Protesilaus was doomed to leave her. She tried to hold that dear form
fast, but she grasped a shadow; her empty fingers closed helplessly as
Protesilaus vanished from her sight.
With a shriek she fell prone on the temple floor, and the priests who
hurried to their queen's assistance raised a lifeless corpse.
True to her lord, if ever yet was wife, she had followed him to the
Shades; yet alas! in death they were not reunited. The gods are just,
and Laodamia had not yet learnt the lesson of Protesilaus, that there
is a higher and nobler thing even than human love--self-sacrifice and
duty. Therefore she is doomed for a set time to wander in the Mourning
Fields apart from happy ghosts, till her spirit raised and solemnized
by suffering is worthy to meet her lord who walks with the heroes of
old in the dwellings of the blest.
THE DEATH OF HECTOR
BY V. C. TURNBULL
Of all the Trojan warriors none could be compared with their leader,
Hector, the son of Priam. Terrible was he in battle, as the Greeks had
known to their cost; but within the walls of Troy none was more loved
than he; for towards all he was gracious and kindly. To Priam and
Hecuba a dutiful son; aye, even to Paris and Helen, the guilty cause
of unnumbered woes, he showed a brother's spirit. But none knew the
depth of his love and gentleness as did his wife, Andromache, and
their little son, Astyanax. These, in the pauses of the strife around
the walls of Troy, he would seek out, comforting his wife with tender
words and dandling the young child in his strong hands. Such was
Hector, greatest of the Trojans.
Of the Greeks, the greatest in strength and terrible might of battle
was Achilles, son of Peleus and the divine Thetis. A mightier warrior
was he even than Hector himself, and no man unaided of the gods might
fight against him and live.
And when Troy had been besieged for nine long years, and countless
brave warriors had fallen on either side, these two champions of the
Greek and Trojan hosts met face to face. And this is how they came to
fight and how they fared.
Achilles, in high dudgeon with King Agamemnon over what he deemed an
unfair division of spoil, had suddenly withdrawn to his tent and left
the rest to fight on without his aid. But his young comrade in arms
and dearest friend, Patroclus, the son of Menoetius, he at length
permitted to return to the fight, arming him with his own armor. But
him Hector slew, stripping off from his body the armor of Achilles and
donning it himself.
Now, when Achilles heard that Patroclus was dead, his grief was so
terrible that he could scarce be held from laying hands on himself.
But his wrath was stronger than his grief, and he swore to slay the
slayer of his friend. Therefore, forgetting his old quarrel, he
hastened to make peace with Agamemnon. And since his own armor had
been taken by Hector, his mother, Thetis, prevailed upon Vulcan, the
god-smith, to fashion him a corslet, a helmet, and a mighty shield
wrought all round with strange devices. Armed in this panoply of the
god and towering over the heads of all the Greeks, he strode shouting
into the fray.
And indeed the Greeks needed all the help that he could bring; for
Hector had driven them down to their very ships, and scarcely had they
been able to rescue the body of Patroclus. And now Hector, seeing
Achilles, would have rushed to meet him, had not Apollo forbade. But
the youngest and dearest of Priam's fifty sons, dying to flesh his
maiden sword (for the fond father had forbidden him to fight), sprang
forward in his brother's place, and fell transfixed at the first
encounter; no match, rash boy, for the divine Achilles. At this sight,
not Apollo himself could restrain the wrath of Hector, who bounded
over the plain and, bestriding his brother's corpse, hurled his spear.
But though his aim was true, Minerva turned the spear aside, and when
Achilles charged, Hector too was snatched away by his guardian
Apollo.
But upon the other Trojans Achilles fell with terrible fury. Many he
drove into the river Scamander that flowed by the walls of Troy,
slaying them, as a great dolphin of the sea might devour the small
fishes; and twelve Trojans he took alive that he might sacrifice them
at the funeral of his friend Patroclus. None indeed could stand before
him, and those who escaped his fury fled back to the city, where Priam
had ordered the gate to be opened to receive the fugitives.
At last all were within the walls save only Hector, who stood by the
Scæan gate alone. Achilles, afar on the plain, was hotly pursuing one
whom he believed to be the Trojan Agenor, whose shape, however, Apollo
had taken to draw Achilles from the walls. Now, however, the son of
Peleus discovered his mistake, and, turning, he came raging across the
plain in his glittering armor towards the Scæan gate. And Hector stood
and waited for him there.
