Absalom and Achitophel advice of the double agent Hushai over the good advice of Achitophel. Achitophel, realising that the rebellion is doomed to failure, goes home and hangs himself. Absalom is killed (against David's explicit commands) after getting caught by his hair in the thick branches of a great oak tree: "His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on" (NRSV 2 Sam. 18:9). The death of his son, Absalom, causes David enormous personal grief. A second allegory in the poem, beginning on line 425, is the
Vakhtang, son of David IV of Georgia shortly afterwards. Vakhtang, son of David IV of Georgia Vakhtang () or Tsuata () (c. 1118 – 1138) was the Georgian Bagrationi prince and the son of King David IV "the Builder" (r. 1089–1125), probably of his second marriage to the Cuman-Kipchak "princess" Gurandukht, daughter of Otrok. The 12th-century document "The Will of King David" contains a vague and controversial passage whereby David instructs the eldest son and heir apparent Demetrius I to rear his younger brother Vakhtang and make him a successor to the throne if the latter proves to be "capable". Given the Georgian order of succession based