Nisus slaying Volscens by Wenceslaus Hollar (Plate 323 - Scenes from Virgil) 1607-1677
"Despair, and rage, and vengeance justly vow’d,
Drove Nisus headlong on the hostile crowd.
Volscens he seeks; on him alone he bends:
Borne back and bor’d by his surrounding friends,
Onward he press’d, and kept him still in sight;
Then whirl’d aloft his sword with all his might:
Th’ unerring steel descended while he spoke,
Pierc’d his wide mouth, and thro’ his weazon broke.
Dying, he slew; and, stagg’ring on the plain,
With swimming eyes he sought his lover slain;
Then quiet on his bleeding bosom fell,
Content, in death, to be reveng’d so well.
O happy friends! for, if my verse can give
Immortal life, your fame shall ever live,
Fix’d as the Capitol’s foundation lies,
And spread, where’er the Roman eagle flies!"
-Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 9
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| Nisus of the Trojans slaying Volscens of the Rutuli by Wenceslaus Hollar (Plate 323) 1607-1677. |
Source:
https://hollar.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/hollar%3AHollar_k_0346
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