Princes and kings and captains, them whose griefs
To ease his own like treasure had been lent;
Who came and sat at board within the tent
Of him they hailed host-father and their lord
For this adventure, in aught else abhorred
Of all true men. He sits above the rest,
The fox-red Agamemnon, round his crest
The circlet of his kingship over kings,
And at his thigh the sword gold-hilted swings
Which Zeus gave Atreus once; and in his heart
That gnawing doubt which twice had checkt his start
For high emprise, having twice egged him to it,
As stout Odysseus knew who had to rue it.
Beside him Nestor sat, Nestor the old,
White as the winter moon, with logic cold
Instilled, as if the blood in him had fled
And in his veins clear spirit ran instead,
Which made men reasons and not fired their sprites.
And next Idomeneus of countless fights,
Shrewd leader of the Cretans; by his side
Keen-flashing Diomedes in his pride,
The young, the wild in onset, whose war-shrill,
Next after Peleus' son's, held all Troy still,
And stayed the gray crows at their ravelling
Of dead men's bones. Into debate full fling
Went he, adone with tapping of the foot
And drumming on the board. Had but his suit
Been granted--so he said--the war were done
And Troy a name ere full three years had gone:
For as for Helen and her daintiness,
Troy held a mort of women who no less
Than she could pleasure night when work was over
And men came home ready to play the lover;
And in housework would better her. Let Helen
Be laid by Paris, villain, and dead villain--
Dead long ago if he had taken the field
Instead of Menelaus. Then no shield
Had Kypris' golden body been, acquist
With his sword-arm already, near the wrist!
So Diomedes. Next him sat a man
With all his woe to come, the Lokrian
Aias, son of Oileus, bearded swart,
Pale, with his little eyes, and legs too short
And arms too long, a giant when he sat,
Dwarf else, and in the fight a tiger-cat.
But mark his neighbour, mark him well: to him
Falleth the lot to lay a charge more grim
On woman fair than even Althaia felt
Like lead upon her heartstrings, when she knelt
And blew to flame the brand that held the life
Of her own son; or Procne with the knife,
Who slew and dressed her child to be a meal
To his own father. But this man's thews were steel,
And steely were the nerves about his heart,
As they had need. Mark him, and mark the part
He plays hereafter. Odysseus is his name,
The wily Ithacan, deathless in his fame
And in his substance deathless, since he goes
Immortal forth and back wherever blows
The thunder of thy rhythm, O blind King,
First of the tribe of them with songs to sing,
Fountain of storied music and its end--
For who the poet since who doth not tend
To essay thy leaping measure, or call down
Thy nodded approbation for his crown
And all his wages?
Other chiefs sat there
In order due: as Pyrrhos, very fair
And young, with high bright colour, and the hue
Of evening in his eyes of violet-blue--
Son of Achilles he, and new to war.
Then Antiklos and Teukros, best by far
Of all the bowmen in the host. And last
Menestheus the Athenian dikast,
Who led the folk from Pallas's fair home.
To them spake Menelaus, being come
Into assembly last, and taken in hand
The spokesman's staff: "Ye princes of our land,
Adventurous Achaians, stout of heart,
Good news I bring, that now we may depart
Each to his home and kindred, each to his hearth
And wife and children dear and well-tilled garth,
Contented with the honour he has brought
To me and mine, since I have what we've sought
With bitter pain and loss. Yea, even now
Hath Here crowned your strife and earned my vow
Made these ten years come harvest, having drawn
The veil from off those eyes than which not dawn
Holds sweeter light nor holier, once they see.
Yea, chieftains, Helen's heart comes back to me;
And fast she watches now hard by the wall
Of the wicked house, and ere the cock shall call
Another morn I have her in my arms
Redeemed for Sparta, pure of Trojan harms,
Whole-hearted and clean-hearted as she came
First, before Paris and his deed of shame
Threatened my house with wreck, and on his own
Have brought no joy. This night, disguised, alone,
I stand within the city, waiting day;
Then when men sleep, all in the shadowless gray,
Robbing the robber, I drop down with her
Over the wall--and lo! the end of the war!"
Thus great of heart and high of heart he spake,
And trembling ceased. Awhile none cared to break
The silence, like unto that breathless hush
That holds a forest ere the great winds rush
Up from the sea-gulf, bringing furious rain
Like mist to drown all nature, blot the plain
In one great sheet of water without form.
