They all were silent, watching. From his couchAeneas spoke: “A terrible grief, O Queen,You bid me live again, how Troy went downBefore the Greeks, her wealth, her pitiful kingdom,Sorrowful things I saw myself, whereinI had my share and more. Even Ulysses,Even his toughest soldiery might grieveAt such a story. And the hour is lateAlready; night is sliding down the skyAnd setting stars urge slumber. But if you longTo learn our downfall, to hear the final chapterOf Troy, no matter how I shrink, remembering,And turn away in grief, let me begin it.
They all were silent, watching. From his couchAeneas spoke: “A terrible grief, O Queen,You bid me live again, how Troy went downBefore the Greeks, her wealth, her pitiful kingdom,Sorrowful things I saw myself, whereinI had my share and more. Even Ulysses,Even his toughest soldiery might grieveAt such a story. And the hour is lateAlready; night is sliding down the skyAnd setting stars urge slumber. But if you longTo learn our downfall, to hear the final chapterOf Troy, no matter how I shrink, remembering,And turn away in grief, let me begin it.
They all were silent, watching. From his couchAeneas spoke: “A terrible grief, O Queen,You bid me live again, how Troy went downBefore the Greeks, her wealth, her pitiful kingdom,Sorrowful things I saw myself, whereinI had my share and more. Even Ulysses,Even his toughest soldiery might grieveAt such a story. And the hour is lateAlready; night is sliding down the skyAnd setting stars urge slumber. But if you longTo learn our downfall, to hear the final chapterOf Troy, no matter how I shrink, remembering,And turn away in grief, let me begin it.
Broken in war, set back by fate, the leadersOf the Greek host, as years went by, contrived,With Pallas’ help, a horse as big as a mountain.They wove its sides with planks of fir, pretendingThis was an offering for their safe return,At least, so rumor had it. But insideThey packed, in secret, into the hollow sidesThe fittest warriors; the belly’s cavern,Huge as it was, was filled with men in armor.There is an island, Tenedos, well-known,Rich in the days of Priam; now it is onlyA bay, and not too good an anchorageFor any ship to trust. They sailed there, hidOn the deserted shore. We thought they had gone,Bound for Mycenae, and Troy was very happy,Shaking off grief, throwing the gates wide open.It was a pleasure, for a change, to goSee the Greek camp, station and shore abandoned;Why, this was where Achilles camped, his minions,The Dolopes, were here; and the fleet just yonder,And that was the plain where we used to meet in battle.Some of us stared in wonder at the horse,Astounded by its vastness, Minerva’s gift,Death from the virgin goddess, had we known it.Thymoetes, whether in treachery, or becauseThe fates of Troy so ordered, was the first oneTo urge us bring it in to the heart of the city,But Capys, and some others, knowing better,Suspicious of Greek plotting, said to throw itInto the sea, to burn it up with fire,To cut it open, see what there was inside it.The wavering crowd could not make up its mind.And, at that point, Laocoön came running,With a great throng at his heels, down from the hilltopAs fast as ever he could, and before he reached us,Cried in alarm: ‘Are you crazy, wretched people?Do you think they have gone, the foe? Do you think that anyGifts of the Greeks lack treachery? Ulysses,—What was his reputation? Let me tell you,Either the Greeks are hiding in this monster,Or it’s some trick of war, a spy, or engine,To come down on the city. Tricky businessIs hiding in it. Do not trust it, Trojans,Do not believe this horse. Whatever it may be,I fear the Greeks, even when bringing presents.’With that, he hurled the great spear at the sideWith all the strength he had. It fastened, trembling,And the struck womb rang hollow, a moaning sound.He had driven us, almost, to let the light inWith the point of the steel, to probe, to tear, but somethingGot in his way, the gods, or fate, or counsel,Ill-omened, in our hearts; or Troy would be standingAnd Priam’s lofty citadel unshaken.Meanwhile, some Trojan shepherds, pulling and hauling,Had a young fellow, with his hands behind him,Tied up, and they were dragging him to Priam.He had let himself be taken so, on purpose,To open Troy to the Greeks, a stranger, readyFor death or shifty cunning, a cool intriguer,Let come what may. They crowd around to see him,Take turns in making fun of him, that captive.Listen, and learn Greek trickiness; learn allTheir crimes from one.He stopped in the middle, frightened and defenceless,Looked at the Trojan ranks,—‘What land, what waters,Can take me now?’ he cried, ‘There is nothing, nothingLeft for me any more, no place with the Greeks,And here are the Trojans howling for my blood!’Our mood was changed. We pitied him, poor fellow,Sobbing his heart out. We bade him tell his story,His lineage, his news: what can he count on,The captive that he is? His fear had goneAs he began: ‘O King, whatever happens,I will tell the truth, tell all of it; to start with,I own I am a Greek. Sinon is wretched,Fortune has made him so, but she will neverMake him a liar. You may perhaps have heardRumors of Palamedes, son of Belus,A man of glorious fame. But the Greeks killed him,—He was against the war, and so they killed him,An innocent man, by perjury and lyingFalse witness. Now that he is dead they mourn him.My father, his poor relative, had sent meTo soldier in his company; I was thenScarcely beyond my boyhood. PalamedesHeld, for some time, some influence and standingIn royal councils, and we shared his glory,But, and all men know this, Ulysses’ hatred,His cunning malice, pulled him down; thereafterI lived in darkness, dragging out a lifetimeIn sorrow for my innocent lord, and anger,And in my anger I was very foolish,I talked; I vowed, if I got home to Argos,I would have vengeance: so I roused UlyssesTo hate me in his turn, and that began it,Downfall and evil, Ulysses always tryingTo frighten me with hint and accusation,With rumors planted where the crowd would listen;Oh yes, Ulysses knew what he was doing,He never stopped, until with Calchas workingHand in glove with him—why am I telling this,And what’s the use? I am stalling. All the Greeks,You think, are all alike; what more do you want?Inflict the punishment. That would be somethingUlysses would rejoice in, and some othersPay handsome money for!’But we were all on fire to hear him further.Pelasgian craft meant nothing to our folly.Trembling and nervous, he resumed his lying:‘The Greeks were tired of the long war; they oftenWanted to sail from Troy for home. Oh, wouldThat they had only done it! But a stormWould cut them off, or the wrong wind terrify them.Especially, just after the horse was finished,With the joined planks of maple, all the heavenRoared loud with storm-clouds. In suspense and terrorWe sent Eurypylus to ask ApolloWhat could be done; the oracle was gloomy,Foreboding: “Blood, O Greeks, and a slain virginAppeased the winds when first you came here; bloodMust pay for your return, a life be given,An Argive life.” The word came to our earsWith terror in it, our blood ran cold in our veins,For whom was fate preparing? who would beThe victim of Apollo? Then UlyssesDragged Calchas into our midst, with a great uproar,Trying his best to make the prophet tell usWhat the gods wanted. And there were many thenWho told me what was coming, or kept silentBecause they saw, and all too well, the schemeUlysses had in mind. For ten days CalchasSaid nothing at all, hid in his tent, refusingTo have a word of his pronounce the sentence,And all the time Ulysses kept on shouting,Till Calchas broke, and doomed me to the altar.And all assented; what each man had fearedIn his own case, he bore with great composureWhen turned another way.The terrible day was almost on me; filletsWere ready for my temples, the salted mealPrepared, the altars standing. But I fled,I tore myself away from death, I admit it,I hid all night in sedge and muddy waterAt the edge of the lake, hoping, forever hoping,They might set sail. And now I hope no longerTo see my home, my parents, or my children,Poor things, whom they will kill because I fled them,Whom they will murder for my sacrilege.But oh, by the gods above, by any powerThat values truth, by any uncorruptedRemnant of faith in all the world, have pity,Have pity on a soul that bears such sorrow,More than I ever deserved.’He had no need to ask us. Priam said,Untie him, and we did so with a promiseTo spare his life. Our king, with friendly words,Addressed him, saying, ‘Whoever you are, forgetThe Greeks, from now on. You are ours; but tell meWhy they have built this monstrous horse? who made it,Who thought of it? What is it, war-machine,Religious offering?’ And he, instructedIn every trick and artifice, made answer,Lifting his hands, now free: ‘Eternal fires,Inviolable godhead, be my witness,You altars, you accursèd swords, you filletsWhich I as victim wore, I had the rightTo break those solemn bonds, I had the rightTo hate those men, to bring whatever they hideInto the light and air; I am bound no longerTo any country, any laws, but, Trojans,Keep to the promise, if I tell the truth,If I pay back with interest.All the Greek hope, since first the war began,Rested in Pallas, always. But Ulysses,The crime-contriver, and the son of TydeusAttacked Minerva’s temple, stole her imageOut of the holy shrine, and slew the guards,And laid their bloody hands upon the goddess,And from that time the Danaan hopes were broken,Faltered and failed. It was no doubtful angerPallas revealed; she gave them signs and portents.From her image in the camp the upraised eyesShot fire, and sweat ran salty down the limbs,Thrice from the ground she seemed to flash and leapWith vibrant spear and clashing shield. The priest,Calchas, made prophecy: they must take to flightOver the sea, and Troy could not be takenWithout new omens; they must go to Argos,Bring back the goddess again, whom they have takenIn curved ships over the sea. And if they have gone,They are bound for home, Mycenae, for new arms,New gods, new soldiers; they will be here againWhen least expected. Calchas’ message warned them,And so they built this image, to replaceThe one they had stolen, a gigantic offeringFor a tremendous sacrilege. It was Calchas,Again, who bade them build a mass so mightyIt almost reached the stars, too big to enterThrough any gate, or be brought inside the walls.For if your hands should damage it, destruction,(May God avert it) would come upon the city,But if your hands helped bring it home, then AsiaWould be invading Greece, and doom awaitOur children’s children.’We believed him, weWhom neither Diomede nor great AchillesHad taken, nor ten years, nor that armada,A thousand ships of war. But Sinon did itBy perjury and guile.Then something else,Much greater and more terrible, was forcedUpon us, troubling our unseeing spirits.Laocoön, allotted priest of Neptune,Was slaying a great bull beside the altars,When suddenly, over the tranquil deepFrom Tenedos,—I shudder even now,Recalling it—there came a pair of serpentsWith monstrous coils, breasting the sea, and aimingTogether for the shore. Their heads and shouldersRose over the waves, upright, with bloody crests,The rest of them trailing along the water,Looping in giant spirals; the foaming seaHissed under their motion. And they reached the land,Their burning eyes suffused with blood and fire,Their darting tongues licking the hissing mouths.Pale at the sight, we fled. But they went onStraight toward Laocoön, and first each serpentSeized in its coils his two young sons, and fastenedThe fangs in those poor bodies. And the priestStruggled to help them, weapons in his hand.They seized him, bound him with their mighty coils,Twice round his waist, twice round his neck, they squeezedWith scaly pressure, and still towered above him.Straining his hands to tear the knots apart,His chaplets stained with blood and the black poison,He uttered horrible cries, not even human,More like the bellowing of a bull, when, woundedIt flees the altar, shaking from the shoulderThe ill-aimed axe. And on the pair went glidingTo the highest shrine, the citadel of Pallas,And vanished underneath the feet of the goddessAnd the circle of her shield.The people trembledAgain; they said Laocoön deserved it,Having, with spear, profaned the sacred image.It must be brought to its place, they cried, the goddessMust be appeased. We broke the walls, exposingThe city’s battlements, and all were busyHelping