VIRG., AEn. xi. 820.
A gath'ring mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes;
And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies,
Then turns to her, whom of her female train
She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain:
"Acca, 'tis past! he swims before my sight,
Inexorable Death, and claims his right.
Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speed
And bid him timely to my charge succeed;
Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve:
Farewell."
DRYDEN.
Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner, though our poet seems to
have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last verse:
Lord Percy sees my fall.
- Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas
Ausonii videre.
VIRG., AEn. xii. 936.
The Latin chiefs have seen me beg my life.
DRYDEN.
Earl Percy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and
passionate. I must only caution the reader not to let the
simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet,
prejudice him against the greatness of the thought:
Then leaving life, Earl Percy took
The dead man by the hand,
And said, "Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land.
"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:
At vero ut vultum vidit morientis et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris;
Ingemuit, miserans graviter, dextramqne tetendit.
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