While he waited, King Priam, his old father, many of whose sons
Achilles had already slain, came out and entreated him to enter the
city. And his mother Hecuba implored him, in pity for her gray hairs
not to give battle to Achilles, but to enter while there was yet time.
But Hector was deaf to all prayers. It was foolhardiness in not
ordering an earlier retreat that had brought dire misery upon the
Trojans, and should he enter the city to meet the reproaches of all?
No; better stay there single-handed, either to slay Achilles or by him
be honorably slain.
While he thus pondered Achilles was upon him, brandishing a great
spear, his armor flashing like fire. And so terrible was the aspect
of this warrior, larger than mortal and clad in the mail of Vulcan,
that, for the first time, the heart of even Hector failed, and he
turned and fled. Fast he fled, and, as a hawk chases a dove, Achilles
pursued. Past the watch-tower they ran, along the wagon-road about the
walls, and on to the twofold spring of Scamander. Thrice they ran
round the city, and in Olympus the high gods looked down, and the
heart of Jupiter himself was moved to pity, and he cried to the other
gods: "Shall we save Hector, or let him fall by the hand of Achilles?"
Then Minerva answered: "Wilt thou, great sire, rescue a man whom Fate
has appointed to die? This thing is not well pleasing in our eyes."
Jupiter answered: "Fain would I have it otherwise, but it shall be as
thou wilt."
Then Minerva came down swiftly from Olympus to aid Achilles.
Nevertheless, Apollo was already with the two putting strength and
swiftness into the limbs of Hector, who sought always the shelter of
the towers, hoping that those who stood upon them might defend him
with their spears; but always Achilles would force him outward,
driving him towards the plain.
Now, for the fourth time, Achilles the pursuer and Hector the pursued
had reached the springs of Scamander, and Jupiter held out the scales
of doom, weighing the fates of the two men. And the scale of Hector
sank, and Apollo left him.
Then Minerva, cruelly deceiving, bethought her by evil guile to end
the fray, and took on the shape of Hector's brother Deiphobus, saying,
"Come, my brother, let us make a stand against Achilles and flee from
him no more."
And Hector, suspecting no guile, answered gratefully: "O, ever
dearest of all my brothers, dearer still art thou now to me, for thou
alone hast ventured to stand by my side in this perilous hour."
Then, as Achilles came upon them, Hector cried with a strong voice:
"Great Achilles, I fear thee now no more. Only let this be agreed
between us: that whichever of us shall fall, his body shall not be
dishonored, but shall be given back for burial rites."
But Achilles scowled and answered: "No covenant be there between thee
and me. Fight! for the time is come to pay the penalty for all my
comrades whom thou hast slain."
Thus speaking, he hurled his spear, but Hector bowed his head and the
weapon passed, and touched him not. And Hector wot not that Minerva
had caught it as it flew and restored it to Achilles' hand. Confident
of victory, he hurled his spear, striking the very middle of Achilles'
shield. But the handiwork of Vulcan was proof even against the spear
of Hector. And Hector, perceiving this, turned to Deiphobus for
another spear. But no Deiphobus was there. Then, indeed, Hector knew
that Minerva had deceived him, and that he stood there godforsaken, a
doomed man. He knew he must perish; but he resolved to perish
gloriously.
Drawing, therefore, his great sword, he rushed upon Achilles. But ere
he could strike a blow the spear of Achilles pierced him where the
neck joins the shoulder, and Hector fell.
And Achilles, triumphing over him, cried aloud: "Slayer of Patroclus,
despoiler of his arms, the dogs and vultures shall devour thy
carcase!"
But the dying Hector answered: "Nay, great Achilles, let not this
shame be. Take rather the ransom that my parents shall bring thee,
and suffer me to be buried in Troy."
For he knew that while his body remained unburied his spirit would
know no rest in the lower world.
But Achilles, savage as a wild beast, cried to him: "No ransom shall
buy back thy body; no, nor shall thy weight in gold save thy flesh
from the dogs."
Hector answered with his last breath: "Oh, heart of iron! But on thee,
too, shall fall vengeance, in that day when Paris and Apollo shall
slay thee by the Scæan gate."
With this dying curse the spirit of Hector fled.
Then Achilles, stripping off the armor of Patroclus, pierced the ankle
bones of the dead man, binding them with thongs to the chariot, and
letting the head that was once so fair drag in the dust. Thus dragged
he Hector to the ships. And Andromache, beholding this from the city
wall, swooned as one dead.