the work, with rollers underfootAnd ropes around the neck. It climbed our walls,The deadly engine. Boys, unwedded girlsSang alleluias round it, all rejoicingTo have a hand on the tow-rope. It came nearer,Threatening, gliding, into the very city.O motherland! O Ilium, home of gods,O walls of Troy! Four times it stopped, four timesThe sound of arms came from it, and we pressed on,Unheedful, blind in madness, till we set it,Ill-omened thing, on the citadel we worshipped.And even when Cassandra gave us warning,We never believed her; so a god had ordered.That day, our last, poor wretches, we were happy,Garlanding the temples of the godsAll through the town.And the sky turned, and darknessCame from the ocean, the great shade covering earthAnd heaven, and the trickery of the Greeks.Sprawling along the walls, the Trojans slumbered,Sleep holding their weary limbs, and the Greek armada,From Tenedos, under the friendly silenceOf a still moon, came surely on. The flagshipBlazed at the masthead with a sudden signal,And Sinon, guarded by the fates, the hostileWill of the gods, swung loose the bolts; the GreeksCame out of the wooden womb. The air received themThe happy captains, Sthenelus, Ulysses,Thessandrus, Acamas, Achilles’ sonCalled Neoptolemus, Thoas, Machaon,Epeos, who designed the thing,—they allCame sliding down the rope, and MenelausWas with them in the storming of a cityBuried in sleep and wine. The watch was murdered,The open doors welcome the rush of comrades,They marshal the determined ranks for battle.It was the time when the first sleep beginsFor weary mortals, heaven’s most welcome gift.In sleep, before my eyes, I seemed to seeHector, most sorrowful, black with bloody dust,Torn, as he had been, by Achilles’ car,The thong-marks on his swollen feet. How changedHe was from that great Hector who came, once,Triumphant in Achilles’ spoil, from hurlingFire at the Grecian ships. With ragged beard,Hair matted with his blood, wearing the woundsHe earned around the walls of Troy, he stood there.It seemed that I spoke first:—‘O light of Troy,Our surest hope, we have long been waiting for you,What shores have kept you from us? Many deaths,Much suffering, have visited our city,And we are tired. Why do I see these wounds?What shame has caused them?’ Those were foolish questions;He made no answer but a sigh or a groan,And then: ‘Alas, O goddess-born! Take flight,Escape these flames! The enemy has the walls,Troy topples from her lofty height; enoughHas been paid out to Priam and to country.Could any hand have saved them, Hector’s would have.Troy trusts to you her household gods, commendingHer holy things to you; take them, companionsOf destiny; seek walls for them, and a cityTo be established, a long sea-wandering over.’From the inner shrine he carried Vesta’s chapletsIn his own hands, and her undying fire.Meanwhile, the city is all confusion and sorrow;My father Anchises’ house, remote and shelteredAmong its trees, was not so far awayBut I could hear the noises, always clearer,The thickening din of war. Breaking from sleep,I climb to the roof-top, listening and strainingThe way a shepherd does on the top of a mountainWhen fire goes over the corn, and the winds are roaring,Or the rush of a mountain torrent drowns the fieldsAnd the happy crops and the work of men and oxenAnd even drags great trees over. And then I knewThe truth indeed; the craft of the Greeks was hiddenNo longer from my sight. The house of a neighbor,Deiphobus, went up in flames; next door,Ucalegon was burning. Sigeum’s waterGave back the glow. Men shouted, and the trumpetsBlared loud. I grab my arms, with little purpose,There was no sense in it, but my heart was burningTo mass a band for war, rush to the hilltopWith comrades at my side. Anger and frenzyHurry me on. A decent death in battleIs a helpful thought, sometimes.And here came Panthus, running from the weapons,Priest of Apollo, and a son of Othrys,With holy relics in his hands, and draggingHis little grandson, here came Panthus, runningIn madness to my door. ‘How goes it, Panthus?What stronghold still is ours?’ I had hardly spoken,When he began, with a groan: ‘It has come, this dayWill be our last, and we can not escape it.Trojans we have been, Troy has been, and gloryIs ours no more. Fierce Jupiter has takenEverything off to Argos, and Greeks lord itIn a town on fire. The horse, high in the city,Pours out armed men, and Sinon, arrogant victor,Lights up more fires. The gates are standing open,And men are there by the thousands, ever as manyAs came once from Mycenae; others blockThe narrow streets, with weapons drawn; the bladesFlash in the dark; the point is set for murder.A few of the guards are trying, striking blindly,For all the good it does.’His words, or the gods’ purpose, swept me onToward fire and arms, where the grim furies call,And the clamor and confusion, reaching heaven.Ripheus joined me, Epytus, mighty in arms,Came to my side in the moonlight, Hypanis, Dymas,And young Coroebus, Mygdon’s son, poor youngster,Mad with a hopeless passion for Cassandra,He wanted to help Priam, but never heededThe warnings of his loved one.As they rangedThemselves for battle, eager, I addressed them:‘O brave young hearts, it will do no good; no matter.Even if your will is fixed, to follow a leaderTaking the final risk, you can’t help seeingThe fortune of our state. The gods have gone,They have left their shrines and altars, and the powerThey once upheld is fallen. You are helpingA town already burnt. So let us die,Rush into arms. One safety for the vanquishedIs to have hope of none.’They were young, and angry.Like wolves, marauders in black mist, whom hungerDrives blindly on, whose whelps, abandoned, wait themDry-jawed, so we went on, through foes, through weapons,To certain death; we made for the heart of the city,Black night around us with its hollow shadow.Who could explain that night’s destruction, equalIts agony with tears? The ancient city,A power for many years, comes down, and corpsesLie littering the streets and homes and altars.Not only Trojans die. The old-time valorReturns to the vanquished heart, and the Greek victorsKnow what it is to fall. Everywhere sorrow,Everywhere panic, everywhere the imageOf death, made manifold.Out of a crowd of Greeks comes one Androgeos,Thinking us allies, hailing us as friendly:‘Why men, where have you been, you dawdling fellows?Hurry along! Here is plunder for the taking,Others are busy at it, and you just comingFrom the high ships!’ And then he knew he had blundered;He had fallen in with foes, who gave no answer.He stopped, stepped back, like a man who treads on a serpentUnseen in the rough brush, and then in panicDraws back as the purple neck swells out in anger.Even so, Androgeos pulled away in terror.We rush them, swarm all over them; they are frightened,They do not know their ground, and fortune favorsOur first endeavor. Coroebus, a little crazyWith nerve and luck, cries out: ‘Comrades, where fortuneFirst shows the way and sides with us, we follow.Let us change our shields, put on the Grecian emblems!All’s fair in war: we lick them or we trick them,And what’s the odds?’ He takes Androgeos’ helmet,Whose plume streams over his head, takes up the shieldWith proud device, and fits the sword to his side.And Ripheus does the same, and so does Dymas,And all the others, happily, being armedWith spoil, new-won. We join the Greeks, all goingUnder no gods of ours, in the night’s darknessWade into many a fight, and Greeks by the dozensWe send to hell. And some of them in panicSpeed to the ships; they know that shore, and trust it,And some of them—these were the abject cowards—Climb scrambling up the horse’s sides, againTake refuge in the womb.It is not for men to trust unwilling gods.Cassandra was being dragged from Pallas’ temple,Her hair loosed to the wind, her eyes turned upwardTo heaven for mercy; they had bound her hands.Coroebus could not bear that sight; in madnessHe threw himself upon them, and he died.We followed, all of us, into the thick of it,And were cut down, not only by Greeks; the rooftops,Held by our friends, rained weapons: we were wearingGreek crests and armor, and they did not know us.And the Greeks came on, shouting with anger, burningTo foil that rescue; there was Menelaus,And Agamemnon, and the savage Ajax,And a whole army of them. HurricanesRage the same way, when winds from different quartersClash in the sky, and the forest groans, and NeptuneStorms underneath the ocean. Those we routedOnce in the dark came back again from the bywaysAnd alleys of the town; they mark our shields,Our lying weapons, and our foreign voices.Of course we are outnumbered. PeneleusIt was, who slew Coroebus, at the altarSacred to Pallas. Ripheus fell, a manMost just of all the Trojans, most fair-minded.The gods thought otherwise. Hypanis, Dymas,Were slain by their own men, and Panthus’ goodnessWas no protection, nor his priestly office.I call to witness Troy, her fires, her ashes,And the last agonies of all our peopleThat in that hour I ran from no encounterWith any Greek, and if the fates had beenFor me to fall in battle, there I earned it.The current swept me off, with two companions,One, Iphitus, too slow with age, the other,Pelias, limping from Ulysses’ wound.The noise kept calling us to Priam’s palace.There might have been no fighting and no dyingThrough all the city, such a battle ragedHere, from the ground to roof-top. At the thresholdWaves of assault were breaking, and the GreeksWere climbing, rung by rung, along the ladders,Using one hand, the right one up and forwardOver the battlements, the left one thrustIn the protecting shield. And over their headsThe Trojans pried up towers and planking, wreckingThe building; gilded beams, the spoils of their fathers,Were ample weapons for the final moment.Some had the doorways blocked, others, behind them,Were ready with drawn swords. We had a momentWhen help seemed possible: new reinforcementMight yet relieve the palace.There was a secret entrance there, a passageAll the way through the building, a postern gate,Where, while the kingdom stood, AndromacheWould go, alone, or bring the little boy,Astyanax, to Hector’s father and mother.I climbed to the top of the roof, where the poor TrojansWere hurling down their unavailing darts.A tower stood on the very edge, a look-outOver all Troy, the ships and camp of the Greeks.This we attacked with steel, where the joints were weakest,And pried it up, and shoved it over. It crashed.A noisy ruin, over the hostile columns;But more kept coming up; the shower of stonesAnd darts continued raining.Before the entrance, at the very thresholdStood Pyrrhus, flashing proudly in bronze light,Sleek as a serpent coming into the open,Fed on rank herbs, wintering under the ground,The old slough cast, the new skin shining, rollingHis slippery length, reaching his neck to the sun,While the forked tongue darts from the mouth. AutomedonWas with him, Periphas, Achilles’ driver,A giant of a man, and the host from Scyros,All closing in on the palace, and hurling flames.Among the foremost, Pyrrhus, swinging an axe,Burst through, wrenched the bronze doors out of their hinges,Smashed through the panelling, turned it into a window.The long halls came to view, the inner chambersOf Priam and the older kings; they seeArmed warriors at the threshold.Within, it is all confusion, women wailing,Pitiful noise, groaning, and blows; the dinReaches the golden stars. The trembling mothersWander, not knowing where, or find a spotTo cling to; they would hold and kiss the doors.Pyrrhus comes on, aggressive as his father;No barrier holds him back; the gate is batteredAs the ram smashes at it; the doors come down.Force finds a way: the Greeks pour in, they slaughterThe first ones in their path; they fill the courtyardWith soldiery, wilder than any riverIn flood over the banks and dikes and ploughland.I saw them, Pyrrhus, going mad with murder,And Atreus’ twin sons, and HecubaI saw, and all her daughters, and poor old Priam,His blood polluting the altars he had hallowed.The fifty marriage-chambers, the proud hopeOf an everlasting line, are violated,The doors with the golden spoil are turned to splinters.Whatever the fire has spared the Greeks take over.You would ask, perhaps, about the fate of Priam?When he saw the city fall, and the doors of the palaceRipped from the hinge, and the enemy pouring in,Old as he was, he went and found his armor,Unused so many years, and his old shouldersShook as he put it on. He took his sword,A useless weapon, and, doomed to die, went rushingInto the midst of the foe. There was an altarIn the open court-yard, shaded by a laurelWhose shadow darkened the household gods, and hereHecuba and her daughters had come thronging,Like doves by a black storm driven. They were prayingHere at the altar, and clinging to the gods,Whatever image was left. And the queen saw PriamIn the arms of his youth. ‘O my unhappy husband,’She cried, ‘have you gone mad, to dress yourselfFor battle, so? It is all no use; the timeNeeds better help than yours; not even my HectorCould help us now. Come to me, come to the altar;It will protect us, or at least will let usDie all together.’ And she drew him to her.Just then through darts, through weapons, came Polites,A son of Priam, fleeing deadly Pyrrhus,Down the long colonnades and empty hallways,Wounded, and Pyrrhus after him, vicious, eagerFor the last spear-thrust, and he drives it home;Polites falls, and his life goes out with his blood,Father and mother watching. And then Priam,In the very grip of death, cried out in anger:—‘If there is any righteousness in heaven,To care about such wickedness, the godsWill have the right reward and thanks to offerA man like this, who has made a father witnessThe murder of his son, the worst pollution!You claim to be Achilles’ son. You liar!Achilles had some reverence, respectedA suppliant’s right and trust; he gave me backMy Hector’s lifeless body for the tomb,And let me go to my kingdom.’ With the wordHe flung a feeble spear, which dropped, deflectedFrom the rough bronze; it had hung there for a moment.And Pyrrhus sneered: ‘So, go and tell my fatherThe latest news: do not forget to mention,Old messenger-boy, my villainous behavior,And what a bastard Pyrrhus is. Now die!’He dragged the old man, trembling, to the altar,Slipping in his son’s blood; he grabbed his hairWith the left hand, and the right drove home the swordDeep in the side, to the hilt. And so fell Priam,Who had seen Troy burn and her walls come down, once monarch,Proud ruler over the peoples and lands of Asia.He lies, a nameless body, on the shore,Dismembered, huge, the head torn from the shoulders.Grim horror, then, came home to me. I sawMy father when I saw the king, the lifeGoing out with the cruel wound. I saw CreusaForsaken, my abandoned home, Iulus,My little son. I looked around. They allHad gone, exhausted, flung down from the walls,Or dead in the fire, and I was left alone.And I saw Helen, hiding, of all places,At Vesta’s shrine, and clinging there in silence,But the bright flames lit the scene. That hated woman,Fearing both Trojan anger and Greek vengeance,A common fury to both lands, was crouchingBeside the altar. Anger flared up in meFor punishment and vengeance. Should she then,I thought, come home to Sparta safe, uninjuredWalk through Mycenae, a triumphant queen?See husband, home, parents and children, tendedBy Trojan slave-girls? This, with Priam fallenAnd Troy burnt down, and the shore soaked in blood?Never! No memorable name, I knew,Was won by punishing women, yet, for me,There might be praise for the just abolitionOf this unholiness, and satisfactionIn vengeance for the ashes of my people.All this I may have said aloud, in frenzy,As I rushed on, when to my sight there cameA vision of my lovely mother, radiantIn the dark night, a goddess manifest,As tall and fair as when she walks in heaven.She caught me by the hand and stopped me:—‘Son,What sorrow rouses this relentless anger,This violence? Do you care for me no longer?Consider others first, your aged father,Anchises; is your wife Creusa living?Where is Iulus? Greeks are all around them,Only my love between them, fire and sword.It is not for you to blame the Spartan woman,Daughter of Tyndareus, or even Paris.The gods are the ones, the high gods are relentlessIt is they who bring this power down, who toppleTroy from the high foundation. Look! Your visionIs mortal dull, I will take the cloud away,—Fear not a mother’s counsel. Where you seeRock torn from rock, and smoke and dust in billows,Neptune is working, plying the trident, pryingThe walls from their foundations. And see Juno,Fiercest of all, holding the Scaean gates,Girt with the steel, and calling from the shipsImplacable companions. On the towers,—Turn, and be certain—Pallas takes commandGleaming with Gorgon and storm-cloud. Even Jove,Our father, nerves the Greeks with fire and spirit,And spurs the other gods against the Trojans.Hasten the flight, my son; no other laborWaits for accomplishment. I promise safetyUntil you reach your father’s house.’ She had spokenAnd vanished in the thickening night of shadows.Dread shapes come into vision, mighty powers,Great gods at war with Troy, which, so it seemed,Was sinking as I watched, with the same feelingAs when on mountain-tops you see the loggersHacking an ash-tree down, and it always threatensTo topple, nodding a little, and the leavesTrembling when no wind stirs, and dies of its woundsWith one long loud last groan, and dirt from the ridgesHeaves up as it goes down with roots in air.Divinity my guide, I leave the roof-top,I pass unharmed through enemies and blazing,Weapons give place to me, and flames retire.At last I reached the house, I found my father,The first one that I looked for. I meant to take himTo the safety of the hills, but he was stubborn,Refusing longer life or barren exile,Since Troy was dead. ‘You have the strength,’ he told me,‘You are young enough, take flight. For me, had heavenWanted to save my life, they would have sparedThis home for me. We have seen enough destruction,More than enough, survived a captured city.Speak to me as a corpse laid out for burial,A quick farewell, and go. Death I shall findWith my own hand; the enemy will pity,Or look for spoil. The loss of burialIs nothing at all. I have been living too longHated by gods and useless, since the timeJove blasted me with lightning wind and fire.’He would not move, however we wept, Creusa,Ascanius, all the house, insistent, pleadingThat he should not bring all to ruin with him.He would not move, he would not listen. AgainI rush to arms, I pray for death; what elseWas left to me? ‘Dear father, were you thinkingI could abandon you, and go? what sonCould bear a thought so monstrous? If the godsWant nothing to be left of so great a city,If you are bound, or pleased, to add us allTo the wreck of Troy, the way is open for it—Pyrrhus will soon be here; from the blood of PriamHe comes; he slays the son before the father,The sire at the altar-stone; O my dear mother,Was it for this you saved me, brought me throughThe fire and sword, to see our enemiesHere in the very house, and wife and sonAnd father murdered in each other’s blood?Bring me my arms; the last light calls the conquered.Let me go back to the Greeks, renew the battle,We shall not all of us die unavenged.’Sword at my side, I was on the point of going,Working the left arm into the shield. CreusaClung to me on the threshold, held my feet,And made me see my little son:—‘Dear husband,If you are bent on dying, take us with you,But if you think there is any hope in fighting,And you should know, stay and defend the house!To whom are we abandoned, your father and son,And I, once called your wife?’ She filled the houseWith moaning outcry. And then something happened,A wonderful portent. Over Iulus’ head,Between our hands and faces, there appearedA blaze of gentle light; a tongue of flame,Harmless and innocent, was playing overThe softness of his hair, around his temples.We were afraid, we did our best to quench itWith our own hands, or water, but my fatherRaised joyous eyes to heaven, and prayed aloud:—‘Almighty Jupiter, if any prayerOf ours has power to move you, look upon us,Grant only this, if we have ever deserved it,Grant us a sign, and ratify the omen!’He had hardly spoken, when thunder on the leftResounded, and a shooting star from heavenDrew a long trail of light across the shadows.We saw it cross above the house, and vanishIn the woods of Ida, a wake of gleaming lightWhere it had sped, and a trail of sulphurous odor.This was a victory: my father roseIn worship of the gods and the holy star,Crying: ‘I follow, son, wherever you lead;There is no delay, not now; Gods of my fathers,Preserve my house, my grandson; yours the omen,And Troy is in your keeping. O my son,I yield, I am ready to follow.’ But the fireCame louder over the walls, the flames rolled nearerTheir burning tide. ‘Climb to my shoulders, father,It will be no burden, so we are together,Meeting a common danger or salvation.Iulus, take my hand; Creusa, followA little way behind. Listen, you servants!You will find, when you leave the city, an old templeThat once belonged to Ceres; it has been tendedFor many years with the worship of our fathers.There’s a little hill there, and a cypress tree;And that’s where we shall meet, one way or another.And one thing more: you, father, are to carryThe holy objects and the gods of the household,My hands are foul with battle and blood, I could notTouch them without pollution.’I bent downAnd over my neck and shoulders spread the coverOf a tawny lion-skin, took up my burden;Little Iulus held my hand, and trotted,As best he could, beside me; Creusa followed.We went on through the shadows. I had beenBrave, so I thought, before, in the rain of weaponsAnd the cloud of massing Greeks. But now I trembledAt every breath of air, shook at a whisper,Fearful for both my burden and companion.I was near the gates, and thinking we had made it,But there was a sound, the tramp of marching feet,And many of them, it seemed; my father, peeringThrough the thick gloom, cried out:—‘Son, they are coming!Flee, flee! I see their shields, their gleaming bronze.’Something or other took my senses from meIn that confusion. I turned aside from the path,I do not know what happened then. CreusaWas lost; she had missed the road, or halted, weary,For a brief rest. I do not know what happened,She was not seen again; I had not looked back,Nor even thought about her, till we cameTo Ceres’ hallowed home. The count was perfect,Only one missing there, the wife and mother.Whom did I not accuse, of gods and mortals,Then in my frenzy? What worse thing had happenedIn the city overthrown? I left Anchises,My son, my household gods, to my companions,In a hiding-place in the valley; and I went backInto the city again, wearing my armor,Ready, still one more time, for any danger.I found the walls again, the gate’s dark portals,I followed my own footsteps back, but terror,Terror and silence were all I found. I wentOn to my house. She might, just might, have gone there.Only the Greeks were there, and fire devouringThe very pinnacles. I tried Priam’s palace;In the empty courtyards Phoenix and UlyssesGuarded the spoils piled up at Juno’s altar.They had Trojan treasure there, loot from the altars,Great drinking-bowls of gold, and stolen garments,And human beings. A line of boys and womenStood trembling there.I took the risk of crying through the shadows,Over and over, ‘Creusa!’ I kept calling,‘Creusa!’ and ‘Creusa!’ but no answer.No sense, no limit, to my endless rushingAll through the town; and then at last I saw her,Or thought I did, her shadow a little tallerThan I remembered. And she spoke to meBeside myself with terror:—‘O dear husband,What good is all this frantic grief? The godsHave willed it so, Creusa may not join youOut of this city; Jupiter denies it.Long exile lies ahead, and vast sea-reachesThe ships must furrow, till you come to landFar in the West; rich fields are there, and a riverFlowing with gentle current; its name is Tiber,And happy days await you there, a kingdom,A royal wife. Banish the tears of sorrowOver Creusa lost. I shall never seeThe arrogant houses of the Myrmidons,Nor be a slave to any Grecian woman;I am a Dardan woman; I am the wifeOf Venus’ son; it is Cybele who keeps meHere on these shores. And now farewell, and loveOur son.’ I wept, there was more to say; she left me,Vanishing into empty air. Three timesI reached out toward her, and three times her imageFled like the breath of a wind or a dream on wings.The night was over; I went back to my comrades.I was surprised to find so many moreHad joined us, ready for exile, pitiful people,Mothers, and men, and children, streaming inFrom everywhere, looking for me to lead themWherever I would. Over the hills of IdaThe morning-star was rising; in the townThe Danaans held the gates, and help was hopeless.I gave it up, I lifted up my father,Together we sought the hills.