So held the chiefs. Then Diomede brake in storm.
Ever the first he was to fling his spear
Into the press of battle; dread his cheer,
Like the long howling of a wolf at eve
Or clamour of the sea-birds when they grieve
And hanker the out-scouring of the net
Hidden behind the darkness and the wet
Of tempest-ridden nights. "Princes," he cried,
"What say ye to this wooer of his bride,
For whom it seems ten nations and their best
Have fought ten years to bring her back to nest?
Is this your meed of honour? Was it for this
You flung forth fortune--to ensure him his?
And he made snug at home, we seek our lands
Barer than we left them, with emptier hands,
And some with fewer members, shed that he
Might fare as soft and trim as formerly!
Not so went I adventuring, good friend;
Not so look I this business to have end:
Nay, but I fight to live, not live to fight,
And so will live by day as thou by night,
Sating my eyes with havoc on this race
Of robbers of the hearth; see their strong place
Brought level with the herbage and the weed,
That where they revelled once shrew-mice may feed,
And moles make palaces, and bats keep house.
And if thou art of spleen so slow to rouse
As quit thy score by thieving from a thief
And leave him scatheless else, thou art no chief
For Tydeus' son, who sees no end of strife
But in his own or in his foeman's life."
So he. Then Pyrrhos spake: "By that great shade
Wherein I stand, which thy false Paris made
Who slew my father, think not so to have done
With Troy and Priam; for Peleides' son
Must slake the sword that cries, and still the ghost
Of him that haunts the ingles of this coast,
Murdered and unacquit while that man's father
Liveth."
Then leapt up two, and both together
Cried, "Give us Troy to sack, give us our fill
Of gold and bronze; give us to burn and kill!"
And Aias said, "Are there no women then
In Troy, but only her? And are we men
Or virgins of Athene?" And the dream
Of her who served that dauntless One made gleam
His shifting eyes, and stretcht his fleshy lips
Behind his beard.
Then stood that prince of ships
And shipmen, great Odysseus; with one hand
He held the staff, with one he took command;
And thus in measured tones, with word intent
Upon the deed, fierce but not vehement,
Drave in his dreadful message. At his sight
Clamour died down, even as the wind at night
Falls and is husht at rising of the moon.
"Ye chieftains of Achaia, not so soon
Is strife of ten years rounded to a close,
Neither so are men seated, friends or foes.
For say thus lightly we renounced the meed
Of our long travail, gave so little heed
To our great dead as find in one man's joy
Full recompense for all we've sunk in Troy--
Wives desolate, children fatherless, lands, gear,
Stock without master, wasting year by year;
Youth past, age creeping on, friends, brothers, sons
Lost in the void, gone where no respite runs
For sorrow, but the darkness covers all--
What name should we bequeath our sons but thrall,
Or what beside a name, who let go by
Ilios the rich for others' usury?
And have the blessed Gods no say in this?
Think you they be won over by a kiss--
Here the Queen, she, the unwearied aid
Of all our striving, Pallas the war-maid?
Have they not vowed, and will ye scant their hate,
Havoc on Ilios from gate to gate,
And for her towers abasement to the dust?
Behold, O King, lust shall be paid with lust,
And treachery with treachery, and for blood
Blood shall be shed. Therefore let loose the flood
Of our pent passion; break her gates in, raze
The walls of her, cumber her pleasant ways
With dead men; set on havoc, sate with spoil
Men ravening; get corn and wine and oil,
Women to clasp in love, gold, silken things,
Harness of flashing bronze, swords, meed of kings,
Chariots and horses swifter than the wind
Which, coursing Ida, leaves ruin behind
Of snapt tall trees: not faster shall they fall
Than Trojan spears once we are on the wall.
So only shall ye close this agelong strife,
Nor by redemption of a too fair wife,
Now smiling, now averse, now hot, now cold,
O Menelaus, may the tale be told!
Nay, but by slaying of Achilles' slayer,
By the betrayal of the bed-betrayer,
By not withholding from the spoils of war
Men freeborn, nor from them that beaten are
Their rueful wages. Ilios must fall."
