The 2nd Book of Vergil's Aeneis,
"The Aeneid"
Argument:
The second book of The Aeneid, the subject of which is the fall of Troy, is perhaps the most famous and well-known part of the epic, most likely because it satisfies the human fascination for tragedy and destruction, while at the same time containing seminal and classic scenes: the famous and treacherous wooden horse as tall as a mountain; Sinon's lie; Laocoon's death; the death of Priamus; and finally, Aeneas' flight from the conflagration while carrying his father Anchises (who in turn is holding the Trojan gods) on his shoulder and grasping his little son's hand -- all of this makes for a tearful and sorrowful read.
The earliest source concerning this material is the now-lost The Iliou Persis, "The Destruction of Ilion" written by Arktinos of Miletos in (perhaps) the 7th century B.C. In the grand scheme of the Epic Cycle, Homer's Iliad stands before both The Aethiopis and The Little Iliad, two also-lost epics which immediately preceded The Iliou Persis. The original poem, supposedly two books long, survives in scant fragments and summaries outlined in the writings of Proclus:
"The Trojans were suspicious of the wooden horse and standing round it debated what they ought to do. Some thought they ought to hurl it down from the rocks, others to burn it up, while others said they ought to dedicate it to Athena. At last this third opinion prevailed. Then they turned to mirth and feasting believing the war was at an end. But at this very time two serpents appeared and destroyed Laocoon and one of his two sons, a portent which so alarmed the followers of Aeneas that they withdrew to Ida. Sinon then raised the fire-signal to the Achaeans, having previously got into the city by pretence. The Greeks then sailed in from Tenedos, and those in the wooden horse came out and fell upon their enemies, killing many and storming the city. Neoptolemus kills Priam who had fled to the altar of Zeus Herceius (1); Menelaus finds Helen and takes her to the ships, after killing Deiphobus; and Aias the son of Ileus, while trying to drag Cassandra away by force, tears away with her the image of Athena. At this the Greeks are so enraged that they determine to stone Aias, who only escapes from the danger threatening him by taking refuge at the altar of Athena. The Greeks, after burning the city, sacrifice Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles: Odysseus murders Astyanax; Neoptolemus takes Andromache as his prize, and the remaining spoils are divided. Demophon and Acamas find Aethra and take her with them. Lastly the Greeks sail away and Athena plans to destroy them on the high seas."
-Proclus, Chrestomathia II. Trans. by H.G. Evelyn-WhiteIt is from this rather bare outline that Vergil crafted his own version.
Vergil is at the top of his game in this book, as his mastery of mythology meshes well with his northern Italian penchant for melodrama. Additionally, he provides for us a version of The Iliou Persis which perhaps had not been attempted before him: he tells the story from the point of view of the Trojans, the "losers", so to speak. We the reader must watch the grand city fall from the point of view of the vanquished, not the triumphant conquerors. There is perhaps no truer way to tell of a city's sack than by adopting the point of the view of the fearful, the raped, and the dying -- to try to tell the event otherwise is to indulge in a lie. At each turn in the lead-up to the return of the Grecian forces, the fall of this great city of Asia is consistently foreshadowed, yet the Trojans are forever cast as unknowing and innocent of deceit -- they are poor wretches who could not overcome the underhanded tricks which were wrought upon them by liars and ruthless gods.
Aeneas begins telling his tale to Dido and the rest, cautioning the listeners that there is nothing but sadness and sorrow in his words: for ten years the Greek commanders led their siege of the great city of Troy, yet could not take the walls. Overcome by the long years and the Fates seemingly against them, the Greeks construct a very conspicuous gift to the goddess Minerva for a safe return home: a wooden horse as huge as a mountain. Inside, armed men are hidden while the rest of the army embarks on their fleet to hide on the other side of the nearby island of Tenedos.
Meanwhile, the Trojans, lured out of the walls by a ruined camp free of Greek presence, inspect the beach and find the enormous horse. They are puzzled and divided about what to do concerning this monstrous gift -- some urge it to be brought within the walls, and others, Laocoon chief among them, urge that it be destroyed. Their argument ceases when a Greek man is found and brought before the king. This man, whose name is Sinon, unknowingly allowed himself to be captured so he could feed the Trojans one of the most famous lies ever told (so famous that Dante places Sinon as a central character in the 8th Circle of Hell in his Divine Comedy for telling The Lie at Troy). Convinced by the lie and a terrifying portent from the gods, the Trojans bring the horse within the city. As night falls upon the drunk and sleepy Trojans, the armed Greeks within the horse escape the treacherous offering, kill the nightwatch, open the gates, and signal the Greek fleet to return to take the city.
Awoken and urged by ghosts and gods alike to flee, Aeneas offers readers and listeners and first-hand account of some of the more horrifying moments of the great city's burning.
Vergil's sources are, of course, Homer, where Vergil models a few of his scenes in order to form a book-end to Homer's Book II of The Iliad, where Troy, so to speak, is introduced in the Catalogue of Ships; to Lucretius and Catullus Vergil owes a few words and phrasing (e.g. 138's "exoptatum parentem" feels like a Catullanism cf. LXIV.22 & 31); Macrobius' accusation in The Saturnalia that Vergil lifted "ad verbum" the entirety of the second book of The Aeneid from a certain Pisander is expounded and further explained here.
Vergil's sources are, of course, Homer, where Vergil models a few of his scenes in order to form a book-end to Homer's Book II of The Iliad, where Troy, so to speak, is introduced in the Catalogue of Ships; to Lucretius and Catullus Vergil owes a few words and phrasing (e.g. 138's "exoptatum parentem" feels like a Catullanism cf. LXIV.22 & 31); Macrobius' accusation in The Saturnalia that Vergil lifted "ad verbum" the entirety of the second book of The Aeneid from a certain Pisander is expounded and further explained here.
Fell silent all, and gazing on him their faces they held up.
Thence father Æneas thus began from his high couch:
"Unspeakable, O queen, thou bid'st me to renew the unspeakable grief,
How Trojan might and our sorrowful kingdom 5
Did the Danaï raze to ruin? For every so pitiable thing I myself did see,
And of these events I was a great part. Who in the telling of such horrors,
Be he Myrmidon, or Dolopian, or some soldier of harsh Ulysses,
Could hold back tears? And now the dewy night hanging in the heavens
Hurtles headlong towards morn and lull us do the falling stars to sleep. 10
But if there be such a longing to know our disasters
And to briefly hear of Troy's final hour of suffering,
Then even though the mind trembles to remember and from grief seeks to flee --
I shall begin:
 |
| Pierre-Narcisse, baron Guérin, Aeneas Tells Dido About the Fall of Troy, 1815 |
Broken by war and by prophecies beaten back,
The leaders of the Danaï, with so many years slipping by, 15
Did the likeness of a mountain-sized horse with the divine skill of Pallas
Build, and weave the interlacing ribs with sliced silver-fir --
An offering for their return journey they falsely say, and so its renown spreads.
Hither after selecting the chosen men themselves, do they in secret
Close them within the dark side and deep within the cavernous breast, 20
And the enormous womb they fill with armed soldiery.
"There is, within sight of Troy, Tenedos, a most well-known
Island -- rich in wealth while Priamus' kingdom still stood,
Now nothing more than a bay, and an anchorage treacherous to ships --
Hither carried, they set themselves up on the empty shore. 25
We supposed they had left and on the gales had sought Mycenae.
And so all of Teucer's realm hath from her long lamentation freed herself.
Open wide are flung the gates, and pleased are we to go to the Doric camp
And to lay our eyes upon the emptied places and the abandoned shore.
Here was encamped the band of Dolopians, here was savage Achilles stretched out, 30
Here was the place for their fleet, here in battle array they used to fight.
Part of us stood dumb at the baneful gift for unwedded Minerva
And stand in wonder at the horse's size. First of all doth Thymoetes
Urge it be led within the walls and to within the citadel place it --
Either he was traitor or then were thus the fates calling for Troy. 35
But Capys, and those whose opinion seemed better to reason,
Did order that into the sea the Danaï's trap and the suspected gift
They plunge headlong, or with flames thrown underneath catch it alight,
Or to carve out the hollow places in its womb and probe its hiding places..
Split unsure in two competing sides is the crowd of common people. 40
"And now first before the rest of the great throng gathering
Doth Laocoön, all a-glow, from the citadel's height now run down,
And, still far off, shouts:
'What madness is this, O wretched fellows!
Believe ye that gone is the enemy? Think ye any
Gifts to be free from the tricks of the Danaï? Know ye not of Ulysses? 45
Either enclosed within this wood are Achivi shut away in hiding,
Or this was built to be a machine of war, set against our walls,
In order to look down on our homes and enter the city from above!
Or some other trap lies hidden! Believe ye not this horse, Teucri!
Whatever it is, I fear the Danaï even when gifts they bear!' 50
"Thus he spoke, and with mighty strength a huge spear
Against the side and into the beast's belly curved with fastenings
He twirling cast. It held fast there trembling, throughout the echoing womb
Sounded the hollows and a groan did the depths give out.
And had these orlays of the gods not been, if their hearts had not been unfavorable, 55
They would have forced us to mar with iron the Argolic hiding places
And Troia would not be standing, and thou, O Priamus' tall citadel, wouldst remain!
"Meanwhile lo! a youth bound with hands behind his back
Are shepherds to the king with a great din dragging.
To these sons of Dardanus approaching him had this youth unknowingly 60
Made himself a captive, so that he might carry this very plot and open Troy to the Achivi,
Trusting in his heart, for either outcome was he readied,
That either he engage in this deceit, or fall to certain death.
Algates in enthusiasm to see the scene do the Trojan youth
Gathered round run alongside and engage in mocking the prisoner. 65
Hear now the trap of the Danaï, and from this single crime
Learn of all their rest:
"For in the midst of all their glares he seemed wild, unarmed
He stood in place, and with mad eyes turned about to look at us:
'Alas! Now what land,' spake he, 'what seas shall possibly 70
Accept me? What in the end shall be there for me, a wretch?
Never shall there be a place for me amongst the Danaï -- and more so,
The hostile sons of Dardanus themselves demand a penalty with my blood!'
"At this groan our hearts were turned, and ceased was every
Attack. We urge him to speak whence what blood he came, 75
Or what he bore, or remember what things a prisoner puts his trust:
'Yea, the rest to thee, O king -- come what may! -- I shall confess
It true,' spake he, 'nor shall I deny that I do come from the Argolic race.
First thing's first: even if Fortune has made Sinon a wretch,
A worthless and even lying wretch shall that wicked bitch never make him. 80
In rumor by chance hath some name reached thine ears,
The name of Belus' son Palamedes, and the renown and
Glory linked with him, whom under false information, those Pelasgi
Did accuse with deceitful evidence a guiltless man because the war he opposed?
They sank low to slay him, and now the ruin of his life they mourn. 85
To him was I a companion and blood kin as well,
Whom my poor father sent sent hither from my earliest years.
While stood he in regal power undefeated and was mighty in kings'
Assemblies, we both some name and righteous honor
Gained. But afterwards, because of the envy of deceitful Ulysses 90
-- For hardly do I relate unknown matters -- did he depart for the gods' shores,
And cast down was my life into darkness and in lamentation was I dragged,
And the downfall of my guiltless friend I resented much.
And not silent did I remain, but raving was I, so that, if any luck would have it,
If ever to my fatherland, Argolic land of old, would I as victor return, 95
Then I promised vengeance -- and with words I first moved my harsh hatred.
Hence was this the first blow of misfortune, hence e'er did Ulysses
Cause alarm with new slander, hence did he spread rumors
Doublefold amidst the rabble, and sought he allies in arms.
For not did he rest until with Calchas as his lackey -- 100
But why do I yet in vain turn o'er and again o'er unpleasant things?
Why do I hesitate? If ye consider all Achivi to be of the same mould,
And it is enough to hear that I am one, then, inflict your long-delayed penalty!
