BOOK II

Every tongue was hushed, and every eye fixed intently, when, from high couch, father Æneas began thus:—

“Too cruel to be told, great queen, is the sorrow you bid me revive—how the power of Troy and its empire met with piteous overthrow from the Danaans—the 5 heartrending sights which my own eyes saw, and the scenes where I had a large part to play. Who, in such recital—be he of the Myrmidons[122] or the Dolopes, or a soldier of ruthless Ulysses’[123] band—would refrain from tears? And now, too, night is rushing in dews down the steep of heaven, 10 and the setting stars counsel repose. Still, if so great be your longing to acquaint yourself with our disasters, and hear the brief tale of Troy’s last agony, though my mind shudders at the remembrance, and starts back in sudden anguish, I will essay the task. 15

“Broken by war and foiled by destiny, the chiefs of the Danaans, now that the flying years were numbering so many, build a horse of mountain size, by the inspiration of Pallas’ skill, and interlace its ribs with planks of fir. A vow for their safe journey home is the pretext: such the 20 fame that spreads. In this they secretly enclose chosen men of sinew, picked out by lot, in the depth of its sides, and fill every corner of those mighty caverns, the belly of the monster, with armed warriors.

“In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island of wide-spread 25 renown, powerful and rich while Priam’s empire yet was, now a mere bay, a treacherous roadstead for ships. Thus far they sail out, and hide themselves on the forsaken coast. We thought them gone off with a fair wind for Mycenæ. And so all Trojan land shakes off the agony of 30 years. Open fly the gates; what pleasure to go and see the Dorian camp, and the places deserted, and the shore forsaken! Yes, here were the troops of the Dolopes; here the tent of that savage Achilles; here the ships were drawn up; here they used to set the battle in array. Some of 5 us are standing agaze at the fatal offering to the virgin goddess, and wondering at the hugeness of the horse; and Thymœtes takes the lead, urging to have it dragged within the walls, and lodged in the citadel, either with treasonable intent, or that the fate of Troy had begun to 10 set that way. But Capys, and the men of saner judgment, bid us send this snare of the Danaans, this suspicious present, headlong into the sea, or light a fire under and burn it; or, if not that, to pierce and probe that hollow womb that might hide so much. The populace, unstable as 15 ever, divides off into opposite factions.

“Throwing himself before all, with a great crowd at his back, Laocoon,[124] all on fire, comes running down the steep of the citadel, crying in the distance, ‘What strange madness is this, my unhappy countrymen? Think you 20 that the enemy has sailed off, or that a Danaan could ever make a present that had no treachery in it? Is this your knowledge of Ulysses? Either the Achæans are shut up and hiding in this piece of wood, or it is an engine framed against our walls, to command the houses and come down 25 on the city from above, or there is some other secret trick. Men of Troy, put no faith in the horse. Whatever it be, I fear a Greek even with a gift in his hand.’ With these words he hurled a mighty spear with all his force against the beast’s side, the jointed arch of its belly. It lodged, 30 and stood quivering; the womb shook again, and an echo and a groan rang hollow from its caverns; and, then, had but heaven’s destiny and man’s judgment been unwarped, he had led us to carry sword and havoc into the Argive lurking-place, and Troy would now be standing, 35 and thou, Priam’s tall fortress, still in being.

“Meanwhile, see! some Dardan shepherds are dragging with loud shouts before the king a young man with his hands tied behind him, who had thrown himself, a stranger, across their way, to compass this very thing, and thus let the Achæans into Troy—bold of heart, and ready for either issue, either to play off his stratagem, or to meet inevitable death. From all sides, in eager curiosity, 5 the Trojan youth come streaming round, vying in their insults to the prisoner. Now then, listen, to the tale of Danaan fraud, and from one act of guilt learn what the whole nation is. There as he stood, with all eyes bent on him, bewildered, defenceless, and looked round on the 10 Phrygian bands, ’ Alas!’ he cries, ‘where is there a spot of earth or sea that will give me shelter now? or what last resource is left for a wretch like me—one who has no place among the Danaans to hide my head—while the children of Dardanus no less are in arms against me, 15 crying for bloody vengeance?’ At that piteous cry our mood was changed, and every outrage checked. We encourage him to speak—to tell us what his parentage is; what his business; what he has to rest on as a prisoner. ‘All, my lord, shall be avowed to you truly, whatever 20 be the issue. I will not deny that I am an Argive by nation; this to begin with. Nor if Fortune has made a miserable man out of Sinon, shall her base schooling make him deceiver and liar as well. If haply in talk your ears ever caught the name of Palamedes, of the house of 25 Belus, and his wide-spread renown—his, whom under false accusation, an innocent man, charged by the blackest calumny, all because his voice was against the war, the Pelasgians sent down to death, and now, when he is laid in darkness, lament him too late—know that it was 30 as his comrade and near kinsman I was sent by a needy father to a soldier’s life in earliest youth. While he stood with his royal state unimpaired, an honoured member of the kingly council, I, too, enjoyed my measure of name and dignity; but after the jealousy of false Ulysses—you 35 know the tale—removed him from this upper clime—dashed from my height, I dragged on life in darkness and sorrow, and vented to my own heart my rage at the disaster of my innocent friend. Nor did I keep silence—madman that I was! No, if ever the chance were given me—if ever I came back with glory to my native Argos—I vowed myself his avenger, and my words stirred up bitter enmity. From that time my ruin began; from that 5 time Ulysses was ever threatening me with some new charge, ever scattering abroad words of mystery, and looking for allies to plot with. Nor did he rest till by Calchas’[125] agency—but why recall this unwelcome story with no end to gain? Why waste your time, if you hold all Achæans 10 alike, and to hear that is to hear enough? Take the vengeance you should have taken long ago. It is just what would please the Ithacan, and earn a large reward from the sons of Atreus!’[126]

