
Or if inexorable Fate deny
Our conquest, with thy conquered master die:
For after such a lord, I rest secure
Thou wilt no foreign reins or Trojan load endure.'
He said; and straight th' officious courser kneels
To take his wonted weight; his hands he fills
With pointed javelins; on his head he laced
His glittering helm, which terribly was graced
With crested horsehair, nodding from afar;
Then spurred his thundering steed amidst the war.
Love, anguish, wrath, and grief to madness wrought,
Despair, and secret shame, and conscious thought
Of inborn worth, his labouring soul oppressed,
Rolled in his eyes, and raged within his breast.
Then loud he called Aeneas thrice by name,
The loud repeated voice to glad Aeneas came.
"Great Jove' said he "and the far-shooting god
Inspire thy mind to make thy challenge good.'
He said no more, but hastened to appear,
And threatened with his long protended spear.
To whom Mezentius thus: "Thy vaunts are vain,
My Lausus lies extended on the plain;
He's lost; thy conquest is already won:
This was my only way to be undone.
Nor fate I fear, but all the gods defy!
Forbear thy threats: my business is to die.
But first receive this parting legacy.'
He said; and straight a whirling dart he sent,
Another after, and another went.
Round in a spacious ring he rides the field,
And vainly plies th' impenetrable shield.
Thrice rode he round, and thrice Aeneas wheeled,
Turned as he turned; the golden orb withstood
The strokes, and bore about an iron wood.
Impatient of delay, and weary grown
Still to defend, and to defend alone,
To wrench the darts that in his buckler light,
Urged and o'erlaboured in unequal fight,
At last resolved, he throws with all his force
Full at the temples of the warlike horse:
Betwixt the temples passed th' unerring spear,
And piercing stood transfixed from ear to ear.
Seized with the sudden pain, surprised with fright,
The courser bounds aloft and stands upright;
He beats his hoofs a while in air, then pressed
With anguish, floundering falls the generous beast
And his cast rider, with his weight oppressed.
From either host the mingled shouts and cries
Of Trojans and Rutulians rend the skies.
Aeneas hastening waved his fatal sword
High o'er his head, with this reproachful word:
"Now, where are now thy vaunts, the fierce disdain
Of proud Mezentius, and the lofty strain?'
Struggling, and wildly staring on the skies,
With scarce recovered breath he thus replies:
"Why these insulting threats, this waste of breath,
To souls undaunted and secure of death?
'Tis no dishonour for the brave to die,
Nor came I here with hope of victory;
Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design;
As I had used my fortune, use thou thine.
My dying son contracted no such band,
Nor would I take it from his murderer's hand.
For this, this only favour let me sue:
If pity to a conquered foe be due,
Refuse not that, but let my body have
The last retreat of human kind—a grave.
Too well I know my injured people's hate:
Protect me from their vengeance after fate.
This refuge for my poor remains provide,
And lay my much-loved Lausus by my side.'
He said; and to the sword his throat applied.
The crimson stream distained his arms around,
And the disdainful soul came rushing through the wound.