For the Ithacan king would wish it, and greatly would Atreus' sons pay for it!'
"But nay, we instead burned to know and to discover the reasons, 105
Unknown we were of such wickedness, of such sly Pelasgian skill.
He continues while shaking and speaks from his counterfeited heart:
'Oft the Danaï longed for flight with Troy at their backs,
To make a try and, though wearied, to leave the long war.
Would that they had! Oft them did the harsh winter 110
Of the sea close off, and as they sailed Auster filled them with dread,
Especially when this horse, woven with maple beams,
Stood built, then echo throughout the whole sky did the stormclouds.
Anxious, Eurypylus to learn of the oracle of bright Phoebus
We send, and he from the shrine these sad words reports: 115
"With blood ye calmed the winds and with a maiden slain
Ye first came, Danaï, to the shores of Ilium;
With blood must your return home be sought, and paid must be
An Argolic life."
When came to the vulgar ears these utt'rances,
Fallen dumb was their reason and ice through their bowels ran, 120
Through bones a shiver runs, what the Fates would ordain, whom Apollo would demand.
Here the Ithacan did the priest Calchas with a great yell
Draw out into the midst of us and as to what was the will of the gods
He presses the man. And already to me were many making a song
Of the liar's cruel crime -- yet silent, they knew what would come. 125
For twice five days the priest kept his silence, and shut in his tent refused
To betray with his own voice anyone or put anyone to death.
But scarcely at the end, by the great shouts of the Ithacan he was driven,
Yet by compact he broke his silence, and me he doomed to the altar.
All voted for it, and once the fate each dreaded for himself, 130
Was to ruin of a single wretch turned, they bore me away.
And now the accursed day hath arrived, the rites for me are readied,
And the sprinkled pulse, and about my temples are girded garlands.
I escaped, I confess it! from my doom, and my bonds I broke.
By the muck of a lakeside was I covered, and in the sedge 135
I hid away while they set sail, if by chance they would set sail.
Not now is there any hope for me of seeing my homeland again,
Neither my sweet children, nor my wished-for sire,
Oh, then what a new terror slithered through the trembling breasts
Of all of us; that deserving of his punishment had Laöcoön paid for his crime --
So everyone whispered -- for he had with an iron's tip wounded 230
The sacred wood of the horse and had twirled against its back a wicked spear.
All cry out that the off'ring must be to her temple led and prayers said
For the goddess' divine might. --
"We cleave the walls and the city's battlements we open up.
All gird about the work and under its carved hooves we slip 235
Rolling logs, and flaxen fetters about its neck
Are stretched. O'er top our walls looks the deadly device,
Pregnant with weapons. Boys and unwed girls
Sing holy hymns and rejoice to lay hands on the cords.
It moves on and upward, a threatening monster rolling into the city's center. 240
O my country! O home of the gods of Ilium! O the walls of Dardanus' sons,
Long surrounded in war! Four times on the very threshold of the gates
It stopped and within its womb four times their arms made an echo.
Yet we press on unheeding, blind by our own madness,
And we then place this creature of doom within our holy shrine. 245
Even then shouts Cassandra the fates of things to come,
But by a god's decree, not ever would her words be believed by the Teucri.
We wretches leave the shrine of the gods by whose will it was the last
Of all our country's days, and we veil the whole city with festive flowers.
Meanwhile turneth Heaven, and from the Ocean's waters run the night, 250
A great shadow rolling across both plain and pole
And the trickery of the Myrmidons. Scattered upon the battlements Teucri
Lie in quiet, for slumber hath taken hold of their wearied limbs.
And now the Argive phalanx in their drawn-up ships was sailing
From Tenedos through the friendly quiet of the silent moonlight -- 255
They make for the well-known shore, after flames from the king's galley
They had lifted, and then, protected by the unjust orlays of the gods,
Sinon sets loose the Danaï enclosed within the horse's womb, and in secret
Opens the bands of pine. The men doth the opened horse return to the air,
And now happy to be free, they spill forth from the empty hollow of oak. 260
Thessandrus and Sthenelus are leading, then dread Ulixes
Is sliding on a downcast cord, then Acamas, then Thoas,
And then Pelëus' grandson Neoptolemus, and peerless Machäon,
And then Meneläus, and then the very author of the deceit, Epeos.
They all enter the city itself, now buried in a tomb by sleep and wine. 265
Slain are the watch, and through the gates opened wide,
They lock arm-in-arm with their allies and join the ranks they recognize.
"The time arrived in which the first sleep for wearied mortals
Fallen dumb was their reason and ice through their bowels ran, 120
Through bones a shiver runs, what the Fates would ordain, whom Apollo would demand.
Here the Ithacan did the priest Calchas with a great yell
Draw out into the midst of us and as to what was the will of the gods
He presses the man. And already to me were many making a song
Of the liar's cruel crime -- yet silent, they knew what would come. 125
For twice five days the priest kept his silence, and shut in his tent refused
To betray with his own voice anyone or put anyone to death.
But scarcely at the end, by the great shouts of the Ithacan he was driven,
Yet by compact he broke his silence, and me he doomed to the altar.
All voted for it, and once the fate each dreaded for himself, 130
Was to ruin of a single wretch turned, they bore me away.
And now the accursed day hath arrived, the rites for me are readied,
And the sprinkled pulse, and about my temples are girded garlands.
I escaped, I confess it! from my doom, and my bonds I broke.
By the muck of a lakeside was I covered, and in the sedge 135
I hid away while they set sail, if by chance they would set sail.
Not now is there any hope for me of seeing my homeland again,
Neither my sweet children, nor my wished-for sire,
Whom the men may demand both pay the penalty for my
Escape, and expiate my sin with the death of my wretched family. 140
O, by the gods above who are witness to the divine will of truth,
By whatever which still is by mortals uncorrupted and left
Of unblemished faith, of thee I beg: have pity on such
Disasters! Have pity on a soul which bears not worth!'
"Because of these tears we give him his life and, beyond that, pity. 145
The king himself first bid his wrists and legs be lightened
Of their fetters, and then Priamus with such these friendly words speaks:
'Whosoever thou art, henceforth now forget the lost Graiï --
Thou art one of us. And when I ask thee, speak me truths following:
Why made they such an off'ring of a huge horse? Who is the builder? 150
What did they seek? Is it a thing divine or some machine of war?'
"Spake he, and the other, versed in deceit and Pelasgian skill
Lifted his chains hands upturned to the heavens, palms up, and spake:
'O, ye heavenly bodies, your indestructible might
I call as my witness,' saieth he. 'That by the altars and accursed blades 155
Which I fled, and by the fillets of the gods which I wore as a sacrifice:
The gods allow for me to release my sacred oaths to the Graiï,
The gods allow for me to hate those men and tell all under heaven
Whatever they have to hide -- I am held by no laws of my homeland.
If only thou thy promises keep, then thou shalt fulfill thy vow and 160
Troy shall be saved -- if true be my tale I tell, I shall repay in kind.
All the hope of the Danaï and the trust they placed in the war they begun
On Pallas' aid ever rested. But from the time when the unholy
Son of Tydeus and even that founder of my wrongs, Ulixes,
Both did go to steal away from her holy temple 165
Her fateful idol, the Palladium. And, having slain the high citadel's guards,
They took that holy statue with hands a-bloodied,
And dared they to pollute the maiden's fillets of the goddess.
From that time flowed and backward turned away
Was the hope of the Danaï -- their strength broken, their goddess' heart turned aside. 170
Nor with doubtful omens did Tritonia give us her signs:
Scarcely placed was the image in their camp, burn did the trembling
Flames from her upturned eyes, and from her limbs
Ran a salty sweat, and thrice from the ground did the idol itself --
Wondrous to tell! -- leap and brandish her shield and spear! 175
Forthwith must in flight the watery ways be tried, foretold Calchas,
And not with Argolic weapons would Pergamum be laid to ruin,
Not until godsigns they seek afresh and return with divine might,
Escape, and expiate my sin with the death of my wretched family. 140
O, by the gods above who are witness to the divine will of truth,
By whatever which still is by mortals uncorrupted and left
Of unblemished faith, of thee I beg: have pity on such
Disasters! Have pity on a soul which bears not worth!'
"Because of these tears we give him his life and, beyond that, pity. 145
The king himself first bid his wrists and legs be lightened
Of their fetters, and then Priamus with such these friendly words speaks:
'Whosoever thou art, henceforth now forget the lost Graiï --
Thou art one of us. And when I ask thee, speak me truths following:
Why made they such an off'ring of a huge horse? Who is the builder? 150
What did they seek? Is it a thing divine or some machine of war?'
"Spake he, and the other, versed in deceit and Pelasgian skill
Lifted his chains hands upturned to the heavens, palms up, and spake:
'O, ye heavenly bodies, your indestructible might
I call as my witness,' saieth he. 'That by the altars and accursed blades 155
Which I fled, and by the fillets of the gods which I wore as a sacrifice:
The gods allow for me to release my sacred oaths to the Graiï,
The gods allow for me to hate those men and tell all under heaven
Whatever they have to hide -- I am held by no laws of my homeland.
If only thou thy promises keep, then thou shalt fulfill thy vow and 160
Troy shall be saved -- if true be my tale I tell, I shall repay in kind.
All the hope of the Danaï and the trust they placed in the war they begun
On Pallas' aid ever rested. But from the time when the unholy
Son of Tydeus and even that founder of my wrongs, Ulixes,
Both did go to steal away from her holy temple 165
Her fateful idol, the Palladium. And, having slain the high citadel's guards,
They took that holy statue with hands a-bloodied,
And dared they to pollute the maiden's fillets of the goddess.
From that time flowed and backward turned away
Was the hope of the Danaï -- their strength broken, their goddess' heart turned aside. 170
Nor with doubtful omens did Tritonia give us her signs:
Scarcely placed was the image in their camp, burn did the trembling
Flames from her upturned eyes, and from her limbs
Ran a salty sweat, and thrice from the ground did the idol itself --
Wondrous to tell! -- leap and brandish her shield and spear! 175
Forthwith must in flight the watery ways be tried, foretold Calchas,
And not with Argolic weapons would Pergamum be laid to ruin,
Not until godsigns they seek afresh and return with divine might,
Which o'er the sea on their curved prows they would carry back with them.
And when they will have sought their fathers' Mycenae on the winds, 180
They doth make ready arms and accompanying gods, and on the sea sailed anew
They will arrive unforeseen -- thus the omens did Calchas dispense.
Thus warned, this is for the Palladium, this is for the divinity wounded,
This offering they set up to expiate the sorrowing blaspheme.
This immeasurable height did Calchas bid us to raise up 185
With oaken timbers interwoven and heavenward to build it,
Lest it be able to be carried through thy gates or led within thy walls,
And not would thy people be protected under the watchful eyes of thy gods of old.
Saieth he, "For if the hand of any of them should have profaned the gifts of Minerva,
Then would there be great ruin," -- if only the gods had against Calchas himself 190
Turned the prophecy! -- "for Priamus and the Phrygians!"
But should ye with your hands have brought up the gift to your city,
Then in some time would Asia come to Pelops' city-walls with great war,
And such a fate as this remain upon your grandchildren.'
"Because of such a deceitful trap and the lying skill of Sinon 195
The tale was trusted -- captured we were by trickery and welled-up tears,
We, whom neither Tydeus' son, nor Larisaean Achilles,
Nor ten years could o'ercome, nor their thousand ships.
"Here doth something else, much greater to be feared by us wretches,
And when they will have sought their fathers' Mycenae on the winds, 180
They doth make ready arms and accompanying gods, and on the sea sailed anew
They will arrive unforeseen -- thus the omens did Calchas dispense.
Thus warned, this is for the Palladium, this is for the divinity wounded,
This offering they set up to expiate the sorrowing blaspheme.
This immeasurable height did Calchas bid us to raise up 185
With oaken timbers interwoven and heavenward to build it,
Lest it be able to be carried through thy gates or led within thy walls,
And not would thy people be protected under the watchful eyes of thy gods of old.