Broken in war, set back by fate, the leadersOf the Greek host, as years went by, contrived,With Pallas’ help, a horse as big as a mountain.They wove its sides with planks of fir, pretendingThis was an offering for their safe return,At least, so rumor had it. But insideThey packed, in secret, into the hollow sidesThe fittest warriors; the belly’s cavern,Huge as it was, was filled with men in armor.There is an island, Tenedos, well-known,Rich in the days of Priam; now it is onlyA bay, and not too good an anchorageFor any ship to trust. They sailed there, hidOn the deserted shore. We thought they had gone,Bound for Mycenae, and Troy was very happy,Shaking off grief, throwing the gates wide open.It was a pleasure, for a change, to goSee the Greek camp, station and shore abandoned;Why, this was where Achilles camped, his minions,The Dolopes, were here; and the fleet just yonder,And that was the plain where we used to meet in battle.Some of us stared in wonder at the horse,Astounded by its vastness, Minerva’s gift,Death from the virgin goddess, had we known it.Thymoetes, whether in treachery, or becauseThe fates of Troy so ordered, was the first oneTo urge us bring it in to the heart of the city,But Capys, and some others, knowing better,Suspicious of Greek plotting, said to throw itInto the sea, to burn it up with fire,To cut it open, see what there was inside it.The wavering crowd could not make up its mind.And, at that point, Laocoön came running,With a great throng at his heels, down from the hilltopAs fast as ever he could, and before he reached us,Cried in alarm: ‘Are you crazy, wretched people?Do you think they have gone, the foe? Do you think that anyGifts of the Greeks lack treachery? Ulysses,—What was his reputation? Let me tell you,Either the Greeks are hiding in this monster,Or it’s some trick of war, a spy, or engine,To come down on the city. Tricky businessIs hiding in it. Do not trust it, Trojans,Do not believe this horse. Whatever it may be,I fear the Greeks, even when bringing presents.’With that, he hurled the great spear at the sideWith all the strength he had. It fastened, trembling,And the struck womb rang hollow, a moaning sound.He had driven us, almost, to let the light inWith the point of the steel, to probe, to tear, but somethingGot in his way, the gods, or fate, or counsel,Ill-omened, in our hearts; or Troy would be standingAnd Priam’s lofty citadel unshaken.Meanwhile, some Trojan shepherds, pulling and hauling,Had a young fellow, with his hands behind him,Tied up, and they were dragging him to Priam.He had let himself be taken so, on purpose,To open Troy to the Greeks, a stranger, readyFor death or shifty cunning, a cool intriguer,Let come what may. They crowd around to see him,Take turns in making fun of him, that captive.Listen, and learn Greek trickiness; learn allTheir crimes from one.He stopped in the middle, frightened and defenceless,Looked at the Trojan ranks,—‘What land, what waters,Can take me now?’ he cried, ‘There is nothing, nothingLeft for me any more, no place with the Greeks,And here are the Trojans howling for my blood!’Our mood was changed. We pitied him, poor fellow,Sobbing his heart out. We bade him tell his story,His lineage, his news: what can he count on,The captive that he is? His fear had goneAs he began: ‘O King, whatever happens,I will tell the truth, tell all of it; to start with,I own I am a Greek. Sinon is wretched,Fortune has made him so, but she will neverMake him a liar. You may perhaps have heardRumors of Palamedes, son of Belus,A man of glorious fame. But the Greeks killed him,—He was against the war, and so they killed him,An innocent man, by perjury and lyingFalse witness. Now that he is dead they mourn him.My father, his poor relative, had sent meTo soldier in his company; I was thenScarcely beyond my boyhood. PalamedesHeld, for some time, some influence and standingIn royal councils, and we shared his glory,But, and all men know this, Ulysses’ hatred,His cunning malice, pulled him down; thereafterI lived in darkness, dragging out a lifetimeIn sorrow for my innocent lord, and anger,And in my anger I was very foolish,I talked; I vowed, if I got home to Argos,I would have vengeance: so I roused UlyssesTo hate me in his turn, and that began it,Downfall and evil, Ulysses always tryingTo frighten me with hint and accusation,With rumors planted where the crowd would listen;Oh yes, Ulysses knew what he was doing,He never stopped, until with Calchas workingHand in glove with him—why am I telling this,And what’s the use? I am stalling. All the Greeks,You think, are all alike; what more do you want?Inflict the punishment. That would be somethingUlysses would rejoice in, and some othersPay handsome money for!’But we were all on fire to hear him further.Pelasgian craft meant nothing to our folly.Trembling and nervous, he resumed his lying:‘The Greeks were tired of the long war; they oftenWanted to sail from Troy for home. Oh, wouldThat they had only done it! But a stormWould cut them off, or the wrong wind terrify them.Especially, just after the horse was finished,With the joined planks of maple, all the heavenRoared loud with storm-clouds. In suspense and terrorWe sent Eurypylus to ask ApolloWhat could be done; the oracle was gloomy,Foreboding: “Blood, O Greeks, and a slain virginAppeased the winds when first you came here; bloodMust pay for your return, a life be given,An Argive life.” The word came to our earsWith terror in it, our blood ran cold in our veins,For whom was fate preparing? who would beThe victim of Apollo? Then UlyssesDragged Calchas into our midst, with a great uproar,Trying his best to make the prophet tell usWhat the gods wanted. And there were many thenWho told me what was coming, or kept silentBecause they saw, and all too well, the schemeUlysses had in mind. For ten days CalchasSaid nothing at all, hid in his tent, refusingTo have a word of his pronounce the sentence,And all the time Ulysses kept on shouting,Till Calchas broke, and doomed me to the altar.And all assented; what each man had fearedIn his own case, he bore with great composureWhen turned another way.The terrible day was almost on me; filletsWere ready for my temples, the salted mealPrepared, the altars standing. But I fled,I tore myself away from death, I admit it,I hid all night in sedge and muddy waterAt the edge of the lake, hoping, forever hoping,They might set sail. And now I hope no longerTo see my home, my parents, or my children,Poor things, whom they will kill because I fled them,Whom they will murder for my sacrilege.But oh, by the gods above, by any powerThat values truth, by any uncorruptedRemnant of faith in all the world, have pity,Have pity on a soul that bears such sorrow,More than I ever deserved.’He had no need to ask us. Priam said,Untie him, and we did so with a promiseTo spare his life. Our king, with friendly words,Addressed him, saying, ‘Whoever you are, forgetThe Greeks, from now on. You are ours; but tell meWhy they have built this monstrous horse? who made it,Who thought of it? What is it, war-machine,Religious offering?’ And he, instructedIn every trick and artifice, made answer,Lifting his hands, now free: ‘Eternal fires,Inviolable godhead, be my witness,You altars, you accursèd swords, you filletsWhich I as victim wore, I had the rightTo break those solemn bonds, I had the rightTo hate those men, to bring whatever they hideInto the light and air; I am bound no longerTo any country, any laws, but, Trojans,Keep to the promise, if I tell the truth,If I pay back with interest.All the Greek hope, since first the war began,Rested in Pallas, always. But Ulysses,The crime-contriver, and the son of TydeusAttacked Minerva’s temple, stole her imageOut of the holy shrine, and slew the guards,And laid their bloody hands upon the goddess,And from that time the Danaan hopes were broken,Faltered and failed. It was no doubtful angerPallas revealed; she gave them signs and portents.From her image in the camp the upraised eyesShot fire, and sweat ran salty down the limbs,Thrice from the ground she seemed to flash and leapWith vibrant spear and clashing shield. The priest,Calchas, made prophecy: they must take to flightOver the sea, and Troy could not be takenWithout new omens; they must go to Argos,Bring back the goddess again, whom they have takenIn curved ships over the sea. And if they have gone,They are bound for home, Mycenae, for new arms,New gods, new soldiers; they will be here againWhen least expected. Calchas’ message warned them,And so they built this image, to replaceThe one they had stolen, a gigantic offeringFor a tremendous sacrilege. It was Calchas,Again, who bade them build a mass so mightyIt almost reached the stars, too big to enterThrough any gate, or be brought inside the walls.For if your hands should damage it, destruction,(May God avert it) would come upon the city,But if your hands helped bring it home, then AsiaWould be invading Greece, and doom awaitOur children’s children.’We believed him, weWhom neither Diomede nor great AchillesHad taken, nor ten years, nor that armada,A thousand ships of war. But Sinon did itBy perjury and guile.Then something else,Much greater and more terrible, was forcedUpon us, troubling our unseeing spirits.Laocoön, allotted priest of Neptune,Was slaying a great bull beside the altars,When suddenly, over the tranquil deepFrom Tenedos,—I shudder even now,Recalling it—there came a pair of serpentsWith monstrous coils, breasting the sea, and aimingTogether for the shore. Their heads and shouldersRose over the waves, upright, with bloody crests,The rest of them trailing along the water,Looping in giant spirals; the foaming seaHissed under their motion. And they reached the land,Their burning eyes suffused with blood and fire,Their darting tongues licking the hissing mouths.Pale at the sight, we fled. But they went onStraight toward Laocoön, and first each serpentSeized in its coils his two young sons, and fastenedThe fangs in those poor bodies. And the priestStruggled to help them, weapons in his hand.They seized him, bound him with their mighty coils,Twice round his waist, twice round his neck, they squeezedWith scaly pressure, and still towered above him.Straining his hands to tear the knots apart,His chaplets stained with blood and the black poison,He uttered horrible cries, not even human,More like the bellowing of a bull, when, woundedIt flees the altar, shaking from the shoulderThe ill-aimed axe. And on the pair went glidingTo the highest shrine, the citadel of Pallas,And vanished underneath the feet of the goddessAnd the circle of her shield.The people trembledAgain; they said Laocoön deserved it,Having, with spear, profaned the sacred image.It must be brought to its place, they cried, the goddessMust be appeased. We broke the walls, exposingThe city’s battlements, and all were busyHelping the work, with rollers underfootAnd ropes around the neck. It climbed our walls,The deadly engine. Boys, unwedded girlsSang alleluias round it, all rejoicingTo have a hand on the tow-rope. It came nearer,Threatening, gliding, into the very city.O motherland! O Ilium, home of gods,O walls of Troy! Four times it stopped, four timesThe sound of arms came from it, and we pressed on,Unheedful, blind in madness, till we set it,Ill-omened thing, on the citadel we worshipped.And even when Cassandra gave us warning,We never believed her; so a god had ordered.That day, our last, poor wretches, we were happy,Garlanding the temples of the godsAll through the town.And the sky turned, and darknessCame from the ocean, the great shade covering earthAnd heaven, and the trickery of the Greeks.Sprawling along the walls, the Trojans slumbered,Sleep holding their weary limbs, and the Greek armada,From Tenedos, under the friendly silenceOf a still moon, came surely on. The flagshipBlazed at the masthead with a sudden signal,And Sinon, guarded by the fates, the hostileWill of the gods, swung loose the bolts; the GreeksCame out of the wooden womb. The air received themThe happy captains, Sthenelus, Ulysses,Thessandrus, Acamas, Achilles’ sonCalled Neoptolemus, Thoas, Machaon,Epeos, who designed the thing,—they allCame sliding down the rope, and MenelausWas with them in the storming of a cityBuried in sleep and wine. The watch was murdered,The open doors welcome the rush of comrades,They marshal the determined ranks for battle.It was the time when the first sleep beginsFor weary mortals, heaven’s most welcome gift.In sleep, before my eyes, I seemed to seeHector, most sorrowful, black with bloody dust,Torn, as he had been, by Achilles’ car,The thong-marks on his swollen feet. How changedHe was from that great Hector who came, once,Triumphant in Achilles’ spoil, from hurlingFire at the Grecian ships. With ragged beard,Hair matted with his blood, wearing the woundsHe earned around the walls of Troy, he stood there.It seemed that I spoke first:—‘O light of Troy,Our surest hope, we have long been waiting for you,What shores have kept you from us? Many deaths,Much suffering, have visited our city,And we are tired. Why do I see these wounds?What shame has caused them?’ Those were foolish questions;He made no answer but a sigh or a groan,And then: ‘Alas, O goddess-born! Take flight,Escape these flames! The enemy has the walls,Troy topples from her lofty height; enoughHas been paid out to Priam and to country.Could any hand have saved them, Hector’s would have.Troy trusts to you her household gods, commendingHer holy things to you; take them, companionsOf destiny; seek walls for them, and a cityTo be established, a long sea-wandering over.’From the inner shrine he carried Vesta’s chapletsIn his own hands, and her undying fire.Meanwhile, the city is all confusion and sorrow;My father Anchises’ house, remote and shelteredAmong its trees, was not so far awayBut I could hear the noises, always clearer,The thickening din of war. Breaking from sleep,I climb to the roof-top, listening and strainingThe way a shepherd does on the top of a mountainWhen fire goes over the corn, and the winds are roaring,Or the rush of a mountain torrent drowns the fieldsAnd the happy crops and the work of men and oxenAnd even drags great trees over. And then I knewThe truth indeed; the craft of the Greeks was hiddenNo longer from my sight. The house of a neighbor,Deiphobus, went up in flames; next door,Ucalegon was burning. Sigeum’s waterGave back the glow. Men shouted, and the trumpetsBlared loud. I grab my arms, with little purpose,There was no sense in it, but my heart was burningTo mass a band for war, rush to the hilltopWith comrades at my side. Anger and frenzyHurry me on. A decent death in battleIs a helpful thought, sometimes.And here came Panthus, running from the weapons,Priest of Apollo, and a son of Othrys,With holy relics in his hands, and draggingHis little grandson, here came Panthus, runningIn madness to my door. ‘How goes it, Panthus?What stronghold still is ours?’ I had hardly spoken,When he began, with a groan: ‘It has come, this dayWill be our last, and we can not escape it.Trojans we have been, Troy has been, and gloryIs ours no more. Fierce Jupiter has takenEverything off to Argos, and Greeks lord itIn a town on fire. The horse, high in the city,Pours out armed men, and Sinon, arrogant victor,Lights up more fires. The gates are standing open,And men are there by the thousands, ever as manyAs came once from Mycenae; others blockThe narrow streets, with weapons drawn; the bladesFlash in the dark; the point is set for murder.A few of the guards are trying, striking blindly,For all the good it does.’His words, or the gods’ purpose, swept me onToward fire and arms, where the grim furies call,And the clamor and confusion, reaching heaven.Ripheus joined me, Epytus, mighty in arms,Came to my side in the moonlight, Hypanis, Dymas,And young Coroebus, Mygdon’s son, poor youngster,Mad with a hopeless passion for Cassandra,He wanted to help Priam, but never heededThe warnings of his loved one.As they rangedThemselves for battle, eager, I addressed them:‘O brave young hearts, it will do no good; no matter.Even if your will is fixed, to follow a leaderTaking the final risk, you can’t help seeingThe fortune of our state. The gods have gone,They have left their shrines and altars, and the powerThey once upheld is fallen. You are helpingA town already burnt. So let us die,Rush into arms. One safety for the vanquishedIs to have hope of none.’They were young, and angry.Like wolves, marauders in black mist, whom hungerDrives blindly on, whose whelps, abandoned, wait themDry-jawed, so we went on, through foes, through weapons,To certain death; we made for the heart of the city,Black night around us with its hollow shadow.Who could explain that night’s destruction, equalIts agony with tears? The ancient city,A power for many years, comes down, and corpsesLie littering the streets and homes and altars.Not only Trojans die. The old-time valorReturns to the vanquished heart, and the Greek victorsKnow what it is to fall. Everywhere sorrow,Everywhere panic, everywhere the imageOf death, made manifold.Out of a crowd of Greeks comes one Androgeos,Thinking us allies, hailing us as friendly:‘Why men, where have you been, you dawdling fellows?Hurry along! Here is plunder for the taking,Others are busy at it, and you just comingFrom the high ships!’ And then he knew he had blundered;He had fallen in with foes, who gave no answer.He stopped, stepped back, like a man who treads on a serpentUnseen in the rough brush, and then in panicDraws back as the purple neck swells out in anger.Even so, Androgeos pulled away in terror.We rush them, swarm all over them; they are frightened,They do not know their ground, and fortune favorsOur first endeavor. Coroebus, a little crazyWith nerve and luck, cries out: ‘Comrades, where fortuneFirst shows the way and sides with us, we follow.Let us change our shields, put on the Grecian emblems!All’s fair in war: we lick them or we trick them,And what’s the odds?’ He takes Androgeos’ helmet,Whose plume streams over his head, takes up the shieldWith proud device, and fits the sword to his side.And Ripheus does the same, and so does Dymas,And all the others, happily, being armedWith spoil, new-won. We join the Greeks, all goingUnder no gods of ours, in the night’s darknessWade into many a fight, and Greeks by the dozensWe send to hell. And some of them in panicSpeed to the ships; they know that shore, and trust it,And some of them—these were the abject cowards—Climb scrambling up the horse’s sides, againTake refuge in the womb.It is not for men to trust unwilling gods.Cassandra was being dragged from Pallas’ temple,Her hair loosed to the wind, her eyes turned upwardTo heaven for mercy; they had bound her hands.Coroebus could not bear that sight; in madnessHe threw himself upon them, and he died.We followed, all of us, into the thick of it,And were cut down, not only by Greeks; the rooftops,Held by our friends, rained weapons: we were wearingGreek crests and armor, and they did not know us.And the Greeks came on, shouting with anger, burningTo foil that rescue; there was Menelaus,And Agamemnon, and the savage Ajax,And a whole army of them. HurricanesRage the same way, when winds from different quartersClash in the sky, and the forest groans, and NeptuneStorms underneath the ocean. Those we routedOnce in the dark came back again from the bywaysAnd alleys of the town; they mark our shields,Our lying weapons, and our foreign voices.Of course we are outnumbered. PeneleusIt was, who slew Coroebus, at the altarSacred to Pallas. Ripheus fell, a manMost just of all the Trojans, most fair-minded.The gods thought otherwise. Hypanis, Dymas,Were slain by their own men, and Panthus’ goodnessWas no protection, nor his priestly office.I call to witness Troy, her fires, her ashes,And the last agonies of all our peopleThat in that hour I ran from no encounterWith any Greek, and if the fates had beenFor me to fall in battle, there I earned it.The current swept me off, with two companions,One, Iphitus, too slow with age, the other,Pelias, limping from Ulysses’ wound.The noise kept calling us to Priam’s palace.There might have been no fighting and no dyingThrough all the city, such a battle ragedHere, from the ground to roof-top. At the thresholdWaves of assault were breaking, and the GreeksWere climbing, rung by rung, along the ladders,Using one hand, the right one up and forwardOver the battlements, the left one thrustIn the protecting shield. And over their headsThe Trojans pried up towers and planking, wreckingThe building; gilded beams, the spoils of their fathers,Were ample weapons for the final moment.Some had the doorways blocked, others, behind them,Were ready with drawn swords. We had a momentWhen help seemed possible: new reinforcementMight yet relieve the palace.There was a secret entrance there, a passageAll the way through the building, a postern gate,Where, while the kingdom stood, AndromacheWould go, alone, or bring the little boy,Astyanax, to Hector’s father and mother.I climbed to the top of the roof, where the poor TrojansWere hurling down their unavailing darts.A tower stood on the very edge, a look-outOver all Troy, the ships and camp of the Greeks.This we attacked with steel, where the joints were weakest,And pried it up, and shoved it over. It crashed.A noisy ruin, over the hostile columns;But more kept coming up; the shower of stonesAnd darts continued raining.Before the entrance, at the very thresholdStood Pyrrhus, flashing proudly in bronze light,Sleek as a serpent coming into the open,Fed on rank herbs, wintering under the ground,The old slough cast, the new skin shining, rollingHis slippery length, reaching his neck to the sun,While the forked tongue darts from the mouth. AutomedonWas with him, Periphas, Achilles’ driver,A giant of a man, and the host from Scyros,All closing in on the palace, and hurling flames.Among the foremost, Pyrrhus, swinging an axe,Burst through, wrenched the bronze doors out of their hinges,Smashed through the panelling, turned it into a window.The long halls came to view, the inner chambersOf Priam and the older kings; they seeArmed warriors at the threshold.Within, it is all confusion, women wailing,Pitiful noise, groaning, and blows; the dinReaches the golden stars. The trembling mothersWander, not knowing where, or find a spotTo cling to; they would hold and kiss the doors.Pyrrhus comes on, aggressive as his father;No barrier holds him back; the gate is batteredAs the ram smashes at it; the doors come down.Force finds a way: the Greeks pour in, they slaughterThe first ones in their path; they fill the courtyardWith soldiery, wilder than any riverIn flood over the banks and dikes and ploughland.I saw them, Pyrrhus, going mad with murder,And Atreus’ twin sons, and HecubaI saw, and all her daughters, and poor old Priam,His blood polluting the altars he had hallowed.The fifty marriage-chambers, the proud hopeOf an everlasting line, are violated,The doors with the golden spoil are turned to splinters.Whatever the fire has spared the Greeks take over.You would ask, perhaps, about the fate of Priam?When he saw the city fall, and the doors of the palaceRipped from the hinge, and the enemy pouring in,Old as he was, he went and found his armor,Unused so many years, and his old shouldersShook as he put it on. He took his sword,A useless weapon, and, doomed to die, went rushingInto the midst of the foe. There was an altarIn the open court-yard, shaded by a laurelWhose shadow darkened the household gods, and hereHecuba and her daughters had come thronging,Like doves by a black storm driven. They were prayingHere at the altar, and clinging to the gods,Whatever image was left. And the queen saw PriamIn the arms of his youth. ‘O my unhappy husband,’She cried, ‘have you gone mad, to dress yourselfFor battle, so? It is all no use; the timeNeeds better help than yours; not even my HectorCould help us now. Come to me, come to the altar;It will protect us, or at least will let usDie all together.’ And she drew him to her.Just then through darts, through weapons, came Polites,A son of Priam, fleeing deadly Pyrrhus,Down the long colonnades and empty hallways,Wounded, and Pyrrhus after him, vicious, eagerFor the last spear-thrust, and he drives it home;Polites falls, and his life goes out with his blood,Father and mother watching. And then Priam,In the very grip of death, cried out in anger:—‘If there is any righteousness in heaven,To care about such wickedness, the godsWill have the right reward and thanks to offerA man like this, who has made a father witnessThe murder of his son, the worst pollution!You claim to be Achilles’ son. You liar!Achilles had some reverence, respectedA suppliant’s right and trust; he gave me backMy Hector’s lifeless body for the tomb,And let me go to my kingdom.’ With the wordHe flung a feeble spear, which dropped, deflectedFrom the rough bronze; it had hung there for a moment.And Pyrrhus sneered: ‘So, go and tell my fatherThe latest news: do not forget to mention,Old messenger-boy, my villainous behavior,And what a bastard Pyrrhus is. Now die!’He dragged the old man, trembling, to the altar,Slipping in his son’s blood; he grabbed his hairWith the left hand, and the right drove home the swordDeep in the side, to the hilt. And so fell Priam,Who had seen Troy burn and her walls come down, once monarch,Proud ruler over the peoples and lands of Asia.He lies, a nameless body, on the shore,Dismembered, huge, the head torn from the shoulders.Grim horror, then, came home to me. I sawMy father when I saw the king, the lifeGoing out with the cruel wound. I saw CreusaForsaken, my abandoned home, Iulus,My little son. I looked around. They allHad gone, exhausted, flung down from the walls,Or dead in the fire, and I was left alone.And I saw Helen, hiding, of all places,At Vesta’s shrine, and clinging there in silence,But the bright flames lit the scene. That hated woman,Fearing both Trojan anger and Greek vengeance,A common fury to both lands, was crouchingBeside the altar. Anger flared up in meFor punishment and vengeance. Should she then,I thought, come home to Sparta safe, uninjuredWalk through Mycenae, a triumphant queen?See husband, home, parents and children, tendedBy Trojan slave-girls? This, with Priam fallenAnd Troy burnt down, and the shore soaked in blood?Never! No memorable name, I knew,Was won by punishing women, yet, for me,There might be praise for the just abolitionOf this unholiness, and satisfactionIn vengeance for the ashes of my people.All this I may have said aloud, in frenzy,As I rushed on, when to my sight there cameA vision of my lovely mother, radiantIn the dark night, a goddess manifest,As tall and fair as when she walks in heaven.She caught me by the hand and stopped me:—‘Son,What sorrow rouses this relentless anger,This violence? Do you care for me no longer?Consider others first, your aged father,Anchises; is your wife Creusa living?Where is Iulus? Greeks are all around them,Only my love between them, fire and sword.It is not for you to blame the Spartan woman,Daughter of Tyndareus, or even Paris.The gods are the ones, the high gods are relentlessIt is they who bring this power down, who toppleTroy from the high foundation. Look! Your visionIs mortal dull, I will take the cloud away,—Fear not a mother’s counsel. Where you seeRock torn from rock, and smoke and dust in billows,Neptune is working, plying the trident, pryingThe walls from their foundations. And see Juno,Fiercest of all, holding the Scaean gates,Girt with the steel, and calling from the shipsImplacable companions. On the towers,—Turn, and be certain—Pallas takes commandGleaming with Gorgon and storm-cloud. Even Jove,Our father, nerves the Greeks with fire and spirit,And spurs the other gods against the Trojans.Hasten the flight, my son; no other laborWaits for accomplishment. I promise safetyUntil you reach your father’s house.’ She had spokenAnd vanished in the thickening night of shadows.Dread shapes come into vision, mighty powers,Great gods at war with Troy, which, so it seemed,Was sinking as I watched, with the same feelingAs when on mountain-tops you see the loggersHacking an ash-tree down, and it always threatensTo topple, nodding a little, and the leavesTrembling when no wind stirs, and dies of its woundsWith one long loud last groan, and dirt from the ridgesHeaves up as it goes down with roots in air.Divinity my guide, I leave the roof-top,I pass unharmed through enemies and blazing,Weapons give place to me, and flames retire.At last I reached the house, I found my father,The first one that I looked for. I meant to take himTo the safety of the hills, but he was stubborn,Refusing longer life or barren exile,Since Troy was dead. ‘You have the strength,’ he told me,‘You are young enough, take flight. For me, had heavenWanted to save my life, they would have sparedThis home for me. We have seen enough destruction,More than enough, survived a captured city.Speak to me as a corpse laid out for burial,A quick farewell, and go. Death I shall findWith my own hand; the enemy will pity,Or look for spoil. The loss of burialIs nothing at all. I have been living too longHated by gods and useless, since the timeJove blasted me with lightning wind and fire.’He would not move, however we wept, Creusa,Ascanius, all the house, insistent, pleadingThat he should not bring all to ruin with him.He would not move, he would not listen. AgainI rush to arms, I pray for death; what elseWas left to me? ‘Dear father, were you thinkingI could abandon you, and go? what sonCould bear a thought so monstrous? If the godsWant nothing to be left of so great a city,If you are bound, or pleased, to add us allTo the wreck of Troy, the way is open for it—Pyrrhus will soon be here; from the blood of PriamHe comes; he slays the son before the father,The sire at the altar-stone; O my dear mother,Was it for this you saved me, brought me throughThe fire and sword, to see our enemiesHere in the very house, and wife and sonAnd father murdered in each other’s blood?Bring me my arms; the last light calls the conquered.Let me go back to the Greeks, renew the battle,We shall not all of us die unavenged.’Sword at my side, I was on the point of going,Working the left arm into the shield. CreusaClung to me on the threshold, held my feet,And made me see my little son:—‘Dear husband,If you are bent on dying, take us with you,But if you think there is any hope in fighting,And you should know, stay and defend the house!To whom are we abandoned, your father and son,And I, once called your wife?’ She filled the houseWith moaning outcry. And then something happened,A wonderful portent. Over Iulus’ head,Between our hands and faces, there appearedA blaze of gentle light; a tongue of flame,Harmless and innocent, was playing overThe softness of his hair, around his temples.We were afraid, we did our best to quench itWith our own hands, or water, but my fatherRaised joyous eyes to heaven, and prayed aloud:—‘Almighty Jupiter, if any prayerOf ours has power to move you, look upon us,Grant only this, if we have ever deserved it,Grant us a sign, and ratify the omen!’He had hardly spoken, when thunder on the leftResounded, and a shooting star from heavenDrew a long trail of light across the shadows.We saw it cross above the house, and vanishIn the woods of Ida, a wake of gleaming lightWhere it had sped, and a trail of sulphurous odor.This was a victory: my father roseIn worship of the gods and the holy star,Crying: ‘I follow, son, wherever you lead;There is no delay, not now; Gods of my fathers,Preserve my house, my grandson; yours the omen,And Troy is in your keeping. O my son,I yield, I am ready to follow.’ But the fireCame louder over the walls, the flames rolled nearerTheir burning tide. ‘Climb to my shoulders, father,It will be no burden, so we are together,Meeting a common danger or salvation.Iulus, take my hand; Creusa, followA little way behind. Listen, you servants!You will find, when you leave the city, an old templeThat once belonged to Ceres; it has been tendedFor many years with the worship of our fathers.There’s a little hill there, and a cypress tree;And that’s where we shall meet, one way or another.And one thing more: you, father, are to carryThe holy objects and the gods of the household,My hands are foul with battle and blood, I could notTouch them without pollution.’I bent downAnd over my neck and shoulders spread the coverOf a tawny lion-skin, took up my burden;Little Iulus held my hand, and trotted,As best he could, beside me; Creusa followed.We went on through the shadows. I had beenBrave, so I thought, before, in the rain of weaponsAnd the cloud of massing Greeks. But now I trembledAt every breath of air, shook at a whisper,Fearful for both my burden and companion.I was near the gates, and thinking we had made it,But there was a sound, the tramp of marching feet,And many of them, it seemed; my father, peeringThrough the thick gloom, cried out:—‘Son, they are coming!Flee, flee! I see their shields, their gleaming bronze.’Something or other took my senses from meIn that confusion. I turned aside from the path,I do not know what happened then. CreusaWas lost; she had missed the road, or halted, weary,For a brief rest. I do not know what happened,She was not seen again; I had not looked back,Nor even thought about her, till we cameTo Ceres’ hallowed home. The count was perfect,Only one missing there, the wife and mother.Whom did I not accuse, of gods and mortals,Then in my frenzy? What worse thing had happenedIn the city overthrown? I left Anchises,My son, my household gods, to my companions,In a hiding-place in the valley; and I went backInto the city again, wearing my armor,Ready, still one more time, for any danger.I found the walls again, the gate’s dark portals,I followed my own footsteps back, but terror,Terror and silence were all I found. I wentOn to my house. She might, just might, have gone there.Only the Greeks were there, and fire devouringThe very pinnacles. I tried Priam’s palace;In the empty courtyards Phoenix and UlyssesGuarded the spoils piled up at Juno’s altar.They had Trojan treasure there, loot from the altars,Great drinking-bowls of gold, and stolen garments,And human beings. A line of boys and womenStood trembling there.I took the risk of crying through the shadows,Over and over, ‘Creusa!’ I kept calling,‘Creusa!’ and ‘Creusa!’ but no answer.No sense, no limit, to my endless rushingAll through the town; and then at last I saw her,Or thought I did, her shadow a little tallerThan I remembered. And she spoke to meBeside myself with terror:—‘O dear husband,What good is all this frantic grief? The godsHave willed it so, Creusa may not join youOut of this city; Jupiter denies it.Long exile lies ahead, and vast sea-reachesThe ships must furrow, till you come to landFar in the West; rich fields are there, and a riverFlowing with gentle current; its name is Tiber,And happy days await you there, a kingdom,A royal wife. Banish the tears of sorrowOver Creusa lost. I shall never seeThe arrogant houses of the Myrmidons,Nor be a slave to any Grecian woman;I am a Dardan woman; I am the wifeOf Venus’ son; it is Cybele who keeps meHere on these shores. And now farewell, and loveOur son.’ I wept, there was more to say; she left me,Vanishing into empty air. Three timesI reached out toward her, and three times her imageFled like the breath of a wind or a dream on wings.The night was over; I went back to my comrades.I was surprised to find so many moreHad joined us, ready for exile, pitiful people,Mothers, and men, and children, streaming inFrom everywhere, looking for me to lead themWherever I would. Over the hills of IdaThe morning-star was rising; in the townThe Danaans held the gates, and help was hopeless.I gave it up, I lifted up my father,Together we sought the hills.
Broken in war, set back by fate, the leadersOf the Greek host, as years went by, contrived,With Pallas’ help, a horse as big as a mountain.They wove its sides with planks of fir, pretendingThis was an offering for their safe return,At least, so rumor had it. But insideThey packed, in secret, into the hollow sidesThe fittest warriors; the belly’s cavern,Huge as it was, was filled with men in armor.There is an island, Tenedos, well-known,Rich in the days of Priam; now it is onlyA bay, and not too good an anchorageFor any ship to trust. They sailed there, hidOn the deserted shore. We thought they had gone,Bound for Mycenae, and Troy was very happy,Shaking off grief, throwing the gates wide open.It was a pleasure, for a change, to goSee the Greek camp, station and shore abandoned;Why, this was where Achilles camped, his minions,The Dolopes, were here; and the fleet just yonder,And that was the plain where we used to meet in battle.Some of us stared in wonder at the horse,Astounded by its vastness, Minerva’s gift,Death from the virgin goddess, had we known it.Thymoetes, whether in treachery, or becauseThe fates of Troy so ordered, was the first oneTo urge us bring it in to the heart of the city,But Capys, and some others, knowing better,Suspicious of Greek plotting, said to throw itInto the sea, to burn it up with fire,To cut it open, see what there was inside it.The wavering crowd could not make up its mind.
And, at that point, Laocoön came running,With a great throng at his heels, down from the hilltopAs fast as ever he could, and before he reached us,Cried in alarm: ‘Are you crazy, wretched people?Do you think they have gone, the foe? Do you think that anyGifts of the Greeks lack treachery? Ulysses,—What was his reputation? Let me tell you,Either the Greeks are hiding in this monster,Or it’s some trick of war, a spy, or engine,To come down on the city. Tricky businessIs hiding in it. Do not trust it, Trojans,Do not believe this horse. Whatever it may be,I fear the Greeks, even when bringing presents.’With that, he hurled the great spear at the sideWith all the strength he had. It fastened, trembling,And the struck womb rang hollow, a moaning sound.He had driven us, almost, to let the light inWith the point of the steel, to probe, to tear, but somethingGot in his way, the gods, or fate, or counsel,Ill-omened, in our hearts; or Troy would be standingAnd Priam’s lofty citadel unshaken.
Meanwhile, some Trojan shepherds, pulling and hauling,Had a young fellow, with his hands behind him,Tied up, and they were dragging him to Priam.He had let himself be taken so, on purpose,To open Troy to the Greeks, a stranger, readyFor death or shifty cunning, a cool intriguer,Let come what may. They crowd around to see him,Take turns in making fun of him, that captive.Listen, and learn Greek trickiness; learn allTheir crimes from one.He stopped in the middle, frightened and defenceless,Looked at the Trojan ranks,—‘What land, what waters,Can take me now?’ he cried, ‘There is nothing, nothingLeft for me any more, no place with the Greeks,And here are the Trojans howling for my blood!’Our mood was changed. We pitied him, poor fellow,Sobbing his heart out. We bade him tell his story,His lineage, his news: what can he count on,The captive that he is? His fear had goneAs he began: ‘O King, whatever happens,I will tell the truth, tell all of it; to start with,I own I am a Greek. Sinon is wretched,Fortune has made him so, but she will neverMake him a liar. You may perhaps have heardRumors of Palamedes, son of Belus,A man of glorious fame. But the Greeks killed him,—He was against the war, and so they killed him,An innocent man, by perjury and lyingFalse witness. Now that he is dead they mourn him.My father, his poor relative, had sent meTo soldier in his company; I was thenScarcely beyond my boyhood. PalamedesHeld, for some time, some influence and standingIn royal councils, and we shared his glory,But, and all men know this, Ulysses’ hatred,His cunning malice, pulled him down; thereafterI lived in darkness, dragging out a lifetimeIn sorrow for my innocent lord, and anger,And in my anger I was very foolish,I talked; I vowed, if I got home to Argos,I would have vengeance: so I roused UlyssesTo hate me in his turn, and that began it,Downfall and evil, Ulysses always tryingTo frighten me with hint and accusation,With rumors planted where the crowd would listen;Oh yes, Ulysses knew what he was doing,He never stopped, until with Calchas workingHand in glove with him—why am I telling this,And what’s the use? I am stalling. All the Greeks,You think, are all alike; what more do you want?Inflict the punishment. That would be somethingUlysses would rejoice in, and some othersPay handsome money for!’
But we were all on fire to hear him further.Pelasgian craft meant nothing to our folly.Trembling and nervous, he resumed his lying:‘The Greeks were tired of the long war; they oftenWanted to sail from Troy for home. Oh, wouldThat they had only done it! But a stormWould cut them off, or the wrong wind terrify them.Especially, just after the horse was finished,With the joined planks of maple, all the heavenRoared loud with storm-clouds. In suspense and terrorWe sent Eurypylus to ask ApolloWhat could be done; the oracle was gloomy,Foreboding: “Blood, O Greeks, and a slain virginAppeased the winds when first you came here; bloodMust pay for your return, a life be given,An Argive life.” The word came to our earsWith terror in it, our blood ran cold in our veins,For whom was fate preparing? who would beThe victim of Apollo? Then UlyssesDragged Calchas into our midst, with a great uproar,Trying his best to make the prophet tell usWhat the gods wanted. And there were many thenWho told me what was coming, or kept silentBecause they saw, and all too well, the schemeUlysses had in mind. For ten days CalchasSaid nothing at all, hid in his tent, refusingTo have a word of his pronounce the sentence,And all the time Ulysses kept on shouting,Till Calchas broke, and doomed me to the altar.And all assented; what each man had fearedIn his own case, he bore with great composureWhen turned another way.The terrible day was almost on me; filletsWere ready for my temples, the salted mealPrepared, the altars standing. But I fled,I tore myself away from death, I admit it,I hid all night in sedge and muddy waterAt the edge of the lake, hoping, forever hoping,They might set sail. And now I hope no longerTo see my home, my parents, or my children,Poor things, whom they will kill because I fled them,Whom they will murder for my sacrilege.But oh, by the gods above, by any powerThat values truth, by any uncorruptedRemnant of faith in all the world, have pity,Have pity on a soul that bears such sorrow,More than I ever deserved.’He had no need to ask us. Priam said,Untie him, and we did so with a promiseTo spare his life. Our king, with friendly words,Addressed him, saying, ‘Whoever you are, forgetThe Greeks, from now on. You are ours; but tell meWhy they have built this monstrous horse? who made it,Who thought of it? What is it, war-machine,Religious offering?’ And he, instructedIn every trick and artifice, made answer,Lifting his hands, now free: ‘Eternal fires,Inviolable godhead, be my witness,You altars, you accursèd swords, you filletsWhich I as victim wore, I had the rightTo break those solemn bonds, I had the rightTo hate those men, to bring whatever they hideInto the light and air; I am bound no longerTo any country, any laws, but, Trojans,Keep to the promise, if I tell the truth,If I pay back with interest.All the Greek hope, since first the war began,Rested in Pallas, always. But Ulysses,The crime-contriver, and the son of TydeusAttacked Minerva’s temple, stole her imageOut of the holy shrine, and slew the guards,And laid their bloody hands upon the goddess,And from that time the Danaan hopes were broken,Faltered and failed. It was no doubtful angerPallas revealed; she gave them signs and portents.From her image in the camp the upraised eyesShot fire, and sweat ran salty down the limbs,Thrice from the ground she seemed to flash and leapWith vibrant spear and clashing shield. The priest,Calchas, made prophecy: they must take to flightOver the sea, and Troy could not be takenWithout new omens; they must go to Argos,Bring back the goddess again, whom they have takenIn curved ships over the sea. And if they have gone,They are bound for home, Mycenae, for new arms,New gods, new soldiers; they will be here againWhen least expected. Calchas’ message warned them,And so they built this image, to replaceThe one they had stolen, a gigantic offeringFor a tremendous sacrilege. It was Calchas,Again, who bade them build a mass so mightyIt almost reached the stars, too big to enterThrough any gate, or be brought inside the walls.For if your hands should damage it, destruction,(May God avert it) would come upon the city,But if your hands helped bring it home, then AsiaWould be invading Greece, and doom awaitOur children’s children.’
