band, made his way to the palace of Priam, where it looked as if the
whole Greek force had gathered. Part were working battering-rams
against the solid masonry, others planting scaling ladders against the
walls, up which the boldest, with shields held high above their heads,
were already swarming, while the garrison hurled down on them stones,
tiles, whatever came to hand; even the gilded beams of the royal
chambers.
At the rear of the palace was a postern gate leading to a covered
passage that connected the house of Hector and Andromache with the
palace. By this Æneas entered and climbed to a watch-tower that
commanded the whole city, the plain with the Greek encampments, and
beyond, the sea, now studded with ships. At his bidding the guards set
to work, and soon, with axes and crow-bars, they had loosened the
foundations of the turret. It tottered, it toppled, and fell with a
mighty crash, burying hundreds of the besiegers beneath its ruins. But
what were they among so many?
At the main entrance of the palace stood Neoptolemus in his glittering
armor, like a snake who has lost its winter weeds, and snatching a
double-headed ax from a common soldier, he battered in the panels and
wrenched the massive door from its brass hinges. Through the long
corridors and gilded ante-chambers, like a river that has burst its
dam, the flood of armed Greeks swept on, and from the inner chambers
there came a long-drawn wail of women's voices that shivered to the
golden stars. On came Neoptolemus, sweeping before him the feeble
palace guards. The cedarn doors gave way like match-wood, and there,
huddled on the floor or clinging to the pillars of the tapestried
chamber, he beheld, like sheep led to the slaughter, the queen and the
princesses, the fifty daughters and fifty daughters-in-law of King
Priam. But where was Priam the while?
In the center of the palace was a court open to the sky, and in the
center of the court was a great altar over-shadowed by an immemorial
bay-tree. Hither Hecuba and her kinswomen had fled for refuge when the
rabble of soldiers burst in on them, and in the court she espied her
aged husband girt in armor that ill-fitted his shrunken limbs, and she
called to him, "What madness hath seized thee thus to rush to certain
death? Hector himself could not save us now; what can thy feeble arms
avail? Take sanctuary with us. Either this altar shall protect us or
here we shall all perish together!"
The feeble old king yielded to his wife's entreaties, but hardly had
he reached the altar when he beheld Polites, the child of his old age,
whom he loved most now Hector was dead, limping towards them like a
wounded hare, and close behind him in hot pursuit Neoptolemus with
outstretched lance; and a moment after the son fell transfixed at his
father's feet. "Wretch," he cried, beside himself with righteous
wrath, "more fell than dire Achilles! _He_ gave me back my son's
corpse, but thou hast stained my gray hairs and god's altar with a
son's blood." He spake, and hurled at Neoptolemus with nerveless arm
a spear that scarce had force to pierce the outmost fold of the targe.
With a scornful laugh Neoptolemus turned on him, and dragged him by
his long white beard from the altar. "Die, old dotard," he cried, "and
in the shades be sure thou tell my sire Achilles what a degenerate son
is his." So saying, he drove his sword to the old king's heart.
"Such was the end of Priam, such his fate,
To see in death his house all desolate,
And Troy, whom erst a hundred states obeyed,
A heap of blackened stones in ruin laid.
A headless corpse washed by the salt sea tide,
Not e'en a stone to show where Priam died."
THE DEATH OF AJAX
BY F. STORR
Of all the Greek knights who fought against Troy the boldest and most
chivalrous was Ajax, son of Telamon. But his fiery temper oft proved
his bane, and in the end it led him to ruin and death.
When Achilles died he left his arms to be awarded by the captains of
the host to him whom they should pronounce the bravest of the Greeks,
and the prize fell to Ulysses.
Ajax took this award in high dudgeon, and, knowing himself the better
man, affirmed that this judgment could have been procured only by
fraud and corruption, and swore that he would be avenged of his crafty
rival. He challenged his enemy to single combat, but Ulysses was too
wary to risk his life against such a swordsman, and the chiefs who
heard of the quarrel interfered, saying that Greek must not take the
blood of Greek. Thus balked, Ajax raged more furiously, and swore that
if Ulysses would not fight he would slay him in his tent.
So Ulysses went about in fear of his life, and he appealed to his
patron goddess to defend him. Minerva heard his prayer, and promised
her favorite warrior that he should suffer no harm. She kept her word
by sending on Ajax a strong delusion, whereby in his frenzy he mistook
beasts for men.