He said, and sat, and heard the acclaim of all,
Save of the sons of Atreus, who sat glum,
One flusht, one white as parchment, and both dumb;
One raging to be contraried, one torn
By those two passions wherewith he was born,
The lust for body's ease and lust of gain.
Then slow he rose, Mykenai's king of men,
Gentle his voice to hear. "Laertes' son,"
He said, but 'twas Nestor he looked upon,
The wise old man who sat beside his chair,
Mild now who once, a lion, kept his lair
Untoucht of any, or if e'er he left it,
Left it for prey, and held that when he reft it
From foe, or over friend made stronger claim:
"Laertes' son," the king said, "all men's fame
Reports thee just and fertile in device;
And as the friend of God great is thy price
To us of Argos; for without the Gods
How should we look to trace the limitless roads
That weave a criss-cross 'twixt us and our home?
Go to now, some will stay and other some
Take to the sea-ways, hasty to depart,
Not warfaring as men fare to the mart,
To best a neighbour in some chaffering bout;
But honour is the prize wherefor they go out,
And having that, dishonoured are content
To leave the foe--that is best punishment.
Natheless since men there be, Argives of worth,
Who needs must shed more blood ere they go forth--
As if of blood enough had not been spilt!--
Devise thou with my brother if thou wilt,
Noble Odysseus, seeking how compose
His honour with thy judgment. Well he knows
Thy singleness of heart, deep ponderer,
Lover of a fair wife, and sure of her.
Come, let this be the sum of our debate."
"Content you," Menelaus said, "I wait
Upon thy word, thou fosterling of Zeus."
Then said Odysseus, "Be it as you choose,
Ye sons of Atreus. Then, advised, I say
Let me win into Troy as best I may,
Seek out the lovely lady of our land
And learn of her the watchwords, see how stand
The sentries, how the warders of the gates;
The strength, how much it is; what prize awaits
To crown our long endeavour. These things learned,
Back to the ships I come ere yet are burned
The watch-fires of the night, before the sun
Hath urged his steeds the course they are to run
Out of the golden gateways of the East."
Which all agreed, and Helen's lord not least.
SIXTH STAVE
HELEN AND PARIS; ODYSSEUS AND HELEN
Like as the sweet free air, when maids the doors
And windows open wide, wanders the floors
And all the passage ways about the house,
Keen marshal of the sun, or serious
The cool gray light of morning 'gins to peer
Ere yet the household stirs, or chanticlere
Calls hinds to labour but hints not the glee
Nor full-flood glory of the day to be
When round about the hill the sun shall swim
And burn a sea-path--so demure and slim
Went Helen on her business with swift feet
And light, yet recollected, and her sweet
Secret held hid, that she was loved where need
Called her to mate, and that she loved indeed--
Ah, sacred calm of wedlock, passion white
Of lovers knit in Here's holy light!
But while in early morn she wonned alone
And Paris slept, shrill rose her singing tone,
And brave the light on kindled cheeks and eyes:
Brave as her hope is, brave the flag she flies.
Then, as the hour drew on when the sun's rim
Should burn a sheet of gold to herald him
On Ida's snowy crest, lithe as a pard
For some lord's pleasuring encaged and barred
She paced the hall soft-footed up and down,
Lightly and feverishly with quick frown
Peered shrewdly this way, that way, like a bird
That on the winter grass is aye deterred
His food-searching by hint of unknown snare
In thicket, holt or bush, or lawn too bare;
Anon stopped, lip to finger, while the tide
Beat from her heart against her shielded side--
Now closely girdled went she like a maid--
And then slipt to the window, where she stayed
But minutes three or four; for soon she past
Out to the terrace, there to be at last
Downgazing on her glory, which her king
Reflected up in every motioning
And flux of his high passion. Only here
She triumphed, nor cared she to ask how near
The end of Troy, nor hazarded a guess
What deeds must do ere that could come to pass.
To her the instant homage held all joy--
And what to her was Sparta, or what Troy
Beside the bliss of that?
Or Paris, what
Was he, who daily, nightly plained his lot
To have risked all the world and ten years loved
This woman, now to find her nothing moved
By what he had done with her, what desired
To do? And more she chilled the less he tired,
And more he ventured less she cared recall
What was to her of nothing worth, or all:
All if the King required it of her, nought
If he who now could take it. It was bought,
And his by bargain: let him have it then;
But let it be for giving once again,
And all the rubies in the world's deep heart
Could fetch no price beside it.
