The Aeneid of Virgil, page 50 by Virgil
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E'en as before his parent's eyes he came,
The long spear reached him. Prostrate on the floor
Down falls the hapless youth, and welters in his gore.
LXXII. "Then Priam, though hemmed with death on every side,
Spared not his utterance, nor his wrath controlled;
'To thee, yea, thee, fierce miscreant,' he cried,
'May Heaven,--if Heaven with righteous eyes behold
So foul an outrage and a deed so bold,
Ne'er fail a fitting guerdon to ordain,
Nor worthy quittance for thy crime withhold,
Whose hand hath made me see my darling slain,
And dared with filial blood a father's eyes profane.
LXXIII. "'Not so Achilles, whom thy lying tongue
Would feign thy father; like a foeman brave,
He scorned a suppliant's rights and trust to wrong,
And sent me home in safety,--ay, and gave
My Hector's lifeless body to the grave.'
The old man spoke and, with a feeble throw,
At Pyrrhus with a harmless dart he drave.
The jarring metal blunts it, and below
The shield-boss, down it hangs, and foils the purposed blow.
LXXIV. "'Go then,' cries Pyrrhus, 'with thy tale of woe
To dead Pelides, and thy plaints outpour.
To him, my father, in the shades below,
These deeds of his degenerate son deplore;
Now die!'--So speaking, to the shrine he tore
The aged Priam, trembling with affright,
And feebly sliding in his son's warm gore.
The left hand twists his hoary locks; the right
Deep in his side drives home the falchion, bared and bright.
LXXV. "Such close had Priam's fortunes; so his days
Were finished, such the bitter end he found,
Now doomed by Fate with dying eyes to gaze
On Troy in flames and ruin all around,
And Pergamus laid level with the ground.
Lo, he to whom once Asia bowed the knee,
Proud lord of many peoples, far-renowned,
Now left to welter by the rolling sea,
A huge and headless trunk, a nameless corpse is he.
LXXVI. "Grim horror seized me, and aghas