The Fall of Troy

by active 4th century Smyrnaeus Quintus

Menelaus mid the inner chambers found
At last his wife, there cowering from the wrath
Of her bold-hearted lord. He glared on her,
Hungering to slay her in his jealous rage.
But winsome Aphrodite curbed him, struck
Out of his hand the sword, his onrush reined,
Jealousy's dark cloud swept she away, and stirred
Love's deep sweet well-springs in his heart and eyes.
Swept o'er him strange amazement: powerless all
Was he to lift the sword against her neck,
Seeing her splendour of beauty. Like a stock
Of dead wood in a mountain forest, which
No swiftly-rushing blasts of north-winds shake,
Nor fury of south-winds ever, so he stood,
So dazed abode long time. All his great strength
Was broken, as he looked upon his wife.
And suddenly had he forgotten all
Yea, all her sins against her spousal-troth;
For Aphrodite made all fade away,
She who subdueth all immortal hearts
And mortal. Yet even so he lifted up
From earth his sword, and made as he would rush
Upon his wife but other was his intent,
Even as he sprang: he did but feign, to cheat
Achaean eyes. Then did his brother stay
His fury, and spake with pacifying words,
Fearing lest all they had toiled for should be lost:
"Forbear wrath, Menelaus, now: 'twere shame
To slay thy wedded wife, for whose sake we
Have suffered much affliction, while we sought
Vengeance on Priam. Not, as thou dost deem,
Was Helen's the sin, but his who set at naught
The Guest-lord, and thine hospitable board;
So with death-pangs hath God requited him."

Then hearkened Menelaus to his rede.
But the Gods, palled in dark clouds, mourned for Troy,
A ruined glory save fair-tressed Tritonis
And Hera: their hearts triumphed, when they saw
The burg of god-descended Priam destroyed.
Yet not the wise heart Trito-born herself
Was wholly tearless; for within her fane
Outraged Cassandra was of Oileus son
Lust-maddened. But grim vengeance upon him
Ere long the Goddess wreaked, repaying insult
With mortal sufferance. Yea, she would not look
Upon the infamy, but clad herself
With shame and wrath as with a cloak: she turned
Her stern eyes to the temple-roof, and groaned
The holy image, and the hallowed floor
Quaked mightily. Yet did he not forbear
His mad sin, for his soul was lust-distraught.

Here, there, on all sides crumbled flaming homes
In ruin down: scorched dust with smoke was blent:
Trembled the streets to the awful thunderous crash.
Here burned Aeneas' palace, yonder flamed
Antimachus' halls: one furnace was the height
Of fair-built Pergamus; flames were roaring round
Apollo's temple, round Athena's fane,
And round the Hearth-lord's altar: flames licked up
Fair chambers of the sons' sons of a king;
And all the city sank down into hell.

Of Trojans some by Argos' sons were slain,
Some by their own roofs crashing down in fire,
Giving at once in death and tomb to them:
Some in their own throats plunged the steel, when foes
And fire were in the porch together seen:
Some slew their wives and children, and flung themselves
Dead on them, when despair had done its work
Of horror. One, who deemed the foe afar,
Caught up a vase, and, fain to quench the flame,
Hasted for water. Leapt unmarked on him
An Argive, and his spirit, heavy with wine,
Was thrust forth from the body by the spear.
Clashed the void vase above him, as he fell
Backward within the house. As through his hall
Another fled, the burning roof-beam crashed
Down on his head, and swift death came with it.
And many women, as in frenzied flight
They rushed forth, suddenly remembered babes
Left in their beds beneath those burning roofs:
With wild feet sped they back—the house fell in
Upon them, and they perished, mother and child.
Horses and dogs in panic through the town
Fled from the flames, trampling beneath their feet
The dead, and dashing into living men
To their sore hurt. Shrieks rang through all the town.
In through his blazing porchway rushed a man
To rescue wife and child. Through smoke and flame
Blindly he groped, and perished while he cried
Their names, and pitiless doom slew those within.

