The Fall of Troy

by active 4th century Smyrnaeus Quintus

When round the walls of Troy the Danaan host
Had borne much travail, and yet the end was not,
By Calchas then assembled were the chiefs;
For his heart was instructed by the hests
Of Phoebus, by the flights of birds, the stars,
And all the signs that speak to men the will
Of Heaven; so he to that assembly cried:
"No longer toil in leaguer of yon walls;
Some other counsel let your hearts devise,
Some stratagem to help the host and us.
For here but yesterday I saw a sign:
A falcon chased a dove, and she, hard pressed,
Entered a cleft of the rock; and chafing he
Tarried long time hard by that rift, but she
Abode in covert. Nursing still his wrath,
He hid him in a bush. Forth darted she,
In folly deeming him afar: he swooped,
And to the hapless dove dealt wretched death.
Therefore by force essay we not to smite Troy,
but let cunning stratagem avail."

He spake; but no man's wit might find a way
To escape their grievous travail, as they sought
To find a remedy, till Laertes' son
Discerned it of his wisdom, and he spake:
"Friend, in high honour held of the Heavenly Ones,
If doomed it be indeed that Priam's burg
By guile must fall before the war-worn Greeks,
A great Horse let us fashion, in the which
Our mightiest shall take ambush. Let the host
Burn all their tents, and sail from hence away
To Tenedos; so the Trojans, from their towers
Gazing, shall stream forth fearless to the plain.
Let some brave man, unknown of any in Troy,
With a stout heart abide without the Horse,
Crouching beneath its shadow, who shall say:
"`Achaea's lords of might, exceeding fain
Safe to win home, made this their offering
For safe return, an image to appease
The wrath of Pallas for her image stolen
From Troy.' And to this story shall he stand,
How long soe'er they question him, until,
Though never so relentless, they believe,
And drag it, their own doom, within the town.
Then shall war's signal unto us be given—
To them at sea, by sudden flash of torch,
To the ambush, by the cry, `Come forth the Horse!'
When unsuspecting sleep the sons of Troy."

He spake, and all men praised him: most of all
Extolled him Calchas, that such marvellous guile
He put into the Achaeans' hearts, to be
For them assurance of triumph, but for Troy
Ruin; and to those battle-lords he cried:
"Let your hearts seek none other stratagem,
Friends; to war-strong Odysseus' rede give ear.
His wise thought shall not miss accomplishment.
Yea, our desire even now the Gods fulfil.
Hark! for new tokens come from the Unseen!
Lo, there on high crash through the firmament
Zeus' thunder and lightning! See, where birds to right
Dart past, and scream with long-resounding cry!
Go to, no more in endless leaguer of Troy
Linger we. Hard necessity fills the foe
With desperate courage that makes cowards brave;
For then are men most dangerous, when they stake
Their lives in utter recklessness of death,
As battle now the aweless sons of Troy
All round their burg, mad with the lust of fight."

But cried Achilles' battle-eager son:
"Calchas, brave men meet face to face their foes!
Who skulk behind their walls, and fight from towers,
Are nidderings, hearts palsied with base fear.
Hence with all thought of wile and stratagem!
The great war-travail of the spear beseems
True heroes. Best in battle are the brave."

But answer made to him Laertes' seed:
"Bold-hearted child of aweless Aeacus' son,
This as beseems a hero princely and brave,
Dauntlessly trusting in thy strength, thou say'st.
Yet thine invincible sire's unquailing might
Availed not to smite Priam's wealthy burg,
Nor we, for all our travail. Nay, with speed,
As counselleth Calchas, go we to the ships,
And fashion we the Horse by Epeius' hands,
Who in the woodwright's craft is chiefest far
Of Argives, for Athena taught his lore."

Then all their mightiest men gave ear to him
Save twain, fierce-hearted Neoptolemus
And Philoctetes mighty-souled; for these
Still were insatiate for the bitter fray,
Still longed for turmoil of the fight. They bade
Their own folk bear against that giant wall
What things soe'er for war's assaults avail,
In hope to lay that stately fortress low,
Seeing Heaven's decrees had brought them both to war.
Yea, they had haply accomplished all their will,
But from the sky Zeus showed his wrath; he shook
The earth beneath their feet, and all the air
Shuddered, as down before those heroes twain
He hurled his thunderbolt: wide echoes crashed
Through all Dardania. Unto fear straightway
Turned were their bold hearts: they forgat their might,
And Calchas' counsels grudgingly obeyed.
So with the Argives came they to the ships
In reverence for the seer who spake from Zeus
Or Phoebus, and they obeyed him utterly.

What time round splendour-kindled heavens the stars
From east to west far-flashing wheel, and when
Man doth forget his toil, in that still hour
Athena left the high mansions of the Blest,
Clothed her in shape of a maiden tender-fleshed,
And came to ships and host. Over the head
Of brave Epeius stood she in his dream,
And bade him build a Horse of tree: herself
Would labour in his labour, and herself
Stand by his side, to the work enkindling him.
Hearing the Goddess' word, with a glad laugh
Leapt he from careless sleep: right well he knew
The Immortal One celestial. Now his heart
Could hold no thought beside; his mind was fixed
Upon the wondrous work, and through his soul
Marched marshalled each device of craftsmanship.