And on each following day Achilles dragged the body of Hector round
the bier of Patroclus. Yet was it not in any way defiled, for Venus
and Apollo preserved it in all its beauty as when Hector was alive.
At last Priam rose up, and, taking with him a great ransom, drove
unscathed to the Grecian camp (for Mercury was his guide), and,
falling on his knees and kissing the murderous hands of Achilles,
besought him to restore the body of Hector. And Achilles, touched with
ruth by the old man's tears and prayers, consented, and himself lifted
the body into the litter.
So Priam bore back his dead son to Troy. And they who so often had
gone forth to hail Hector returning victorious from the field, now
flocked round to greet him with tears. The first to wail over him was
Andromache, his wife. Then came Hecuba, his mother. Last of all came
Helen, who cried: "Never did I hear thee utter one bitter word. And if
any spake harshly to me, thou would'st check them with thy kind and
gentle words. Therefore I weep for thee, I, friendless now in all
Troy."
On the tenth day after this the Trojans burned the body of Hector on a
great pile, quenching the embers with wine. And the ashes they laid in
a golden chest and wrapped it in purple robes and laid it in mother
earth, and over it they raised a mighty cairn.
Thus did men bury Hector, captain of the hosts of Troy.
THE WOODEN HORSE
BY F. STORR
Thrice three years had passed, and it seemed to the Greek leaders that
they were no nearer the capture of Troy than when they had first
landed in the Troad, a gallant company, fired with hope and the
promise of an easy victory. Since then the tide of battle had ebbed
and flowed with alternate fortunes. Many a Trojan chieftain had
fallen, but no breach had been made in the walls, and they seemed to
have gained no painful inch. There was mutiny in the Grecian host, and
they clamored to be led home again.
But the crafty Ulysses summoned the mutineers to an assembly, and
addressed them in honeyed words: "My friends," he said, "we have all
endured hardships, I no less than you. Have patience yet a while. Have
we labored for nothing these nine weary years? Will ye leave your
quarry when it is at the last gasp? Know ye not the prophecy of
Calchas, that in the tenth year, and not before, Troy was destined to
fall? Trust to me, for to me the gods have revealed a cunning
stratagem whereby of a surety ye shall take and sack the city." Thus
Ulysses persuaded them to stay on, for not only was he the most
persuasive of orators, but none had ever known his wisdom at fault.
Nor had they long to wait for the fulfilment of his promise. The very
next day came an order that all should strike their tents and embark
forthwith. Before night-fall the whole host had gathered on the
shore; the beached ships had been hauled down, and away they sailed.
Westward they sailed, but not to Greece. No sooner were they to the
leeward of a small rocky island in the offing then they tacked, and
came to anchor in a sandy cove well hidden from the mainland by
jutting cliffs.
Great was the rejoicing in Troy town at their departure. The gates
were flung wide open, and the townsfolk, so long pent up within the
walls, streamed out as for a holiday, to visit the battlefield and
view the spots where so many famous forays and single combats had
taken place. But of all the sights that attracted the crowd, the most
popular was a strange object that no one had observed before. It was a
Wooden Horse on rollers, in build and shape not unlike one of those
toys that children love to drag about by a string; but this horse was
huge as a mountain, and ribbed with solid beams of fir. Long and
eagerly they debated for what purpose it had been built, and why the
Greeks had left it behind them. Some were for burning it as an uncanny
thing that could bode them no good. Others cried: "'Tis a votive
offering to Minerva; let us drag it within the walls and set it up in
the citadel as a memorial of our deliverance."
While this dispute was hotly raging, Laocoön, in his priestly robes,
rushed into the throng. "Fools," he cried, "will ye let yourselves be
cheated? Are ye so slow of heart as not to detect Greek subtlety or
the guile of Ulysses? The Greeks, I tell you, have not gone, and
either this Horse is an engine of war to overtop our battlements, or
Greek warriors are hidden in its womb." And as he spoke he hurled a
mighty spear against the Horse, and the cavernous depths reverberated
with the shock, and from within there came a rattle as of clashing
arms. But the multitude heeded not the warning, for fate had sealed
their ears.