The fire-glow upward mounted to the sky,
The red glare o'er the firmament spread its wings,
And all the tribes of folk that dwelt around
Beheld it, far as Ida's mountain-crests,
And sea-girt Tenedos, and Thracian Samos.
And men that voyaged on the deep sea cried:
"The Argives have achieved their mighty task
After long toil for star-eyed Helen's sake.
All Troy, the once queen-city, burns in fire:
For all their prayers, no God defends them now;
For strong Fate oversees all works of men,
And the renownless and obscure to fame
She raises, and brings low the exalted ones.
Oft out of good is evil brought, and good
From evil, mid the travail and change of life."

So spake they, who from far beheld the glare
Of Troy's great burning. Compassed were her folk
With wailing misery: through her streets the foe
Exulted, as when madding blasts turmoil
The boundless sea, what time the Altar ascends
To heaven's star-pavement, turned to the misty south
Overagainst Arcturus tempest-breathed,
And with its rising leap the wild winds forth,
And ships full many are whelmed 'neath ravening seas;
Wild as those stormy winds Achaea's sons
Ravaged steep Ilium while she burned in flame.
As when a mountain clothed with shaggy woods
Burns swiftly in a fire-blast winged with winds,
And from her tall peaks goeth up a roar,
And all the forest-children this way and that
Rush through the wood, tormented by the flame;
So were the Trojans perishing: there was none
To save, of all the Gods. Round these were staked
The nets of Fate, which no man can escape.

Then were Demophoon and Acamas
By mighty Theseus' mother Aethra met.
Yearning to see them was she guided on
To meet them by some Blessed One, the while
'Wildered from war and fire she fled. They saw
In that red glare a woman royal-tall,
Imperial-moulded, and they weened that this
Was Priam's queen, and with swift eagerness
Laid hands on her, to lead her captive thence
To the Danaans; but piteously she moaned:
"Ah, do not, noble sons of warrior Greeks,
To your ships hale me, as I were a foe!
I am not of Trojan birth: of Danaans came
My princely blood renowned. In Troezen's halls
Pittheus begat me, Aegeus wedded me,
And of my womb sprang Theseus glory-crowned.
For great Zeus' sake, for your dear parents' sake,
I pray you, if the seed of Theseus came
Hither with Atreus' sons, O bring ye me
Unto their yearning eyes. I trow they be
Young men like you. My soul shall be refreshed
If living I behold those chieftains twain."

Hearkening to her they called their sire to mind,
His deeds for Helen's sake, and how the sons
Of Zeus the Thunderer in the old time smote
Aphidnae, when, because these were but babes,
Their nurses hid them far from peril of fight;
And Aethra they remembered—all she endured
Through wars, as mother-in-law at first, and thrall
Thereafter of Helen. Dumb for joy were they,
Till spake Demophoon to that wistful one:
"Even now the Gods fulfil thine heart's desire:
We whom thou seest are the sons of him,
Thy noble son: thee shall our loving hands
Bear to the ships: with joy to Hellas' soil
Thee will we bring, where once thou wast a queen."

Then his great father's mother clasped him round
With clinging arms: she kissed his shoulders broad,
His head, his breast, his bearded lips she kissed,
And Acamas kissed withal, the while she shed
Glad tears on these who could not choose but weep.
As when one tarries long mid alien men,
And folk report him dead, but suddenly
He cometh home: his children see his face,
And break into glad weeping; yea, and he,
His arms around them, and their little heads
Upon his shoulders, sobs: echoes the home
With happy mourning's music-beating wings;
So wept they with sweet sighs and sorrowless moans.

Then, too, affliction-burdened Priam's child,
Laodice, say they, stretched her hands to heaven,
Praying the mighty Gods that earth might gape
To swallow her, ere she defiled her hand
With thralls' work; and a God gave ear, and rent
Deep earth beneath her: so by Heaven's decree
Did earth's abysmal chasm receive the maid
In Troy's last hour. Electra's self withal,
The Star-queen lovely-robed, shrouded her form
In mist and cloud, and left the Pleiad-band,
Her sisters, as the olden legend tells.
Still riseth up in sight of toil-worn men
Their bright troop in the skies; but she alone
Hides viewless ever, since the hallowed town
Of her son Dardanus in ruin fell,
When Zeus most high from heaven could help her not,
Because to Fate the might of Zeus must bow;
And by the Immortals' purpose all these things
Had come to pass, or by Fate's ordinance.