Yet apart
She brooded on the man who held her chained,
Minister to his pleasure, and disdained
Him more the more herself she must disparage,
Reflecting on him all her hateful carriage,
So old, incredible, so flat, so stale,
No more to be recalled than old wife's tale;
And scorned him, saw him neither high nor low,
Not villain and not hero, who would go
Midway 'twixt baseness and nobility,
And not be fierce, if fierceness hurt a flea
Before his eyes. The man loved one thing more
Than all the world, and made his mind a whore
To minister his heart's need, for a price.
All which she loathed, yet chose not to be nice
With the snug-revelling wretch, her master yet,
Whose leaguer, though she scorned it, was no fret;
But lift on wings of her exalted mood,
She let him touch and finger what he would,
Unconscious of his being--as he saw,
And with a groan, whipt sharp upon the raw
Of his esteem, "Ah, cruel art thou turned,"
Would cry, "Ah, frosty fire, where I am burned,
Yet dying bless the flame that is my bane!"
With which to clasp her closer was he fain,
To touch in love, and feast his eyes to see
Her quiver at his touch, and laugh to be
The plucker of such chords of such a rote;
And laughing stoop and kiss her milky throat,
Then see her shut eyes hide what he had done.
"Nay, shut them not upon me, nay, nor shun
My worship!" So he said; but she, "They fade,
But are not yet so old as thou hast made
The soul thou pinnest here beneath my breasts
Which you have loved too well." His hand he rests
Over one fair white bosom like a cup,
And leaning, of her lips his own must sup;
But she will not, but gently doth refuse it,
Without a reason, save she doth not choose it.
Then when he flung away, she sat alone
And nursed her hope and sorrow, both in one
Perturbed bosom; and her fingers wove
White webs as far afield her wits did rove
Perpending and perpending. So frail, so fair,
So faint she seemed, a wraith you had said there,
A woman dead, and not in lovely flesh.
But all the while she writhed within the mesh
Of circumstance, and fiercely flamed her rage:
"O slave, O minion, thing kept in a cage
For this sleek master's handling!" So she fumed
What time her wide eyes sought all ways, or loomed
Like winter lakes dark in a field of snow,
And still; nor lifted they their pall of woe
Responsive to her heart, nor flashed the thrill
That knew, which said, "A true man loveth me still."
That same night, as she used, fair Helen went
Among the suppliants in the hall, and lent
To each who craved the bounty of her grace,
Her gentle touch on wounds, her pitiful face
To beaten eyes' dumb eloquence, that art
She above all could use, to stroke the heart
And plead compassion in bestowing it.
So with her handmaids busy did she flit
From man to man, 'mid outlaws, broken blades,
Robbed husbandmen, their robbers, phantoms, shades
Of what were men till hunger made them less
Than man can be and still know uprightness;
And whom she spake with kindly words and cheer
In him the light of hope began to peer
And glimmer in his eyes; and him she fed
And nourisht, then sent homeward comforted
A little, to endure a little more.
Now among these, hard by the outer door,
She marked a man unbent whose sturdy look
Never left hers for long, whose shepherd's hook
Seemed not a staff to prop him, whose bright eyes
Burned steadily, as fire when the wind dies.
Great in the girth was he, but not so tall
By a full hand as many whom the wall
Showed like gaunt channel-posts by an ebb tide
Left stranded in a world of ooze. Beside
His knees she kneeled, and to his wounded feet
Applied her balms; but he, from his low seat
Against the wall, leaned out and in her ear
Whispered, but so that no one else could hear,
"Other than my wounds are there for thy pains,
Lady, and deeper. One, a grievous, drains
The great heart of a king, and one is fresh,
Though ten years old, in the sweet innocent flesh
Of a young child."
Nothing said she, but stoopt
The closer to her task. He thought she droopt
Her head, he knew she trembled, that her shoulder
Twitcht as she wrought her task; so he grew bolder,
Saying, "But thou art pitiful! I know
That thou wilt wash their wounds."
She whispered "Oh,
Be sure of me!"