“This makes us burn, indeed, to explore and inquire into 15 the reason of his tale, not knowing that crime could be so monstrous, and Pelasgian art so cunning. He resumes, in faltering tones, spoken from his false heart:—

“‘Often have the Danaans designed to turn their back on Troy and accomplish a retreat, and abandon the war 20 that had wearied them so long; and would they had done it! As often has the fierce inclemency of the deep barred their purpose, and the south wind frightened them from sailing. Especially, when this horse was set up at last, a compacted mass of maple planks, the thunder of the storm-clouds 25 was heard the whole firmament over. In our perplexity we send Eurypylus to inquire of Phœbus’[127] oracle, and this is the gloomy message that he brings back from the shrine: “With blood it was ye appeased the winds, even with a maiden’s slaughter, when first ye came, Danaans, 30 to the shore of Ilion. With blood it is ye must buy your return, and propitiate heaven by the life of an Argive!” Soon as the news reached the public ear, every mind was cowed, and a cold shudder thrilled the depth of every heart. For whom has Fate a summons? Whom does 35 Apollo demand as his prey? And now the Ithacan, with boisterous vehemence, drags forward the prophet Calchas, insists on knowing what that announcement of heaven’s will may mean; and many even then were the prophetic mouths that warned me of the trickster’s cruel villany, and many the eyes that silently foresaw the future. Ten days the seer holds his peace, and keeps his tent, refusing to utter a word that should, disclose any name or sacrifice 5 any life. At last, goaded by the Ithacan’s vehement clamour, he breaks into a concerted utterance, and dooms me to the altar. All assented, well content that the danger which each feared for himself should be directed to the extinction of one poor wretch. And now the day of horror 10 was come; all was being ready for my sacrifice—the salt cakes for the fire, and the fillet to crown my brow—when I escaped, I own it, from death, and broke my bonds, and hid myself that night in a muddy marsh in the covert of the rushes, while they should be sailing, in the 15 faint hope that they had sailed. My old country, I never expect to see it again, nor my darling children, and the father I have longed so for! No! they are likely to visit them with vengeance for my escape, and expiate this guilt of mine by taking their poor lives. O! by the 20 gods above, and the powers that know when truth is spoken, if there is yet abiding anywhere among men such a thing as unsullied faith, I conjure you, have pity on this weight of suffering, have pity on a soul that is unworthily borne down!’ 25

“Such a tearful appeal gains him his life, and our compassion too. Priam himself is first to bid them relieve the man of his manacles and the chains that bound him, and addresses him in words of kindness. ‘Whoever you are, from this time forth have done with the Greeks, and forget 30 them. I make you my man, and bid you answer truly the questions I shall put. What do they mean by setting up this huge mountain of a horse? Who was the prompter of it? What is their object? Some religious offering, or some engine of war?’ 35

“Thus Priam: the prisoner, with all his Pelasgian craft and cunning about him, raised his unfettered hands to the stars:—

“‘You, eternal fires, with your inviolable majesty, be my witnesses; you, altars and impious swords, from which I fled; and you, hallowed fillets, which I wore for the sacrifice! I am free to break all the sacred ties that bound me to the Greeks. I am free to treat them as my foes, and 5 disclose all their secrets to the light of day, all the claims of the land of my birth notwithstanding. Only do thou abide by thy plighted word, and preserve faith with thy preserver, land of Troy, if he tells thee true, and makes thee large returns. 10

“‘The strength of the Danaan hopes, and the soul of their confidence in the war they plunged into, has ever been the aid of Pallas. From the time when Tydeus’ impious son and Ulysses, that coiner of villany, dared to drag away from her hallowed temple the fateful Palladium,[128] 15 slaughtering the guards who watched the citadel’s height, thenceforth there was an ebb and a backsliding in the Danaan hopes, their forces shattered, the goddess estranged. Nor were the portents dubious that betokened Tritonia’s change of mood. Scarce was the image lodged 20 in the camp, when flashing fire glowed in her uplifted eyes, and salt sweat trickled over her frame, and thrice of herself she leaped from the ground, marvellous to relate, shield and quivering lance and all. Forthwith Calchas sounds the note for flight over the perilous deep, for that Pergamus 25 can never be razed by Argive steel, unless they go to Argos for fresh omens, and bring back the divine aid which their crooked keels bore with them aforetime over the sea. And now this their voyage home to Mycenæ is to get new forces and gods to sail with them; they will re-cross 30 the deep, and come upon you unforeseen. Such is Calchas’ scanning of the omens. As for this image, he warned them to set it up in exchange for the Palladium, and, in expiation of injured deity, to atone for their fatal crime. Calchas, however, bade them raise it to the vast 35 height you see, knitting plank to plank, till it was brought near to heaven, that it might not be admitted at the gates or dragged within the walls, and thus restore to the people the bulwark of their old worship. For if your hand should profane Minerva’s offering, then (said he) a mighty destruction—may the gods turn the omen on his head ere it falls on yours!—would come on the empire of Priam and the Phrygian nation; but if these hands of yours 5 should help it to scale your city’s height, Asia would roll the mighty tide of invasion on the walls of Pelops,[129] and our posterity would have to meet the fate he threatened.’

“Such was the stratagem—the cursed art of perjured Sinon—that gained credence for the tale; and such the 10 victory won over us by wiles and constrained tears—over us, whom not Tydeus’ son, nor Achilles of Larissa, nor ten years of war subdued, nor a fleet of a thousand sail.

