confess to thee the truth; nor will I deny myself of Argolic birth--this
first--nor, if Fortune hath made Sinon unhappy, shall her malice mould
him to a cheat and a liar. Hath a tale of the name of Palamedes, son of
Belus, haply reached thine ears, and of his glorious rumour and renown;
whom under false evidence the Pelasgians, because he forbade the war,
sent innocent to death by wicked witness; now they bewail him when he
hath left the light;--in his company, being near of blood, my father,
poor as he was, sent me hither to arms from mine earliest years. While
he stood unshaken in royalty and potent in the councils of the kings, we
too wore a name and honour. When by subtle Ulysses' malice (no unknown
tale do I tell) [91-124]he left the upper regions, my shattered life
crept on in darkness and grief, inly indignant at the fate of my
innocent friend. Nor in my madness was I silent: and, should any chance
offer, did I ever return a conqueror to my native Argos, I vowed myself
his avenger, and with my words I stirred his bitter hatred. From this
came the first taint of ill; from this did Ulysses ever threaten me with
fresh charges, from this flung dark sayings among the crowd and sought
confederate arms. Nay, nor did he rest, till by Calchas' service--but
yet why do I vainly unroll the unavailing tale, or why hold you in
delay, if all Achaeans are ranked together in your mind, and it is
enough that I bear the name? Take the vengeance deferred; this the
Ithacan would desire, and the sons of Atreus buy at a great ransom."
'Then indeed we press on to ask and inquire the cause, witless of
wickedness so great and Pelasgian craft. Tremblingly the false-hearted
one pursues his speech:
'"Often would the Grecians have taken to flight, leaving Troy behind,
and disbanded in weariness of the long war: and would God they had! as
often the fierce sea-tempest barred their way, and the gale frightened
them from going. Most of all when this horse already stood framed with
beams of maple, storm clouds roared over all the sky. In perplexity we
send Eurypylus to inquire of Phoebus' oracle; and he brings back from
the sanctuary these words of terror: _With blood of a slain maiden, O
Grecians, you appeased the winds when first you came to the Ilian
coasts; with blood must you seek your return, and an Argive life be the
accepted sacrifice._ When that utterance reached the ears of the crowd,
their hearts stood still, and a cold shudder ran through their inmost
sense: for whom is doom purposed? who is claimed of Apollo? At this the
Ithacan with loud clamour drags Calchas the soothsayer forth amidst
them, and demands of him what is this the gods signify. And now many an
one [125-158]foretold me the villain's craft and cruelty, and silently
saw what was to come. Twice five days he is speechless in his tent, and
will not have any one denounced by his lips, or given up to death.
Scarcely at last, at the loud urgence of the Ithacan, he breaks into
speech as was planned, and appoints me for the altar. All consented; and
each one's particular fear was turned, ah me! to my single destruction.
And now the dreadful day was at hand; the rites were being ordered for
me, the salted corn, and the chaplets to wreathe my temples. I broke
away, I confess it, from death; I burst my bonds, and lurked all night
darkling in the sedge of the marshy pool, till they might set their
sails, if haply they should set them. Nor have I any hope more of seeing
my old home nor my sweet children and the father whom I desire. Of them
will they even haply claim vengeance for my flight, and wash away this
crime in their wretched death. By the heavenly powers I beseech thee,
the deities to whom truth is known, by all the faith yet unsullied that
is anywhere left among mortals; pity woes so great; pity an undeserving
sufferer."
'At these his tears we grant him life, and accord our pity. Priam
himself at once commands his shackles and strait bonds to be undone, and
thus speaks with kindly words: "Whoso thou art, now and henceforth
dismiss and forget the Greeks: thou shalt be ours. And unfold the truth
to this my question: wherefore have they reared this vast size of horse?
who is their counsellor? or what their aim? what propitiation, or what
engine of war is this?" He ended; the other, stored with the treacherous
craft of Pelasgia, lifts to heaven his freed hands. "You, everlasting
fires," he cries, "and your inviolable sanctity be my witness; you, O
altars and accursed swords I fled, and chaplets of the gods I wore as
victim! unblamed may I break the oath of Greek allegiance, unblamed hate
them and bring all to light that they [159-191]conceal; nor am I bound
by any laws of country. Do thou only keep by thy promise, O Troy, and
preserve faith with thy preserver, as my news shall be true, as my
recompense great.
