The dream was realized. Philoctetes, whole once more, joined the Greek host, and caused great dismay in the enemy’s ranks with his poisoned arrows. One of his deadly missiles even struck Paris, and, as the poison entered his veins, it caused him grievous suffering. Paris then remembered that his first love, Œnone, who knew all remedies and the best modes of applying them, had once told him to send for her should he ever be wounded. He therefore sent for Œnone; but she, justly offended by the base desertion and long neglect of her lover, refused her aid, and let him die in torture. When he was dead, Œnone repented of this decision; and when the flames of his funeral pyre rose around him, she rushed into their midst, and was burned to death on his corpse.
“But when she gain’d the broader vale and saw
The ring of faces redden’d by the flames
Infolding that dark body which had lain
Of old in her embrace, paused—and then ask’d
Falteringly, ‘Who lies on yonder pyre?’
But every man was mute for reverence.
Then moving quickly forward till the heat
Smote on her brow, she lifted up a voice
Of shrill command, ‘Who burns upon the pyre?’
Whereon their oldest and their boldest said,
‘He, whom thou would’st not heal!’ and all at once
The morning light of happy marriage broke,
Thro’ all the clouded years of widowhood,
And muffling up her comely head, and crying
‘Husband!’ she leapt upon the funeral pile,
And mixt herself with him and past in fire.”
Tennyson.
The Palladium.
Two of Priam’s sons had already expired, and yet Troy had not fallen into the hands of the Greeks, who now heard another prophecy, to the effect that Troy could never be taken as long as the Palladium—a sacred statue of Minerva, said to have fallen from heaven—remained within its walls (p. [60]). So Ulysses and Diomedes in disguise effected an entrance into the city one night, and after many difficulties succeeded in escaping with the precious image.
The wooden horse.
Men and chiefs, impatient of further delay, now joyfully hailed Ulysses’ proposal to take the city by stratagem. They therefore secretly built a colossal wooden horse, within whose hollow sides a number of brave warriors might lie concealed. The main army feigned weariness of the endless enterprise, and embarked, leaving the horse as a pretended offering to Minerva; while Sinon, a shrewd slave, remained to persuade the Trojans to drag the horse within their gates and keep him there, a lasting monument of their hard-won triumph.
To the unbounded joy of the long-besieged Trojans, the Greek fleet then sailed away, until the Island of Tenedos hid the ships from view. All the inhabitants of Troy poured out of the city to view the wooden horse, and question Sinon, who pretended to have great cause of complaint against the Greeks, and strongly advised them to secure their last offering to Minerva.
The Trojans hailed this idea with rapture; but Laocoon, a Trojan priest, implored them to leave the horse alone, lest they should bring untold evil upon their heads.
“‘Wretched countrymen,’ he cries,
‘What monstrous madness blinds your eyes?
* * *
Perchance—who knows?—these planks of deal
A Grecian ambuscade conceal,
Or ’tis a pile to o’erlook the town,
And pour from high invaders down,
Or fraud lurks somewhere to destroy:
Mistrust, mistrust it, men of Troy!’”
Virgil (Conington’s tr.).
Death of Laocoon.