“And now another object, greater and far more terrible, 15 is forced on my poor countrymen, to the confusion of their unprophetic souls. Laocoon, drawn by lot as Neptune’s priest, was sacrificing a mighty bull at the wonted altar—when behold from Tenedos, over the still deep—I shudder as I recount the tale—two serpents coiled in vast 20 circles are seen breasting the sea, and moving side by side towards the shore. Their breasts rise erect among the waves; their manes, of blood-red hue, tower over the water, the rest of them floats behind on the main, trailing a huge undulating length; the brine foams and dashes 25 about them; they are already on shore, in the plain—with their glowing eyes bloodshot and fiery, and their forked tongues playing in their hissing mouths. We fly all ways in pale terror: they, in an unswerving column, make for Laocoon, and first each serpent folds round one 30 of his two sons, clasping the youthful body, and greedily devouring the poor limbs. Afterwards, as the father comes to the rescue, weapon in hand, they fasten on him and lash their enormous spires tight round him—and now twice folded round his middle, twice embracing his neck with 35 their scaly length, they tower over him with uplifted head and crest. He is straining with agonizing clutch to pull the knots asunder, his priestly fillets all bedewed with gore and black poison, and raising all the while dreadful cries to heaven—like the bellowing, when a wounded bull darts away from the altar, dashing off from his neck the ill-aimed axe. But the two serpents escape glidingly to the temple top, making for the height where ruthless Tritonia 5 is enthroned, and there shelter themselves under the goddess’s feet and the round of her shield. Then, indeed, every breast is cowed and thrilled through by a new and strange terror—every voice cries that Laocoon has been duly punished for his crime, profaning the sacred wood 10 with his weapon’s point, and hurling his guilty lance against the back of the steed. Let the image be drawn to her temple, and let prayer be made to the goddess, is the general cry—we break through the walls and open the town within. All gird them to the work, putting 15 wheels to run easily under its feet, and throwing lengths of hempen tie round its neck. It scales the walls, that fateful engine, with its armed brood—boys and unwedded girls, standing about it, chant sacred hymns, delighted to touch the rope. In it moves, rolling with threatening brow 20 into the heart of the city. O my country! O Ilion, home of the gods! O ye, Dardan towers, with your martial fame! Yes—four times on the gateway’s very threshold it stopped, four times the arms rattled in its womb. On, however, we press, unheeding, in the blindness of our 25 frenzy, and lodge the ill-starred portent in our hallowed citadel. Even then Cassandra[130] unseals to speak of future fate those lips which by the god’s command no Trojan ever believed—while we, alas! we, spend the day that was to be our last in crowning the temples of the gods 30 with festal boughs the whole city through.

“Meantime round rolls the sky, and on comes night from the ocean, wrapping in its mighty shade earth and heaven and Myrmidon wiles: through the city the Trojans are hushed in careless repose, their tired limbs in the arms of 35 sleep. Already was the Argive host on its way from Tenedos, through the friendly stillness of the quiet moon, making for the well-known shore, when see! the royal ship mounts its fire signal, and Sinon, sheltered by heaven’s partial decree, stealthily sets at large the Danaans, hid in that treacherous womb, and opens the pine-wood door: they as the horse opens are restored to upper air, and leap forth with joy from the hollow timber, Thessander and 5 Sthenelus leading the way, and the dreaded Ulysses, gliding down the lowered rope, and Achamas and Thoas, and Neoptolemus of Peleus’ line, and first Machaon, and Menelaus, and the framer of the cheat himself, Epeus. They rush on the town as it lies drowned in sleep and revelry. 10 The watchers are put to the sword, the gates thrown open, and all are welcoming their comrades, and uniting with the conspiring bands.

“It was just the time when first slumber comes to heal human suffering, stealing on men by heaven’s blessing 15 with balmiest influence. Lo! as I slept, before my eyes Hector,[131] in deepest sorrow, seemed to be standing by me, shedding rivers of tears—mangled from dragging at the car, as I remember him of old, and black with gory dust, and with his swollen feet bored by the thong. Ay me! 20 what a sight was there! what a change from that Hector of ours, who comes back to us clad in the spoils of Achilles, or from hurling Phrygian fire on Danaan vessels! with stiffened beard and hair matted with blood, and those wounds fresh about him, which fell on him so thickly 25 round his country’s walls. Methought I addressed him first with tears like his own, fetching from my breast the accents of sorrow—‘O light of Dardan land, surest hope that Trojans ever had! What delay has kept you so long? From what clime is the Hector of our longings returned 30 to us at last? O the eyes with which, after long months of death among your people, months of manifold suffering to Troy and her sons, spent and weary, we look upon you now! What unworthy cause has marred the clear beauty of those features, or why do I behold these wounds?’ 35 He answers nought, and gives no idle heed to my vain inquiries, but with a deep sigh, heaved from the bottom of his heart—‘Ah! fly, goddess-born!’ cries he, ‘and escape from these flames—the walls are in the enemy’s hand—Troy is tumbling from its summit—the claims of country and king are satisfied—if Pergamus could be defended by force of hand, it would have been defended by mine, in my day. Your country’s worship and her 5 gods are what she entrusts to you now—take them to share your destiny—seek for them a mighty city, which you shall one day build when you have wandered the ocean over.’ With these words he brings out Queen Vesta[132] with her fillets and the ever-burning fire from the secret 10 shrine.