'"All the hope of Greece, and the confidence in which the war began,
ever centred in Pallas' aid. But since the wicked son of Tydeus, and
Ulysses, forger of crime, made bold to tear the fated Palladium from her
sanctuary, and cut down the sentries on the towered height; since they
grasped the holy image, and dared with bloody hands to touch the maiden
chaplets of the goddess; since then the hope of Greece ebbed and slid
away backwards, their strength was broken, and the mind of the goddess
estranged. Whereof the Tritonian gave token by no uncertain signs.
Scarcely was the image set in the camp; flame shot sparkling from its
lifted eyes, and salt sweat started over its body; thrice, wonderful to
tell, it leapt from the ground with shield and spear quivering.
Immediately Calchas prophesies that the seas must be explored in flight,
nor may Troy towers be overthrown by Argive weapons, except they repeat
their auspices at Argos, and bring back that divine presence they have
borne away with them in the curved ships overseas. And now they have run
down the wind for their native Mycenae, to gather arms and gods to
attend them; they will remeasure ocean and be on you unawares. So
Calchas expounds the omens. This image at his warning they reared in
recompense for the Palladium and the injured deity, to expiate the
horror of sacrilege. Yet Calchas bade them raise it to this vast size
with oaken crossbeams, and build it up to heaven, that it may not find
entry at the gates nor be drawn within the city, nor protect your people
beneath the consecration of old. For if hand of yours should violate
Minerva's offering, then utter destruction (the gods turn rather on
himself his augury!) should be upon Priam's empire and [192-226]the
Phrygian people. But if under your hands it climbed into your city, Asia
should advance in mighty war to the walls of Pelops, and a like fate
awaited our children's children."
'So by Sinon's wiles and craft and perjury the thing gained belief; and
we were ensnared by treachery and forced tears, we whom neither the son
of Tydeus nor Achilles of Larissa, whom not ten years nor a thousand
ships brought down.
'Here another sight, greater, alas! and far more terrible meets us, and
alarms our thoughtless senses. Laocoön, allotted priest of Neptune, was
slaying a great bull at the accustomed altars. And lo! from Tenedos,
over the placid depths (I shudder as I recall) two snakes in enormous
coils press down the sea and advance together to the shore; their
breasts rise through the surge, and their blood-red crests overtop the
waves; the rest trails through the main behind and wreathes back in
voluminous curves; the brine gurgles and foams. And now they gained the
fields, while their bloodshot eyes blazed with fire, and their tongues
lapped and flickered in their hissing mouths. We scatter, pallid at the
sight. They in unfaltering train make towards Laocoön. And first the
serpents twine in their double embrace his two little children, and bite
deep in their wretched limbs; then him likewise, as he comes up to help
with arms in his hand, they seize and fasten in their enormous coils;
and now twice clasping his waist, twice encircling his neck with their
scaly bodies, they tower head and neck above him. He at once strains his
hands to tear their knots apart, his fillets spattered with foul black
venom; at once raises to heaven awful cries; as when, bellowing, a bull
shakes the wavering axe from his neck and runs wounded from the altar.
But the two snakes glide away to the high sanctuary and seek the fierce
Tritonian's citadel, [227-261]and take shelter under the goddess' feet
beneath the circle of her shield. Then indeed a strange terror thrills
in all our amazed breasts; and Laocoön, men say, hath fulfilled his
crime's desert, in piercing the consecrated wood and hurling his guilty
spear into its body. All cry out that the image must be drawn to its
home and supplication made to her deity. . . . We sunder the walls, and
lay open the inner city. All set to the work; they fix rolling wheels
under its feet, and tie hempen bands on its neck. The fated engine
climbs our walls, big with arms. Around it boys and unwedded girls chant
hymns and joyfully lay their hand on the rope. It moves up, and glides
menacing into the middle of the town. O native land! O Ilium, house of
gods, and Dardanian city renowned in war! four times in the very gateway
did it come to a stand, and four times armour rang in its womb. Yet we
urge it on, mindless and infatuate, and plant the ill-ominous thing in
our hallowed citadel. Even then Cassandra opens her lips to the coming
doom, lips at a god's bidding never believed by the Trojans. We, the
wretched people, to whom that day was our last, hang the shrines of the
gods with festal boughs throughout the city. Meanwhile the heavens wheel
on, and night rises from the sea, wrapping in her vast shadow earth and
sky and the wiles of the Myrmidons; about the town the Teucrians are
stretched in silence; slumber laps their tired limbs.
