XXXV.
“Maeonia, Phrygia, Troia there were met,
And there the King, child of Laomedon,
Rich prizes for the vanquishers had set,
Damsels, and robes, and cups that like the sun
Shone, but the white bull was the chiefest one;
And him the victor in the games should slay
To Zeus, the King of Gods, when all was done,
And so with sacrifice should crown the day.
XXXVI.
“Now it were over long, methinks, to tell
The contest of the heady charioteers,
Of them the goal that turn’d, and them that fell.
But I outran the young men of my years,
And with the bow did I out-do my peers,
And wrestling; and in boxing, over-bold,
I strove with Hector of the ashen spears,
Yea, till the deep-voiced Heralds bade us hold.
XXXVII.
“Then Priam hail’d me winner of the day;
Mine were the maid, the cup, and chiefest prize,
Mine own fair milkwhite bull was mine to slay;
But then the murmurs wax’d to angry cries,
And hard men set on me in deadly wise,
My brethren, though they knew it not; I turn’d,
And fled unto the place of sacrifice,
Where altars to the God of strangers burn’d.
XXXVIII.
“At mine own funeral feast, had I been slain,
But, fearing Zeus, they halted for a space,
And lo, Apollo’s priestess with a train
Of holy maidens came into that place,
And far did she outshine the rest in grace,
But in her eyes such dread was frozen then
As glares eternal from the Gorgon’s face
Wherewith Athene quells the ranks of men.
XXXIX.
“She was old Priam’s daughter, long ago
Apollo loved her, and did not deny
His gifts,—the things that are to be to know,
The tongue of sooth-saying that cannot lie,
And knowledge gave he of all birds that fly
’Neath heaven; and yet his prayer did she disdain.
So he his gifts confounded utterly,
And sooth she saith, but evermore in vain.