Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

So he to Priam service gave, and helped the Phrygian part:

  Unhappy! that the warning word of his God-maddened love

  He might not hearken on that day.

  Now when I see them gathered so to dare the battle’s pain,

  Thus I begin:

  ‘O fellows fair, O hardy hearts in vain!

  If now ye long to follow me who dares the utterance

  And certain end, ye see indeed what wise our matters chance.

  The Gods, who in the other days our lordship mighty made,

  Are gone from altar and from shrine: a town of flames ye aid.

  Fall on a very midst the fire and die in press of war!

  One hope there is for vanquished men, to cherish hope no more.’

  Therewith the fury of their minds I feed, and thence away,

  As ravening wolves by night and cloud their bellies’ lust obey,

  That bitter-sharp is driving on, the while their whelps at home

  Dry-jawed await them, so by steel, by crowd of foes we come

  Into the very death; we hold the city’s midmost street,

  Black night-tide’s wings with hollow shade about our goings meet.

  O ruin and death of that ill night, what tongue may set it forth!

  Or who may pay the debt of tears that agony was worth!

  The ancient city overthrown, lord for so many a year,

  The many bodies of the slain, that, moveless, everywhere

  Lie in the street, in houses lie, lie round the holy doors

  Of Gods. But not alone that night the blood of Teucrians pours,

  For whiles the valour comes again in vanquished hearts to bide,

  And conquering Danaans fall and die: grim grief on every side,

  And fear on every side there is, and many-faced is death.

  Androgeus, whom a mighty band of Danaans followeth,

  First falleth on the road of us, and, deeming us to be

  His fellow-folk, in friendly words he speaketh presently:

  ‘Haste on, O men! what sloth is this delayeth so your ways?

  While others hand and haul away in Pergamos ablaze;

  What! fellows, from the lofty ships come ye but even now?’

  But with the word, no answer had wherein at all to trow,

  He felt him fallen amid the foe, and taken in the snare;

  Then foot and voice aback he drew, and stood amazèd there,

  As one who through the thicket thrusts, and unawares doth tread

  Upon a snake, and starts aback with sudden rush of dread

  From gathering anger of the thing and swelling neck of blue:

  So, quaking at the sight of us, Androgeus backward drew.

  But we fall on with serried arms and round their rout we crowd,

  And fell them knowing nought the place, and with all terror cowed:

  So sweet the breath of fortune was on our first handicraft.

  But with good-hap and hardihood Coroebus’ spirit laughed;

  ‘Come, fellows, follow up,’ he cries, ‘the way that fortune shows

  This first of times, and where belike a little kind she grows.

  Change we our shields, and do on us the tokens of the Greeks;

  Whether with fraud or force he play what man of foeman seeks,

  Yea, these themselves shall give us arms.’

  He spake, and forth did bear

  Androgeus’ high-crested helm and shield emblazoned fair,

  And did it on, and Argive sword he girt unto his thigh:

  So Rhipeus did, and Dymas did, and all did joyously,

  And each man wholly armed himself with plunder newly won.

  Then mingled with the Greeks we fare, and no God helps us on,

  And many a battle there we join amid the eyeless night,

  And many a Danaan send adown to Orcus from the light:

  Some fled away unto the ships, some to the safe sea-shore,

  Or smitten with the coward’s dread climbed the great horse once more

  And there they lie all close within the well-known womb of wood.

  Alas! what skills it man to trust in Gods compelled to good?

  For lo, Cassandra, Priam’s maid, with hair cast all about,

  From Pallas’ house and innermost of holy place dragged out,

  And straining with her burning eyes in vain to heaven aloft;

  Her eyes, for they in bonds had bound her tender palms and soft.

  Nought bore Coroebus’ maddened mind to see that show go by,

  And in the middle of their host he flung himself to die,

  And all we follow and fall on with points together set.