Saieth he, "For if the hand of any of them should have profaned the gifts of Minerva,
Then would there be great ruin," -- if only the gods had against Calchas himself 190
Turned the prophecy! -- "for Priamus and the Phrygians!"
But should ye with your hands have brought up the gift to your city,
Then in some time would Asia come to Pelops' city-walls with great war,
And such a fate as this remain upon your grandchildren.'
"Because of such a deceitful trap and the lying skill of Sinon 195
The tale was trusted -- captured we were by trickery and welled-up tears,
We, whom neither Tydeus' son, nor Larisaean Achilles,
Nor ten years could o'ercome, nor their thousand ships.
"Here doth something else, much greater to be feared by us wretches,
Occur and causes such distress to our unseeing hearts: 200
Laöcoön, chosen by lot as Neptune's holy priest,
Was at the sacred altars sacrificing a mighty bull.
Yet lo! From Tenedos do through the calm deep --
I shudder recalling it -- twin serpents with huge coils
Crest the sea and, neck-and-neck, make their way to the shore. 205
Their fronts are through the waves held upright, and their bloodred-
Colored crests break the surf, while the rest of them in the sea
Behind gathers and twists their immeasurable backs into turning folds,
Causing the roars of saltsea churned to foam. And now they breast the sand,
And while their burning eyes are imbued with blood and fire, 210
They lick their hissing mouths with flickering tongues.
We fled from the sight, the blood gone from our faces. With course fixed
Laöcoön they seek. And first the small bodies of his two
Sons doth each snake wrap in deadly embrace
And fix their jaws and feed upon their wretched limbs. 215
After the man himself ran to their aid, bearing his weapons,
Him they take hold and wrap with their huge coils, and soon
Twice about the middle they have him, twice with their scaly backs
Around his neck, and then they crown him with heads and upraised throats.
All the while the man outstretches his hands to untangle their coils, 220
He stains his fillets with venom-tainted gore and black poison,
And all the while heart-shaking shouts he raises to the heavens above --
Just as the roar of a bull when flees he wounded from the altar,
Having from his neck shaken off an ill-aimed ax.
Laöcoön, chosen by lot as Neptune's holy priest,
Was at the sacred altars sacrificing a mighty bull.
Yet lo! From Tenedos do through the calm deep --
I shudder recalling it -- twin serpents with huge coils
Crest the sea and, neck-and-neck, make their way to the shore. 205
Their fronts are through the waves held upright, and their bloodred-
Colored crests break the surf, while the rest of them in the sea
Behind gathers and twists their immeasurable backs into turning folds,
Causing the roars of saltsea churned to foam. And now they breast the sand,
And while their burning eyes are imbued with blood and fire, 210
They lick their hissing mouths with flickering tongues.
We fled from the sight, the blood gone from our faces. With course fixed
Laöcoön they seek. And first the small bodies of his two
Sons doth each snake wrap in deadly embrace
And fix their jaws and feed upon their wretched limbs. 215
After the man himself ran to their aid, bearing his weapons,
Him they take hold and wrap with their huge coils, and soon
Twice about the middle they have him, twice with their scaly backs
Around his neck, and then they crown him with heads and upraised throats.
All the while the man outstretches his hands to untangle their coils, 220
He stains his fillets with venom-tainted gore and black poison,
And all the while heart-shaking shouts he raises to the heavens above --
Just as the roar of a bull when flees he wounded from the altar,
Having from his neck shaken off an ill-aimed ax.
But then the twin sea monsters slip away towards the lofty shrine -- 225
They escape and seek ruthless Tritonia's citadel,
And under the feet of the goddess and beneath the circle of her shield they hide.Oh, then what a new terror slithered through the trembling breasts
Of all of us; that deserving of his punishment had Laöcoön paid for his crime --
So everyone whispered -- for he had with an iron's tip wounded 230
The sacred wood of the horse and had twirled against its back a wicked spear.
All cry out that the off'ring must be to her temple led and prayers said
For the goddess' divine might. --
All gird about the work and under its carved hooves we slip 235
Rolling logs, and flaxen fetters about its neck
Are stretched. O'er top our walls looks the deadly device,
Pregnant with weapons. Boys and unwed girls
Sing holy hymns and rejoice to lay hands on the cords.
It moves on and upward, a threatening monster rolling into the city's center. 240
O my country! O home of the gods of Ilium! O the walls of Dardanus' sons,
Long surrounded in war! Four times on the very threshold of the gates
It stopped and within its womb four times their arms made an echo.
Yet we press on unheeding, blind by our own madness,
And we then place this creature of doom within our holy shrine. 245
Even then shouts Cassandra the fates of things to come,
But by a god's decree, not ever would her words be believed by the Teucri.
We wretches leave the shrine of the gods by whose will it was the last
Of all our country's days, and we veil the whole city with festive flowers.
Meanwhile turneth Heaven, and from the Ocean's waters run the night, 250
A great shadow rolling across both plain and pole
And the trickery of the Myrmidons. Scattered upon the battlements Teucri
Lie in quiet, for slumber hath taken hold of their wearied limbs.
And now the Argive phalanx in their drawn-up ships was sailing
From Tenedos through the friendly quiet of the silent moonlight -- 255
They make for the well-known shore, after flames from the king's galley
They had lifted, and then, protected by the unjust orlays of the gods,
Sinon sets loose the Danaï enclosed within the horse's womb, and in secret
Opens the bands of pine. The men doth the opened horse return to the air,
And now happy to be free, they spill forth from the empty hollow of oak. 260
Thessandrus and Sthenelus are leading, then dread Ulixes
Is sliding on a downcast cord, then Acamas, then Thoas,
And then Pelëus' grandson Neoptolemus, and peerless Machäon,
And then Meneläus, and then the very author of the deceit, Epeos.
They all enter the city itself, now buried in a tomb by sleep and wine. 265
Slain are the watch, and through the gates opened wide,
They lock arm-in-arm with their allies and join the ranks they recognize.
"The time arrived in which the first sleep for wearied mortals
Began, and most welcome it slowly creeps, a gift of the gods.
In dreams, lo! before my very eyes most gloomy Hector 270
Appeared and came to me, and poured out fat tears,
Dragged as he once was by his foe's team, his body blackened by gory
Dust, and his swollen feet were pierced through with leather thongs.
Oh, how he seemed to me, how changed was he from that
Hector who came back to us wearing the arms of Achilles, 275
Or when at the sterns of the Danaï he cast Phrygian fires --
Now a filthy beard and hair matted with dried blood
And those wounds he bore which around the walls of his father
He so many times received. Weeping, I for my part seemed
To accost the man and cry out to him with sad words: 280
'O light of Dardanus' land, O most loyal hope of the Teucri,
What delays such as these have held thee? From what shores hast thou
So long awaited arrive? How after so many of thy kin's
Burials, after so many toils of thy people and thy city
Do we so wearied see thee? What unworthy cause has defiled 285
Thy calm face? Why do I see such wounds as these?'
"In reply he spoke naught nor me asking nonsense doth he heed,
But deeply doth he a groan from the depths of his breast draw and utters:
'Alas, flee, goddess-born! Escape from these flames!
The enemy hath the walls. Falleth Troy from her lofty height. 290
Enough hath been given to Priamus and his country. If Pergamum could
By my defending hand be saved, it would have been thus defended.
Her holy images and her Penates Troy to thee entrusts --
Take them, these friends of thy fate, and with them seek out city-walls,
Great ones which thou shalt build when the sea hath been at last travailed!' 295
"Thus saieth he, and in his hands the holy fillets and mighty Vesta
And everlasting fire he bore from her inmost shrine.
"Meanwhile, with cries of lamenting here and there are the city-walls filled
More, and now even more, and although hidden was the home
Of my father Anchises, for it stood apart and was shrouded by trees, 300
Clearer grows the din, and the horror of clashing arms advanced.
I am awakened from my sleep, and the gables of the rooftop
I scale in a bound, and with my ears held aloft I stand alert--
Just as when upon a field a fire, blown by raging southerlies,
Springs, when the swift current of a mighty mountain river 305
Rolls o'er crops, rolls o'er the happy harvest and the oxen's toil,
And it sweeps up a forest's trees headlong, while afraid a bewildered
Shepherd stands, hearing the din echoing from a clifftop height.
So then was made clear our foe's false faith, laid bare was the Danaï
Trap. Now Deiphobus' spacious home hath been given to ruin 310
In the overwhelming flames of Vulcan, now hard by catches the home of
Ucalegon, and the broad waters of the Sigeum glow bright with fire.
Riseth the shouts of men and the blasts of the trumpets.
My arms I seize in a mad rush; though there is no reason in using them,
My courage burns to gather a handful of men for war and to rush to the citadel 315
With my comrades. Madness and wrath cast down my mind headlong,
And beautiful it seems to me to die in battle wielding arms.
"And lo! from cast Achivi darts doth Panthus slip into my sight,
Panthus, Othrys' son, a priest of Phoebus' citadel,
And in arm the holy relics of his defeated gods and grandson small 320
The man himself drew both along, and in his mad course reached our door.
'Where is the fighting the most, in what place, Panthus? What tower do we yet hold?'
"Scarcely did I speak when with a groan such words he returned:
'Hath come the final day of doom and the time inescapable
For Dardania -- once we were Trojans. Once this was Ilium, and great 325
Was the glory of Teucer's people. But harsh Jove hath to Argos
Given all! Aflame is the city and the Danai are her master!
The tow'ring horse doth spill armed men as it standeth within our walls,
And in victorious exultation doth Sinon throw fire upon fire
As he jeering laughs! Others are at the double-opened gates, 330
The so many thousands who once came from great Mycenae,
While others with sharp spears pointed throng each narrow alley.
Alert is every sword edge and with flashing point
Held aloft, ev'ry blade is out for blood. Hardly doth our first line,
The sentinels at the gates hold their battles and with blind Mars make a stand!' 335
"After Othrys' son had spoken and I was by the divine will of some god compelled,
Into the flames and into armed combat I was carried, where grim Erinys,
Yea, Fury raiseth her cries and carried to the heavens was the din.
Adding themselves to us, their comrades, are Rhipeus and the greatest man in arms,
Epytus, and, by means of moonlight shining, Hypanis and Dymas we met, 340
And more did cleave themselves to my side, even the youth Coroebus,
Mygdon's son, for in those days he had to Troy come by chance;
For with a mad passion for Cassandra did he burn,
And as our Trojan kin he had aid to Priam and to us Phrygians borne --
O unlucky man, who did not the warnings of his raving betrothed 345
Heed!'
"When these men gathered to dare their lives in battle I surveyed,
O'er the din I spoke these words:
'Men! Brave, but vainly so,
Are thy hearts -- If ye have within ye a desire to follow
A man who would dare all till the end, yea a sure end, then ye see where Fate stands. 350
All our gods have left us, our shrines and altars abandoned,
Gone our gods on whom this kingdom stood -- and ye rush into your city
Your city set aflame! Let us die! and into the midst of arms run to ruin!
The one quarter for the conquered is to hope for quarter none!'
"Thus did mad rage rouse the courage of the youths, and thence like wolves, 355
Like thieving ghosts hidden in dark fog, creatures which a frenzy in their bellies
Hath driven forth in blind roving while their whelps are left behind
And await with dry maws -- just so, through weapons and through the enemy
We wade to meet a scarcely unsure death, and to the middle of the city
We hold our course, while black night doth flit above us with hollow winged shadows. 360
Who could in their telling describe the calamity of yon night, of the deaths,
Or who could by shedding countless tears match our suff'ring?
An ancient city fell, one which once ruled through many years.
Through the streets are strewn about unmoving corpses,
And through homes and thresholds of the gods alike they lay, 365
Scattered here and there. But not only do the Teucri pay the blood penalty:
For even then to vanquished hearts doth valor return,
And some triumphant Danai yet fall. Everywhere lay
Unmerciful lamentation, everywhere dread, and so many a sight of death.