Then he, "Let us have speech
Secret together out of range or reach
Of prying ears, if such a chance may be."
Then she said, "Towards morning look for me
Here, when the city sleeps, before the sun."
So till the glimmer of dawn this hardy one
Keepeth the watch in Paris' house. All night
With hard unwinking eyes he sat upright,
While all about the sleepers lay, like stones
Littered upon a hill-top, save that moans,
Sighings and "Gods, have pity!" showed that they
By night rehearsed the miseries of day,
And by bread lived not but by hope deferred.
Grimly he suffered till such time he heard
Helen's light foot and faint and gray in the mist
Descried her slim veiled outline, saw her twist
And slip between the sleepers on the ground,
Atiptoe coming, swift, with scarce a sound,
Not faltering in fear. No fear she had.
From head to foot a sea-blue mantle clad
Her lovely shape, from which her pale keen face
Shone like the moon in frosty sky. No case
Was his to waver, for her eyes spake true
As Heaven upon the world. Him then she drew
To follow her, out of the house, to where
The ilex trees stood darkly, and the air
Struck sharp and chill before the dawn's first breath.
There stood a little altar underneath
An image: Artemis the quick deerslayer,
High-girdled and barekneed; to Whom in prayer
First bowed, then stood erect with lifted hands,
Palms upward, Helen. "Lady of open lands
And lakes and windy heights," prayed she, "so do
To me as to Amphion's wife when blew
The wind of thy high anger, and she stared
On sudden death that not one dear life spared
Of all she had--so do to me if false
I prove unto this Argive!"
Then the walls
And gates of Ilios she traced in the sand,
And told him of the watch-towers, and how manned
The gates at night; and where the treasure was,
And where the houses of the chiefs. But as
She faltered in the tale, "Show now," said he,
"Where Priam's golden palace is."
But she
Said, "Nay, not that; for since the day of shame
That brought me in, no word or look of blame
Hath he cast on me. Nay, when Hector died
And all the city turned on me and cried
My name, as to an outcast dog men fling
Howling and scorn, not one word said the King.
And when they hissed me in the shrines of the Gods,
And women egged their children on with nods
To foul the house-wall, or in passing spat
Towards it, he, the old King, came and sat
Daily with me, and often on my hair
Would lay a gentle hand. Him thou shalt spare
For my sake who betray him."
Odysseus said,
"Well, thou shalt speak no more of him. His bed
Is not of thy making, nor mine, but his
Who hath thee here a cageling, thy Paris.
Him he begat as well as Hector. Now
Let Priam look to reap what he did sow."
But when glad light brimmed o'er the cup of earth
And shrill birds called forth men to grief or mirth
As might afford their labour under the sun,
Helen advised how best to get him gone,
And fetched a roll of cord, the which made fast
About a stanchion, about him next she cast,
About and about until the whole was round
His body, and the end to his arm she bound:
Then showed him in the wall where best foothold
Might be, and watcht him down as fold by fold
He paid the cable out; and as he paid
So did she twist it, till the coil was made
As it had been at first. Then watcht she him
Stride o'er the plain until he twinkled dim
And sank into the mist.
That day came not
King Menelaus to the trysting spot;
But ere Odysseus left her she had ta'en
A crocus flower which on her breast had lain,
And toucht it with her lips. "Give this," said she,
"To my good lord who hath seen the flower in me."
SEVENTH STAVE
THEY BUILD THE HORSE AND ENTER IN
What weariness of wind and wave and foam
Was to be for Odysseus ere his home
Of scrub and crag and scanty pasturage
He saw again! What stress of pilgrimage
Through roaring waterways and cities of men,
What sojourn among folk beyond the ken
Of mortal seafarers in homelier seas,
More trodden lands! Sure, none had earned his ease
As he, that windless morning when he drew
Near silent Ithaca, gray in misty blue,
And wondered on the old familiar scene,
Which was to him as it had never been
Aforetime. Say, had he but had inkling
That in this hour all that long wandering
Of his was self-ensured, had he been bold
To plan and carry what must now be told
Of this too hardy champion? Solve it you
Whose chronicling is over. Mine's to do.
