The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (33 page)

Each eye was fixed, each lip compressed,
When thus began the heroic guest:

 

Too cruel, lady, is the pain
You bid me thus revive again;
How lofty Ilium’s throne august
Was laid by Greece in piteous dust,
The woes I saw with these sad eyne,
The deeds whereof large part was mine:
What Argive, when the tale were told,
What Myrmidon of sternest mould,
What foe from Ithaca could hear,
And grudge the tribute of a tear?
Now dews precipitate the night,
And setting stars to rest invite:
Yet, if so keen your zeal to know
In brief the tale of Troy’s last woe,
Though memory shrinks with backward start,
And sends a shudder to my heart,
I take the word.

 

 

Worn down by wars,
Long beating ‘gainst Fate’s dungeon-bars,
As year kept chasing year,
The Danaan chiefs, with cunning given
By Pallas, mountain-high to heaven
A giant horse uprear,
And with compacted beams of pine
The texture of its ribs entwine.
A vow for their return they feign:
So runs the tale, and spreads amain.
There in the monster’s cavernous side
Huge frames of chosen chiefs they hide,
And steel-clad soldiery finds room
Within that death-producing womb.

 

An isle there lies in Ilium’s sight,
And Tenedos its name,
While Priam’s fortune yet was bright,
Known for its wealth to fame:
Now all has dwindled to a bay,
Where ships in treacherous shelter stay.
Thither they sail, and hide their host
Along its desolated coast.
We thought them to Mycenae flown,
And rescued Troy forgets to groan.
Wide stand the gates: what joy to go
The Dorian camp to see,
The land disburthened of the foe,
The shore from vessels free!
There pitched Thessalia’s squadron, there
Achilles’ tent was set:
There, drawn on land, their navies were,
And there the battle met.
Some on Minerva’s offering gaze,
And view its bulk with strange amaze:
And first Thymœtes loudly calls
To drag the steed within our walls,
Or by suggestion from the foe,
Or Troy’s ill fate had willed it so.
But Capys and the wiser kind
Surmised the snare that lurked behind:
To drown it in the whelming tide,
Or set the fire-brand to its side,
Their sentence is: or else to bore
Its caverns, and their depths explore.
In wild confusion sways the crowd:
Each takes his side and all are loud.

 

 

Girt with a throng of Ilium’s sons,
Down from the tower Laocoon runs,
And, “Wretched countrymen,” he cries,
“What monstrous madness blinds your eyes?
Think you your enemies removed?
Come presents without wrong
From Danaans? have you thus approved
Ulysses, known so long?
Perchance—who knows?-the bulk we see
Conceals a Grecian enemy,
Or ‘tis a pile to o’erlook the town,
And pour from high invaders down,
Or fraud lurks somewhere to destroy:
Mistrust, mistrust it, men of Troy!
Whate‘er it be, a Greek I fear,
Though presents in his hand he bear.”
He spoke, and with his arm’s full force
Straight at the belly of the horse
His mighty spear he cast:
Quivering it stood: the sharp rebound
Shook the huge monster: and a sound

Through all its caverns passed.
And then, had fate our weal designed
Nor given us a perverted mind,
Then had he moved us to deface
The Greeks’ accursed lurking-place,
And Troy had been abiding still,
And Priam’s tower yet crowned the hill.
Now Dardan swains before the king
With clamorous demonstration bring,
His hands fast bound, a youth unknown,
Across their casual pathway thrown
By cunning purpose of his own,
If so his simulated speech
For Greece the walls of Troy might breach,
Nerved by strong courage to defy
The worst, and gain his end or die.
The curious Trojans round him flock,
With rival zeal a foe to mock.
Now listen while my tongue declares
The tale you ask of Danaan snares,
And gather from a single charge
Their catalogue of crimes at large.
There as he stands, confused, unarmed,
Like helpless innocence alarmed,
His wistful eyes on all sides throws,
And sees that all around are foes.
“What land,” he cries, “what sea is left,
To hold a wretch of country reft,
Driven out from Greece while savage Troy
Demands my blood with clamorous joy?”
That anguish put our rage to flight,
And stayed each hand in act to smite:
We bid him name and race declare,
And say why Troy her prize should spare.
Then by degrees he laid aside
His fear, and presently replied:

 

