Then Virginius, when he saw no aid any where, says, I beg you, Appius, first pardon a father's grief, if I have said any thing too harsh against you: in the next place, suffer me to question the nurse before the maiden, what all this matter is?
that if I have been falsely called her father, I may depart hence with a more resigned mind.

Permission being granted, he draws the girl and the nurse aside to the sheds near the temple of Cloacina, which now go by the name of the new sheds: and there snatching up a knife from a butcher, "In this one way, the only one in my power, do I secure to you your liberty." He then transfixes the girl's breast, and looking back towards the tribunal, he says, "With this blood I devote thee, Appius, and thy head." Appius, aroused by the cry raised at so dreadful a deed, orders Virginius to be seized.

He, armed with the knife, cleared the way whithersoever he went, until, protected by the crowd of persons attending him, he reached the gate.

Icilius and Numitorius take up the lifeless body and exhibit it to the people: they deplore the villany of Appius, the fatal beauty of the maiden, and the dire necessity of the father.

The matrons who followed exclaim, "Was this the condition of rearing children?
were these the rewards of chastity ?" and other things which female grief on such occasions suggests, when their complaints are so much the more affecting, in proportion as (their grief) is more intense from the natural tenderness of their minds.