All day until the setting of the sun,
Devising how to use what he had won
Odysseus stood; for nothing within walls
Was hid, he knew the very trumpet-calls
Wherewith they turned the guard out, and the cries
The sentries used to hearten or advise
The city in the watches of the night.
Once in, no hope for Ilios; but his plight
No better stood for that, since no way in
Could he conceive, nor entry hope to win
For any force enough to seize the gate
And open for the host.
But then some Fate,
Or, some men say, Athene the gray-eyed,
Ever his friend, never far from his side,
Prompted him look about him. Then he heeds
A stork set motionless in the dry reeds
That lift their withered arms, a skeleton host,
Long after winter and her aching frost
Are gone, and rattle in the spring's soft breeze
Dry bones, as if to daunt the budding trees
And warn them of the summer's wrath to come.
Still sat the bird, as fast asleep or numb
With cold, her head half-buried in her breast,
With close-shut eyes: a dead bird on the nest,
Arrow-shot--for behold! a wound she bore
Mid-breast, which stooping to, to see the more,
Lo, forth from it came busy, one by one,
Light-moving ants! So she to her death had gone
These many days; and there where she lost life
Her carrion shell with it again was rife.
So teems the earth, that ere our clay be rotten
New hosts sweep clean the hearth, our deeds forgotten.
But stooping still, Odysseus saw her not
Nor her brisk tenantry; afar his thought,
And after it his vision, crossed the plain
And lit on Ilios, dim and lapt in rain,
Piled up like blocks which Titans rear to mark
Where hero of their breed sits stiff and stark,
Spear in dead hand, and dead chin on dead knees;
And "Ha," cried he, "proud hinderer of our ease,
Now hold I thee within my hollowed hand!"
Straightway returning, Troy's destruction planned,
He sends for one Epeios, craftsman good,
And bids him frame him out a horse in wood,
Big-bellied as a ship of sixty oars
Such as men use for traffic, not in wars,
Nor piracy, but roomy, deep in the hold,
Where men may shelter if needs be from cold,
Or sleep between their watches. "Scant not you,"
He said, "your timber not your sweat. Drive through
This horse for me, Epeios, as if we
Awaited it to give the word for sea
And Hellas and our wives and children dear;
For this is true, without it we stay here
Another ten-year shift, if by main force
We would take Troy, but ten days with my horse."
So to their task Epeios and his teams
Went valiantly, and heaved and hauled great beams
Of timber from far Ida, and hacked amain
And rought the framework out. Then to it again
They went with adzes and their smoothing tools,
And made all shapely; next bored for their dools
With augurs, and made good stock on to stock
With mortise and with dovetail. Last, they lock
The frames with clamps, the nether to the upper,
And body forth a horse from crest to crupper
In outline.
Now their ribbing must be shaped
With axe to take the round, first rought, then scraped
With adzes, then deep-mortised in the frame
To bear the weight of so much mass, whose fame
When all was won, the Earth herself might quake,
Supporting on her broad breast. Now they take
Planks sawn and smoothed, and set them over steam
Of cauldrons to be supple. These to the beam
Above they rivet fast, and bend them down
Till from the belly more they seem to have grown
Than in it to be ended, so well sunk
And grooved they be. There's for the horse's trunk.
But as for head and legs, these from the block
Epeios carved, and fixed them on the stock
With long pins spigotted and clamps of steel;
And then the tail, downsweeping to the heel,
He carved and rivetted in place. Yet more
He did; for cunningly he made a door
Beneath the belly of him, in a part
Where Nature lends her aid to sculptor's art,
And few would have the thought to look for it,
Or eyes so keen to find, if they'd the wit.
Greatly stood he, hogmaned, with wrinkled neck
And wrying jaw, as though upon the check
One rode him. On three legs he stood, with one
Pawing the air, as if his course to run
Was overdue. Almost you heard the champ
And clatter of the bit, almost the stamp
And scrape of hoof; almost his fretful crest
He seemed to toss on high. So much confest
The wondering host. "But where's the man to ride?"
They askt. Odysseus said, "He'll go inside.
