'Troy's latest day has come on us, a tide no struggling wears:
Time was, the Trojans were; time was, and Ilium stood; time was,
And glory of the Teucrian folk! Jove biddeth all to pass
To Argos now: in Troy afire the Danaans now are lords;
The horse high set amidst the town pours forth a flood of swords,
And Sinon, of the victors now, the flame is driving home
High mocking: by the open gates another sort is come,330
As many thousands as ere flocked from great Mycenæ yet:
Others with weapons ready dight the narrow ways beset,
And ban all passage; point and edge are glittering drawn and bare
Ready for death: and scarcely now the first few gatewards dare
The battle, and blind game of Mars a little while debate.'
Spurred by such speech of Othrys' son, and force of godhead great,
Mid fire and steel I follow on as grim Erinnys shows,
Where call the cries, where calls the shout that ever heavenward goes,
Rhipeus therewith, and Epytus the mighty under shield,
Dymas and Hypanis withal their fellowship now yield;340
Met by the moon they join my side with young Corœbus; he
The son of Mygdon, at that tide in Troy-town chanced to be;
Drawn thither by Cassandra's love that burned within his heart.
So he to Priam service gave, and helped the Phrygian part:
Unhappy! that the warning word of his God-maddened love
He might not hearken on that day.
Now when I see them gathered so to dare the battle's pain,
Thus I begin:
'O fellows fair, O hardy hearts in vain!
If now ye long to follow me who dares the utterance
And certain end, ye see indeed what wise our matters chance.350
The Gods, who in the other days our lordship mighty made,
Are gone from altar and from shrine: a town of flames ye aid.
Fall on a very midst the fire and die in press of war!
One hope there is for vanquished men, to cherish hope no more.'
Therewith the fury of their minds I feed, and thence away,
As ravening wolves by night and cloud their bellies' lust obey,
That bitter-sharp is driving on, the while their whelps at home
Dry-jawed await them, so by steel, by crowd of foes we come
Into the very death; we hold the city's midmost street,
Black night-tide's wings with hollow shade about our goings meet.360
O ruin and death of that ill night, what tongue may set it forth!
Or who may pay the debt of tears that agony was worth!
The ancient city overthrown, lord for so many a year,
The many bodies of the slain, that, moveless, everywhere
Lie in the street, in houses lie, lie round the holy doors
Of Gods. But not alone that night the blood of Teucrians pours,
For whiles the valour comes again in vanquished hearts to bide,
And conquering Danaans fall and die: grim grief on every side,
And fear on every side there is, and many-faced is death.
Androgeus, whom a mighty band of Danaans followeth,370
First falleth on the road of us, and, deeming us to be
His fellow-folk, in friendly words he speaketh presently:
'Haste on, O men! what sloth is this delayeth so your ways?
While others hand and haul away in Pergamos ablaze;
What! fellows, from the lofty ships come ye but even now?'
But with the word, no answer had wherein at all to trow,
He felt him fallen amid the foe, and taken in the snare;
Then foot and voice aback he drew, and stood amazèd there,
As one who through the thicket thrusts, and unawares doth tread
Upon a snake, and starts aback with sudden rush of dread380
From gathering anger of the thing and swelling neck of blue:
So, quaking at the sight of us, Androgeus backward drew.
But we fall on with serried arms and round their rout we crowd,
And fell them knowing nought the place, and with all terror cowed:
So sweet the breath of fortune was on our first handicraft.
But with good-hap and hardihood Corœbus' spirit laughed;
'Come, fellows, follow up,' he cries, 'the way that fortune shows
This first of times, and where belike a little kind she grows.
Change we our shields, and do on us the tokens of the Greeks;
Whether with fraud or force he play what man of foeman seeks,390
Yea, these themselves shall give us arms.'
He spake, and forth did bear
Androgeus' high-crested helm and shield emblazoned fair,
And did it on, and Argive sword he girt unto his thigh:
So Rhipeus did, and Dymas did, and all did joyously,
And each man wholly armed himself with plunder newly won.
Then mingled with the Greeks we fare, and no God helps us on,
And many a battle there we join amid the eyeless night,
And many a Danaan send adown to Orcus from the light:
Some fled away unto the ships, some to the safe sea-shore,399
Or smitten with the coward's dread climbed the great horse once more
And there they lie all close within the well-known womb of wood.
Alas! what skills it man to trust in Gods compelled to good?
For lo, Cassandra, Priam's maid, with hair cast all about,
From Pallas' house and innermost of holy place dragged out,
And straining with her burning eyes in vain to heaven aloft;
Her eyes, for they in bonds had bound her tender palms and soft.