  And first from that high temple-top great overthrow we get

  From weapons of our friends, and thence doth hapless death arise

  From error of the Greekish crests and armour’s Greekish guise;

  Then crying out for taken maid, fulfilled thereat with wrath,

  The gathered Greeks fall in on us: comes keenest Ajax forth;

  The sons of Atreus, all the host of Dolopes are there: —

  As whiles, the knit whirl broken up, the winds together bear

  And strive, the West wind and the South, the East wind glad and free

  With Eastland steeds; sore groan the woods; and Nereus stirs the sea

  From lowest deeps, and trident shakes, and foams upon the wave: —

  They even to whom by night and cloud great overthrow we gave,

  Through craft of ours, and drave about through all the town that while,

  Now show themselves, and know our shields and weapons worn for guile

  The first of all; our mouths unmeet for Greekish speech they tell

  Then o’er us sweeps the multitude; and first Coroebus fell

  By Peneleus before the Maid who ever in the fight

  Prevaileth most; fell Rhipeus there, the heedfullest of right

  Of all among the Teucrian folk, the justest man of men;

  The Gods deemed otherwise. Dymas and Hypanis died then,

  Shot through by friends, and not a whit availed to cover thee,

  O Panthus, thine Apollo’s bands or plenteous piety.

  Ashes of Ilium, ye last flames where my beloved ones burned,

  Bear witness mid your overthrow my face was never turned

  From Danaan steel and Danaan deed! if fate had willed it so

  That I should fall, I earned my wage.

  Borne thence away, we go

  Pelias and Iphitus and I; but Iphitus was spent

  By eld, and by Ulysses’ hurt half halting Pelias went.

  So unto Priam’s house we come, called by the clamour there,

  Where such a mighty battle was as though none otherwhere

  Yet burned: as though none others fell in all the town beside.

  There all unbridled Mars we saw, the Danaans driving wide

  Against the house; with shield-roofs’ rush the doors thereof beset.

  The ladders cling unto the walls, men by the door-posts get

  Some foothold up; with shielded left they meet the weapons’ rain,

  While on the battlements above grip with the right they gain.

  The Dardans on the other side pluck roof and pinnacle

  From off the house; with such-like shot they now, beholding well

  The end anigh, all death at hand, make ready for the play:

  And gilded beams, the pomp and joy of fathers passed away.

  They roll adown, and other some with naked point and edge

  The nether doorways of the place in close arrayment hedge.

  Blazed up our hearts again to aid this palace of a king,

  To stead their toil, to vanquished men a little help to bring.

  A door there was, a secret pass into the common way

  Of all King Priam’s houses there, that at the backward lay

  As one goes by: in other days, while yet the lordship was,

  Hapless Andromache thereby unto the twain would pass

>   Alone, or leading to the king Astyanax her boy.

  And thereby now I gain the tower, whence wretched men of Troy

  In helpless wise from out their hands were casting darts aloof.

  There was a tower, a sheer hight down, builded from highest roof

  Up toward the stars; whence we were wont on Troy to look adown,

  And thence away the Danaan ships, the Achæan tented town.

  Against the highest stage hereof the steel about we bear,

  Just where the joints do somewhat give: this from its roots we tear,

  And heave it up and over wall, whose toppling at the last

  Bears crash and ruin, and wide away the Danaans are down cast

  Beneath its fall: but more come on: nor drift of stones doth lack,

  Nor doth all kind of weapon-shot at any while grow slack.

  Lo, Pyrrhus in the very porch forth to the door doth pass

  Exulting; bright with glittering points and flashing of the brass;

  — E’en as a snake to daylight come, on evil herbage fed,

  Who, swollen, ‘neath the chilly soil hath had his winter bed,

  And now, his ancient armour doffed, and sleek with youth new found,

  With front upreared his slippery back he coileth o’er the ground

  Up ‘neath the sun; his three-cleft tongue within his mouth gleams clear: —

  And with him Periphas the huge, Achilles’ charioteer,

  Now shield-bearer Automedon and all the Scyrian host

  Closed on the walls and on the roof the blazing firebrands tost.