'And now the Argive squadron was sailing in order from Tenedos, and in
the favouring stillness of the quiet moon sought the shores it knew;
when the royal galley ran out a flame, and, protected by the gods'
malign decrees, Sinon stealthily lets loose the imprisoned Grecians from
their barriers of pine; the horse opens and restores them to the air;
and joyfully issuing from the hollow wood, Thessander and Sthenelus the
captains, and terrible Ulysses, [262-295]slide down the dangling rope,
with Acamas and Thoas and Neoptolemus son of Peleus, and Machaon first
of all, and Menelaus, and Epeüs himself the artificer of the treachery.
They sweep down the city buried in drunken sleep; the watchmen are cut
down, and at the open gates they welcome all their comrades, and unite
their confederate bands.
'It was the time when by the gift of God rest comes stealing first and
sweetest on unhappy men. In slumber, lo! before mine eyes Hector seemed
to stand by, deep in grief and shedding abundant tears; torn by the
chariot, as once of old, and black with gory dust, his swoln feet
pierced with the thongs. Ah me! in what guise was he! how changed from
the Hector who returns from putting on Achilles' spoils, or launching
the fires of Phrygia on the Grecian ships! with ragged beard and tresses
clotted with blood, and all the many wounds upon him that he received
around his ancestral walls. Myself too weeping I seemed to accost him
ere he spoke, and utter forth mournful accents: "O light of Dardania, O
surest hope of the Trojans, what long delay is this hath held thee? from
what borders comest thou, Hector our desire? with what weary eyes we see
thee, after many deaths of thy kin, after divers woes of people and
city! What indignity hath marred thy serene visage? or why discern I
these wounds?" He replies naught, nor regards my idle questioning; but
heavily drawing a heart-deep groan, "Ah, fly, goddess-born," he says,
"and rescue thyself from these flames. The foe holds our walls; from her
high ridges Troy is toppling down. Thy country and Priam ask no more. If
Troy towers might be defended by strength of hand, this hand too had
been their defence. Troy commends to thee her holy things and household
gods; take them to accompany thy fate; seek for them a city, which,
after all the seas have known thy wanderings, thou shalt at last
establish in [296-327]might." So speaks he, and carries forth in his
hands from their inner shrine the chaplets and strength of Vesta, and
the everlasting fire.
'Meanwhile the city is stirred with mingled agony; and more and more,
though my father Anchises' house lay deep withdrawn and screened by
trees, the noises grow clearer and the clash of armour swells. I shake
myself from sleep and mount over the sloping roof, and stand there with
ears attent: even as when flame catches a corn-field while south winds
are furious, or the racing torrent of a mountain stream sweeps the
fields, sweeps the smiling crops and labours of the oxen, and hurls the
forest with it headlong; the shepherd in witless amaze hears the roar
from the cliff-top. Then indeed proof is clear, and the treachery of the
Grecians opens out. Already the house of Deïphobus hath crashed down in
wide ruin amid the overpowering flames; already our neighbour Ucalegon
is ablaze: the broad Sigean bay is lit with the fire. Cries of men and
blare of trumpets rise up. Madly I seize my arms, nor is there so much
purpose in arms; but my spirit is on fire to gather a band for fighting
and charge for the citadel with my comrades. Fury and wrath drive me
headlong, and I think how noble is death in arms.
'And lo! Panthus, eluding the Achaean weapons, Panthus son of Othrys,
priest of Phoebus in the citadel, comes hurrying with the sacred vessels
and conquered gods and his little grandchild in his hand, and runs
distractedly towards my gates. "How stands the state, O Panthus? what
stronghold are we to occupy?" Scarcely had I said so, when groaning he
thus returns: "The crowning day is come, the irreversible time of the
Dardanian land. No more are we a Trojan people; Ilium and the great
glory of the Teucrians is no more. Angry Jupiter hath cast all into the
scale of Argos. The Grecians are lords of the burning [328-362]town.
The horse, standing high amid the city, pours forth armed men, and Sinon
scatters fire, insolent in victory. Some are at the wide-flung gates,
all the thousands that ever came from populous Mycenae. Others have
beset the narrow streets with lowered weapons; edge and glittering point
of steel stand drawn, ready for the slaughter; scarcely at the entry do
the guards of the gates essay battle, and hold out in the blind fight."