The Greeks found the herds and flocks that had been taken in raids,
and were kept in pound as a common stock to feed the army, hacked and
hewn in the night, as though a mountain lion had been ravaging them;
and they suspected Ajax, whose strange behavior none could fail to
notice, as the offender, but they had no certain proof, and Ulysses,
the man of many wiles, was by common consent deputed to search into
the matter.
So the next night he stole forth from the camp alone, and in the early
light of dawn he espied a solitary figure hurrying over the plain, and
he followed the trail like a bloodhound till it led him to the tent of
Ajax.
He paused uncertain, for he dared not venture farther, and was about
to return and report to the commanders what he had seen, when he heard
a voice saying, "Ulysses, what dost thou here?" and he knew it could
be none other than the voice of his own goddess Minerva.
He told her the case and craved her aid in his perplexity, and the
goddess gently upbraided him. "Thou wert no coward soul, Ulysses, when
I chose thee as my favored knight, and now dost thou fear a single
unarmed man, and one by me bereft of his wits?" And Ulysses answered,
"Goddess, I am no coward, but the bravest may quail before a raving
madman." But Minerva replied, "Be of good heart, and trust as ever to
me. Lo, I will show thee a sight whereon thou mayst glut thine eyes."
Thereupon she opened the flap of the tent, and within stood Ajax, wild
and haggard, his hands dripping with gore, and all around him were
sheep and oxen, some beheaded, some ripped up, and some horribly
mutilated--a very shambles. At the moment Ajax was belaboring a huge
ram that he had strapped up to a pillar of the tent, and, as each blow
of the double thong descended he shouted, "Take that, Ulysses; that's
for thy knavery, that for thy villainy, that for thy lies, thou
white-livered rogue." Ulysses could not but smile as he saw himself
scourged and cursed in effigy, but he was touched by a thought of
human infirmity and the ruin of a noble soul, and he prayed the
goddess to avert from him such a calamity.
In the women's tent hard by sat Tecmessa, the captive wife of Ajax,
weeping and wringing her hands. His tender love had made her forget
her desolate home and slaughtered brethren, and she had borne him a
son, the pride and joy of both parents. But ever since he had lost the
prize for bravery she had noted a growing estrangement. He avoided
her, meeting her advances with cold looks, and the night before, when
she asked him why he was girding on his armor at that hour, he had
answered her, "Silence, woman; women should be seen, not heard." And
then he had gone forth and returned with these beeves and sheep that
he was now hacking to pieces like a madman. Their boy she had sent
away with his nurse to be out of harm's way, and she sat cowering in
her tent.
As she sat, half dazed with grief and watching, she heard her name
called. Trembling she arose and met her lord at the tent door. Again
he called her, but now his voice was tender and low, and he gazed at
her with a look of mingled pity and love. And her heart rejoiced, for
she saw that his madness had passed, that her old Ajax was restored to
her. "Tecmessa," he asked, "where is our boy?" And Tecmessa hastened
and brought back their child Eurysaces. Ajax took him from his nurse's
arms, and he kissed the innocent brow and spoke: "My boy, may thy lot
in life be happier than thy father's; but in all else be like unto me,
and thou shalt prove no base man." Then he passed with Tecmessa into
her tent, and flung himself down on the bed and lay there as a sick
man who has scarce recovered from a grievous illness. She would fain
have ministered to him, but he refused all meat and drink, and lay for
long hours holding her hand. Ever and anon he would ask, "Where is
Teucer? Is not Teucer returned? I would fain speak with my brother."
As the sun was setting he rose from his bed and took his sword,
telling his wife that he must leave her for a while, but would soon
return. She, fearing another fit of madness, sought with tears to
detain him, but he gently put her aside and told her what his errand
was. He must needs go to the sea-baths, and with pure ablution wash
away his stains and make him clean. And he gently unwound her clinging
arms, closed her lips with a kiss, and went on his way.
When he reached the river, he drew his sword from the scabbard and
planted it firm in earth. "Fatal blade," he cried, "once the sword of
Hector, then a foeman's gift to his arch-enemy, a bane to each who
owned thee; but to me, thy last master, a friend at need. I have had
my day, and for me there is living none. My sword, go with me to the
shades." Therewith he hurled himself upon the naked steel and gave up
the ghost.