When rose the dawn, and thrust back kindly night
To Erebus, and through the firmament streamed
Glad glory, then Epeius told his dream
To eager Argives—all he saw and heard;
And hearkening joyed they with exceeding joy.
Straightway to tall-tressed Ida's leafy glades
The sons of Atreus sent swift messengers.
These laid the axe unto the forest-pines,
And hewed the great trees: to their smiting rang
The echoing glens. On those far-stretching hills
All bare of undergrowth the high peaks rose:
Open their glades were, not, as in time past,
Haunted of beasts: there dry the tree-trunks rose
Wooing the winds. Even these the Achaeans hewed
With axes, and in haste they bare them down
From those shagged mountain heights to Hellespont's shores.
Strained with a strenuous spirit at the work
Young men and mules; and all the people toiled
Each at his task obeying Epeius's hest.
For with the keen steel some were hewing beams,
Some measuring planks, and some with axes lopped
Branches away from trunks as yet unsawn:
Each wrought his several work. Epeius first
Fashioned the feet of that great Horse of Wood:
The belly next he shaped, and over this
Moulded the back and the great loins behind,
The throat in front, and ridged the towering neck
With waving mane: the crested head he wrought,
The streaming tail, the ears, the lucent eyes—
All that of lifelike horses have. So grew
Like a live thing that more than human work,
For a God gave to a man that wondrous craft.
And in three days, by Pallas's decree,
Finished was all. Rejoiced thereat the host
Of Argos, marvelling how the wood expressed
Mettle, and speed of foot—yea, seemed to neigh.
Godlike Epeius then uplifted hands
To Pallas, and for that huge Horse he prayed:
"Hear, great-souled Goddess: bless thine Horse and me!"
He spake: Athena rich in counsel heard,
And made his work a marvel to all men
Which saw, or heard its fame in days to be.

But while the Danaans o'er Epeius' work
Joyed, and their routed foes within the walls
Tarried, and shrank from death and pitiless doom,
Then, when imperious Zeus far from the Gods
Had gone to Ocean's streams and Tethys' caves,
Strife rose between the Immortals: heart with heart
Was set at variance. Riding on the blasts
Of winds, from heaven to earth they swooped: the air
Crashed round them. Lighting down by Xanthus' stream
Arrayed they stood against each other, these
For the Achaeans, for the Trojans those;
And all their souls were thrilled with lust of war:
There gathered too the Lords of the wide Sea.
These in their wrath were eager to destroy
The Horse of Guile and all the ships, and those
Fair Ilium. But all-contriving Fate
Held them therefrom, and turned their hearts to strife
Against each other. Ares to the fray
Rose first, and on Athena rushed. Thereat
Fell each on other: clashed around their limbs
The golden arms celestial as they charged.
Round them the wide sea thundered, the dark earth
Quaked 'neath immortal feet. Rang from them all
Far-pealing battle-shouts; that awful cry
Rolled up to the broad-arching heaven, and down
Even to Hades' fathomless abyss:
Trembled the Titans there in depths of gloom.
Ida's long ridges sighed, sobbed clamorous streams
Of ever-flowing rivers, groaned ravines
Far-furrowed, Argive ships, and Priam's towers.
Yet men feared not, for naught they knew of all
That strife, by Heaven's decree. Then her high peaks
The Gods' hands wrenched from Ida's crest, and hurled
Against each other: but like crumbling sands
Shivered they fell round those invincible limbs,
Shattered to small dust. But the mind of Zeus,
At the utmost verge of earth, was ware of all:
Straight left he Ocean's stream, and to wide heaven
Ascended, charioted upon the winds,
The East, the North, the West-wind, and the South:
For Iris rainbow-plumed led 'neath the yoke
Of his eternal ear that stormy team,
The ear which Time the immortal framed for him
Of adamant with never-wearying hands.
So came he to Olympus' giant ridge.
His wrath shook all the firmament, as crashed
From east to west his thunders; lightnings gleamed,
As thick and fast his thunderbolts poured to earth,
And flamed the limitless welkin. Terror fell
Upon the hearts of those Immortals: quaked
The limbs of all—ay, deathless though they were!
Then Themis, trembling for them, swift as thought
Leapt down through clouds, and came with speed to them—
For in the strife she only had no part
And stood between the fighters, and she cried:
"Forbear the conflict! O, when Zeus is wroth,
It ill beseems that everlasting Gods
Should fight for men's sake, creatures of a day:
Else shall ye be all suddenly destroyed;
For Zeus will tear up all the hills, and hurl
Upon you: sons nor daughters will he spare,
But bury 'neath one ruin of shattered earth
All. No escape shall ye find thence to light,
In horror of darkness prisoned evermore."

Dreading Zeus' menace gave they heed to her,
From strife refrained, and cast away their wrath,
And were made one in peace and amity.
Some heavenward soared, some plunged into the sea,
On earth stayed some. Amid the Achaean host
Spake in his subtlety Laertes' son:
"O valorous-hearted lords of the Argive host,
Now prove in time of need what men ye be,
How passing-strong, how flawless-brave! The hour
Is this for desperate emprise: now, with hearts
Heroic, enter ye yon carven horse,
So to attain the goal of this stern war.
For better it is by stratagem and craft
Now to destroy this city, for whose sake
Hither we came, and still are suffering
Many afflictions far from our own land.
Come then, and let your hearts be stout and strong
For he who in stress of fight hath turned to bay
And snatched a desperate courage from despair,
Oft, though the weaker, slays a mightier foe.
For courage, which is all men's glory, makes
The heart great. Come then, set the ambush, ye
Which be our mightiest, and the rest shall go
To Tenedos' hallowed burg, and there abide
Until our foes have haled within their walls
Us with the Horse, as deeming that they bring
A gift unto Tritonis. Some brave man,
One whom the Trojans know not, yet we lack,
To harden his heart as steel, and to abide
Near by the Horse. Let that man bear in mind
Heedfully whatsoe'er I said erewhile.
And let none other thought be in his heart,
Lest to the foe our counsel be revealed."