  Pyrrhus in forefront of them all catches a mighty bill,

  Beats in the hardened door, and tears perforce from hinge and sill

  The brazen leaves; a beam hewn through, wide gaped the oak hard knit

  Into a great-mouthed window there, and through the midst of it

  May men behold the inner house; the long halls open lie;

  Bared is the heart of Priam’s home, the place of kings gone by;

  And close against the very door all armèd men they see.

  That inner house indeed was mazed with wail and misery,

  The inmost chambers of the place an echoing hubbub hold

  Of women’s cries, whose clamour smites the far-off stars of gold,

  And through the house so mighty great the fearful mothers stray,

  And wind their arms about the doors, and kisses on them lay.

  But Pyrrhus with his father’s might comes on; no bolt avails,

  No man against the might of him; the door all battered fails,

  The door-leaves torn from off of hinge tumble and lie along:

  Might maketh road; through passage forced the entering Danaans throng,

  And slay the first and fill the place with armour of their ranks.

  Nay nought so great is foaming flood that through its bursten banks

  Breaks forth, and beateth down the moles that ‘gainst its going stand.

  And falls a fierce heap on the plain, and over all the land

  Drags off the herds and herd-houses.

  There saw I Pyrrhus wild

  With death of men amidst the door, and either Atreus’ child;

  And Hecuba and hundred wives her sons wed saw I there,

  And Priam fouling with his blood the very altars fair

  Whose fires he hallowed: fifty beds the hope of house to be,

  The doorways proud with outland gold and war-got bravery

  Sunk into ash; where fire hath failed the Danaans are enow.

  Belike what fate on Priam fell thou askest me to show:

  For when he saw the city lost, and his own house-door stormed,

  And how in bowels of his house the host of foemen swarmed,

  The ancient man in vain does on the arms long useless laid

  About his quaking back of eld, and girds himself with blade

  Of no avail, and fareth forth amid the press to die.

  A very midmost of the courts beneath the naked sky

  A mighty altar stood: anear a bay exceeding old,

  The altar and the Gods thereof did all in shadow hold;

  And round about that altar-stead sat Hecuba the queen,

  And many daughters: e’en as doves all huddled up are seen

  ‘Neath the black storm they cling about the dear God’s images.

  But when in arms of early days King Priam now she sees,

  She crieth: ‘O unhappy spouse! what evil heart hast thou,

  With weapons thus to gird thyself, or whither wilt thou now?

  Today availeth no such help, and no such warder’s stay

  May better aught; not even were my Hector here today.

  But come thou hither unto me; this altar all shall save,

  Or we shall die together here!’

  Her arms about she gave

  And took him, and the elder set adown in holy stead.

  But lo! now one of Priam’s sons, Polites, having fled

  From Pyrrhus’ murder through the swords and through the foeman’s throng,

  Runs wounded through the empty hall from out the cloister long,

  And burning Pyrrhus, hard at heel, the deadly hurt doth bear,

  And grip of hand is on him now, and now the point of spear.

  But as he rushed before their eyes, his parents’ face beneath

  He fell, and with most plenteous blood shed forth his latest breath;

  Then Priam, howsoever nigh the very death might grip,

  Refrained him nothing at the sight, but voice and wrath let slip:

  ‘Ah, for such wickedness,’ he cried, ‘for daring such a deed,

  If aught abide in heaven as yet such things as this to heed,

  May the Gods give thee worthy thanks, and pay thee well-earned prize,

  That thou hast set the death of sons before my father’s eyes,

  That thou thy murder’s fouling thus in father’s face hast flung.

  Not he, Achilles, whence indeed thou liar hast never sprung,

  Was such a foe to Priam erst; for shamfast meed he gave

  To law and troth of suppliant men, and rendered to the grave

  The bloodless Hector dead, and me sent to mine own again.’