Fishermen dragging their nets at dawn found the body, and brought it
back to camp. Teucer, warned by the seer Calchas that unless his
brother could be kept within doors for that day some dread calamity
awaited him, had hurried to warn and save him from his doom; but as he
reached the tent he was met by the bearers bringing home his brother's
corpse.
There was mourning in the Grecian camp. A great man had fallen that
day; for his brief madness the gods alone were to blame; and his long
years of service, his gallant deeds, his fearless courage, his noble
generosity, were alone remembered. So they decreed for him a public
funeral with all the pomp and ceremony that befitted a great
chieftain.
Already they had begun to raise a huge funeral pile and to deck the
sacrificial altar, when Menelaus, who shared with Agamemnon the chief
command, rode up in hot haste to forbid the public burial. "No man,"
he declared, "who had defied his authority and done such injury to the
common cause should be honored." But Ulysses with a soft answer turned
away his wrath: "True, he hath sinned against thee, O king, and in
life he hated me, but death is the great atoner. Honor the fearless
knight. Let his ashes rest in peace."
THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS FROM TROY
BY F. STORR
Æneas, standing on the battlements of the palace, had beheld the
heartrending scene of Troy's destruction, horror-stricken and unable
to help. All his comrades were dead or had fled, and he alone was
left. As he looked on Priam's bleeding corse the face of his own
father Anchises, as old and as defenseless, flashed across his fancy,
and he saw in vision his desolate home, his wife Creusa, and Iulus
clinging to his mother's knees.
He stole out of the palace by the same covered way that had let him
in, and was hurrying home when he passed the shrine of Vesta, and
cowering behind the altar, by the glare of the conflagration that
still raged, he espied Helen, the prime cause of all their woes. His
soul burned with righteous indignation. "What," he cried to himself,
"shall this cursed woman, the bane both of Greece and of Troy, shall
she alone escape scot-free; shall she return to Greece a crowned queen
with our captive sons and daughters in her train? No," he cried, as he
drew his sword; "to slay a woman is no knightly deed, but men will
approve me as the minister of God's vengeance."
But of a sudden, effulgent in the heavens like her own star, he beheld
his goddess-mother, and she laid a hand on his outstretched arm in act
to strike, and whispered in his ear: "My son, why this empty rage?
Dost thou forget thy mother and all her care for thee and thine?
Think of thine aged sire, thy loving wife, thy little son. But for me
they had all perished by the sword and flames. 'Tis not Paris, 'tis
not that Spartan woman who hath wrought this ruin, but the gods who
were leagued against Troy. Lo, I will take the scales from thine eyes,
and for a moment thou shalt behold as one of themselves the immortals
at work. Look yonder, where walls and watch-towers are crashing down,
as though upheaved by an earthquake, Neptune is up-prizing with his
dread trident the walls that he helped to build. There at the Scæan
gates stands Juno in full mail crying Havoc! and hounding on the
laggard Greeks. Look backward at the citadel; above it towers Minerva,
wrapt in a storm-cloud, and flashing her Gorgon shield. Nay more, on
far Olympus (but this thou canst not see) the Almighty Father is
heartening those gods who are banded for the ruin of Troy. Save
thyself, my son, while yet there is time. Let adverse gods rage; I,
thy mother, will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
The goddess vanished, and as by a flash of lightning he beheld for an
instant the grim visages of the Powers of Darkness.
Under the tutelage of Venus, Æneas reached his home without adventure
and found all safe, as she had promised. He was preparing for his
flight to the neighboring hills when an unforeseen impediment arose.
No persuasions would induce Anchises to accompany him. "Ye are young
and lusty," cried his sire, "fly for your lives and leave me, a poor
old man tottering on the brink of the grave. All I ask is that ye
repeat over me the ritual for the dead. The Greeks, when they find me,
will grant me sepulture."
No prayers or arguments could move the old man from his obstinate
resolution, and Æneas, in desperation, was again girding on his armor,
choosing to perish with wife and child in single-handed fight rather
than desert his aged parent, when a sign from heaven was given that
first amazed and then filled all hearts with joy. On the head of the
child Iulus there appeared a tongue of fire that spread among his
curly locks, and played round his smooth brow, crowning him like the
aureole of a saint. In horror his mother sought to extinguish the
flames, but the water she poured made them only burn the brighter. But
Anchises knew the heavenly sign, and with uplifted palms he prayed
that Jupiter would confirm his good will by some more certain augury.