While this was going on outside the walls, there was scarcely less
excitement in the city. Certain shepherds had surprised a young Greek,
and were dragging their captive before King Priam, with a hooting and
jeering crowd at their heels. "Woe is me!" cried the youth as he came
into the king's presence; "have I escaped from the Greeks, my bitter
foes who sought my life, only to fall among Trojans from whom I can
expect no mercy?" But the king bade him fear nothing, and tell his
tale.
It was an artful tale concocted for him by Ulysses, how to the Greeks,
desirous of sailing home and detained by contrary winds, an oracle had
come--
"To speed you here a virgin maid was slain,
Blood must be spilt to speed you home again"--
how _he_ had been pointed out by Calchas as the destined victim, and
had escaped even as he was being led in bonds to the altar.
His tattered dress and bleeding wrists bore out this plausible tale.
The king ordered his captors to free him from his manacles, and
assuring the prisoner that he need fear nothing, begged him to tell
them what was the design of the Greeks in building and leaving behind
them the Wooden Horse.
Sinon (for that was the name that the pretended deserter took) first
invoked on his head the direst curses if he failed to reveal to his
deliverers the whole truth, and then repeated the lesson in which his
cunning master Ulysses had drilled him. "You must know," he said,
"that all the hopes of Greece lay in the favor and protection of their
patron goddess, Minerva. But the wrath of the goddess was kindled
against the host, for the son of Tydeus, at the prompting of
Ulysses--that godless knave who sticks at no crime--had invaded her
shrine, slain her custodians, and snatched therefrom the Palladium,
the sacred image of the goddess, deeming it a charm that would bring
them certain victory. And the goddess showed by visible signs her
displeasure. In each encounter our forces were routed; around the
carven image now set up in the camp lightnings played, and thrice amid
the lightning and thunder the goddess herself was seen with spear at
rest and flashing targe. And Calchas, of whom we sought counsel in our
terror, bade us sail back to Argos, and when in her great temple we
had shriven us, with happier auspices renew the fray; but first in her
honor we must erect a Wooden Horse, so huge that it could not pass
your gates or be brought within your walls. Moreover, Calchas told us
that if any man were rash enough to lay sacrilegious hands on the
votive Horse, he would straightway be smitten by the vengeful
goddess!"
And lo! even as he spoke a strange portent was seen to confirm his
words. Laocoön, the high priest of Neptune--he who had hurled his
spear at the Wooden Horse--was sacrificing to the sea god a mighty
bull at the altar, when far away in the offing two leviathans of the
deep were seen approaching from Tenedos. They looked like battleships
as they plowed the waves, but as they drew nearer you could mark the
blood-beclotted mane and ravenous jaws of the sea-serpent, while
behind lay floating many a rood coil upon coil like some huge
boa-constrictor's.
The crowd fled in terror, but the sea-serpents passed through the
midst and made straight for the altar of Neptune. First they coiled
themselves round the two sons of Laocoön, who were ministering to
their father as he sacrificed, and squeezed the life out of the
miserable boys. Then, as Laocoön rushed to release his sons and sought
to pierce the scaly monsters with his sacrificial knife, they wound
their folds twice about his middle and twice about his neck, and high
above his head they towered with blood-shot eyes and triple-forked
tongues. And Laocoön, like the bull he had immolated at the altar,
bellowed aloud in his dying agony. But the sea-serpents slowly unwound
themselves and glided out of sight beneath the pediment of Diana's
statue.
This seemed to all a sign from heaven to confirm what Sinon had told
them. No more doubt was possible, and a universal clamor arose: "To
the Horse! to the Horse!" Out rushed the crowd; ropes were fastened to
its neck and legs, and soon half the city was tugging at them might
and main, while the sappers made a breach in the walls to let it in,
and by help of levers and pulleys it mounted the steep escarpment, and
as it passed down the street a joyous troop of boys and girls
followed, struggling to take hold of the taut ropes and chanting
snatches of pæans and songs of victory.
Thus did the gods send on the Trojans a strong delusion that they
should believe a lying tale; and what ten long campaigns and a
thousand brass-beaked ships, what all the might of Agamemnon, king of
men, and the prowess of Achilles, goddess-born, had failed to
accomplish, was brought to pass by the guile and craft of one man.
THE SACK OF TROY
BY F. STORR
The Wooden Horse was set up in the citadel, and after a night of
feasting and carousal, the Trojan warriors had all retired to rest
from their labors, and deep slumber sealed their weary eyes, for now
they feared no nightly alarms, no réveillé before break of day.
