Complete works of willia.., p.672
Complete Works of William Morris, page 672
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 Coroebus’ 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 get 410
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 Coroebus 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 wide 440
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 hight down, builded from highest roof 460
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 sill 480
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.
That inner house indeed was mazed with wail and misery,
The inmost chambers of the place an echoing hubbub hold
Of women’s cries, whose clamour smites the far-off stars of gold,
And through the house so mighty great the fearful mothers stray,
And wind their arms about the doors, and kisses on them lay. 490
But Pyrrhus with his father’s might comes on; no bolt avails,
No man against the might of him; the door all battered fails,
The door-leaves torn from off of hinge tumble and lie along:
Might maketh road; through passage forced the entering Danaans throng,
And slay the first and fill the place with armour of their ranks.
Nay nought so great is foaming flood that through its bursten banks
Breaks forth, and beateth down the moles that ‘gainst its going stand.
And falls a fierce heap on the plain, and over all the land
Drags off the herds and herd-houses.
There saw I Pyrrhus wild
With death of men amidst the door, and either Atreus’ child; 500
And Hecuba and hundred wives her sons wed saw I there,
And Priam fouling with his blood the very altars fair
Whose fires he hallowed: fifty beds the hope of house to be,
The doorways proud with outland gold and war-got bravery
Sunk into ash; where fire hath failed the Danaans are enow.
Belike what fate on Priam fell thou askest me to show:
For when he saw the city lost, and his own house-door stormed,
And how in bowels of his house the host of foemen swarmed,
The ancient man in vain does on the arms long useless laid
About his quaking back of eld, and girds himself with blade 510
Of no avail, and fareth forth amid the press to die.
A very midmost of the courts beneath the naked sky
A mighty altar stood: anear a bay exceeding old,
The altar and the Gods thereof did all in shadow hold;
And round about that altar-stead sat Hecuba the queen,
And many daughters: e’en as doves all huddled up are seen
‘Neath the black storm they cling about the dear God’s images.
But when in arms of early days King Priam now she sees,
She crieth: ‘O unhappy spouse! what evil heart hast thou,
With weapons thus to gird thyself, or whither wilt thou now? 520
Today availeth no such help, and no such warder’s stay
May better aught; not even were my Hector here today.
But come thou hither unto me; this altar all shall save,
Or we shall die together here!’
Her arms about she gave
And took him, and the elder set adown in holy stead.
But lo! now one of Priam’s sons, Polites, having fled
From Pyrrhus’ murder through the swords and through the foeman’s throng,
Runs wounded through the empty hall from out the cloister long,
And burning Pyrrhus, hard at heel, the deadly hurt doth bear,
And grip of hand is on him now, and now the point of spear. 530
But as he rushed before their eyes, his parents’ face beneath
He fell, and with most plenteous blood shed forth his latest breath;
Then Priam, howsoever nigh the very death might grip,
Refrained him nothing at the sight, but voice and wrath let slip:
‘Ah, for such wickedness,’ he cried, ‘for daring such a deed,
If aught abide in heaven as yet such things as this to heed,
May the Gods give thee worthy thanks, and pay thee well-earned prize,
That thou hast set the death of sons before my father’s eyes,
That thou thy murder’s fouling thus in father’s face hast flung.
Not he, Achilles, whence indeed thou liar hast never sprung, 540
Was such a foe to Priam erst; for shamfast meed he gave
To law and troth of suppliant men, and rendered to the grave
The bloodless Hector dead, and me sent to mine own again.’
So spake the elder, and cast forth a toothless spear and vain,
That forthwith from the griding brass was put aback all spent,
And from the shield-boss’ outer skin hung down, for nothing sent.
Then Pyrrhus cried: ‘Yea tell him this, go take the tidings down
To Peleus’ son my father then, of Pyrrhus worser grown
And all these evil deeds of mine! take heed to tell the tale!
Now die!’
And to the altar-stone him quivering did he hale, 550
And sliding in his own son’s blood so plenteous: in his hair
Pyrrhus his left hand wound, his right the gleaming sword made bare,
That even to the hilts thereof within his flank he hid.
Such was the end of Priam’s day, such faring forth fate bid,
Troy all aflame upon the road, all Pergamus adown.
He, of so many peoples once the mighty lord and crown,
So many lands of Asia once, a trunk beside the sea
Huge with its headless shoulders laid, a nameless corpse is he.
Then first within the compassing of bitter fear I was;
The image of my father dear by me all mazed did pass, 560
When I beheld the like-aged king gasping his life away
Through cruel wound: upon mine eyes forlorn Creusa lay,
The wasted house, my little one, Iulus’, evil end.
I look aback to see what folk about me yet do wend,
But all, foredone, had fallen away, their weary bodies spent,
Some all amid the fire had cast, some unto earth had sent.
Alone was I of all men now, when lo, in Vesta’s house
Abiding, and in inmost nook silent and lurking close,
Helen the seed of Tyndarus! the clear fires give her light
As there she strayeth, turning eyes on every shifting sight; 570
She, fearful of the Teucrian wrath for Pergamus undone,
And fearful of the Danaan wrath and husband left alone,
The wasting fury both of Troy and land where she was born,
She hid her by the altar-stead, a thing of Gods forlorn.
