Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand;
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
Drew Priam's curtain at the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt:
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death ere thou reportest it"[458]
The image in this place is wonderfully noble and great; yet this man in all this is but rising towards his great affliction, and is still enough himself, as you see, to make a simile: but when he is certain of his son's death, he is lost to all patience, and gives up all the regards of this life; and since the last of evils is fallen upon him, he calls for it upon all the world.
"Now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confined; let Order die,