But with night-fall the Greek fleet at Tenedos had loosed their
moorings, and were making full sail for the Trojan shore.
When all slept the traitor Sinon slipped out from the turret of the
palace where the king had assigned him a lodging, and crouching in the
shadow climbed the hill of the citadel. There stood the Wooden Horse,
weird and ghostly in the moonlight, not a sentinel to guard it.
Leaning on the parapet he watched the white sails of the fleet as it
sped landward, and soon he saw the preconcerted signal--a flaming
torch at the masthead of the admiral ship. Then by the ropes still
left hanging from the Horse's neck, he swarmed up and opened a secret
panel in the side. One by one the mailed warriors let themselves down:
first Ulysses, the arch-plotter, then Neoptolemus, Achilles' son,
Menelaus, Epeos, the architect of the Horse, and other chieftains too
many to name. They made straight for the city gates, and despatching
the sentinels before any had time to give the alarm, let in the
serried battalions who were waiting outside.
Like the rest of the Trojan warriors Æneas slept, but his sleep was
disturbed by a vision of the night. At his bedside stood a ghostly
form. His visage was marred, his locks and beard were clotted with
gouts of blood, his breast was slashed and scarred, and his feet were
pierced and livid with the marks of cords. Yet, though thus defaced
and maimed, Æneas knew at once the godlike Hector, and cried to him,
"Light of Troy, our country's hope and stay, thou com'st much looked
for. Where hast thou tarried this long, long while? Why is thy visage
thus marred? What mean those hideous scars?"
The ghost answered nothing but gazed down on Æneas with sad,
lack-luster eyes. Only as it vanished it spoke. "Fly, goddess-born;
save thyself from the flames. The foe is within the gates. Troy
topples to its fall. Could faith and courage have availed, this right
hand had saved it. To thee Troy now commends her household gods. Take
them with thee in thy flight, and with them to guide and guard thee
found beyond the seas a new and mightier Troy."
The ghost had vanished; but when Æneas woke he found at his bedside
the household gods and the fillets of Vesta and her fire that is never
quenched.
From without there came a confused sound of hurrying feet, the tramp
of armed men, the clash of arms, and mingled shouts and groans. He
climbed to the roof to see what it all meant. Volumes of smoke like a
mountain torrent were rolling over the city, and from the murk there
leapt tongues of flame. In desperate haste he donned his arms and went
forth, bewildered and not knowing which way to turn. At his threshold
he met Panthus, high priest of Apollo and custodian of the citadel,
and asked him what was happening.
"All is over," cried the priest; "the gods have deserted us; Greece
has triumphed; Troy is no more--a name, a city of the past."
Horror-stricken but undeterred, Æneas hurried on to where the fray
seemed the hottest, and gathering round him some score of trusty
comrades, he thus addressed them: "Friends and brothers in arms, all
is not lost; let us take courage from despair, and at worst die like
men with our breasts to the foe."
They all rushed into the mellay, and at first fortune favored the
brave. Androgeus, the captain of a picked corps of Greeks, hailed
them; and mistaking them in the darkness for fellow-countrymen,
twitted them on their tardiness, and bade them hurry on to share in
the loot. Too late he perceived his mistake. Before they had time to
unsheath a sword or unbuckle a shield, Æneas and his comrades were on
them and not one escaped.
Flushed with their first success, Coroebus, one of the forlorn hope,
cried: "Hark ye, comrades, I have bethought me of a glorious
stratagem; let us exchange arms and scutcheons with our dead foemen.
All is fair in war." No sooner said than done; and great was the havoc
they wrought at the first by this disguise, but in the end it cost
them dear.
As they passed by the temple of Minerva they were arrested by a
piteous spectacle. Cassandra, the prophetic maid, was being dragged
from the altar by the rude soldiery, her hair disheveled, her arms
pinioned, and her eyes upturned to heaven. Coroebus' high spirit could
not brook the sight, and he hurled himself on the ruffians, the rest
following his lead. Though outnumbered they held, and more than held,
their own, till from the pinnacles of the temple a whole battery of
rocks and missiles rained down on their devoted heads. Their disguise
had too well deceived the defenders of the temple, and soon the
assailants were reinforced by the main body of the Greeks, with Ajax
and the two Atridæ at their head, who soon penetrated their disguise.
Coroebus was the first to fall; then Ripeus, the justest ruler in all
Troy; nor did his gray hairs and the fillet of Apollo that he wore
save Panthus from the common fate.