Forth blazed the wildfire in my soul, wrath stirred me up to slake
My vengeance for my dying home, and ill’s atonement take.
What! should she come to Sparta safe, and her Mycenæ then,
And in the hard-won triumphing go forth a Queen of men,
And see her husband and her home, her parents and her sons,
Served by the throng of Ilian wives and Phrygian vanquished ones? 580
Shall Priam so be slain with sword; shall Troy so blaze aloft;
Shall the sea-beach the Dardan blood have sweat so oft and oft
For this? Nay, nay: and though forsooth no deed to blaze abroad
The slaying of a woman be, nor gaineth fame’s reward,
Yet still to quench an evil thing and pay the well-earned meed
Is worthy praise, and joy it were unto the full to feed
My heart’s fell flame, and satisfy these ashes well beloved.
Such things my soul gave forth; such things in furious heart I moved.
When lo, my holy mother now, ne’er seen by eyes of mine
So clear before, athwart the dark in simple light did shine; 590
All God she was; of countenance and measure was she nought,
But her the heaven-abiders see; so my right hand she caught,
And held me, and from rosy mouth moreover added word:
‘O son, what anger measureless thy mighty grief hath stirred?
Why ragest thou? or whither then is gone thy heed of me?
Wilt thou not first behold the place where worn by eld is he,
Anchises, left? Wilt thou not see if yet thy wife abide
Creusa, or Ascanius yet? The Greekish bands fare wide
About them now on every hand, and but my care withstood
The fire had wafted them away or sword had drunk their blood. 600
Laconian Helen’s beauty cursed this overthrow ne’er wrought.
Nor guilty Paris; nay, the Gods, the Gods who pity nought,
Have overturned your lordship fair, and laid your Troy alow.
Behold! I draw aside the cloud that all abroad doth flow,
Dulling the eyes of mortal men, and darkening dewily
The world about. And look to it no more afeard to be
Of what I bid, nor evermore thy mother’s word disown.
There where thou seest the great walls cleft, and stone torn off from stone,
And seest the waves of smoke go by with mingled dust-cloud rolled, —
There Neptune shakes the walls and stirs the foundings from their hold
With mighty trident, tumbling down the city from its base. 611
There by the Scæan gates again hath bitter Juno place
The first of all, and wild and mad, herself begirt with steel,
Calls up her fellows from the ships.
Look back! Tritonian Pallas broods o’er topmost burg on high,
All flashing bright with Gorgon grim from out her stormy sky;
The very Father hearteneth on, and stays with happy might
The Danaans, crying on the Gods against the Dardan fight.
Snatch flight, O son, whiles yet thou may’st, and let thy toil be o’er,
I by thy side will bring thee safe unto thy father’s door.’ 620
She spake, and hid herself away where thickest darkness poured.
Then dreadful images show forth, great Godheads are abroad,
The very haters of our Troy.
And then indeed before mine eyes all Ilium sank in flame,
And overturned was Neptune’s Troy from its foundations deep.
E’en as betideth with an ash upon the mountain steep,
Round which sore smitten by the steel the acre-biders throng,
And strive in speeding of the axe: and there it threateneth long,
And, shaken, trembleth nodding still with heavy head of leaf;
Till overcome by many hurts it groans its latest grief, 630
And torn from out the ridgy hill, drags all its ruin alow.
I get me down, and, Goddess-led, speed on ‘twixt fire and foe,
And point and edge give place to me, before me sinks the flame;
But when unto my father’s door and ancient house I came,
And I was fain of all things first my father forth to bear
Unto the mountain-tops, and first I sought to find him there,
Still he gainsayed to spin out life now Troy was lost and dead,
Or suffer exile: ‘Ye whose blood is hale with youth,’ he said,
‘Ye other ones, whose might and main endureth and is stout,
See ye to flight while yet ye may! 640
Full surely if the heavenly ones my longer life had willed,
They would have kept me this abode: the measure is fulfilled
In that the murder I have seen, and lived when Troy-town fell.
O ye, depart, when ye have bid my body streaked farewell.
My hand itself shall find out death, or pity of my foes,
Who seek my spoils: the tomb methinks a little thing to lose.
Forsooth I tarry overlong, God-cursed, a useless thing,
Since when the Father of the Gods, the earth-abiders’ King,
Blew on me blast of thunder-wind and touched me with his flame.’
His deed was stubborn as his word, no change upon him came. 650
But all we weeping many tears, my wife Creusa there,
Ascanius, yea and all the house, besought him not to bear
All things to wrack with him, nor speed the hastening evil tide.
He gainsaith all, and in his will and home will yet abide.
So wretchedly I rush to arms with all intent to die;
For what availeth wisdom now, what hope in fate may lie?
‘And didst thou hope, O father, then, that thou being left behind,
My foot would fare? Woe worth the word that in thy mouth I find!
But if the Gods are loth one whit of such a town to save,
And thou with constant mind wilt cast on dying Troy-town’s grave 660