"Our first catch was when in a great company of Danai following 370
Did Androgeos o'ertake us, and, believing us to be forces friendly,
Unknowing fool, he asks us himself with friendly reprimand:
'Come ye men, be quick! For how much idleness doth delay ye?
For others are despoiling and thieving from burning Pergamum, 375
Yet ye now are only just coming from the high ships?"
"Spake he, and forthwith, for not did our answers given in reply
Prove enough of trust, did he realize he was fall'n in the midst of enemies.
He stood dumb, and backwards he stepped but his voice he stopped --
Just as a man doth in sharp thorns upon a unseen serpent tread,
And lighting upon the ground doth fearful pull a-sudden back 380
From the uncoiling wrath and the sea-green hood puffed out --
In the exact same way did Androgeos, trembling from the sight, start back.
We rush them, and enclosed them with crowded weapons,
And these men, unknowing of the ground and taken by fear,
We lay low and strewn about. On our first feat doth Fortune find favor. 385
And rejoicing in our success and spirit, Coroebus saieth:
'Brothers-in-arms, here is where Fortune hath shown
The way of our victory -- the right way she hath shown us, let us follow!
Let us change our shields, and Danai heraldry let us don!
Whether trickery or valor, who against a foe would ask? 390
These dead themselves shall give up their arms.'
"Spoken thus, he then
A crested helm off Androgeos and the emblazoned design upon that corpse's shield
Took up, and to his side straps on the Argive blade.
The same Rhipeus does, and Dymas himself and all the youth
Happily do likewise, and with newfound spoils each man arms himself. 395
We wade, mingled among the Danai, in colors not our own,
And many a battle through the blind night we joined and clashed,
And many of the Danai we sent down to the jaws of Orcus.
Flee did some to their ships, and that shore they had come to know so well
In their running seek. Part of them with shameful fear 400
Did scale again that horse and hide in the now un-hidden belly.
Ah, woe! 'Tis impossible for any to rely on unfavorable gods,
For lo! Dragged by her disheveled hair is Priamus' maiden daughter,
From out the temple and shrine of Minerva was Cassandra dragged,
Lifting to the heavens her burning eyes in vain, 405
Her eyes only, for fetters were heav'ly bound 'bout her tender hands.
Not this sight could Coroebus bear in his enraged heart,
And into the midst of the mob he threw himself, resolved to die,
And the rest of us follow and rush forth with thickly packed blades.
Here all changed: from a lofty top of a shrine are Trojan spears cast, 410
By our own men we are felled, and a most sad slaughter ensued,
For we were undone by the appearance of our Graian arms and mistaken crests.
It was then the Danai, with a cry of rage at the maid'n rescued,
Algates gathered and rushed -- most savage Ajax was there,
And the two brothers, Atreus' sons, and the whole Dolopian army. 415
Hard they hit us, how when broken is a storm and the winds
Clash together, the winds Zephyrus and Notus, and upon his steeds
Of breaking daylight comes Eurus; and all the forests' branches groan, and rageth
Foamy Nereus with his trident and stirs he the waves from the sea's deepest depths.
For we, while many that dark night we did cast into the shades, 420
Felled by our camouflage, and throughout the city we routed them,
Now we are found out! Our shields first, then of our lying weapons
Take they better notice, and then at last of our tongues ill trying their speech.
'Tis over. We are by their number undone: for first Coroebus
Was by Peneleus' sword-hand at the arm-bearing goddess' altar 425
Laid flat, and then fell Rhipeus, one of the most righteous of us
Among Teucer's people, and the most obedient to righteousness --
Though it must have to the gods seem'd otherwise. Perish did Hypanis and Dymas,
Run through by their own allies. Neither did thine excessive devotion, Panthus,
Nor thy priestly chaplets of Apollo shield Troy as she fell! 430
O ashes of Ilium, my country, funeral flames of both kin and friends of mine,
I survive a witness that at your end, my kin, neither weapon nor any
Treachery of the Danai did I shun, and, had the Fates been
That indeed I should have fall'n, then deserving I would be! For thence we split,
Iphitus and Pelias with me, but of them Iphitus by age 435
Was now weighed down, and Pelias slowed by a wound Ulixes-dealt.
So headlong to the throne of Priamus we went, summoned by the din.
"But here was the fight so great that it was as if no where else
Did the war rage, no one else lay dying in the whole city.
For here was Mars untamable: Danai swarming the roof 440
We espy, as well as the door besieged by tortoise-shielded men.
Cling to the walls do ladders, and at the very doorposts
Men scale their rungs, and employing their shields against the raining spears
They shield with their left, while they cling to the gables with their right.
Sons of Dardanus against their foe o'erturn their own towers, 445
The very rooftops of their homes they cast down. For their final hour they see,
And are readied 'till their dying breath to defend with any weapon:
Gilded beams, the once lofty orn'ments of bygone kings
They bring crashing down, while others with drawn blades
Besiege the inmost hallways and guard them with crowded ranks. 450
Steadfast are their hearts, for they rush to the king's rooms,
To both relieve their men with their aid, and give courage to the vanquished.
"There was a doorway, a dark gate and passage which passed
Betwixt the halls of Priamus, its doors left far back
In the palace rear, where, while our kingdom stood, 455
Unlucky Andromache would oft in her custom come alone
To her in-laws, and to Astyanax's grandfather bring the boy.
I now slip away to the gable of the rooftop, whence
Wrath-thrown weapons wretched Teucri from hand keep casting.
Suddenly, a tower standing skyward 'neath the stars 460
Rising from the rooftops, whence all of Troia could be seen --
As well as the Danai' long-accustomed ships and the Achaian camp --
This our men suddenly rushed, and beset algates with iron, they struck
The fast'nings, making deep'ning cracks as it tottered, and then we o'erturned
From its very roots, and we took it down. Its fall a sudden a ruin 465
Made with such a crash, and widely o'ertop of the Danai vanguard
It fell. But other soldiers take their place, and neither rock nor any
Other weapon does their host ever yield in using.
"Before the entrance hall itself and the palace gates stood Pyrrhus
In triumph, all a-gleam with weapons and flashing bronze -- 470
Just like when under sunlight a serpent, after feeding on evil herbs,
Then takes beneath the earth, and the winter days shelter his swollen coils;
But now, with its scales shed, renewed and so a-gleam with youth,
It lifts its breast to the upper world, and unrolls its slick back
And merciless length towards the sun, flickering a tri-split tongue from its mouth. 475
With him are enormous Periphas and the driver of the team of Achilles,
The arms-bearer Automedon, and with him the whole of the Scyrian youth
Charge the walls, and then flames they hurl at the roof.
Pyrrhus himself stood amidst the foremost, and with a double-headed axe taken up,
The doors themselves he rent asunder, and off the posts ripped he the hinges, 480
Those posts of bronze. And once the planks were hacked away, he burrowed
Through the oak, 'till a yawning window he gave it, a wide mouth.
Lo! Beheld they the inner home, the long court lies open,
Lo! Behold they the heart of Priamus' palace, and of his fathers, kings of old,
And the armed men they see standing on the threshold's other side. 485
The inner home of the king with wailing and a wretched woeful uproar
Was into chaos thrown, and the hallways within echo with shrieks,
Women's wails, and the din to the gold'n stars was raised.
Then the trembling mothers throughout the palace wander,
And, wrapping their arms about the columns, dearly cling and farewell kisses plant. 490
Nigh draweth Pyrrhus with his father's wrath, for neither door nor the guards themselves
Can against him stand. And then under his ram's repeated blows
Falleth another door, and ripped apart are the hinges, the doorposts lie supine.
A way is made by will of his wrath, and the Danai burst in, butcher the guards,
And the invading soldiery take up their places throughout the halls. 495
Not so violently doth a churning river swell and o'ercome a hillock
In its surge, and then sweep the following hills in its swirling flood,
Is carried into the farmlands, collected into a lake, and throughout all the plains
Drives from their pens the farmers' cattle. I myself saw him raging,
With slaughter driven mad, Neoptolemus, and Atreus' two sons in the doorway. 500
I saw Hecuba and her hundred daughters, and Priamus who was with his own blood
Befouling the altars which he himself had once consecrated with fire.
There fifty marriage-chambers he had built, such a hope for long-lived heirs,
Rooms haughtily-wrought with barbaric gold and sumpt'ous skins,
Which then lay downtrodden. The Danai hold them now, whatever the fire did not take. 505
"Perhaps now thou may'st ask what of the doom of Priamus?
When beheld he his city tak'n and fall'n down, his gates o'erturned,
And the enemy deep within his very inner court,
His armor, so long unaccustomed doth he in vain strap to his shoulders
Which now tremble because of old age, and the worthless iron 510
To his side he doth gird -- for ready is he to die in the midst of his foes.
In the center of the courtyard, 'neath the wide and open sky,
Stood an altar huge and intertwined it was with a most ancient laurel,
At whose roots the shrine lay and its holy shade housed the Penates dear.
Here Hecuba and her daughters in vain about the altar clung, 515
Like panicked doves huddling in a dark'ning storm --
Tightly packed they sit, and cleave to the statues of the gods.
When upon Priamus, the king himself, her husband who had taken up the youthful arms
She had laid her eyes, she spake,
'What idea so dread, wretched husband,
Hath compelled thee to be girded by these arms? Whither shalt thou run to die? 520
Neither such aid as this nor such help as those accursed arms can give
Doth the time require, not even if with thee now went mine own Hector!
Hither come, please! I implore, yield, thou! This altar shall watch o'er us in protection,
All of us, or together shall we die.'
Her words thusly said, she then took him
In her arms, and set his long-aged self next to her in that sacred seat. 525
"But lo! Escape from Pyrrhus' slaughter did Polites, slipped away
This one young son of Priamus, running through the flying spears, through the foe,
And along the colonnade he flew, and through the empty courts he went,
Wounded all the way. Him doth Pyrrhus follow, yearning hard for that fatal blow --
And now he hath hard in hand his spear and upon the fleeing man he pounced! -- 530
And then, at last, before the eyes and face of his parents
The young man fell, and his life with much blood he poured forth.
Here Priamus, though he stood with death all about him,
Could not hold back, nor was he able to keep from voice and rage:
'Woe unto thee, woe for thy crime!' shouted he. 'For the things thou hast dared, 535
The gods, if there be left any faith in heaven, any gods to have a care,
Then let them pay thee worthy prizes and rewards let them grant,
Rewards to thee owed, thou who hast made me see mine own son's death,
Thou who hast befouled a father's sight with a son's murder!
Ah, thou liest when say'st thou wert by Achilles sired, 540
A man once such a foe to Priamus! But oaths and honored faith
Made him blush at a suppliant, and my Hector's bloodless body
He for burial returned, and me he sent back to mine own kingdom!'
Thus the old man spake, and his unwarlike weapon without force
He cast, but was forthwith by the harsh bronze turned aside, 545
And from the shield-boss' outer edge it hung there in vain.
To him Pyrrhus spake:
'Thou shalt bear thus these tidings and be a messenger
To Peleus' son, my father: to him tell these sad things I have done,
How Neoptolemus hath his sires he shamed -- remember all.
Now die.'
Saying thus, to the altar itself he dragged the trembling man, 550
Who in the pooling blood of his own son slipped as he was pulled.
Pyrrhus' left hand curled about the hair, and his right did the gleaming sword
Draw forth. And yea, into the old man's side -- up to the hilt -- he buried the blade.
This was the end of Priamus, here his doom, this the end he drew by lot,
To see Troia, his city, set aflame, the height of Pergamum fall; 555
A haughty man he once was, and o'er the peoples and lands of Asia
Once was a ruling lord -- but last I knew his corpse lieth upon the shore,
Head severed from the shoulders, a body without a name.
