In battle as the bloody fame recounted,
He had been pierced throughout even as a net;
And had he died as oft as Rumour slew him,
He might have boasted of a triple coil[n63]
Like the three-bodied Geryon, while on earth
(Of him below I speak not), and like him
Been three times heaped with a cloak of funeral dust.
Thus fretted by cross-grained reports, oft-times
The knotted rope high-swung had held my neck,
But that my friends with forceful aid prevented.