Yet there shall seem a rider--nay, let two
Bespan so brave a back," Epeios anew
He spurred, and had his horsemen as he would,
Two noble youths, star-frontletted, but nude
Of clothing, and unarmed, who sat as though
Centaurs not men, and with their knees did show
The road to travel. Next Odysseus bid,
"Gild thou me him, Epeios"; which he did,
And burnisht after, till he blazed afar
Like that great image which men hail for a star
Of omen holy, image without peer,
Chryselephantine Athene with her spear,
Shining o'er Athens; to which their course they set
When homeward faring through the seaways wet
From Poros or from Nauplia, or some
From the Eub[oe]an gulf, or where the foam
Washes the feet of Sounion, on whose brow
Like a white crown the shafts burn even now.
Such was the shaping of the Horse of Wood,
The bane of Ilios.
Ordered now they stood
Midway between the ships and Troy, and cast
The lots, who should go in from first to last
Of all the chieftains chosen. And the lot
Leapt out of Diomede, so in he got
And sat up in the neck. Next Aias went,
Clasping his shins and blinking as he bent,
Working the ridges of his villainous brow,
Like puzzled, patient monkey on a bough
That peers with bald, far-seeing eyes, whose scope
And steadfastness seem there to mock our hope;
Next Antiklos, and next Meriones
The Cretan; next good Teukros. After these
Went Pyrrhos, Agamemnon, King of men,
Menestheus and Idomeneus, and then
King Menelaus; and Odysseus last
Entered the desperate doorway, and made fast.
And all the Achaian remnant, seeing their best
To this great venture finally addrest,
Stood awed in silence; but Nestor the old
Bade bring the victims, and these on the wold
In sight of Troy he slew, and so uplift
The smoke of fire, and bloodsmoke, as a gift
Acceptable to Him he hailed by name
Kronion, sky-dweller, who giveth fame,
Lord of the thunder; to Here next, and Her,
The Maid of War and holy harbinger
Of Father Zeus, who bears the AEgis dread
And shakes it when the storm peals overhead
And lightning splits the firmament with fire;
Nor yet forgat Poseidon, dark-haired sire
Of all the seas, and of great Ocean's flow,
The girdler of the world. So back with slow
And pondered steps they all returned, and dark
Swallowed up Troy, and Horse, and them who stark
Abode within it. And the great stars shone
Out over sea and land; and speaking none,
Nursing his arms, nursing within his breast
His enterprise, each hero sat at rest
Ignorant of the world of day and night,
Or whether he should live to see the light,
Or see it but to perish in this cage.
Only Odysseus felt his heart engage
The blithelier for the peril. He was stuff
That thrives by daring, nor can dare enough.
Three days, three nights before the Skaian Gate
Sat they within their ambush, apt for fate;
Three days, three nights, the Trojans swarmed the walls
And towers or held high council in their halls
What this portended, this o'erweening mass
Reared up so high no man stretching could pass
His hand over the crupper, of such girth
Of haunch, to span the pair no man on earth
Could compass with both arms. But most their eyes
Were for the riders who in godlike guise
Went naked into battle, as Gods use,
Untrammel'd by our shifts of shields and shoes,
As if we dread the earth whereof we are.
Sons of God, these: for bore not each a star
Ablaze upon his forelock? Lo, they say,
Kastor and Polydeukes, who but they,
Come in to save their sister at the last,
And war for Troy, and root King Priam fast
In his demesne, him and his heirs for ever!
Now call they soothsayers to make endeavour
With engines of their craft to read the thing;
But others urge them hale it to the King--
"Let him dispose," they say, "of it and us,
And order as he will, from Pergamos
To heave it o'er the sheer and bring to wreck;
Or burn with fire; or harbour to bedeck
The temple of some God: of three ways one.
Here it cannot abide to flout the sun
With arrogant flash for every beam of his."
Herewith agreed the men of mysteries,
Raking the bloodsick earth to have the truth,
And getting what they lookt for, as in sooth
A man will do. So then they all fell to't
To hale with cords and lever foot by foot
The portent; and as frenzy frenzy breeds,
And what one has another thinks he needs,
So to a straining twenty other score
Lent hands, and ever from the concourse more
Of them, who hauled as if Troy's life depended
On hastening forward that wherein it ended.
So came the Horse to Troy, so was filled up
With retribution that sweet loving-cup
Paris had drunk to Helen overseas--
The cup which whoso drains must taste the lees.
EIGHTH STAVE
THE HORSE IN TROY; THE PASSION OF KASSANDRA