And straightway on the left (the lucky side) a clap of thunder was
heard, and from the zenith there fell a meteor that left a long trail
of light as it fell to earth on the pine-clad slopes of Mount Ida.
Then at last Anchises yielded, and Æneas, stooping down, lifted the
old man on his shoulder. By his side, holding his right hand, was
Iulus, bravely trying to keep pace with his father's long strides, and
last came Creusa, with a train of household slaves. As trysting-place,
in case they should get separated in the crowd and confusion, Æneas
assigned to them a deserted shrine of Vesta, near to a solitary
cypress tree which would serve them as a landmark. They were well on
their way, and had escaped the worst perils, when Anchises cried out,
"Hist! I hear the tramp of armed men, and see the glint of armor." And
Æneas, who never before had quailed in the storm of battle, now
trembled like an aspen leaf, and snatching up the boy he ran for his
life, and never drew breath till he had reached the deserted shrine.
Then he looked back, and to his horror Creusa was nowhere to be seen.
Had she missed the road, or had she fainted on the way? He questioned
his household who had by now arrived, but none had seen their mistress
since they left the city. Again he donned his arms and rushed back by
the way he had come. Not a trace of his wife could he find. He
re-entered the city by the same gate, and rethreaded the same dark
alleys. He sought his home, but it was now a mass of smoldering ruins.
As a last desperate hope he sought the Royal Treasure House, if haply
she might there have found a hiding-place, but at the entrance stood
Phoenix and Ulysses, the captains told off to guard the loot. There
lay, piled in a confused heap, all the wealth of Troy that the flames
had not consumed--purple robes, coverlets and tapestries, armlets and
anklets of wrought gold, jeweled drinking-bowls, and the sacred
vessels from the temples.
Reckless of the risks he ran he shouted from street to street,
"Creusa! Creusa!" when at last a familiar voice replied, and before
him he saw, not, alas! Creusa, but her ghost, larger than human,
gazing down on him with eyes of infinite pity. "Why," it whispered,
"this wild grief? Nothing, dear lord, is here for tears. 'Twas not the
will of heaven that I should share thy wanderings and toils. Be of
good heart. In the far west, so fate ordains, where Tiber rolls his
yellow tide, thou shalt found a new empire and espouse a princess of
the land. Nor need'st thou pity my less fortunate lot. I have known
all the joys of married bliss, and my body shall rest in the soil that
gave me birth. No proud Greek will boast that he bears home in his
captive train her who was the wife of Æneas, the daughter-in-law of
Venus. And now, fare thee well. Forget not our sweet child, and her
who bore him."
"Thrice he essayed with arms outstretched to clasp
Her shade, and thrice it slipped from his fond grasp,
Like frolic airs that o'er a still lake play,
Or dreams that vanish at the break of day."
ÆNEAS AND DIDO
BY V. C. TURNBULL
Hardly less renowned than the wanderings of crafty Ulysses, after the
fall of Troy, are those of pious Æneas, the Trojan. Many were his
adventures and heavy his losses, for he was pursued evermore by the
hatred of Juno, who detested all Trojans, and but for the protecting
care of his mother Venus he must have perished.
On the Sicilian shore he had lost his aged father, Anchises, and Æneas
mourned his good old sire, whom he had carried on his shoulders from
burning Troy.
Thence he set sail with his son Iulus to Italy. But when they had put
forth to sea, Juno smote them with a terrible storm, so that Æneas
lost all but seven ships of his fleet and not a few of his comrades
perished. He himself, with his son Iulus and his friend Achates, was
driven out of his course and carried to the shores of Libya. Here the
Trojans disembarked and thankfully rested their brine-drenched limbs
on the beach. And when they had feasted off the grain brought from
their ships, and the venison procured for them by their captain's bow,
Æneas, taking with him only Achates, set forth to survey this
unexplored country.