We believed him, weWhom neither Diomede nor great AchillesHad taken, nor ten years, nor that armada,A thousand ships of war. But Sinon did itBy perjury and guile.
Then something else,Much greater and more terrible, was forcedUpon us, troubling our unseeing spirits.Laocoön, allotted priest of Neptune,Was slaying a great bull beside the altars,When suddenly, over the tranquil deepFrom Tenedos,—I shudder even now,Recalling it—there came a pair of serpentsWith monstrous coils, breasting the sea, and aimingTogether for the shore. Their heads and shouldersRose over the waves, upright, with bloody crests,The rest of them trailing along the water,Looping in giant spirals; the foaming seaHissed under their motion. And they reached the land,Their burning eyes suffused with blood and fire,Their darting tongues licking the hissing mouths.Pale at the sight, we fled. But they went onStraight toward Laocoön, and first each serpentSeized in its coils his two young sons, and fastenedThe fangs in those poor bodies. And the priestStruggled to help them, weapons in his hand.They seized him, bound him with their mighty coils,Twice round his waist, twice round his neck, they squeezedWith scaly pressure, and still towered above him.Straining his hands to tear the knots apart,His chaplets stained with blood and the black poison,He uttered horrible cries, not even human,More like the bellowing of a bull, when, woundedIt flees the altar, shaking from the shoulderThe ill-aimed axe. And on the pair went glidingTo the highest shrine, the citadel of Pallas,And vanished underneath the feet of the goddessAnd the circle of her shield.
The people trembledAgain; they said Laocoön deserved it,Having, with spear, profaned the sacred image.It must be brought to its place, they cried, the goddessMust be appeased. We broke the walls, exposingThe city’s battlements, and all were busyHelping the work, with rollers underfootAnd ropes around the neck. It climbed our walls,The deadly engine. Boys, unwedded girlsSang alleluias round it, all rejoicingTo have a hand on the tow-rope. It came nearer,Threatening, gliding, into the very city.O motherland! O Ilium, home of gods,O walls of Troy! Four times it stopped, four timesThe sound of arms came from it, and we pressed on,Unheedful, blind in madness, till we set it,Ill-omened thing, on the citadel we worshipped.And even when Cassandra gave us warning,We never believed her; so a god had ordered.That day, our last, poor wretches, we were happy,Garlanding the temples of the godsAll through the town.
And the sky turned, and darknessCame from the ocean, the great shade covering earthAnd heaven, and the trickery of the Greeks.Sprawling along the walls, the Trojans slumbered,Sleep holding their weary limbs, and the Greek armada,From Tenedos, under the friendly silenceOf a still moon, came surely on. The flagshipBlazed at the masthead with a sudden signal,And Sinon, guarded by the fates, the hostileWill of the gods, swung loose the bolts; the GreeksCame out of the wooden womb. The air received themThe happy captains, Sthenelus, Ulysses,Thessandrus, Acamas, Achilles’ sonCalled Neoptolemus, Thoas, Machaon,Epeos, who designed the thing,—they allCame sliding down the rope, and MenelausWas with them in the storming of a cityBuried in sleep and wine. The watch was murdered,The open doors welcome the rush of comrades,They marshal the determined ranks for battle.
It was the time when the first sleep beginsFor weary mortals, heaven’s most welcome gift.In sleep, before my eyes, I seemed to seeHector, most sorrowful, black with bloody dust,Torn, as he had been, by Achilles’ car,The thong-marks on his swollen feet. How changedHe was from that great Hector who came, once,Triumphant in Achilles’ spoil, from hurlingFire at the Grecian ships. With ragged beard,Hair matted with his blood, wearing the woundsHe earned around the walls of Troy, he stood there.It seemed that I spoke first:—‘O light of Troy,Our surest hope, we have long been waiting for you,What shores have kept you from us? Many deaths,Much suffering, have visited our city,And we are tired. Why do I see these wounds?What shame has caused them?’ Those were foolish questions;He made no answer but a sigh or a groan,And then: ‘Alas, O goddess-born! Take flight,Escape these flames! The enemy has the walls,Troy topples from her lofty height; enoughHas been paid out to Priam and to country.Could any hand have saved them, Hector’s would have.Troy trusts to you her household gods, commendingHer holy things to you; take them, companionsOf destiny; seek walls for them, and a cityTo be established, a long sea-wandering over.’From the inner shrine he carried Vesta’s chapletsIn his own hands, and her undying fire.
Meanwhile, the city is all confusion and sorrow;My father Anchises’ house, remote and shelteredAmong its trees, was not so far awayBut I could hear the noises, always clearer,The thickening din of war. Breaking from sleep,I climb to the roof-top, listening and strainingThe way a shepherd does on the top of a mountainWhen fire goes over the corn, and the winds are roaring,Or the rush of a mountain torrent drowns the fieldsAnd the happy crops and the work of men and oxenAnd even drags great trees over. And then I knewThe truth indeed; the craft of the Greeks was hiddenNo longer from my sight. The house of a neighbor,Deiphobus, went up in flames; next door,Ucalegon was burning. Sigeum’s waterGave back the glow. Men shouted, and the trumpetsBlared loud. I grab my arms, with little purpose,There was no sense in it, but my heart was burningTo mass a band for war, rush to the hilltopWith comrades at my side. Anger and frenzyHurry me on. A decent death in battleIs a helpful thought, sometimes.
And here came Panthus, running from the weapons,Priest of Apollo, and a son of Othrys,With holy relics in his hands, and draggingHis little grandson, here came Panthus, runningIn madness to my door. ‘How goes it, Panthus?What stronghold still is ours?’ I had hardly spoken,When he began, with a groan: ‘It has come, this dayWill be our last, and we can not escape it.Trojans we have been, Troy has been, and gloryIs ours no more. Fierce Jupiter has takenEverything off to Argos, and Greeks lord itIn a town on fire. The horse, high in the city,Pours out armed men, and Sinon, arrogant victor,Lights up more fires. The gates are standing open,And men are there by the thousands, ever as manyAs came once from Mycenae; others blockThe narrow streets, with weapons drawn; the bladesFlash in the dark; the point is set for murder.A few of the guards are trying, striking blindly,For all the good it does.’
His words, or the gods’ purpose, swept me onToward fire and arms, where the grim furies call,And the clamor and confusion, reaching heaven.Ripheus joined me, Epytus, mighty in arms,Came to my side in the moonlight, Hypanis, Dymas,And young Coroebus, Mygdon’s son, poor youngster,Mad with a hopeless passion for Cassandra,He wanted to help Priam, but never heededThe warnings of his loved one.
As they rangedThemselves for battle, eager, I addressed them:‘O brave young hearts, it will do no good; no matter.Even if your will is fixed, to follow a leaderTaking the final risk, you can’t help seeingThe fortune of our state. The gods have gone,They have left their shrines and altars, and the powerThey once upheld is fallen. You are helpingA town already burnt. So let us die,Rush into arms. One safety for the vanquishedIs to have hope of none.’
They were young, and angry.Like wolves, marauders in black mist, whom hungerDrives blindly on, whose whelps, abandoned, wait themDry-jawed, so we went on, through foes, through weapons,To certain death; we made for the heart of the city,Black night around us with its hollow shadow.Who could explain that night’s destruction, equalIts agony with tears? The ancient city,A power for many years, comes down, and corpsesLie littering the streets and homes and altars.Not only Trojans die. The old-time valorReturns to the vanquished heart, and the Greek victorsKnow what it is to fall. Everywhere sorrow,Everywhere panic, everywhere the imageOf death, made manifold.
Out of a crowd of Greeks comes one Androgeos,Thinking us allies, hailing us as friendly:‘Why men, where have you been, you dawdling fellows?Hurry along! Here is plunder for the taking,Others are busy at it, and you just comingFrom the high ships!’ And then he knew he had blundered;He had fallen in with foes, who gave no answer.He stopped, stepped back, like a man who treads on a serpentUnseen in the rough brush, and then in panicDraws back as the purple neck swells out in anger.Even so, Androgeos pulled away in terror.We rush them, swarm all over them; they are frightened,They do not know their ground, and fortune favorsOur first endeavor. Coroebus, a little crazyWith nerve and luck, cries out: ‘Comrades, where fortuneFirst shows the way and sides with us, we follow.Let us change our shields, put on the Grecian emblems!All’s fair in war: we lick them or we trick them,And what’s the odds?’ He takes Androgeos’ helmet,Whose plume streams over his head, takes up the shieldWith proud device, and fits the sword to his side.And Ripheus does the same, and so does Dymas,And all the others, happily, being armedWith spoil, new-won. We join the Greeks, all goingUnder no gods of ours, in the night’s darknessWade into many a fight, and Greeks by the dozensWe send to hell. And some of them in panicSpeed to the ships; they know that shore, and trust it,And some of them—these were the abject cowards—Climb scrambling up the horse’s sides, againTake refuge in the womb.
It is not for men to trust unwilling gods.Cassandra was being dragged from Pallas’ temple,Her hair loosed to the wind, her eyes turned upwardTo heaven for mercy; they had bound her hands.Coroebus could not bear that sight; in madnessHe threw himself upon them, and he died.We followed, all of us, into the thick of it,And were cut down, not only by Greeks; the rooftops,Held by our friends, rained weapons: we were wearingGreek crests and armor, and they did not know us.And the Greeks came on, shouting with anger, burningTo foil that rescue; there was Menelaus,And Agamemnon, and the savage Ajax,And a whole army of them. HurricanesRage the same way, when winds from different quartersClash in the sky, and the forest groans, and NeptuneStorms underneath the ocean. Those we routedOnce in the dark came back again from the bywaysAnd alleys of the town; they mark our shields,Our lying weapons, and our foreign voices.Of course we are outnumbered. PeneleusIt was, who slew Coroebus, at the altarSacred to Pallas. Ripheus fell, a manMost just of all the Trojans, most fair-minded.The gods thought otherwise. Hypanis, Dymas,Were slain by their own men, and Panthus’ goodnessWas no protection, nor his priestly office.I call to witness Troy, her fires, her ashes,And the last agonies of all our peopleThat in that hour I ran from no encounterWith any Greek, and if the fates had beenFor me to fall in battle, there I earned it.The current swept me off, with two companions,One, Iphitus, too slow with age, the other,Pelias, limping from Ulysses’ wound.The noise kept calling us to Priam’s palace.
There might have been no fighting and no dyingThrough all the city, such a battle ragedHere, from the ground to roof-top. At the thresholdWaves of assault were breaking, and the GreeksWere climbing, rung by rung, along the ladders,Using one hand, the right one up and forwardOver the battlements, the left one thrustIn the protecting shield. And over their headsThe Trojans pried up towers and planking, wreckingThe building; gilded beams, the spoils of their fathers,Were ample weapons for the final moment.Some had the doorways blocked, others, behind them,Were ready with drawn swords. We had a momentWhen help seemed possible: new reinforcementMight yet relieve the palace.There was a secret entrance there, a passageAll the way through the building, a postern gate,Where, while the kingdom stood, AndromacheWould go, alone, or bring the little boy,Astyanax, to Hector’s father and mother.I climbed to the top of the roof, where the poor TrojansWere hurling down their unavailing darts.A tower stood on the very edge, a look-outOver all Troy, the ships and camp of the Greeks.This we attacked with steel, where the joints were weakest,And pried it up, and shoved it over. It crashed.A noisy ruin, over the hostile columns;But more kept coming up; the shower of stonesAnd darts continued raining.Before the entrance, at the very thresholdStood Pyrrhus, flashing proudly in bronze light,Sleek as a serpent coming into the open,Fed on rank herbs, wintering under the ground,The old slough cast, the new skin shining, rollingHis slippery length, reaching his neck to the sun,While the forked tongue darts from the mouth. AutomedonWas with him, Periphas, Achilles’ driver,A giant of a man, and the host from Scyros,All closing in on the palace, and hurling flames.Among the foremost, Pyrrhus, swinging an axe,Burst through, wrenched the bronze doors out of their hinges,Smashed through the panelling, turned it into a window.The long halls came to view, the inner chambersOf Priam and the older kings; they seeArmed warriors at the threshold.Within, it is all confusion, women wailing,Pitiful noise, groaning, and blows; the dinReaches the golden stars. The trembling mothersWander, not knowing where, or find a spotTo cling to; they would hold and kiss the doors.Pyrrhus comes on, aggressive as his father;No barrier holds him back; the gate is batteredAs the ram smashes at it; the doors come down.Force finds a way: the Greeks pour in, they slaughterThe first ones in their path; they fill the courtyardWith soldiery, wilder than any riverIn flood over the banks and dikes and ploughland.I saw them, Pyrrhus, going mad with murder,And Atreus’ twin sons, and HecubaI saw, and all her daughters, and poor old Priam,His blood polluting the altars he had hallowed.The fifty marriage-chambers, the proud hopeOf an everlasting line, are violated,The doors with the golden spoil are turned to splinters.Whatever the fire has spared the Greeks take over.