“Meanwhile the city in its various quarters is being convulsed with agony—and ever more and more, though my father Anchises’ palace was retired in the privacy of embosoming trees, the sounds deepen, and the alarm of 15 battle swells. I start up from sleep, mount the sloping roof, and stand intently listening—even as, when among standing corn a spark falls with a fierce south wind to fan it, or the impetuous stream of a mountain torrent sweeps the fields, sweeps the joyous crops and the bullocks’ 20 toil, and drives the woods headlong before it, in perplexed amazement a shepherd takes in the crash from a rock’s tall summit. Then, indeed, all doubt was over, and the wiles of the Danaans stood confessed. Already Deiphobus’ palace has fallen with a mighty overthrow 25 before the mastering fire-god—already his neighbour Ucalegon is in flames—the expanse of the Sigean sea shines again with the blaze. Up rises at once the shouting of men and the braying of trumpets. To arms I rush in frenzy.—not that good cause is shown for arms—but 30 to muster a troop for fight, and run to the citadel with my comrades is my first burning impulse—madness and rage drive my mind headlong, and I think how glorious to die with arms in my hand.

“But see! Panthus, escaped from an Achæan volley, 35 Panthus, Othrys’ son, priest of Phœbus in the citadel, comes dragging along with his own hand the vanquished gods of his worship and his young grandchild, and making distractedly for my door. ‘How goes the day, Panthus? What hold have we of the citadel?’ The words were scarcely uttered when with a groan he replies, ‘It is come, the last day, the inevitable hour—on Dardan land no more Trojans; no more of Ilion, and the great renown 5 of the sons of Teucer; Jove, in his cruelty, has carried all over to Argos; the town is on fire, and the Danaans are its masters. There, planted high in the heart of the city, the horse is pouring out armed men, and Sinon is flinging about fire in the insolence of conquest; some are 10 crowding into the unfolded gates—thousands, many as ever came from huge Mycenæ: some are blocking up the narrow streets, with weapons pointed at all comers; the sharp steel with its gleaming blade stands drawn, ready for slaughter; hardly, even on the threshold, the sentinels 15 of the gates are attempting resistance, in a struggle where the powers of war are blind.’

“At these words of the son of Othrys, and heaven’s will thus expressed, I plunge into the fire and the battle, following the war-fiend’s yell, the din of strife, and the 20 shout that rose to the sky. There join me Rhipeus and Epytus, bravest in fight, crossing my way in the moonlight, as also Hypanis and Dymas, and form at my side; young Coroebus, too, Mygdon’s son; he happened to be just then come to Troy, with a frantic passion for Cassandra, 25 and was bringing a son-in-law’s aid to Priam and his Phrygians—poor boy! to have given no heed to the warnings of his heaven-struck bride! Seeing them gathered in a mass and nerved for battle, I begin thereon:—‘Young hearts, full of unavailing valour, if your desire 30 is set to follow a desperate man, you see what the plight of our affairs is—gone in a body from shrine and altar are the gods who upheld this our empire—the city you succour is a blazing ruin; choose we then death, and rush we into the thick of the fight. The one safety for vanquished 35 men is to hope for none.’ These words stirred their young spirits to madness: then, like ravenous wolves in night’s dark cloud, driven abroad by the blind rage of lawless hunger, with their cubs left at home waiting their return with parched jaws, among javelins, among foemen, on we go with no uncertain fate before us, keeping our way through the heart of the town, while night flaps over us its dark, overshadowing wings. Who could unfold in 5 speech the carnage, the horrors of that night, or make his tears keep pace with our suffering? It is an ancient city, falling from the height where she queened it many a year; and heaps of unresisting bodies are lying confusedly in the streets, in the houses, on the hallowed steps of temples. 10 Nor is it on Teucer’s sons alone that bloody vengeance lights. There are times when even the vanquished feel courage rushing back to their hearts, and the conquering Danaans fall. Everywhere is relentless agony; everywhere terror, and the vision of death in many a manifestation. 15

“First of the Danaans, with a large band at his back, Androgeos crosses our way, taking us for a troop of his friends in his ignorance, and hails us at once in words of fellowship: ‘Come, my men, be quick. Why, what sloth 20 is keeping you so late? Pergamus is on fire, and the rest of us are spoiling and sacking it, and here are you, but just disembarked from your tall ships.’ He said, and instantly, for no reply was forthcoming to reassure him, saw that he had fallen into the thick of the enemy. Struck 25 with consternation, he drew back foot and tongue. Just as a man who at unawares has trodden on a snake among thorns and briers in his walk, and recoils at once in sudden alarm from the angry uplifted crest and the black swelling neck, so Androgeos, appalled at the sight, was retiring. 30 But we rush on him, and close round, weapons in hand; and, in their ignorance of the ground, and the surprise of their terror, they fall before us everywhere. Fortune smiles on our first encounter. Hereon Coroebus, flushed with success and daring, ‘Come, my friends,’ he 35 cries, ‘where Fortune at starting directs us to the path of safety, and reveals herself as our ally, be it ours to follow on. Let us change shields, and see if Danaan decorations will fit us. Trick or strength of hand, who, in dealing with an enemy, asks which? They shall arm us against themselves.’ So saying, he puts on Androgeos’ crested helm, and his shield with its goodly device, and fastens to his side an Argive sword. So does Rhipeus, so Dymas 5 too, and all our company, with youthful exultation, each arming himself out of the new-won spoils. On we go, mixing with the Greeks, under auspices not our own, and many are the combats in which we engage in the blindness of night, many the Danaans whom we send down to 10 the shades. They fly on all hands: some to the ships, making at full speed for safety on the shore; others, in the debasement of terror, climb once more the horse’s huge sides, and hide themselves in the womb they knew so well. 15

“Alas! it is not for man to throw himself on the gods against their will!