Nought bore Corœbus' maddened mind to see that show go by,
And in the middle of their host he flung himself to die,
And all we follow and fall on with points together set.
And first from that high temple-top great overthrow we get410
From weapons of our friends, and thence doth hapless death arise
From error of the Greekish crests and armour's Greekish guise;
Then crying out for taken maid, fulfilled thereat with wrath,
The gathered Greeks fall in on us: comes keenest Ajax forth;
The sons of Atreus, all the host of Dolopes are there:—
As whiles, the knit whirl broken up, the winds together bear
And strive, the West wind and the South, the East wind glad and free
With Eastland steeds; sore groan the woods; and Nereus stirs the sea
From lowest deeps, and trident shakes, and foams upon the wave:—
They even to whom by night and cloud great overthrow we gave,420
Through craft of ours, and drave about through all the town that while,
Now show themselves, and know our shields and weapons worn for guile
The first of all; our mouths unmeet for Greekish speech they tell
Then o'er us sweeps the multitude; and first Corœbus fell
By Peneleus before the Maid who ever in the fight
Prevaileth most; fell Rhipeus there, the heedfullest of right
Of all among the Teucrian folk, the justest man of men;
The Gods deemed otherwise. Dymas and Hypanis died then,
Shot through by friends, and not a whit availed to cover thee,
O Panthus, thine Apollo's bands or plenteous piety.430
Ashes of Ilium, ye last flames where my beloved ones burned,
Bear witness mid your overthrow my face was never turned
From Danaan steel and Danaan deed! if fate had willed it so
That I should fall, I earned my wage.
Borne thence away, we go
Pelias and Iphitus and I; but Iphitus was spent
By eld, and by Ulysses' hurt half halting Pelias went.
So unto Priam's house we come, called by the clamour there,
Where such a mighty battle was as though none otherwhere
Yet burned: as though none others fell in all the town beside.
There all unbridled Mars we saw, the Danaans driving wide440
Against the house; with shield-roofs' rush the doors thereof beset.
The ladders cling unto the walls, men by the door-posts get
Some foothold up; with shielded left they meet the weapons' rain,
While on the battlements above grip with the right they gain.
The Dardans on the other side pluck roof and pinnacle
From off the house; with such-like shot they now, beholding well
The end anigh, all death at hand, make ready for the play:
And gilded beams, the pomp and joy of fathers passed away.
They roll adown, and other some with naked point and edge
The nether doorways of the place in close arrayment hedge.450
Blazed up our hearts again to aid this palace of a king,
To stead their toil, to vanquished men a little help to bring.
A door there was, a secret pass into the common way
Of all King Priam's houses there, that at the backward lay
As one goes by: in other days, while yet the lordship was,
Hapless Andromache thereby unto the twain would pass
Alone, or leading to the king Astyanax her boy.
And thereby now I gain the tower, whence wretched men of Troy
In helpless wise from out their hands were casting darts aloof.
There was a tower, a sheer height down, builded from highest roof460
Up toward the stars; whence we were wont on Troy to look adown,
And thence away the Danaan ships, the Achæan tented town.
Against the highest stage hereof the steel about we bear,
Just where the joints do somewhat give: this from its roots we tear,
And heave it up and over wall, whose toppling at the last
Bears crash and ruin, and wide away the Danaans are down cast
Beneath its fall: but more come on: nor drift of stones doth lack,
Nor doth all kind of weapon-shot at any while grow slack.
Lo, Pyrrhus in the very porch forth to the door doth pass
Exulting; bright with glittering points and flashing of the brass;470
—E'en as a snake to daylight come, on evil herbage fed,
Who, swollen, 'neath the chilly soil hath had his winter bed,
And now, his ancient armour doffed, and sleek with youth new found,
With front upreared his slippery back he coileth o'er the ground
Up 'neath the sun; his three-cleft tongue within his mouth gleams clear:—
And with him Periphas the huge, Achilles' charioteer,
Now shield-bearer Automedon and all the Scyrian host
Closed on the walls and on the roof the blazing firebrands tost.
Pyrrhus in forefront of them all catches a mighty bill,
Beats in the hardened door, and tears perforce from hinge and sill480
The brazen leaves; a beam hewn through, wide gaped the oak hard knit
Into a great-mouthed window there, and through the midst of it
May men behold the inner house; the long halls open lie;
Bared is the heart of Priam's home, the place of kings gone by;
And close against the very door all armèd men they see.