“Truth, gracious king, is all I speak,
And first I own my nation Greek:
No; Sinon may be Fortune’s slave;
She shall not make him liar or knave.
If haply to your ears e‘er came
Belidan Palamedes’ name,
Borne by the tearful voice of Fame,
Whom erst, by false impeachment sped,
Maligned because for peace he pled,
Greece gave to death, now mourns him dead—
His kinsman I, while yet a boy,
Sent by a needy sire to Troy.
While he yet stood in kingly state,
’Mid brother kings in council great,
I too had power: but when he died,
By false Ulysses’ spite belied
(The tale is known), from that proud height
I sank to wretchedness and night,
And brooded in my dolorous gloom
On that my guiltless kinsman’s doom
Not all in silence; no, I swore,
Should Fortune bring me home once more,
My vengeance should redress his fate,
And speech engendered cankerous hate.
Thence dates my fall: Ulysses thence
Still scared me with some fresh pretence,
With chance-dropt words the people fired,
Sought means of hurt, intrigued, conspired.
Nor did the glow of hatred cool,
Till, wielding Calchas as his tool—
But why a tedious tale repeat,
To stay you from your morsel sweet?
If all are equal, Greek and Greek,
Enough; your tardy vengeance wreak.
My death will Ithacus delight,
And Atreus’ sons the boon requite.”

 

We press, we yearn the truth to know,
Nor dream how doubly base our foe:
He, faltering still and overawed,
Takes up the unfinished web of fraud.
“Oft had we planned to leave your shore,
Nor tempt the weary conflict more.
0, had we done it! sea and sky
Scared us as oft, in act to fly:
But chiefly when completed stood
This horse, compact of maple wood,
Fierce thunders, pealing in our ears,
Proclaimed the turmoil of the spheres.
Perplexed, Eurypylus we send
To question what the fates portend,
And he from Phoebus’ awful shrine
Brings back the words of doom divine:
‘With blood ye pacified the gales,
E’en with a virgin slain,
When first ye Danaans spread your sails,

The shores of Troy to gain:
With blood ye your return must buy:
A Greek must at the altar die.‘
That sentence reached the public ear,
And bred the dull amaze of fear:
Through every heart a shudder ran,
’Apollo’s victim—who the man?‘
Ulysses, turbulent and loud,
Drags Calchas forth before the crowd,
And questions what the immortals mean,
Which way these dubious beckonings lean:
E’en then were some discerned my foe,
And silent watch the coming blow.
Ten days the seer, with bated breath,
Restrained the utterance big with death:
O‘erborne at last, the word agreed
He speaks, and destines me to bleed.
All gave a sigh, as men set free,
And hailed the doom, content to see
The bolt that threatened each alike
One solitary victim strike.
The death-day came: the priests prepare
Salt cakes, and fillets for my hair;
I fled, I own it, from the knife,
I broke my bands and ran for life,
And in a marish lay that night,
While they should sail, if sail they might.
No longer have I hope, ah me!
My ancient fatherland to see,
Or look on those my eyes desire,
My darling sons, my gray-haired sire:
Perhaps my butchers may requite
On their dear heads my traitorous flight,
And make their wretched lives atone
For this, the single crime I own.
0, by the Gods, who all things view,
And know the false man from the true,
By sacred Faith, if Faith remain
With mortal men preserved from stain,
Show grace to innocence forlorn,
Show grace to woes unduly borne!“

 

Moved by his tears, we let him live,
And pity crowns the boon we give:
King Priam bids unloose his cords,
And soothes the wretch with kindly words:
“Whoe‘er you are, henceforth resign
All thought of Greece: be Troy’s and mine:
Now tell me truth, for what intent
This fabric of the horse was meant;
An offering to your heavenly liege ?
An engine for assault or siege?”
Then, schooled in all Pelasgian shifts,
His unbound hands to heaven he lifts:
“Ye slumberless, inviolate fires,
And the dread awe your name inspires!
Ye murderous altars, which I fled!
Ye fillets that adorned my head!
Bear witness, and behold me free
To break my Grecian fealty;
To hate the Greeks, and bring to light
The counsels they would hide in night,
Unchecked by all that once could bind,
All claims of country or of kind.
Thou, Troy, remember ne’er to swerve,
Preserved thyself, thy faith preserve,
If true this story I relate,
If these, my prompt returns, be great.