“Lo! there was a princess of Priam’s house being dragged by her dishevelled hair from the temple, from the very shrine of Minerva, Cassandra, straining her flashing 20 eyes to heaven in vain—her eyes—for those delicate hands were confined by manacles. The sight was too much for the infuriate mind of Coroebus: rushing to his doom, he flung himself into the middle of the hostile force. One and all, we follow, close our ranks, and fall on. And 25 now, first from the temple’s lofty top we are overwhelmed by a shower of our own countrymen’s darts, and a most piteous carnage ensues, all along of the appearance of our arms and our mistaken Grecian crests. Then the Danaans, groaning and enraged at the rescue of the maiden, rally 30 from all sides, and fall on us. Ajax, in all his fury, and the two sons of Atreus, and the whole array of the Dolopes—even as one day when the tempest is broken loose, and wind meets wind—west, and south, and east exulting in his orient steeds—there is crashing in the woods, and 35 Nereus,[133] in a cloud of foam, is plying his ruthless trident, and stirring up the sea from its very bottom. Such of the foe, moreover, as in the darkness of night we had driven routed through, the gloom—thanks to our stratagem—and scattered the whole city over, rally again: they are the first to recognize the imposture of shield and weapon, and to mark the different sound of our speech. All is over—we are overwhelmed by numbers: first of 5 all, Coroebus is stretched low; his slayer Peneleos, his place of death the altar of the Goddess of Arms; slain, too, is Rhipeus, the justest and most righteous man in Troy—but heaven’s will is not ours—down go Hypanis and Dymas both, shot by their friends; nor could all 10 your acts of piety, good Panthus, shield you in your fall; no, nor the fillet of Apollo on your brow. Ye ashes of Ilion, and thou, funeral fire of those I loved, witness ye that in your day of doom I shrank from no Danaan dart, no hand-to-hand encounter; nay, that had my fate been 15 to fall, my hand had earned it well. We are parted from the rest, Iphitus, Pelias, and I. Iphitus, a man on whom years were already pressing; Pelias, crippled by a wound from Ulysses—all three summoned by the shouting to Priam’s palace. 20

“Here, indeed, the conflict was gigantic—just as if the rest of the war were nowhere—as if none were dying in the whole city beside: even such was the sight we saw—the war-god raging untamed, the Danaans streaming up to the roof, the door blockaded by a long penthouse of shields. 25 The scaling ladders are clasping the walls; close to the very door men are climbing, with their left hands presenting the buckler to shelter them from darts, while with their right they are clasping the battlements. The Dardans, on their part, are tearing up from the palace turret and 30 roof—such the weapons with which, in their dire extremity, in the last death-struggle, they make ready for their defence—gilded rafters, the stately ornaments of elder days, they are hurling down; while others, their swords drawn, are stationed at the doors at the bottom, and 35 guarding them in close array. The fire revived within me, to bring succour to the royal roof, and relieve those brave men, and breathe new daring into the vanquished.

“A door there was, a hidden entrance, a thoroughfare through Priam’s palace, a postern which you leave in the rear; by it the hapless Andromache,[134] while yet the throne was standing, used often to repair unattended to her husband’s 5 parents, and pull the boy Astyanax into his grandsire’s presence. Through it I make my way to the summit of the roof, whence the wretched Teucrians were hurling darts without avail. There was a tower standing precipitous, its roof reared high to the stars, whence could be seen all Troy, and the Danaan fleet, and the Achæan camp; 10 to this we applied our weapons, just where the lofty flooring made the joining insecure; we wrench it from its eminence, we have toppled it over—down it falls at once, a huge crashing ruin, and tumbles far and wide over the Danaan ranks. But others fill their place; while stones and every 15 kind of missile keep raining unabated.

“There in the entry, at the very gate, is Pyrrhus[135] in his glory, gleaming with spear and sword, and with all the brilliance of steel. Even as against the daylight a serpent gorged with baleful herbage, whom winter’s cold of late 20 was keeping swollen underground, now, his skin shed, in new life and in the beauty of youth, rears his breast erect, and wreathes his shining scales, towering to the sun, and flashes in his mouth his three-forked tongue. With him gigantic Periphas and Automedon, his armour-bearer, 25 once Achilles’ charioteer, with him the whole chivalry of Scyros press to the walls, and hurl up fire to the roof. Himself among the foremost, a two-edged axe in hand, is bursting through the stubborn door and forcing from their hinges the valves copper-sheathed; see! now he has 30 cut out a plank and delved into that stout heart of oak, and made a wide gaping window in the middle. There is seen the house within, and the long vista of the hall; there is seen the august retirement of Priam and the monarchs of past days, and armed warriors are disclosed 35 standing in the entrance.

“But the palace within is a confused scene of shrieking and piteous disorder; the vaulted chambers wail from their hollow depths with female lamentation; the noise strikes the golden stars above. The terror-stricken matrons are running to and fro through the spacious courts, clinging claspingly to the gates and printing them with kisses. On presses Pyrrhus with all his father’s might; neither 5 barrier of oak nor yet living guard can resist him; the door gives way under the thick strokes of the battery, and the valves are torn from their hinges and brought down. Force finds its way; the Danaans burst a passage, rush in, and slaughter those they meet, and the whole 10 wide space is flooded with soldiers. With far less fury, when the river, all foam, has broken the prison of its banks and streamed with triumphant tide over the barriers set to check it, down it comes tumbling along the corn-fields, and along the whole country sweeps away herd and stall. 15 With my own eyes I saw Neoptolemus, mad with carnage, and the two Atridæ on the palace-floor. I saw Hecuba[136] and her hundred daughters-in-law, and Priam at the altar, polluting with his blood the flames he had himself made holy. Those fifty marriage-chambers, the splendid 20 promise of children’s children, doors gorgeous with barbaric gold and plundered treasure, all sank in dust. Where the fire flags, the Danaans are masters.