"And then a-sudden the awful terror of the scene was all around me,
And I stood dumb. The memory of mine own dear sire came to me, 560
As the king, a man of equal age to him, from a cruel wound I beheld
Was then breathing out his life. Came to then my abandoned Creusa,
And our home ransacked, and the death or enslavement of my little Iulus.
I look back, and take in what forces or aid are at hand for me:
None -- they have given up, all war-wearied, and either their bodies in leaping 565
They have thrown to the earth, or have cast their suffering selves into the flames.
"And now I am the only one left, when at the threshold of Vesta's house,
A women, clinging to safety, quiet she lay in hiding in a secret place,
Do I espy: Ah! Tyndareus' daughter! For the burning fires give a glowing light
To show my way as I wander, and bring to my eyes the lay of all else. 570
With Pergamum's kingdom o'erthrown, and dreading the intents of angry Teucri,
Or what vengeance the Danai planned, or what wrath her abandoned husband felt,
This Erinys, accursed Fury! common curse of Troy and her father's land,
Had hid herself away, and at that altar the hateful bitch was sitting.
Fires burned in my soul. A sudden wrath came to me, that my dying country 575
I should avenge, make her pay for her wicked crimes, and so spake I:
'Forsooth! unharmed shall this bitch again her Sparta see, and her father's land,
And Mycenae! Ah, this queen shall walk in a triumph of her own making!
Her husband, her palace, her parents, her children, all of them she shall see,
While women of Ilium and children of Phrygia wait on her hand and foot? 580
Would Priamus have had to been cut down by iron? Troia by fire burnt?
Would those sands upon the strand sweat Dardanus' children's blood?
Nay, naught would change, and there be no boast -- none at all -- to be made
In making a woman pay, nor lieth there any praise in such a victory --
Yet, to have snuffed out this evil and to have endured the penalties owed, 585
Then I shall find praise, and it will be a comfort to have glutted my soul
With avenging flames and to have thus sated the sad ashes of my kin!'
"Such words I spat and I was carried off by my enraged heart,
When lo! before me -- ah, n'er before was she so clear to mine eyes --
Did my mother appear, and flashed she throughout the night in pure light, 590
My gracious mother, clearly a goddess, as she appeareth
In heaven above, how she is wont to seem. And with her right hand
She grasped and stayed me, and from her rosy lips spoke these words besides:
'My son, what pain such as this hath roused such untamable wrath within thee?
Why dost thou rage so, or whither flees thy concern for me? 595
Shalt thou no sooner look again to find where thy father, wearied from old age,
Thou hast left behind, yea good Anchises? Doth survive thy wife Creusa?
What of thy boy, Ascanius? Yea, they are girded about algates,
For the Graian ranks wander all about, and, lest my aid oppose the foe,
Already the enemy would have cast them into flames or fed their hungry blades. 600
The source of thy woe is not the hateful beauty of Tyndareus' Spartan daughter,
Nor is Paris at fault: it is the gods' merciless cruelty, the gods' I say! --
Which hath o'erturned this kingdom and laid low Troia from her lofty height.
Lo, behold! For the veil, which hath been drawn o'er thine eyes
And now dims thy mortal sight and darkens all about with murky shade, 605
Yea, this cloud I remove from thee. Nay, thy mother's commands
Fear not thou, nor shrink from obeying what I have bidden thee:
Here, where the buildings are asunder split and stones from stones
Cast apart thou see'st as well as the swelling smoke with ash a-mingled?
'Tis Neptunus who the walls and the foundations stir and shake with his 610
Trident great, and the city entire from its throne seeketh he to unseat.
Here 'tis Juno, most cruel goddess, who at the Scaean gates
Doth lead the enemy, and in her madness her allied army
Calleth she, who is with sword herself girded. --
And here, on the highest towers doth Tritonia -- see her, thou? -- yea, Pallas 615
Perch, and cloud-clad doth flashing lightning cast and shake the Gorgon cruel.
The Father himself have to the Danai favorable courage and strength
Bestowed, yea, the Father himself hath roused the gods 'gainst Trojan arms.
Take thou now, son, thy flight, and put an end to thy toil.
N'er shall I leave thee, and safe I shall put thee on thy father's door.' 620
"Thus she had spoken, and in the dense shadows she hid herself.
Clear to me were the dread forms and power hateful to Troy,
The mighty power of the gods. --
But then 'twas beheld to me all Ilium sunk down into fires,
And from their depths were o'erturned the Neptunian walls of Troia, 625
Just as when about some ancient wild ash which in the mountaintops
Do woodsmen surround with iron and with their two-fold ax-heads,
Bring down in contest with each other -- and so the tree threatens to fall,
And trembling it bows its head from its stricken top,
And gradually wound by wound 'til o'ercome, it gives at last 630
Its final groan, and it is pulled from the ruin of the mountain.
So I descend from the citadel, and with a goddess leading me, through flame and foe
I withdraw in flight. Weapons from my path give way, while flames bend back.
And so then to the threshold of my father's home I arrived,
Our ancient ancestral seat, when lo! my forebearer, whom I wished to bear away 635
To mountains tall first of all and 'ere all else it was him I sought,
Shook his head and vowed not to prolong his life after Troy had fallen,
Or to endure in exile:
'Ah, ye, whose blood hath the bloom of life,'
Saieth he,
'and strong is your strength, like unto a mighty oak,
Ah, flee, take your flight! -- 640
If heaven's dwellers would wish for me to continue on my life,
They would protect this home of mine. Enough and more so
Hath it been to see my city sacked only once, much less survive her.
Yea, as I am now, yea, leave and bid farewell to me, a corpse.
I myself shall by mine own hand find death or some foe will have pity 645
And seek to despoil me of my life. Ah, easy it is to have no grave!
Long since hath I been hated by heaven and in these useless years
I tarry, from that time when the Father of gods and the King of men
Breathed at me his lightning's blast and touched me with his fire.'
"Such things he related reminiscing while standing firm and fast he tarried. 650
For our part we poured out tears, my good wife Creusa,
My boy Ascanius, and all the household, lest my father would wish
To have all join the ruin with himself and to lie helpless 'gainst our onrushing doom.
He cried nay, and to his declared purpose and his chair he clung all the same.
Again I don my arms, and death do I, a most pitiful wretch, long to seek out, 655
For what counsel or what fate doth lie in store for me and mine?
"I spake:
'Shall I be abandoned, from me shalt thou walk another path, father?
Is this thy hope? Did such a blaspheme fall from upon my father's lips?
If it pleaseth not the powers above to leave aught alive in so great a city as this,
And this same judgment be in thine own mind, to add to Troia's passing 660
Thee and thy family -- if that be thy wish, then open lies the door to thy ruin!
Already comes hither Pyrrhus, dripping in the much-shed blood of Priamus!
A son he struck down before his father's eyes, and then the father at the altar!
Was it for this, my loving mother, that through spears and through fire
Thou didst save and guide me, so that the enemy in our inmost midst, 665
So that Ascanius, and my father, and my wife Creusa all together
I would see cruelly slaughtered, one after the other in each other's blood?
Arms, men, pick up your arms! Calleth this final hour to the vanquished!
Return me to the Danai! Release me, and I shall see these battles renewed!
Nay, not today, not shall every one of us die while still un-avenged!' 670
"Hence by iron am I girded again, and with a shield on my left hand
Do I fit and adjust, and then outside my home do I myself betake.
But lo! at the threshold dost my wife embrace my feet with her arms,
And clinging thus, she held forth little Iulus to his father dear, saying:
'If thou wouldst go to rush into death, oh! take us with thee 'gainst all! 675
But if thou wouldst trust and place some hope within thy girded arms,
First make safe this house. To whom shall Iulus be left,
And thy father and thy wife who once was called thine?'
"Crying such words, with a groan did all the household fill,
When a sudden sight appeareth and is seen -- ah, wond'rous to tell! 680
For between the faces and the arms of his weeping parents,
Lo! a slight tongue of flame is seen on the top of Iulus' head,
Yea, a light blazed forth, yet, at the touch, unhurt and soft
Did the flame lick at his hair and feed about his temples.
Fearful, we quaked with dread and the burning hair 685
We tried to beat and quench the holy fire with water.
But father Anchises, happy at last, lifted his eyes to the sky,
And to heaven stretched his upturned palms with a loud cry:
'Jove the Father the Almighty, if thou shalt sway me with any prayers,
Turn to us thy sight! Such aid as this, if such holy devotion we are worthy, 690
Give to us then, Father, and confirm these omens thou hast given!'
Scarcely had these things my father uttered, when with a sudden crash
Thunder sounded on the left, and from heaven fell through the shadows
A star drawing a torch of much blazing fire, and thus it ran across the sky.
When it fell above the highest roofs of the city's tops, 695
We saw it bury itself deep within the forest of Ida's mountain,
And thus showed us a clear way, for with a long line doth its furrow
Show a blazing path, and the place billows with burning smoke.
And here my convinced sire raised his gaze to the airy sky
And addresseth he the gods and gave thanks unto that holy star: 700
'Let there now be no more delay -- I follow where ye lead. I am there!
My fathers' gods, protect ye this house, protect ye your offspring!
Yours is this augury, and in your majesty Troia yet survives.
Yea, I yield, and not shall I refuse to be thy companion, dear son.'
"Thus he had spoken, and o'er the walls is the brighter conflagration 705
Heard, and closer did the heat roll off the swelling flames.
I spake:
'And now come, dear father, on my neck place yourself.
I myself shall stoop with my shoulders, and not shall thy toil burden me.
Whatever should befall us, one danger shall be with us common,
A single salvation for us both. To me shall little Iulus 710
Run beside, and far back shall my wife keep to our footfalls.
Ye, O household slaves, to what I shall say now turn in your minds:
There is by a way out of the city a mound and temple old
Devoted to Ceres, now deserted, with an ancient cypress intertwined,
And kept it was by our fathers' reverence down through the many years -- 715
From all our separate paths we shall come to there to meet.
Thou, my forebearer, take within thy hand the holy idols and our fathers' Penates;
For me, having just from such war and erstwhile slaughter hither come,
To take would an abomination be, until myself in a running river
I do cleanse.' -- 720
"These words I spake, and my shoulders broad and bent neck
I covered with a cloak made from a tawny lion's pelt,
And took up I my load. Around my right hand did little Iulus
Wind himself and followeth he his father with his unequal stride.
Behind my wife comes after. We are swept on through the alleys' shadows. 725
As for me, whom for some time now no weaponcast at all daunted,
Nor the Graii packed together in their oncoming array,
Now all the very breezes cause alarm, each sound awakes my dread,
And anxiously I fear for him at my side and him, my shoulders' burden.
And when I approached the gates and seemed to have avoided 730
All the main streets, a sudden sound seemed to come to our ears,
A sound of closely-packed footfalls, and my father through the darkness
Peering cried,
"Son! Flee, my son! They nigh approach!
Their blazing bucklers and brandished bronze I do make out!'
"Here some evil god I know not, no friend to me in my anxiety, 735
Took what was left of my clouded mind, for while some pathless way
I follow, and from the streets I knew I then withdrew --
Ah alas! was it then that snatched from her unhappy husband was Creusa?
For she was gone. Wandereth she astray? Or swooning fell?
I could not know. And n'er again to mine eyes was she returned. 740
But not did I look back or turn my thought at all again,
Until the mound of ancient Ceres and her sacred seat
We came. Here, at last, though all were collected as one together, she alone
Was not there, and the notice of her friends, her son, and her husband she 'scaped.
Whom did I not accuse in my madness, be he man or god, 745
And what more merciless sight had I beheld in the city's fall?
Ascanius and Anchises my father and the Penates of Teucer
I entrusted to my comrades and in bending vale I hid them.
And then I myself to the city return, and I am ringed about by flashing arms.
Resolved was I to renew all these disasters, and to be returned through 750
All of Troia, and to stake my head again against the perils.