The warlike hopes of Greece were stayed,
E‘en from the first, on Pallas’ aid:
But since Tydides, impious man,
And foul Ulysses, born to plan,
Dragged with red hands, the sentry slain,
Her fateful image from your fane,
Her chaste locks touched, and stained with gore
The virgin coronal she wore,
Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,
And Greece grew weak, her queen estranged.
Nor dubious were the signs of ill
That showed the goddess’ altered will.
The image scarce in camp was set,
Out burst big drops of saltest sweat
O’er all her limbs: her eyes upraised
With minatory lightnings blazed;
And thrice untouched from earth she sprang
With quivering spear and buckler’s clang.
‘Back o’er the ocean!‘ Calchas cries:
’We shall not make Troy’s town our prize,
Unless at Argos’ sacred seat
Our former omens we repeat,
And bring once more the grace we brought
When first these shores our navy sought.‘
So now for Greece they cross the wave,
Fresh blessings on their arms to crave,
Thence to return, so Calchas rules,
Unlooked for, ere your wonder cools.
Premonished first, this frame they planned
In your Palladium’s stead to stand,
An image for an image given
To pacify offended Heaven.
But Calchas bade them rear it high
With timbers mounting to the sky,
That none might drag within the gate
This new Palladium of your state.
For, said he, if your hands profaned
The gift for Pallas’ self ordained,
Dire havoc—grant, ye powers, that first
That fate be his!—on Troy should burst:
But if, in glad procession haled
By those your hands, your walls it scaled,
Then Asia should our homes invade,
And unborn captives mourn the raid.“

 

Such tale of pity, aptly feigned,
Our credence for the perjurer gained,
And tears, wrung out from fraudful eyes,
Made us, e‘en us, a villain’s prize,
’Gainst whom not valiant Diomede,
Nor Peleus’ Larissæan seed,
Nor ten years’ fighting could prevail,
Nor navies of a thousand sail.

 

But ghastlier portents lay behind,
Our unprophetic souls to bind.
Laocoon, named as Neptune’s priest,
Was offering up the victim beast,
When lo! from Tenedos—I quail,
E‘en now, at telling of the tale—
Two monstrous serpents stem the tide,
And shoreward through the stillness glide.
Amid the waves they rear their breasts,
And toss on high their sanguine crests:
The hind part coils along the deep,
And undulates with sinuous sweep.
The lashed spray echoes: now they reach
The inland belted by the beach,
And rolling bloodshot eyes of fire,
Dart their forked tongues, and hiss for ire.
We fly distraught: unswerving they
Toward Laocoon hold their way;
First round his two young sons they wreathe,
And grind their limbs with savage teeth:
Then, as with arms he comes to aid,
The wretched father they invade
And twine in giant folds: twice round
His stalwart waist their spires are wound,
Twice round his neck, while over all
Their heads and crests tower high and tall.
He strains his strength their knots to tear,
While gore and slime his fillets smear,
And to the unregardful skies
Sends up his agonizing cries:
A wounded bull such moaning makes,
When from his neck the axe he shakes,
Ill-aimed, and from the altar breaks.
The twin destroyers take their flight
To Pallas’ temple on the height;
There by the goddess’ feet concealed
They lie, and nestle ’neath her shield.
At once through Ilium’s hapless sons
A shock of feverous horror runs:
All in Laocoon’s death-pangs read
The just requital of his deed,
Who dared to harm with impious stroke
Those ribs of consecrated oak.
“The image to its fane!” they cry:
“So soothe the offended deity.”
Each in the labor claims his share:
The walls are breached, the town laid bare:
Wheels ‘neath its feet are fixed to glide,
And round its neck stout ropes are tied:
So climbs our wall that shape of doom,
With battle quickening in its womb,
While youths and maidens sing glad songs
And joy to touch the harness-thongs.
It comes, and, glancing terror down,
Sweeps through the bosom of the town.
O Ilium, city of my love!
O warlike home of powers above!
Four times ’twas on the threshold stayed:
Four times the armor clashed and brayed.
Yet on we press with passion blind,
All forethought blotted from our mind,
Till the dread monster we install
Within the temple’s tower-built wall.
E‘en then Cassandra’s prescient voice
Forewarned us of our fatal choice—
That prescient voice, which Heaven decreed
No son of Troy should hear and heed.
We, careless souls, the city through,
With festal boughs the fanes bestrew,
And in such revelry employ
The last, last day should shine on Troy.

 

Meantime Heaven shifts from light to gloom,
And night ascends from Ocean’s womb,
Involving in her shadow broad
Earth, sky, and Myrmidonian fraud:
And through the city, stretched at will,
Sleep the tired Trojans, and are still.