“Perhaps, too, you may be curious to hear the fate of Priam. When he saw his city fallen and captured, the 25 doors of his palace burst open, the foe in the heart of his home’s sanctuary, poor old man! helplessly and hopelessly he puts about his shoulders, trembling with age, his armour, long disused, and girds on his unavailing sword, and is going to his doom among the thick of the foe. In 30 the midst of the palace, under the naked height of the sky, stood a great altar, and by it a bay tree of age untold, leaning over the altar and enfolding the household gods in its shade. Here about the altar Hecuba and her daughters, all helpless, like doves driven headlong down 35 by a murky tempest, huddled together and clinging to the statues of the gods, were sitting. But when she saw Priam—yes, Priam—wearing the arms of his youth—‘What monstrous thought,’ cries she, ‘my most wretched spouse, has moved you to gird on these weapons? or to what are you hurrying? It is not help like this, not protections like those you wear, that the crisis needs. No, not even if my lost Hector were now at our side. Come, 5 join us here at last; this altar shall be a defence for us all, or we will die together.’ With these words she took him to where she was, and lodged his aged frame in the hallowed resting-place.

“But, see! here is Polites, one of Priam’s sons escaped 10 from Pyrrhus’ murderous hand, through showers of darts and masses of foemen, flying down the long corridors and traversing the empty courts, sore and wounded, while Pyrrhus, all on fire, is pursuing him, with a deadly stroke, his hand all but grasping him, his spear close upon him. 15 Just as at last he won his way into the view and presence of his parents, down he fell and poured out his life in a gush of blood. Hereon Priam, though hemmed in by death on all sides, could not restrain himself, or control voice and passion. ‘Aye,’ cries he, ‘for a crime, for an outrage like 20 this, may the gods, if there is any sense of right in heaven to take cognizance of such deeds, give you the full thanks you merit, and pay you your due reward; you, who have made me look with my own eyes on my son’s death, and stained a father’s presence with the sight of blood. But 25 he whom your lying tongue calls your sire, Achilles, dealt not thus with Priam his foe—he had a cheek that could crimson at a suppliant’s rights, a suppliant’s honour. Hector’s lifeless body he gave back to the tomb, and sent me home to my realms in peace.’ So said the poor old 30 man, and hurled at him a dart unwarlike, unwounding, which the ringing brass at once shook off, and left hanging helplessly from the end of the shield’s boss. Pyrrhus retorts: ‘You shall take your complaint, then, and carry your news to my father, Pelides. Tell, him about my 35 shocking deeds, about his degenerate Neoptolemus, and do not forget. Now die.’ With these words he dragged him to the very altar, palsied and sliding in a pool of his son’s blood, wreathed his left hand in his hair, and with his right flashed forth and sheathed in his side the sword to the hilt. Such was the end of Priam’s fortunes, such the fatal lot that fell upon him, with Troy blazing and Pergamus in ruins before his eyes—upon him, once 5 the haughty ruler of those many nations and kingdoms, the sovereign lord of Asia! There he lies on the shore, a gigantic trunk, a head severed from the shoulders, a body without a name.

“Now, for the first time grim horror prisoned me round—I 10 was wildered—there rose up the image of my dear father, as I saw the king, his fellow in age, breathing out his life through that ghastly wound. There rose up Creusa[137] unprotected, my house, now plundered, and the chance to which I had left my little Iulus. I cast my eyes back and 15 look about to see what strength there is round me. All had forsaken me, too tired to stay; they had leapt to the ground, or dropped helplessly into the flames. And now I was there alone. When lodged in the temple of Vesta, and crouching mutely in its darkest recess, the daughter of 20 Tyndareus[138] meets my eye; the brilliant blaze gives light to my wandering feet and ranging glance. Yes, she in her guilty fears, dreading at once the Teucrians whom the overthrow of Pergamus had made her foes, and the vengeance of the Danaans, and the wrath of the husband she 25 abandoned—she, the common fiend of Troy and of her country, had hid herself away, and was sitting in hateful solitude at the altar. My spirit kindled into flame—a fury seized me to avenge my country in its fall, and to do justice on a wretch. ‘So she is to see Sparta and her 30 native Mycenæ again in safety, and is to move as a queen in a triumph of her own? She is to look upon her lord and her old home, her children and her parents, with a crowd of our Trojan ladies and Phrygian captives to wait on her? Shall it be for this that Priam has died by the 35 sword, that Troy has been burnt with fire, that the Dardan shore has gushed so oft with the sweat of blood? No, never—for though there are no proud memories to be won by vengeance on a woman, no laurels to be reaped from a conquest like this, yet the extinction of so base a life and the exaction of vengeance so merited will count as a praise, and it will be a joy to have glutted my spirit with the flame of revenge and slaked the thirsty ashes of those 5 I love.’ Such were the wild words I was uttering, such the impulse of my infuriate heart, when suddenly there appeared to me, brighter than I had ever seen her before, and shone forth in clear radiance through the night, my gracious mother, all her deity confessed, with the same 10 mien and stature by which she is known to the dwellers in heaven. She seized me by the hand and stayed me, seconding her action with these words from her roseate lips; ‘My son, what mighty agony is it that stirs up this untamed passion? What means your frenzy? or 15 whither has fled your care for me? Will you not first see where you have left your father Anchises, spent with age as he is? whether your wife, Creusa, be yet alive, and your child, Ascanius? All about them the Grecian armies are ranging to and fro, and were not my care exerted to 20 rescue them, ere this they had been snatched by the flame, devoured by the foeman’s sword. It is not the hated beauty of the daughter of Tyndareus, the Spartan woman—not the reviled Paris. No, it is heaven, unpitying heaven that is overturning this great empire and levelling 25 Troy from its summit. See here—for I will take away wholly the cloud whose veil, cast over your eyes, dulls your mortal vision and darkles round you damp and thick—do you on your part shrink in naught from your mother’s commands, nor refuse to obey the instructions 30 she gives. Here, where you see huge masses rent asunder, and stones wrenched from stones, and blended torrents of smoke and dust, is Neptune with his mighty trident shaking the walls and upheaving the very foundations; here is Juno, cruellest of foes, posted at the entry of the 35 Scæan gate, and summoning in tones of fury from the ships her confederate band, herself girt with steel like them. Look behind you—there is Tritonian Pallas, seated already on the summit of our towers, in the lurid glare of her storm-cloud and grim Gorgon’s head. The great Father himself is nerving the Danaans with courage and strength for victory—himself leading the gods against our Dardan forces. Come, my son, catch at flight while 5 you may and bring the struggle to an end. I will not leave you, till I have set you in safety at your father’s door.’ She had ceased, and veiled herself at once in night’s thickest shadows. I see a vision of awful shapes—mighty presences of gods arrayed against Troy. 10