'Heaven's will thus declared by the son of Othrys drives me amid flames
and arms, where the baleful Fury calls, and tumult of shouting rises up.
Rhipeus and Epytus, most mighty in arms, join company with me; Hypanis
and Dymas meet us in the moonlight and attach themselves to our side,
and young Coroebus son of Mygdon. In those days it was he had come to
Troy, fired with mad passion for Cassandra, and bore a son's aid to
Priam and the Phrygians: hapless, that he listened not to his raving
bride's counsels. . . . Seeing them close-ranked and daring for battle,
I therewith began thus: "Men, hearts of supreme and useless bravery, if
your desire be fixed to follow one who dares the utmost; you see what is
the fortune of our state: all the gods by whom this empire was upheld
have gone forth, abandoning shrine and altar; your aid comes to a
burning city. Let us die, and rush on their encircling weapons. The
conquered have one safety, to hope for none."
'So their spirit is heightened to fury. Then, like wolves ravening in a
black fog, whom mad malice of hunger hath driven blindly forth, and
their cubs left behind await with throats unslaked; through the weapons
of the enemy we march to certain death, and hold our way straight into
the town. Night's sheltering shadow flutters dark around us. Who may
unfold in speech that night's horror and death-agony, or measure its
woes in weeping? The [363-397]ancient city falls with her long years of
sovereignty; corpses lie stretched stiff all about the streets and
houses and awful courts of the gods. Nor do Teucrians alone pay forfeit
of their blood; once and again valour returns even in conquered hearts,
and the victorious Grecians fall. Everywhere is cruel agony, everywhere
terror, and the sight of death at every turn.
'First, with a great troop of Grecians attending him, Androgeus meets
us, taking us in ignorance for an allied band, and opens on us with
friendly words: "Hasten, my men; why idly linger so late? others plunder
and harry the burning citadel; are you but now on your march from the
tall ships?" He spoke, and immediately (for no answer of any assurance
was offered) knew he was fallen among the foe. In amazement, he checked
foot and voice; even as one who struggling through rough briers hath
trodden a snake on the ground unwarned, and suddenly shrinks fluttering
back as it rises in anger and puffs its green throat out; even thus
Androgeus drew away, startled at the sight. We rush in and encircle them
with serried arms, and cut them down dispersedly in their ignorance of
the ground and seizure of panic. Fortune speeds our first labour. And
here Coroebus, flushed with success and spirit, cries: "O comrades,
follow me where fortune points before us the path of safety, and shews
her favour. Let us exchange shields, and accoutre ourselves in Grecian
suits; whether craft or courage, who will ask of an enemy? the foe shall
arm our hands." Thus speaking, he next dons the plumed helmet and
beautifully blazoned shield of Androgeus, and fits the Argive sword to
his side. So does Rhipeus, so Dymas in like wise, and all our men in
delight arm themselves one by one in the fresh spoils. We advance,
mingling with the Grecians, under a protection not our own, and join
many a battle [398-432]with those we meet amid the blind night; many a
Greek we send down to hell. Some scatter to the ships and run for the
safety of the shore; some in craven fear again climb the huge horse, and
hide in the belly they knew. Alas that none may trust at all to
estranged gods!
'Lo! Cassandra, maiden daughter of Priam, was being dragged with
disordered tresses from the temple and sanctuary of Minerva, straining
to heaven her blazing eyes in vain; her eyes, for fetters locked her
delicate hands. At this sight Coroebus burst forth infuriate, and flung
himself on death amid their columns. We all follow him up, and charge
with massed arms. Here first from the high temple roof we are
overwhelmed with our own people's weapons, and a most pitiful slaughter
begins through the fashion of our armour and the mistaken Greek crests;
then the Grecians, with angry cries at the maiden's rescue, gather from
every side and fall on us; Ajax in all his valour, and the two sons of
Atreus, and the whole Dolopian army: as oft when bursting in whirlwind
West and South clash with adverse blasts, and the East wind exultant on
the coursers of the Dawn; the forests cry, and fierce in foam Nereus
with his trident stirs the seas from their lowest depth. Those too
appear, whom our stratagem routed through the darkness of dim night and
drove all about the town; at once they know the shields and lying
weapons, and mark the alien tone on our lips. We go down, overwhelmed by
numbers. First Coroebus is stretched by Peneleus' hand at the altar of
the goddess armipotent; and Rhipeus falls, the one man who was most
righteous and steadfast in justice among the Teucrians: the gods' ways
are not as ours: Hypanis and Dymas perish, pierced by friendly hands;
nor did all thy goodness, O Panthus, nor Apollo's fillet protect thy
fall. O ashes of Ilium and death flames of my people! you I call to
witness that in your ruin I [433-465]shunned no Grecian weapon or
encounter, and my hand earned my fall, had destiny been thus. We tear
ourselves away, I and Iphitus and Pelias, Iphitus now stricken in age,
Pelias halting too under the wound of Ulysses, called forward by the
clamour to Priam's house.