You would ask, perhaps, about the fate of Priam?When he saw the city fall, and the doors of the palaceRipped from the hinge, and the enemy pouring in,Old as he was, he went and found his armor,Unused so many years, and his old shouldersShook as he put it on. He took his sword,A useless weapon, and, doomed to die, went rushingInto the midst of the foe. There was an altarIn the open court-yard, shaded by a laurelWhose shadow darkened the household gods, and hereHecuba and her daughters had come thronging,Like doves by a black storm driven. They were prayingHere at the altar, and clinging to the gods,Whatever image was left. And the queen saw PriamIn the arms of his youth. ‘O my unhappy husband,’She cried, ‘have you gone mad, to dress yourselfFor battle, so? It is all no use; the timeNeeds better help than yours; not even my HectorCould help us now. Come to me, come to the altar;It will protect us, or at least will let usDie all together.’ And she drew him to her.
Just then through darts, through weapons, came Polites,A son of Priam, fleeing deadly Pyrrhus,Down the long colonnades and empty hallways,Wounded, and Pyrrhus after him, vicious, eagerFor the last spear-thrust, and he drives it home;Polites falls, and his life goes out with his blood,Father and mother watching. And then Priam,In the very grip of death, cried out in anger:—‘If there is any righteousness in heaven,To care about such wickedness, the godsWill have the right reward and thanks to offerA man like this, who has made a father witnessThe murder of his son, the worst pollution!You claim to be Achilles’ son. You liar!Achilles had some reverence, respectedA suppliant’s right and trust; he gave me backMy Hector’s lifeless body for the tomb,And let me go to my kingdom.’ With the wordHe flung a feeble spear, which dropped, deflectedFrom the rough bronze; it had hung there for a moment.And Pyrrhus sneered: ‘So, go and tell my fatherThe latest news: do not forget to mention,Old messenger-boy, my villainous behavior,And what a bastard Pyrrhus is. Now die!’He dragged the old man, trembling, to the altar,Slipping in his son’s blood; he grabbed his hairWith the left hand, and the right drove home the swordDeep in the side, to the hilt. And so fell Priam,Who had seen Troy burn and her walls come down, once monarch,Proud ruler over the peoples and lands of Asia.He lies, a nameless body, on the shore,Dismembered, huge, the head torn from the shoulders.
Grim horror, then, came home to me. I sawMy father when I saw the king, the lifeGoing out with the cruel wound. I saw CreusaForsaken, my abandoned home, Iulus,My little son. I looked around. They allHad gone, exhausted, flung down from the walls,Or dead in the fire, and I was left alone.
And I saw Helen, hiding, of all places,At Vesta’s shrine, and clinging there in silence,But the bright flames lit the scene. That hated woman,Fearing both Trojan anger and Greek vengeance,A common fury to both lands, was crouchingBeside the altar. Anger flared up in meFor punishment and vengeance. Should she then,I thought, come home to Sparta safe, uninjuredWalk through Mycenae, a triumphant queen?See husband, home, parents and children, tendedBy Trojan slave-girls? This, with Priam fallenAnd Troy burnt down, and the shore soaked in blood?Never! No memorable name, I knew,Was won by punishing women, yet, for me,There might be praise for the just abolitionOf this unholiness, and satisfactionIn vengeance for the ashes of my people.All this I may have said aloud, in frenzy,As I rushed on, when to my sight there cameA vision of my lovely mother, radiantIn the dark night, a goddess manifest,As tall and fair as when she walks in heaven.She caught me by the hand and stopped me:—‘Son,What sorrow rouses this relentless anger,This violence? Do you care for me no longer?Consider others first, your aged father,Anchises; is your wife Creusa living?Where is Iulus? Greeks are all around them,Only my love between them, fire and sword.It is not for you to blame the Spartan woman,Daughter of Tyndareus, or even Paris.The gods are the ones, the high gods are relentlessIt is they who bring this power down, who toppleTroy from the high foundation. Look! Your visionIs mortal dull, I will take the cloud away,—Fear not a mother’s counsel. Where you seeRock torn from rock, and smoke and dust in billows,Neptune is working, plying the trident, pryingThe walls from their foundations. And see Juno,Fiercest of all, holding the Scaean gates,Girt with the steel, and calling from the shipsImplacable companions. On the towers,—Turn, and be certain—Pallas takes commandGleaming with Gorgon and storm-cloud. Even Jove,Our father, nerves the Greeks with fire and spirit,And spurs the other gods against the Trojans.Hasten the flight, my son; no other laborWaits for accomplishment. I promise safetyUntil you reach your father’s house.’ She had spokenAnd vanished in the thickening night of shadows.Dread shapes come into vision, mighty powers,Great gods at war with Troy, which, so it seemed,Was sinking as I watched, with the same feelingAs when on mountain-tops you see the loggersHacking an ash-tree down, and it always threatensTo topple, nodding a little, and the leavesTrembling when no wind stirs, and dies of its woundsWith one long loud last groan, and dirt from the ridgesHeaves up as it goes down with roots in air.Divinity my guide, I leave the roof-top,I pass unharmed through enemies and blazing,Weapons give place to me, and flames retire.
At last I reached the house, I found my father,The first one that I looked for. I meant to take himTo the safety of the hills, but he was stubborn,Refusing longer life or barren exile,Since Troy was dead. ‘You have the strength,’ he told me,‘You are young enough, take flight. For me, had heavenWanted to save my life, they would have sparedThis home for me. We have seen enough destruction,More than enough, survived a captured city.Speak to me as a corpse laid out for burial,A quick farewell, and go. Death I shall findWith my own hand; the enemy will pity,Or look for spoil. The loss of burialIs nothing at all. I have been living too longHated by gods and useless, since the timeJove blasted me with lightning wind and fire.’He would not move, however we wept, Creusa,Ascanius, all the house, insistent, pleadingThat he should not bring all to ruin with him.He would not move, he would not listen. AgainI rush to arms, I pray for death; what elseWas left to me? ‘Dear father, were you thinkingI could abandon you, and go? what sonCould bear a thought so monstrous? If the godsWant nothing to be left of so great a city,If you are bound, or pleased, to add us allTo the wreck of Troy, the way is open for it—Pyrrhus will soon be here; from the blood of PriamHe comes; he slays the son before the father,The sire at the altar-stone; O my dear mother,Was it for this you saved me, brought me throughThe fire and sword, to see our enemiesHere in the very house, and wife and sonAnd father murdered in each other’s blood?Bring me my arms; the last light calls the conquered.Let me go back to the Greeks, renew the battle,We shall not all of us die unavenged.’
Sword at my side, I was on the point of going,Working the left arm into the shield. CreusaClung to me on the threshold, held my feet,And made me see my little son:—‘Dear husband,If you are bent on dying, take us with you,But if you think there is any hope in fighting,And you should know, stay and defend the house!To whom are we abandoned, your father and son,And I, once called your wife?’ She filled the houseWith moaning outcry. And then something happened,A wonderful portent. Over Iulus’ head,Between our hands and faces, there appearedA blaze of gentle light; a tongue of flame,Harmless and innocent, was playing overThe softness of his hair, around his temples.We were afraid, we did our best to quench itWith our own hands, or water, but my fatherRaised joyous eyes to heaven, and prayed aloud:—‘Almighty Jupiter, if any prayerOf ours has power to move you, look upon us,Grant only this, if we have ever deserved it,Grant us a sign, and ratify the omen!’He had hardly spoken, when thunder on the leftResounded, and a shooting star from heavenDrew a long trail of light across the shadows.We saw it cross above the house, and vanishIn the woods of Ida, a wake of gleaming lightWhere it had sped, and a trail of sulphurous odor.This was a victory: my father roseIn worship of the gods and the holy star,Crying: ‘I follow, son, wherever you lead;There is no delay, not now; Gods of my fathers,Preserve my house, my grandson; yours the omen,And Troy is in your keeping. O my son,I yield, I am ready to follow.’ But the fireCame louder over the walls, the flames rolled nearerTheir burning tide. ‘Climb to my shoulders, father,It will be no burden, so we are together,Meeting a common danger or salvation.Iulus, take my hand; Creusa, followA little way behind. Listen, you servants!You will find, when you leave the city, an old templeThat once belonged to Ceres; it has been tendedFor many years with the worship of our fathers.There’s a little hill there, and a cypress tree;And that’s where we shall meet, one way or another.And one thing more: you, father, are to carryThe holy objects and the gods of the household,My hands are foul with battle and blood, I could notTouch them without pollution.’
I bent downAnd over my neck and shoulders spread the coverOf a tawny lion-skin, took up my burden;Little Iulus held my hand, and trotted,As best he could, beside me; Creusa followed.We went on through the shadows. I had beenBrave, so I thought, before, in the rain of weaponsAnd the cloud of massing Greeks. But now I trembledAt every breath of air, shook at a whisper,Fearful for both my burden and companion.
I was near the gates, and thinking we had made it,But there was a sound, the tramp of marching feet,And many of them, it seemed; my father, peeringThrough the thick gloom, cried out:—‘Son, they are coming!Flee, flee! I see their shields, their gleaming bronze.’Something or other took my senses from meIn that confusion. I turned aside from the path,I do not know what happened then. CreusaWas lost; she had missed the road, or halted, weary,For a brief rest. I do not know what happened,She was not seen again; I had not looked back,Nor even thought about her, till we cameTo Ceres’ hallowed home. The count was perfect,Only one missing there, the wife and mother.Whom did I not accuse, of gods and mortals,Then in my frenzy? What worse thing had happenedIn the city overthrown? I left Anchises,My son, my household gods, to my companions,In a hiding-place in the valley; and I went backInto the city again, wearing my armor,Ready, still one more time, for any danger.I found the walls again, the gate’s dark portals,I followed my own footsteps back, but terror,Terror and silence were all I found. I wentOn to my house. She might, just might, have gone there.Only the Greeks were there, and fire devouringThe very pinnacles. I tried Priam’s palace;In the empty courtyards Phoenix and UlyssesGuarded the spoils piled up at Juno’s altar.They had Trojan treasure there, loot from the altars,Great drinking-bowls of gold, and stolen garments,And human beings. A line of boys and womenStood trembling there.I took the risk of crying through the shadows,Over and over, ‘Creusa!’ I kept calling,‘Creusa!’ and ‘Creusa!’ but no answer.No sense, no limit, to my endless rushingAll through the town; and then at last I saw her,Or thought I did, her shadow a little tallerThan I remembered. And she spoke to meBeside myself with terror:—‘O dear husband,What good is all this frantic grief? The godsHave willed it so, Creusa may not join youOut of this city; Jupiter denies it.Long exile lies ahead, and vast sea-reachesThe ships must furrow, till you come to landFar in the West; rich fields are there, and a riverFlowing with gentle current; its name is Tiber,And happy days await you there, a kingdom,A royal wife. Banish the tears of sorrowOver Creusa lost. I shall never seeThe arrogant houses of the Myrmidons,Nor be a slave to any Grecian woman;I am a Dardan woman; I am the wifeOf Venus’ son; it is Cybele who keeps meHere on these shores. And now farewell, and loveOur son.’ I wept, there was more to say; she left me,Vanishing into empty air. Three timesI reached out toward her, and three times her imageFled like the breath of a wind or a dream on wings.The night was over; I went back to my comrades.
I was surprised to find so many moreHad joined us, ready for exile, pitiful people,Mothers, and men, and children, streaming inFrom everywhere, looking for me to lead themWherever I would. Over the hills of IdaThe morning-star was rising; in the townThe Danaans held the gates, and help was hopeless.I gave it up, I lifted up my father,Together we sought the hills.