“Then, indeed, I beheld all Ilion sinking into flame, and Neptune’s city, Troy, overturned from its base. Even as an ancient ash on the mountain-top, which woodmen have hacked with steel and repeated hatchet strokes, and are trying might and main to dislodge—it keeps nodding 15 menacingly, its leafy head palsied and shaken, till at last, gradually overborne by wound after wound, it has given its death-groan, and fallen uprooted in ruined length along the hill. I come down, and, following my heavenly guide, thread my way through flames and foemen, 20 while weapons glance aside and flames retire.

“Now when at last I had reached the door of my father’s house, that old house I knew so well, my sire, whom it was my first resolve to carry away high up the hills—who was the first object I sought—refuses to survive the 25 razing of Troy and submit to banishment. ‘You, whose young blood is untainted, whose strength is firmly based and self-sustained, it is for you to think of flight. For me, had the dwellers in heaven willed me to prolong my life, they would have preserved for me my home. It is enough 30 and more than enough to have witnessed one sack, to have once outlived the capture of my city. Here, O here as I lie, bid farewell to my corpse and begone. I will find me a warrior’s death. The enemy will have mercy on me, and my spoils will tempt him. The loss of a tomb 35 will fall on me lightly. Long, long have I been a clog on time, hated of heaven and useless to earth, from the day when the father of gods and sovereign of men blasted me with the wind of his lightning, and laid on me the finger of flame.’[139]

“Such the words he kept on repeating and continued unshaken, while we were shedding our hearts in tears—Creusa, my wife, and Ascanius and my whole house, 5 imploring my father not to be bent on dragging all with him to ruin, and lending his weight to the avalanche of destiny. But he refuses, and will not be moved from his purpose or his home. Once more I am plunging into battle, and choosing death in the agony of my 10 wretchedness—for what could wisdom or fortune do for me now? What, my father? that I could stir a step to escape, leaving you behind? was this your expectation? could aught so shocking fall from a parent’s lips? No—if it is the will of heaven that naught of this mighty city 15 should be spared—if your purpose is fixed, and you find pleasure in throwing yourself and yours on Troy’s blazing pile, the door stands open for the death you crave. Pyrrhus will be here in a moment, fresh from bathing in Priam’s blood—Pyrrhus, who butchers the son before the 20 father’s face, who butchers the father at the altar. Gracious mother! was it for this that thou rescuest me from fire and sword—all that I may see the foe in the heart of my home’s sanctuary—may see my Ascanius, and my father, and my Creusa by them sacrificed in a pool of each other’s 25 blood? My arms, friends, bring me my arms! the call of the day of death rings in the ears of the conquered. Give me back to the Danaans, let me return and renew the combat. Never shall this day see us all slaughtered unresisting. 30

“Now I gird on my sword again, and was buckling and fitting my shield to my left arm, and making my way out of the house—when lo! my wife on the threshold began to clasp and cling to my feet, holding out my little Iulus to his father. ‘If it is to death you are going, then carry us 35 with you to death and all, but if experience gives you any hope in the arms you are resuming, let your first stand be made at your home. To whom, think you, are you leaving your little Iulus—your father, and me who was once styled your wife?’