On their way through a forest they met a fair maid in the garb of a
huntress, and of her they inquired what land this might be and who
dwelt therein. She told them they had come to the land and city of
Carthage, over which ruled the Tyrian Queen Dido. She told them,
moreover, that the Queen had once ruled in Tyre, the consort of
Sichæus, a Phoenician prince, and that when her lord had been murdered
by his cruel brother Pygmalion, she had fled to Libya, where even now
she was rearing the stately city of Carthage. And she bade them seek
the Queen and throw themselves on her protection. Æneas had gazed in
wonder and admiration at the maiden, deeming her some nymph of Dian's
train, and he was about, on bended knee, to give her thanks when she
turned on him a parting glance. And lo! the goddess stood revealed,
radiant in celestial beauty; and as he recognized his mother, she had
vanished from his sight.
Cheered by this vision, Æneas and Achates pressed forward, and, that
none might molest them, Venus wrapped them in a thick mist. Emerging
from the forest they climbed a hill overlooking the city of Carthage,
where skilled workmen were on all sides busied rearing stately
buildings. In the midst of the city, with a flight of marble stairs
and surrounded by a grove of trees, stood a temple to Juno, its gates
of brass glittering in the morning sun. And Æneas, drawing near,
marveled to find the walls of this temple painted with pictures of the
Trojan War--aye, and himself he saw portrayed fighting against the
Grecian leaders.
Whilst Æneas and Achates were still gazing, Queen Dido drew near with
a great retinue of maidens and youths. She seated herself on a throne
under the dome of the temple, for here it was her custom to deal
justice and apportion work to her subjects, urging forward with
cheerful words the building of her city. Among the first to appear
before the Queen, Æneas and Achates saw with astonishment certain of
their own friends--Ilioneus, Antheus, Sergestus, and Cloanthus, whom
they had supposed to have been drowned in the storm. These, coming
before Dido, told her of their sufferings and entreated her protection
in that strange country.
"We had for our king Æneas," said Ilioneus, the spokesman, "than whom
none was more pious and brave. If he yet lives we shall not despair,
neither shalt thou, O Queen, repent thee of thy hospitality."
Queen Dido answered the Trojans graciously, promising them all they
asked and more.
"And would," she added, "that your prince Æneas too were here! But my
messengers shall search the Libyan coasts, and if he has been cast
ashore he shall be found."
Even as she spoke, the mist that hid Æneas and Achates suddenly
parted, and Æneas stood forth in the bright light like a god; and,
joyfully embracing his friends, poured out his gratitude to Dido.
The voice of the Queen was even gentler than before as she replied: "I
too have been tossed by fortune on the high seas; I too came to these
shores a stranger. What sorrow was myself have known, and learnt to
melt at others' woe."
Then Dido bade Æneas and Achates to a feast in her palace, and to
their followers on the shore she sent bulls, lambs, and wine to
provide a banquet. Æneas also despatched Achates to the beach to bring
therefrom the young Iulus, and with him presents for the Queen--a
mantle stiff with gold, a scepter, a necklace of pearls, and a crown
set with double rows of gems and gold.
The gifts made and his son embraced, Æneas was led into the great hall
of the palace, where the guests reclined on purple couches. In the
midst Queen Dido reclined on a golden couch under a rich canopy, and
beside her lay the boy Iulus. So they feasted and were merry, and
after the banquet Dido pledged her guest in a loving cup and invited
him to tell her all that had befallen him since the fall of Troy.
And he told her the long tale of his perils by land and sea, and of
the shipwreck which had landed him upon the hospitable shores of
Carthage.
And, as Queen Dido listened, the memory of her dead husband Sichæus
was no longer first in her thoughts, for a great love sprang up for
this princely stranger who had endured so much and had followed his
star, true to his country and his country's gods. Far into the night
the Queen sat listening to the tale, and in the night watches the
image of the hero haunted her fevered sleep. At the first dawn she
sought her sister Anna, and poured into sympathetic ears the trouble
of her heart, confessing with shame her fears lest she should prove
faithless to the memory of her dead lord.
But Anna bade her mourn no more for the unheeding dead, wasting her
youth and beauty.
"Surely," said she, "it was Juno who sent the Trojans to this shore.
Think, sister, how your city will flourish, how your kingdom will wax
great from such an alliance! How will the Carthaginian glory be
advanced by Trojan arms!"
That day she invited her guest to view all the wonders of Carthage.
She showed him her rising quays and forts, her palace and its
treasures; but even as they conversed her voice would falter, and her
silence and blushes were tell-tales and betrayed her growing love.
When the evening feast was ended she asked again to hear the tale of
Troy, and hung again on his lips.