"First the walls and the darkened threshold of the gate --
Where I had borne my step -- did I seek again, and for my footfalls
Back do I look and follow them through the night and with torch make bright.
Though horror is everywhere, the very silence in my soul birthed terror new. 755
Thence to the house, by one way if she haply strayed, another mayhaps she did --
I try them all again. But the Danai had taken o'er, and every home they held.
Then a-sudden the all-devouring flame to the gable-tops by the gale
Is swelled. The flames o'ercome the house, and blazeth the heat in the air.
And then I go to Priamus' throne, and the citadel I again search out. 760
But now in the empty columned halls of Juno's temple
The chosen guards do stand, Phoenix and dread Ulixes,
O'erlooking all the plunder. Hither algates had Trojan treasure
Been dragged, taken from the burning altars: tables made for gods,
Craters made entirely of gold, and stol'n clothing
All piled high. And boys and mothers pallid all in a long line
Do stand about. --
Even dared I to shout my voice throughout the shadows dark,
And I filled the streets with cries, and sorrowful I in vain
Did groan for Creusa and again and again call her by voice.
As I sought her and throughout the homes of the city raved without end,
The unlucky ghost and shade of my Creusa, yea of herself,
Did appear to me before mine eyes and larger her likeness seemed.
I stood dumb, my hairs stood on end, and my voice to my throat clung.
Then me she thus addressed and my worries relieved with these words:
'What good doth it do to wallow in such painful madness as this,
O sweet husband? Not without the majesty of the gods did these
Come to pass. Nor hence was it ordained for thee to carry off Creusa
As thy companion -- as decreed the ruler of Olympus above.
Long shall be thine exile, and vast must be the sea thou plough'st.
To the land of Hesperia thou shalt come, where a Lydian stream
Betwixt the fertile plains of men flows in gentle course, Father Thybris.
Thence shall thy fate be happy, and both a kingdom and a queenly wife
Shall be thine. Thy tears for thy loving Creusa now dispel!
Not I shall see the haughty homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians,
Nor shall I go into slavery for the mothers of the Graii,
I, a daughter-in-law of a son of Dardanus, and divine Venus!
The great mother of the gods keeps me upon these shores!
So now farewell, and protect the love of the son we had.'
"After these words she had spoken, me she left weeping and wishing
To say so much, and like air herself she withdrew into the night.
Thrice I tried then to wrap mine arms about her neck,
Thrice in vain from mine outstretched hands her image fled,
Just as if she were a gentle breeze or like unto a winged dream.
Thus at last, the night now spent, I returned to mine allies dear.
And here a crowd of companions who had thronged new-come
Do I find, and wondering at the number I see mothers and men,
And boys and girls gathered for exile, a pitiable band.
Algates they had together come, with hearts and hands prepared,
Into whatever lands I should wish to lead them hence upon the sea.
So then was rising o'er the mountaintops of Ida Lucifer Light-Bearer,
And leadeth he the day which saw the Danai having tak'n our homes,
And holding the thresholds of every gate. Nor given was any hope of help.
I withdrew, and, having taken up my sire, sought the far-off hills."
In dreams, lo! before my very eyes most gloomy Hector 270
Appeared and came to me, and poured out fat tears,
Dragged as he once was by his foe's team, his body blackened by gory
Dust, and his swollen feet were pierced through with leather thongs.
Oh, how he seemed to me, how changed was he from that
Hector who came back to us wearing the arms of Achilles, 275
Or when at the sterns of the Danaï he cast Phrygian fires --
Now a filthy beard and hair matted with dried blood
And those wounds he bore which around the walls of his father
He so many times received. Weeping, I for my part seemed
To accost the man and cry out to him with sad words: 280
'O light of Dardanus' land, O most loyal hope of the Teucri,
What delays such as these have held thee? From what shores hast thou
So long awaited arrive? How after so many of thy kin's
Burials, after so many toils of thy people and thy city
Do we so wearied see thee? What unworthy cause has defiled 285
Thy calm face? Why do I see such wounds as these?'
"In reply he spoke naught nor me asking nonsense doth he heed,
But deeply doth he a groan from the depths of his breast draw and utters:
'Alas, flee, goddess-born! Escape from these flames!
The enemy hath the walls. Falleth Troy from her lofty height. 290
Enough hath been given to Priamus and his country. If Pergamum could
By my defending hand be saved, it would have been thus defended.
Her holy images and her Penates Troy to thee entrusts --
Take them, these friends of thy fate, and with them seek out city-walls,
Great ones which thou shalt build when the sea hath been at last travailed!' 295
"Thus saieth he, and in his hands the holy fillets and mighty Vesta
And everlasting fire he bore from her inmost shrine.
"Meanwhile, with cries of lamenting here and there are the city-walls filled
More, and now even more, and although hidden was the home
Of my father Anchises, for it stood apart and was shrouded by trees, 300
Clearer grows the din, and the horror of clashing arms advanced.
I am awakened from my sleep, and the gables of the rooftop
I scale in a bound, and with my ears held aloft I stand alert--
Just as when upon a field a fire, blown by raging southerlies,
Springs, when the swift current of a mighty mountain river 305
Rolls o'er crops, rolls o'er the happy harvest and the oxen's toil,
And it sweeps up a forest's trees headlong, while afraid a bewildered
Shepherd stands, hearing the din echoing from a clifftop height.
So then was made clear our foe's false faith, laid bare was the Danaï
Trap. Now Deiphobus' spacious home hath been given to ruin 310
In the overwhelming flames of Vulcan, now hard by catches the home of
Ucalegon, and the broad waters of the Sigeum glow bright with fire.
Riseth the shouts of men and the blasts of the trumpets.
My arms I seize in a mad rush; though there is no reason in using them,
My courage burns to gather a handful of men for war and to rush to the citadel 315
With my comrades. Madness and wrath cast down my mind headlong,
And beautiful it seems to me to die in battle wielding arms.
"And lo! from cast Achivi darts doth Panthus slip into my sight,
Panthus, Othrys' son, a priest of Phoebus' citadel,
And in arm the holy relics of his defeated gods and grandson small 320
The man himself drew both along, and in his mad course reached our door.
'Where is the fighting the most, in what place, Panthus? What tower do we yet hold?'
"Scarcely did I speak when with a groan such words he returned:
'Hath come the final day of doom and the time inescapable
For Dardania -- once we were Trojans. Once this was Ilium, and great 325
Was the glory of Teucer's people. But harsh Jove hath to Argos
Given all! Aflame is the city and the Danai are her master!
The tow'ring horse doth spill armed men as it standeth within our walls,
And in victorious exultation doth Sinon throw fire upon fire
As he jeering laughs! Others are at the double-opened gates, 330
The so many thousands who once came from great Mycenae,
While others with sharp spears pointed throng each narrow alley.
Alert is every sword edge and with flashing point
Held aloft, ev'ry blade is out for blood. Hardly doth our first line,
The sentinels at the gates hold their battles and with blind Mars make a stand!' 335
"After Othrys' son had spoken and I was by the divine will of some god compelled,
Into the flames and into armed combat I was carried, where grim Erinys,
Yea, Fury raiseth her cries and carried to the heavens was the din.
Adding themselves to us, their comrades, are Rhipeus and the greatest man in arms,
Epytus, and, by means of moonlight shining, Hypanis and Dymas we met, 340
And more did cleave themselves to my side, even the youth Coroebus,
Mygdon's son, for in those days he had to Troy come by chance;
For with a mad passion for Cassandra did he burn,
And as our Trojan kin he had aid to Priam and to us Phrygians borne --
O unlucky man, who did not the warnings of his raving betrothed 345
Heed!'
"When these men gathered to dare their lives in battle I surveyed,
O'er the din I spoke these words:
'Men! Brave, but vainly so,
Are thy hearts -- If ye have within ye a desire to follow
A man who would dare all till the end, yea a sure end, then ye see where Fate stands. 350
All our gods have left us, our shrines and altars abandoned,
Gone our gods on whom this kingdom stood -- and ye rush into your city
Your city set aflame! Let us die! and into the midst of arms run to ruin!
The one quarter for the conquered is to hope for quarter none!'
"Thus did mad rage rouse the courage of the youths, and thence like wolves, 355
Like thieving ghosts hidden in dark fog, creatures which a frenzy in their bellies
Hath driven forth in blind roving while their whelps are left behind
And await with dry maws -- just so, through weapons and through the enemy
We wade to meet a scarcely unsure death, and to the middle of the city
We hold our course, while black night doth flit above us with hollow winged shadows. 360
Who could in their telling describe the calamity of yon night, of the deaths,
Or who could by shedding countless tears match our suff'ring?
An ancient city fell, one which once ruled through many years.
Through the streets are strewn about unmoving corpses,
And through homes and thresholds of the gods alike they lay, 365
Scattered here and there. But not only do the Teucri pay the blood penalty:
For even then to vanquished hearts doth valor return,
And some triumphant Danai yet fall. Everywhere lay
Unmerciful lamentation, everywhere dread, and so many a sight of death.
"Our first catch was when in a great company of Danai following 370
Did Androgeos o'ertake us, and, believing us to be forces friendly,
Unknowing fool, he asks us himself with friendly reprimand:
'Come ye men, be quick! For how much idleness doth delay ye?
For others are despoiling and thieving from burning Pergamum, 375
Yet ye now are only just coming from the high ships?"
"Spake he, and forthwith, for not did our answers given in reply
Prove enough of trust, did he realize he was fall'n in the midst of enemies.
He stood dumb, and backwards he stepped but his voice he stopped --
Just as a man doth in sharp thorns upon a unseen serpent tread,
And lighting upon the ground doth fearful pull a-sudden back 380
From the uncoiling wrath and the sea-green hood puffed out --
In the exact same way did Androgeos, trembling from the sight, start back.
We rush them, and enclosed them with crowded weapons,
And these men, unknowing of the ground and taken by fear,
We lay low and strewn about. On our first feat doth Fortune find favor. 385
And rejoicing in our success and spirit, Coroebus saieth:
'Brothers-in-arms, here is where Fortune hath shown
The way of our victory -- the right way she hath shown us, let us follow!
Let us change our shields, and Danai heraldry let us don!
Whether trickery or valor, who against a foe would ask? 390
These dead themselves shall give up their arms.'
"Spoken thus, he then
A crested helm off Androgeos and the emblazoned design upon that corpse's shield
Took up, and to his side straps on the Argive blade.
The same Rhipeus does, and Dymas himself and all the youth
Happily do likewise, and with newfound spoils each man arms himself. 395
We wade, mingled among the Danai, in colors not our own,
And many a battle through the blind night we joined and clashed,
And many of the Danai we sent down to the jaws of Orcus.
Flee did some to their ships, and that shore they had come to know so well
In their running seek. Part of them with shameful fear 400
Did scale again that horse and hide in the now un-hidden belly.
Ah, woe! 'Tis impossible for any to rely on unfavorable gods,
For lo! Dragged by her disheveled hair is Priamus' maiden daughter,
From out the temple and shrine of Minerva was Cassandra dragged,
Lifting to the heavens her burning eyes in vain, 405
Her eyes only, for fetters were heav'ly bound 'bout her tender hands.
 |
| Ajax The Lesser Drags Cassandra from the Palladium |
Not this sight could Coroebus bear in his enraged heart,
And into the midst of the mob he threw himself, resolved to die,
And the rest of us follow and rush forth with thickly packed blades.
Here all changed: from a lofty top of a shrine are Trojan spears cast, 410
By our own men we are felled, and a most sad slaughter ensued,
For we were undone by the appearance of our Graian arms and mistaken crests.
It was then the Danai, with a cry of rage at the maid'n rescued,
Algates gathered and rushed -- most savage Ajax was there,
And the two brothers, Atreus' sons, and the whole Dolopian army. 415
Hard they hit us, how when broken is a storm and the winds
Clash together, the winds Zephyrus and Notus, and upon his steeds
Of breaking daylight comes Eurus; and all the forests' branches groan, and rageth
Foamy Nereus with his trident and stirs he the waves from the sea's deepest depths.