“Thus she was crying, while her moaning filled the house, when a portent appears, sudden and marvellous to relate. Even while the hands and eyes of his grieving 5 parents were upon him, lo, a flickering tongue of flame on the top of Iulus’ head was seen to shoot out light, playing round his soft curly locks with innocuous contact and pasturing about his temples. We are all hurry and alarm, shaking out his blazing hair and quenching the 10 sacred fire with water from the spring—but Anchises my father raised his eyes in ecstasy to heaven, directing hand and voice to the stars: ‘Almighty Jove, if any prayer can bow thy will, look down on us—’tis all I crave—and if our piety have earned requital, grant us thy 15 succour, father, and ratify the omen we now see.’ Scarce had the old man spoken, when there came a sudden peal of thunder on the left, and a star fell from heaven and swept through the gloom with a torchlike train and a blaze of light. Over the top of the house we see it pass, 20 and mark its course along the sky till it buries itself lustrously in Ida’s wood—then comes a long furrowed line of light, and a sulphurous smoke fills the space all about. Then at length overcome, my father raises himself towards the sky, addresses the gods, and does reverence to the 25 sacred meteor: ‘No more, no more delay from me. I follow your guidance, and am already in the way by which you would lead me. Gods of my country! preserve my house, preserve my grandchild. Yours in this augury—your shield is stretched over Troy. Yes, my son, I 30 give way, and shrink not from accompanying your flight.’ He said—and by this the blaze is heard louder and louder through the streets, and the flames roll their hot volumes nearer. ‘Come then, dear father, take your seat on my back, my shoulders shall support you, nor shall I feel the 35 task a burden. Fall things as they may, we twain will share the peril, share the deliverance. Let my little Iulus walk by my side, while my wife follows our steps at a distance. You, our servants, attend to what I now say. As you leave the city there is a mound, where stands an ancient temple of Ceres all alone, and by it an old cypress, observed these many years by the reverence of our sires. This shall be our point of meeting in one place from 5 many quarters. You, my father, take in your hand these sacred things, our country’s household gods. For me, just emerged from this mighty war, with the stains of carnage fresh upon me, it were sacrilege to touch them, till I have cleansed me in the running stream.’ 10

“So saying, I spread out my shoulders, bow my neck, cover them with a robe, a lion’s tawny hide, and take up the precious burden. My little Iulus has fastened his hand in mine, and is following his father with ill-matched steps, my wife comes on behind. On we go, keeping in the 15 shade—and I, who erewhile quailed not for a moment at the darts that rained upon me or at the masses of Greeks that barred my path, now am scared by every breath of air, startled by every sound, fluttered as I am, and fearing alike for him who holds my hand and him I carry. And now I 20 was nearing the gates, and the whole journey seemed accomplished, when suddenly the noise of thick trampling feet came to my ear, and my father looks onward through the darkness. ‘Son, son,’ he cries, ‘fly: they are upon us. I distinguish the flashing of their shields and the 25 gleam of their steel.’ In this alarm some unfriendly power perplexed and took away my judgment. For, while I was tracking places where no track was, and swerving from the wonted line of road, woe is me! destiny tore from me my wife Creusa. Whether she stopped, 30 or strayed from the road, or sat down fatigued, I never knew—nor was she ever restored to my eyes in life. Nay, I did not look back to discover my loss, or turn my thoughts that way till we had come to the mound and temple of ancient Ceres; then at last, when all were 35 mustered, she alone was missing, and failed those who should have travelled with her, her son and husband both. Whom of gods or men did my upbraiding voice spare? what sight in all the ruin of the city made my heart bleed more? Ascanius and Anchises my father and the Teucrian household gods I give to my comrades’ care, and lodge them in the winding glade. I repair again to the city and don my shining armour. My mind is set to try every 5 hazard again, and retrace my path through the whole of Troy, and expose my life to peril once more. First I repair again to the city walls, and the gate’s dark entry by which I had passed out. I track and follow my footsteps back through the night, and traverse the ground 10 with my eye. Everywhere my sense is scared by the horror, scared by the very stillness. Next I betake me home, in the hope, the faint hope that she may have turned her steps thither. The Danaans had broken in and were lodged in every chamber. All is over—the greedy flame 15 is wafted by the wind to the roof, the fire towers triumphant—the glow streams madly heavenwards. I pass on, and look again at Priam’s palace and the citadel. There already in the empty cloisters, yes, in Juno’s sanctuary, chosen guards, Phœnix and Ulysses the terrible, were 20 watching the spoil. Here are gathered the treasures of Troy torn from blazing shrines, tables of gods, bowls of solid gold, and captive vestments in one great heap. Boys and mothers stand trembling all about in long array.

“Nay, I was emboldened even to fling random cries 25 through the darkness. I filled the streets with shouts, and in my agony called again and again on my Creusa with unavailing iteration. As I was thus making my search and raving unceasingly the whole city through, the hapless shade, the spectre of my own Creusa appeared in my 30 presence—a likeness larger than the life. I was aghast, my hair stood erect, my tongue clove to my mouth, while she began to address me thus, and relieve my trouble with words like these: ‘Whence this strange pleasure in indulging frantic grief, my darling husband? It is 35 not without Heaven’s will that these things are happening: that you should carry your Creusa with you on your journey is forbidden by fate, forbidden by the mighty ruler of heaven above. You have long years of exile, a vast expanse of ocean to traverse—and then you will arrive at the land of Hesperia, where Tiber, Lydia’s river, rolls his gentle volumes through rich and cultured plains. There you have a smiling future, a kingdom and a royal 5 bride waiting your coming. Dry your tears for Creusa, your heart’s choice though she be. I am not to see the face of Myrmidons or Dolopes in their haughty homes, or to enter the service of some Grecian matron—I, a Dardan princess, daughter by marriage of Venus the immortal. 10 No, I am kept in this country by heaven’s mighty mother. And now farewell, and continue to love your son and mine. Thus having spoken, spite of my tears, spite of the thousand things I longed to say, she left me and vanished into unsubstantial air. Thrice, as I 15 stood, I essayed to fling my arms round her neck—thrice the phantom escaped the hands that caught at it in vain—impalpable as the wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.

“So passed my night, and such was my return to my comrades. Arrived there, I find with wonder their band 20 swelled by a vast multitude of new companions, matrons and warriors both, an army mustered for exile, a crowd of the wretched. From every side they were met, prepared in heart as in fortune to follow me over the sea to any land where I might take them to settle. And now 25 the morning star was rising over Ida’s loftiest ridge with the day in its train—Danaan sentinels were blocking up the entry of the gates, and no hope of succour appeared. I retired at last, took up my father, and made for the mountains. 30