The Aeneid of Virgil, page 219 by Virgil
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him from the ground, dabbling the comely-ranged tresses with blood.
Meanwhile his father, by the wave of the Tiber river, stanched his wound with water, and rested his body against a tree-trunk. Hard by his brazen helmet hangs from the boughs, and the heavy armour lies quietly on the meadow. Chosen men stand round; he, sick and panting, leans his neck and lets his beard spread down over his chest. Many a time he asks for Lausus, and sends many an one to call him back and carry a parent's sad commands. But Lausus his weeping comrades were bearing lifeless on his armour, mighty and mightily wounded to death. Afar the soul prophetic of ill knew their lamentation: he soils his gray hairs plenteously with dust, and stretches both hands on high, and clings on the dead. 'Was life's hold on me so sweet, O my son, that I let him I bore receive the hostile stroke in my room? Am I, thy father, saved by these wounds of thine, and living by thy death? Alas and woe! [850-885]now at last exile is bitter! now the wound is driven deep! And I, even I, O my son, stained thy name with crime, driven in hatred from the throne and sceptre of my fathers. I owed vengeance to my country and my people's resentment; might mine own guilty life but have paid it by every form of death! Now I live, and leave not yet man and day; but I will.' As he speaks thus he raises himself painfully on his thigh, and though the violence of the deep wound cripples him, yet unbroken he bids his horse be brought, his beauty, his comfort, that ever had carried him victorious out of war, and says these words to the grieving beast: 'Rhoebus, we have lived long, if aught at all lasts long with mortals. This day wilt thou either bring back in triumph the gory head and spoils of Aeneas, and we will avenge Lausus' agonies; or if no force opens a way, thou wilt die with me: for I deem not, bravest, thou wilt deign to bear an alien rule and a Teucrian lord.' He spoke, and took his welcome seat on the back he knew, loading both hands with keen javelins, his head