A CAPTAIN (_shouting and indicating the Standard with a gesture_): Rend the silk from the ensign and tear the banner in two! And take the staff and break it over your knee! For now the eagle returns from a dolorous flight Bearing the corpse of a man in its talons. See what we bring, as we rise to this bleak and lofty place, That here we may hold the rites of burial, on this portal of the world, at this place whence all the earth is visible. Thus about this dead body we re-assemble like birds. Begone from us, O sun! SECOND: O Tête-d'or! O master! O King! O King! We have soared to this place, all your eaglets, bearing you back with us. O dead body! Let the woman weep over her first-born son! The man shall cry, mourning the death of his King, and tears shall appear on his face, And he shall not be comforted. THIRD: Begone from us, O sun! Leave us alone and insult us no longer. Now the earth turns its face towards night, and you, who stood in your place like a mountain, disappear! You see this, Father! Look, we reveal him to you, that you may put your mouth on our misery! Now leave us alone that we may mourn this prey that we hold between our hands. O King! O King! Like the Angel that bears the seal of life you rose towards the Unchanging! And now we bring you back with us, having lifted you from the ground. Gaze upon this! Behold it, mountains, and you O forests, that sprang from the fraternal tree! Let a shudder run through the roots of all that grows because the King of men is dead! O malediction on man! O death! O condemnation! O prisoning place! O horror of the place in which we are! O King! O King! You are dead and it is death we are holding in our hands! THE STANDARD BEARER: Stop! Put an end to this fury!--You force me to speak. Grief, arises within me like the longing to vomit felt by a woman with child, And the tears that I would shed Freeze, as when Christmas time prevents the winter from weeping! --Here! Lay him here, with funereal pomp expose the royal body On this square rock employed in ancient rites, That the form of the bleeding man may there appear once more In the eyes of the heavens and the earth! _(They raise the body._ So your army was defeated? THE CAPTAIN: Know that we were victorious. All is ended. _(The body is laid upon the rock._ THE STANDARD BEARER: Behold it! See! Head! Hands! O body defiled and stained! Is it thus he is stretched supine! He lies Bleeding, eyes closed, teeth showing, His cheeks all crusted with sand! Fetch water! Wash him! Let one of you become his serving-maid! Here we are one beside the other Like heirs in the empty house of a dead man. _(They remove his helmet and loosen his hair._ CASSIUS (_howling_): O hair! O master! Master! Who will give Cassius another pang to satisfy his passion! _(He tears his face._ Oh! that my nails would fill themselves with foulness! That my limbs, that this frame