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_.
VIRG., _AEn._ x. 821.
The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He grieved, he wept, then grasped his hand and said,
"Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid
To worth so great?"