  So spake the elder, and cast forth a toothless spear and vain,

  That forthwith from the griding brass was put aback all spent,

  And from the shield-boss’ outer skin hung down, for nothing sent.

  Then Pyrrhus cried: ‘Yea tell him this, go take the tidings down

  To Peleus’ son my father then, of Pyrrhus worser grown

  And all these evil deeds of mine! take heed to tell the tale!

  Now die!’

  And to the altar-stone him quivering did he hale,

  And sliding in his own son’s blood so plenteous: in his hair

  Pyrrhus his left hand wound, his right the gleaming sword made bare,

  That even to the hilts thereof within his flank he hid.

  Such was the end of Priam’s day, such faring forth fate bid,

  Troy all aflame upon the road, all Pergamus adown.

  He, of so many peoples once the mighty lord and crown,

  So many lands of Asia once, a trunk beside the sea

  Huge with its headless shoulders laid, a nameless corpse is he.

  Then first within the compassing of bitter fear I was;

  The image of my father dear by me all mazed did pass,

  When I beheld the like-aged king gasping his life away

  Through cruel wound: upon mine eyes forlorn Creusa lay,

  The wasted house, my little one, Iulus’, evil end.

  I look aback to see what folk about me yet do wend,

  But all, foredone, had fallen away, their weary bodies spent,

  Some all amid the fire had cast, some unto earth had sent.

  Alone was I of all men now, when lo, in Vesta’s house

  Abiding, and in inmost nook silent and lurking close,

  H
elen the seed of Tyndarus! the clear fires give her light

  As there she strayeth, turning eyes on every shifting sight;

  She, fearful of the Teucrian wrath for Pergamus undone,

  And fearful of the Danaan wrath and husband left alone,

  The wasting fury both of Troy and land where she was born,

  She hid her by the altar-stead, a thing of Gods forlorn.

  Forth blazed the wildfire in my soul, wrath stirred me up to slake

  My vengeance for my dying home, and ill’s atonement take.

  What! should she come to Sparta safe, and her Mycenæ then,

  And in the hard-won triumphing go forth a Queen of men,

  And see her husband and her home, her parents and her sons,

  Served by the throng of Ilian wives and Phrygian vanquished ones?

  Shall Priam so be slain with sword; shall Troy so blaze aloft;

  Shall the sea-beach the Dardan blood have sweat so oft and oft

  For this? Nay, nay: and though forsooth no deed to blaze abroad

  The slaying of a woman be, nor gaineth fame’s reward,

  Yet still to quench an evil thing and pay the well-earned meed

  Is worthy praise, and joy it were unto the full to feed

  My heart’s fell flame, and satisfy these ashes well beloved.

  Such things my soul gave forth; such things in furious heart I moved.

  When lo, my holy mother now, ne’er seen by eyes of mine

  So clear before, athwart the dark in simple light did shine;

  All God she was; of countenance and measure was she nought,

  But her the heaven-abiders see; so my right hand she caught,

  And held me, and from rosy mouth moreover added word:

  ‘O son, what anger measureless thy mighty grief hath stirred?

  Why ragest thou? or whither then is gone thy heed of me?

  Wilt thou not first behold the place where worn by eld is he,

  Anchises, left? Wilt thou not see if yet thy wife abide

  Creusa, or Ascanius yet? The Greekish bands fare wide

  About them now on every hand, and but my care withstood

  The fire had wafted them away or sword had drunk their blood.

  Laconian Helen’s beauty cursed this overthrow ne’er wrought.

  Nor guilty Paris; nay, the Gods, the Gods who pity nought,

  Have overturned your lordship fair, and laid your Troy alow.

  Behold! I draw aside the cloud that all abroad doth flow,

  Dulling the eyes of mortal men, and darkening dewily

  The world about. And look to it no more afeard to be

  Of what I bid, nor evermore thy mother’s word disown.

  There where thou seest the great walls cleft, and stone torn off from stone,