For we, while many that dark night we did cast into the shades, 420
Felled by our camouflage, and throughout the city we routed them,
Now we are found out! Our shields first, then of our lying weapons
Take they better notice, and then at last of our tongues ill trying their speech.
'Tis over. We are by their number undone: for first Coroebus
Was by Peneleus' sword-hand at the arm-bearing goddess' altar 425
Laid flat, and then fell Rhipeus, one of the most righteous of us
Among Teucer's people, and the most obedient to righteousness --
Though it must have to the gods seem'd otherwise. Perish did Hypanis and Dymas,
Run through by their own allies. Neither did thine excessive devotion, Panthus,
Nor thy priestly chaplets of Apollo shield Troy as she fell! 430
O ashes of Ilium, my country, funeral flames of both kin and friends of mine,
I survive a witness that at your end, my kin, neither weapon nor any
Treachery of the Danai did I shun, and, had the Fates been
That indeed I should have fall'n, then deserving I would be! For thence we split,
Iphitus and Pelias with me, but of them Iphitus by age 435
Was now weighed down, and Pelias slowed by a wound Ulixes-dealt.
So headlong to the throne of Priamus we went, summoned by the din.
"But here was the fight so great that it was as if no where else
Did the war rage, no one else lay dying in the whole city.
For here was Mars untamable: Danai swarming the roof 440
We espy, as well as the door besieged by tortoise-shielded men.
Cling to the walls do ladders, and at the very doorposts
Men scale their rungs, and employing their shields against the raining spears
They shield with their left, while they cling to the gables with their right.
Sons of Dardanus against their foe o'erturn their own towers, 445
The very rooftops of their homes they cast down. For their final hour they see,
And are readied 'till their dying breath to defend with any weapon:
Gilded beams, the once lofty orn'ments of bygone kings
They bring crashing down, while others with drawn blades
Besiege the inmost hallways and guard them with crowded ranks. 450
Steadfast are their hearts, for they rush to the king's rooms,
To both relieve their men with their aid, and give courage to the vanquished.
"There was a doorway, a dark gate and passage which passed
Betwixt the halls of Priamus, its doors left far back
In the palace rear, where, while our kingdom stood, 455
Unlucky Andromache would oft in her custom come alone
To her in-laws, and to Astyanax's grandfather bring the boy.
I now slip away to the gable of the rooftop, whence
Wrath-thrown weapons wretched Teucri from hand keep casting.
Suddenly, a tower standing skyward 'neath the stars 460
Rising from the rooftops, whence all of Troia could be seen --
As well as the Danai' long-accustomed ships and the Achaian camp --
This our men suddenly rushed, and beset algates with iron, they struck
The fast'nings, making deep'ning cracks as it tottered, and then we o'erturned
From its very roots, and we took it down. Its fall a sudden a ruin 465
Made with such a crash, and widely o'ertop of the Danai vanguard
It fell. But other soldiers take their place, and neither rock nor any
Other weapon does their host ever yield in using.
"Before the entrance hall itself and the palace gates stood Pyrrhus
In triumph, all a-gleam with weapons and flashing bronze -- 470
Just like when under sunlight a serpent, after feeding on evil herbs,
Then takes beneath the earth, and the winter days shelter his swollen coils;
But now, with its scales shed, renewed and so a-gleam with youth,
It lifts its breast to the upper world, and unrolls its slick back
And merciless length towards the sun, flickering a tri-split tongue from its mouth. 475
With him are enormous Periphas and the driver of the team of Achilles,
The arms-bearer Automedon, and with him the whole of the Scyrian youth
Charge the walls, and then flames they hurl at the roof.
Pyrrhus himself stood amidst the foremost, and with a double-headed axe taken up,
The doors themselves he rent asunder, and off the posts ripped he the hinges, 480
Those posts of bronze. And once the planks were hacked away, he burrowed
Through the oak, 'till a yawning window he gave it, a wide mouth.
Lo! Beheld they the inner home, the long court lies open,
Lo! Behold they the heart of Priamus' palace, and of his fathers, kings of old,
And the armed men they see standing on the threshold's other side. 485
The inner home of the king with wailing and a wretched woeful uproar
Was into chaos thrown, and the hallways within echo with shrieks,
Women's wails, and the din to the gold'n stars was raised.
Then the trembling mothers throughout the palace wander,
And, wrapping their arms about the columns, dearly cling and farewell kisses plant. 490
Nigh draweth Pyrrhus with his father's wrath, for neither door nor the guards themselves
Can against him stand. And then under his ram's repeated blows
Falleth another door, and ripped apart are the hinges, the doorposts lie supine.
A way is made by will of his wrath, and the Danai burst in, butcher the guards,
And the invading soldiery take up their places throughout the halls. 495
Not so violently doth a churning river swell and o'ercome a hillock
In its surge, and then sweep the following hills in its swirling flood,
Is carried into the farmlands, collected into a lake, and throughout all the plains
Drives from their pens the farmers' cattle. I myself saw him raging,
With slaughter driven mad, Neoptolemus, and Atreus' two sons in the doorway. 500
I saw Hecuba and her hundred daughters, and Priamus who was with his own blood
Befouling the altars which he himself had once consecrated with fire.
There fifty marriage-chambers he had built, such a hope for long-lived heirs,
Rooms haughtily-wrought with barbaric gold and sumpt'ous skins,
Which then lay downtrodden. The Danai hold them now, whatever the fire did not take. 505
"Perhaps now thou may'st ask what of the doom of Priamus?
When beheld he his city tak'n and fall'n down, his gates o'erturned,
And the enemy deep within his very inner court,
His armor, so long unaccustomed doth he in vain strap to his shoulders
Which now tremble because of old age, and the worthless iron 510
To his side he doth gird -- for ready is he to die in the midst of his foes.
In the center of the courtyard, 'neath the wide and open sky,
Stood an altar huge and intertwined it was with a most ancient laurel,
At whose roots the shrine lay and its holy shade housed the Penates dear.
Here Hecuba and her daughters in vain about the altar clung, 515
Like panicked doves huddling in a dark'ning storm --
Tightly packed they sit, and cleave to the statues of the gods.
When upon Priamus, the king himself, her husband who had taken up the youthful arms
She had laid her eyes, she spake,
'What idea so dread, wretched husband,
Hath compelled thee to be girded by these arms? Whither shalt thou run to die? 520
Neither such aid as this nor such help as those accursed arms can give
Doth the time require, not even if with thee now went mine own Hector!
Hither come, please! I implore, yield, thou! This altar shall watch o'er us in protection,
All of us, or together shall we die.'
Her words thusly said, she then took him
In her arms, and set his long-aged self next to her in that sacred seat. 525
"But lo! Escape from Pyrrhus' slaughter did Polites, slipped away
This one young son of Priamus, running through the flying spears, through the foe,
And along the colonnade he flew, and through the empty courts he went,
Wounded all the way. Him doth Pyrrhus follow, yearning hard for that fatal blow --
And now he hath hard in hand his spear and upon the fleeing man he pounced! -- 530
And then, at last, before the eyes and face of his parents
The young man fell, and his life with much blood he poured forth.
Here Priamus, though he stood with death all about him,
Could not hold back, nor was he able to keep from voice and rage:
'Woe unto thee, woe for thy crime!' shouted he. 'For the things thou hast dared, 535
The gods, if there be left any faith in heaven, any gods to have a care,
Then let them pay thee worthy prizes and rewards let them grant,
Rewards to thee owed, thou who hast made me see mine own son's death,
Thou who hast befouled a father's sight with a son's murder!
Ah, thou liest when say'st thou wert by Achilles sired, 540
A man once such a foe to Priamus! But oaths and honored faith
Made him blush at a suppliant, and my Hector's bloodless body
He for burial returned, and me he sent back to mine own kingdom!'
Thus the old man spake, and his unwarlike weapon without force
He cast, but was forthwith by the harsh bronze turned aside, 545
And from the shield-boss' outer edge it hung there in vain.
To him Pyrrhus spake:
'Thou shalt bear thus these tidings and be a messenger
To Peleus' son, my father: to him tell these sad things I have done,
How Neoptolemus hath his sires he shamed -- remember all.
Now die.'
Saying thus, to the altar itself he dragged the trembling man, 550
Who in the pooling blood of his own son slipped as he was pulled.
Pyrrhus' left hand curled about the hair, and his right did the gleaming sword
Draw forth. And yea, into the old man's side -- up to the hilt -- he buried the blade.
This was the end of Priamus, here his doom, this the end he drew by lot,
To see Troia, his city, set aflame, the height of Pergamum fall; 555
A haughty man he once was, and o'er the peoples and lands of Asia
Once was a ruling lord -- but last I knew his corpse lieth upon the shore,
Head severed from the shoulders, a body without a name.
 |
| Jules Lefebvre, La mort de Priam |
"And then a-sudden the awful terror of the scene was all around me,
And I stood dumb. The memory of mine own dear sire came to me, 560
As the king, a man of equal age to him, from a cruel wound I beheld
Was then breathing out his life. Came to then my abandoned Creusa,
And our home ransacked, and the death or enslavement of my little Iulus.
I look back, and take in what forces or aid are at hand for me:
None -- they have given up, all war-wearied, and either their bodies in leaping 565
They have thrown to the earth, or have cast their suffering selves into the flames.
"And now I am the only one left, when at the threshold of Vesta's house,
A women, clinging to safety, quiet she lay in hiding in a secret place,
Do I espy: Ah! Tyndareus' daughter! For the burning fires give a glowing light
To show my way as I wander, and bring to my eyes the lay of all else. 570
With Pergamum's kingdom o'erthrown, and dreading the intents of angry Teucri,
Or what vengeance the Danai planned, or what wrath her abandoned husband felt,
This Erinys, accursed Fury! common curse of Troy and her father's land,
Had hid herself away, and at that altar the hateful bitch was sitting.
Fires burned in my soul. A sudden wrath came to me, that my dying country 575
I should avenge, make her pay for her wicked crimes, and so spake I:
'Forsooth! unharmed shall this bitch again her Sparta see, and her father's land,
And Mycenae! Ah, this queen shall walk in a triumph of her own making!
Her husband, her palace, her parents, her children, all of them she shall see,
While women of Ilium and children of Phrygia wait on her hand and foot? 580
Would Priamus have had to been cut down by iron? Troia by fire burnt?
Would those sands upon the strand sweat Dardanus' children's blood?
Nay, naught would change, and there be no boast -- none at all -- to be made
In making a woman pay, nor lieth there any praise in such a victory --
Yet, to have snuffed out this evil and to have endured the penalties owed, 585
Then I shall find praise, and it will be a comfort to have glutted my soul
With avenging flames and to have thus sated the sad ashes of my kin!'
"Such words I spat and I was carried off by my enraged heart,
When lo! before me -- ah, n'er before was she so clear to mine eyes --
Did my mother appear, and flashed she throughout the night in pure light, 590
My gracious mother, clearly a goddess, as she appeareth
In heaven above, how she is wont to seem. And with her right hand
She grasped and stayed me, and from her rosy lips spoke these words besides:
'My son, what pain such as this hath roused such untamable wrath within thee?
Why dost thou rage so, or whither flees thy concern for me? 595
Shalt thou no sooner look again to find where thy father, wearied from old age,
Thou hast left behind, yea good Anchises? Doth survive thy wife Creusa?
What of thy boy, Ascanius? Yea, they are girded about algates,
For the Graian ranks wander all about, and, lest my aid oppose the foe,
Already the enemy would have cast them into flames or fed their hungry blades. 600
The source of thy woe is not the hateful beauty of Tyndareus' Spartan daughter,
Nor is Paris at fault: it is the gods' merciless cruelty, the gods' I say! --
Which hath o'erturned this kingdom and laid low Troia from her lofty height.