'Here indeed the battle is fiercest, as if all the rest of the fighting
were nowhere, and no slaughter but here throughout the city, so do we
descry the war in full fury, the Grecians rushing on the building, and
their shielded column driving up against the beleaguered threshold.
Ladders cling to the walls; and hard by the doors and planted on the
rungs they hold up their shields in the left hand to ward off our
weapons, and with their right clutch the battlements. The Dardanians
tear down turrets and the covering of the house roof against them; with
these for weapons, since they see the end is come, they prepare to
defend themselves even in death's extremity: and hurl down gilded beams,
the stately decorations of their fathers of old. Others with drawn
swords have beset the doorway below and keep it in crowded column. We
renew our courage, to aid the royal dwelling, to support them with our
succour, and swell the force of the conquered.
'There was a blind doorway giving passage through the range of Priam's
halls by a solitary postern, whereby, while our realm endured, hapless
Andromache would often and often glide unattended to her father-in-law's
house, and carry the boy Astyanax to his grandsire. I issue out on the
sloping height of the ridge, whence wretched Teucrian hands were hurling
their ineffectual weapons. A tower stood on the sheer brink, its roof
ascending high into heaven, whence was wont to be seen all Troy and the
Grecian ships and Achaean camp: attacking it with iron round about,
where the joints of the lofty flooring yielded, we wrench it from its
deep foundations and shake it free; it gives way, and [466-498]suddenly
falls thundering in ruin, crashing wide over the Grecian ranks. But
others swarm up; nor meanwhile do stones nor any sort of missile
slacken. . . . Right before the vestibule and in the front doorway
Pyrrhus moves rejoicingly in the sparkle of arms and gleaming brass:
like as when a snake fed on poisonous herbs, whom chill winter kept hid
and swollen underground, now fresh from his weeds outworn and shining in
youth, wreathes his slippery body into the daylight, his upreared breast
meets the sun, and his triple-cloven tongue flickers in his mouth. With
him huge Periphas, and Automedon the armour-bearer, driver of Achilles'
horses, with him all his Scyrian men climb the roof and hurl flames on
the housetop. Himself among the foremost he grasps a poleaxe, bursts
through the hard doorway, and wrenches the brazen-plated doors from the
hinge; and now he hath cut out a plank from the solid oak and pierced a
vast gaping hole. The house within is open to sight, and the long halls
lie plain; open to sight are the secret chambers of Priam and the kings
of old, and they see armed men standing in front of the doorway.
'But the inner house is stirred with shrieks and misery and confusion,
and the court echoes deep with women's wailing; the golden stars are
smitten with the din. Affrighted mothers stray about the vast house, and
cling fast to the doors and print them with kisses. With his father's
might Pyrrhus presses on; nor guards nor barriers can hold out. The gate
totters under the hard driven ram, and the doors fall flat, rent from
the hinge. Force makes way; the Greeks burst through the entrance and
pour in, slaughtering the foremost, and filling the space with a wide
stream of soldiers. Not so furiously when a foaming river bursts his
banks and overflows, beating down the opposing dykes with whirling
water, is he borne mounded over the fields, and sweeps herds and
[499-529]pens all about the plains. Myself I saw in the gateway
Neoptolemus mad in slaughter, and the two sons of Atreus, saw Hecuba and
the hundred daughters of her house, and Priam polluting with his blood
the altar fires of his own consecration. The fifty bridal chambers--so
great was the hope of his children's children--their doors magnificent
with spoils of barbaric gold, have sunk in ruin; where the fire fails
the Greeks are in possession.
'Perchance too thou mayest inquire what was Priam's fate. When he saw
the ruin of his captured city, the gates of his house burst open, and
the enemy amid his innermost chambers, the old man idly fastens round
his aged trembling shoulders his long disused armour, girds on the
unavailing sword, and advances on his death among the thronging foe.