Lo, behold! For the veil, which hath been drawn o'er thine eyes
And now dims thy mortal sight and darkens all about with murky shade, 605
Yea, this cloud I remove from thee. Nay, thy mother's commands
Fear not thou, nor shrink from obeying what I have bidden thee:
Here, where the buildings are asunder split and stones from stones
Cast apart thou see'st as well as the swelling smoke with ash a-mingled?
'Tis Neptunus who the walls and the foundations stir and shake with his 610
Trident great, and the city entire from its throne seeketh he to unseat.
Here 'tis Juno, most cruel goddess, who at the Scaean gates
Doth lead the enemy, and in her madness her allied army
Calleth she, who is with sword herself girded. --
And here, on the highest towers doth Tritonia -- see her, thou? -- yea, Pallas 615
Perch, and cloud-clad doth flashing lightning cast and shake the Gorgon cruel.
The Father himself have to the Danai favorable courage and strength
Bestowed, yea, the Father himself hath roused the gods 'gainst Trojan arms.
Take thou now, son, thy flight, and put an end to thy toil.
N'er shall I leave thee, and safe I shall put thee on thy father's door.' 620
"Thus she had spoken, and in the dense shadows she hid herself.
Clear to me were the dread forms and power hateful to Troy,
The mighty power of the gods. --
But then 'twas beheld to me all Ilium sunk down into fires,
And from their depths were o'erturned the Neptunian walls of Troia, 625
Just as when about some ancient wild ash which in the mountaintops
Do woodsmen surround with iron and with their two-fold ax-heads,
Bring down in contest with each other -- and so the tree threatens to fall,
And trembling it bows its head from its stricken top,
And gradually wound by wound 'til o'ercome, it gives at last 630
Its final groan, and it is pulled from the ruin of the mountain.
So I descend from the citadel, and with a goddess leading me, through flame and foe
I withdraw in flight. Weapons from my path give way, while flames bend back.
And so then to the threshold of my father's home I arrived,
Our ancient ancestral seat, when lo! my forebearer, whom I wished to bear away 635
To mountains tall first of all and 'ere all else it was him I sought,
Shook his head and vowed not to prolong his life after Troy had fallen,
Or to endure in exile:
'Ah, ye, whose blood hath the bloom of life,'
Saieth he,
'and strong is your strength, like unto a mighty oak,
Ah, flee, take your flight! -- 640
If heaven's dwellers would wish for me to continue on my life,
They would protect this home of mine. Enough and more so
Hath it been to see my city sacked only once, much less survive her.
Yea, as I am now, yea, leave and bid farewell to me, a corpse.
I myself shall by mine own hand find death or some foe will have pity 645
And seek to despoil me of my life. Ah, easy it is to have no grave!
Long since hath I been hated by heaven and in these useless years
I tarry, from that time when the Father of gods and the King of men
Breathed at me his lightning's blast and touched me with his fire.'
"Such things he related reminiscing while standing firm and fast he tarried. 650
For our part we poured out tears, my good wife Creusa,
My boy Ascanius, and all the household, lest my father would wish
To have all join the ruin with himself and to lie helpless 'gainst our onrushing doom.
He cried nay, and to his declared purpose and his chair he clung all the same.
Again I don my arms, and death do I, a most pitiful wretch, long to seek out, 655
For what counsel or what fate doth lie in store for me and mine?
"I spake:
'Shall I be abandoned, from me shalt thou walk another path, father?
Is this thy hope? Did such a blaspheme fall from upon my father's lips?
If it pleaseth not the powers above to leave aught alive in so great a city as this,
And this same judgment be in thine own mind, to add to Troia's passing 660
Thee and thy family -- if that be thy wish, then open lies the door to thy ruin!
Already comes hither Pyrrhus, dripping in the much-shed blood of Priamus!
A son he struck down before his father's eyes, and then the father at the altar!
Was it for this, my loving mother, that through spears and through fire
Thou didst save and guide me, so that the enemy in our inmost midst, 665
So that Ascanius, and my father, and my wife Creusa all together
I would see cruelly slaughtered, one after the other in each other's blood?
Arms, men, pick up your arms! Calleth this final hour to the vanquished!
Return me to the Danai! Release me, and I shall see these battles renewed!
Nay, not today, not shall every one of us die while still un-avenged!' 670
"Hence by iron am I girded again, and with a shield on my left hand
Do I fit and adjust, and then outside my home do I myself betake.
But lo! at the threshold dost my wife embrace my feet with her arms,
And clinging thus, she held forth little Iulus to his father dear, saying:
'If thou wouldst go to rush into death, oh! take us with thee 'gainst all! 675
But if thou wouldst trust and place some hope within thy girded arms,
First make safe this house. To whom shall Iulus be left,
And thy father and thy wife who once was called thine?'
"Crying such words, with a groan did all the household fill,
When a sudden sight appeareth and is seen -- ah, wond'rous to tell! 680
For between the faces and the arms of his weeping parents,
Lo! a slight tongue of flame is seen on the top of Iulus' head,
Yea, a light blazed forth, yet, at the touch, unhurt and soft
Did the flame lick at his hair and feed about his temples.
Fearful, we quaked with dread and the burning hair 685
We tried to beat and quench the holy fire with water.
But father Anchises, happy at last, lifted his eyes to the sky,
And to heaven stretched his upturned palms with a loud cry:
'Jove the Father the Almighty, if thou shalt sway me with any prayers,
Turn to us thy sight! Such aid as this, if such holy devotion we are worthy, 690
Give to us then, Father, and confirm these omens thou hast given!'
Scarcely had these things my father uttered, when with a sudden crash
Thunder sounded on the left, and from heaven fell through the shadows
A star drawing a torch of much blazing fire, and thus it ran across the sky.
When it fell above the highest roofs of the city's tops, 695
We saw it bury itself deep within the forest of Ida's mountain,
And thus showed us a clear way, for with a long line doth its furrow
Show a blazing path, and the place billows with burning smoke.
And here my convinced sire raised his gaze to the airy sky
And addresseth he the gods and gave thanks unto that holy star: 700
'Let there now be no more delay -- I follow where ye lead. I am there!
My fathers' gods, protect ye this house, protect ye your offspring!
Yours is this augury, and in your majesty Troia yet survives.
Yea, I yield, and not shall I refuse to be thy companion, dear son.'
"Thus he had spoken, and o'er the walls is the brighter conflagration 705
Heard, and closer did the heat roll off the swelling flames.
I spake:
'And now come, dear father, on my neck place yourself.
I myself shall stoop with my shoulders, and not shall thy toil burden me.
Whatever should befall us, one danger shall be with us common,
A single salvation for us both. To me shall little Iulus 710
Run beside, and far back shall my wife keep to our footfalls.
Ye, O household slaves, to what I shall say now turn in your minds:
There is by a way out of the city a mound and temple old
Devoted to Ceres, now deserted, with an ancient cypress intertwined,
And kept it was by our fathers' reverence down through the many years -- 715
From all our separate paths we shall come to there to meet.
Thou, my forebearer, take within thy hand the holy idols and our fathers' Penates;
For me, having just from such war and erstwhile slaughter hither come,
To take would an abomination be, until myself in a running river
I do cleanse.' -- 720
"These words I spake, and my shoulders broad and bent neck
I covered with a cloak made from a tawny lion's pelt,
And took up I my load. Around my right hand did little Iulus
Wind himself and followeth he his father with his unequal stride.
Behind my wife comes after. We are swept on through the alleys' shadows. 725
As for me, whom for some time now no weaponcast at all daunted,
Nor the Graii packed together in their oncoming array,
Now all the very breezes cause alarm, each sound awakes my dread,
And anxiously I fear for him at my side and him, my shoulders' burden.
And when I approached the gates and seemed to have avoided 730
All the main streets, a sudden sound seemed to come to our ears,
A sound of closely-packed footfalls, and my father through the darkness
Peering cried,
"Son! Flee, my son! They nigh approach!
Their blazing bucklers and brandished bronze I do make out!'
"Here some evil god I know not, no friend to me in my anxiety, 735
Took what was left of my clouded mind, for while some pathless way
I follow, and from the streets I knew I then withdrew --
Ah alas! was it then that snatched from her unhappy husband was Creusa?
For she was gone. Wandereth she astray? Or swooning fell?
I could not know. And n'er again to mine eyes was she returned. 740
But not did I look back or turn my thought at all again,
Until the mound of ancient Ceres and her sacred seat
We came. Here, at last, though all were collected as one together, she alone
Was not there, and the notice of her friends, her son, and her husband she 'scaped.
Whom did I not accuse in my madness, be he man or god, 745
And what more merciless sight had I beheld in the city's fall?
Ascanius and Anchises my father and the Penates of Teucer
I entrusted to my comrades and in bending vale I hid them.
And then I myself to the city return, and I am ringed about by flashing arms.
Resolved was I to renew all these disasters, and to be returned through 750
All of Troia, and to stake my head again against the perils.
"First the walls and the darkened threshold of the gate --
Where I had borne my step -- did I seek again, and for my footfalls
Back do I look and follow them through the night and with torch make bright.
Though horror is everywhere, the very silence in my soul birthed terror new. 755
Thence to the house, by one way if she haply strayed, another mayhaps she did --
I try them all again. But the Danai had taken o'er, and every home they held.
Then a-sudden the all-devouring flame to the gable-tops by the gale
Is swelled. The flames o'ercome the house, and blazeth the heat in the air.
And then I go to Priamus' throne, and the citadel I again search out. 760
But now in the empty columned halls of Juno's temple
The chosen guards do stand, Phoenix and dread Ulixes,
O'erlooking all the plunder. Hither algates had Trojan treasure
Been dragged, taken from the burning altars: tables made for gods,
Craters made entirely of gold, and stol'n clothing
All piled high. And boys and mothers pallid all in a long line
Do stand about. --
Even dared I to shout my voice throughout the shadows dark,
And I filled the streets with cries, and sorrowful I in vain
Did groan for Creusa and again and again call her by voice.
As I sought her and throughout the homes of the city raved without end,
The unlucky ghost and shade of my Creusa, yea of herself,
Did appear to me before mine eyes and larger her likeness seemed.
I stood dumb, my hairs stood on end, and my voice to my throat clung.
Then me she thus addressed and my worries relieved with these words:
'What good doth it do to wallow in such painful madness as this,
O sweet husband? Not without the majesty of the gods did these
Come to pass. Nor hence was it ordained for thee to carry off Creusa
As thy companion -- as decreed the ruler of Olympus above.
Long shall be thine exile, and vast must be the sea thou plough'st.
To the land of Hesperia thou shalt come, where a Lydian stream
Betwixt the fertile plains of men flows in gentle course, Father Thybris.
Thence shall thy fate be happy, and both a kingdom and a queenly wife
Shall be thine. Thy tears for thy loving Creusa now dispel!
Not I shall see the haughty homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians,
Nor shall I go into slavery for the mothers of the Graii,
I, a daughter-in-law of a son of Dardanus, and divine Venus!
The great mother of the gods keeps me upon these shores!
So now farewell, and protect the love of the son we had.'
"After these words she had spoken, me she left weeping and wishing
To say so much, and like air herself she withdrew into the night.
Thrice I tried then to wrap mine arms about her neck,
Thrice in vain from mine outstretched hands her image fled,
Just as if she were a gentle breeze or like unto a winged dream.
Thus at last, the night now spent, I returned to mine allies dear.
And here a crowd of companions who had thronged new-come
Do I find, and wondering at the number I see mothers and men,
And boys and girls gathered for exile, a pitiable band.
Algates they had together come, with hearts and hands prepared,
Into whatever lands I should wish to lead them hence upon the sea.
So then was rising o'er the mountaintops of Ida Lucifer Light-Bearer,
And leadeth he the day which saw the Danai having tak'n our homes,
And holding the thresholds of every gate. Nor given was any hope of help.
I withdrew, and, having taken up my sire, sought the far-off hills."
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