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Book Three THE BOOK OF THE ASSEMBLY
BUT as the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender Waited mute for a voice that could lead and a heart to encourage, Up in the silence deep Laocoön rose up, far-heard,— Heard by the gods in their calm and heard by men in their passion— Cloud-haired, clad in mystic red, flamboyant, sombre, Priam’s son Laocoön, fate-darkened seer of Apollo. As when the soul of the Ocean arises rapt in the dawning And mid the rocks and the foam uplifting the voice of its musings Opens the chant of its turbulent harmonies, so rose the far-borne Voice of Laocoön soaring mid columns of Ilion’s glories, Claiming the earth and the heavens for the field of its confident rumour. "Trojans, deny your hearts to the easeful flu tings of Hades! Live, O nation !" he thundered forth and Troy’s hearts and her pillars Sent back their fierce response. Restored to her leonine spirits Ilion rose in her agora filling the heavens with shoutings, Bearing a name to the throne of Zeus in her mortal defiance. As when a sullen calm of the heavens discourages living, Nature and man feel the pain of the lightnings repressed in their bosoms, Dangerous and dull is the air, then suddenly strong from the anguish Zeus of the thunders starts into glories releasing his storm-voice, Earth exults in the kiss of the rain and the life-giving laughters, So from the silence broke forth the thunder of Troya arising ; Fiercely she turned from prudence and wisdom and turned back to greatness,
Casting her voice to the heavens from the depths of her fathomless spirit. Raised by those clam ours, triumphant once more in this scene of his greatness,
Tool of the gods, but he deemed of his strength as a leader in Nature, Took for his own a voice that was given and dreamed that he fashioned Fate that fashions us all, Laocoön stood mid the shouting
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Leaned on the calm of an ancient pillar. In eyes self-consuming Kindled the flame of the prophet that blinds at once and illumines ; Quivering thought-besieged lips and shaken locks of the lion, Lifted his gaze the storm-led enthusiast. Then as the shouting Tired of itself at last disappeared in the bosom of silence, Once more he started erect and his voice o’er the hearts of his hearers Swept like Ocean’s impatient cry when it calls from its surges, Ocean loud with a thought sublime in its measureless marching. Each man felt his heart like foam in the rushing of waters. "Ilion is vanquished then ! she abases her grandiose spirit Mortal found in the end to the gods and the Greeks and Antenor, And when a barbarous chieftain’s menace and insolent mercy Bring here their pride to insult the columned spirit of Ilus, Trojans have sat and feared ! For a man has arisen and spoken, One whom the gods in their anger have hired. Since the Argive prevailed not, Armed, with his strength and his numbers, in Troya they sought for her slayer, Gathered their wiles in a voice and they chose a man famous and honoured, Summoned Ate to aid and corrupted the heart of Antenor. Flute of the breath of the Hell-witch, always he scatters among you Doubt, affliction and weakness chilling the hearts of the fighters, Always his voice with its cadenced and subtle possession for evil Breaks the constant will and maims the impulse heroic. Therefore while yet her heroes fight and her arms are unconquered, Troy in your hearts is defeated ! The souls of your Fathers have heard you Dallying, shame fast, with vileness, lured by the call of dishonour. Such is the power Zeus gave to the winged words of a mortal ! Foiled in his will, disowned by the years that stride on for ever, Yet in the frenzy cold of his greed and his fallen ambition Doom from heaven he calls down on his countrymen, Trojan abuses Troy, his country, extolling her enemies, blessing her slayers. Such are the gods Antenor has made in his heart’s own image That if one evil man have not way for his greed and his longing Cities are doomed and kings must be slain and a nation must perish ! But from the mind of the free and the brave I will answer thy bodings, Gold-hungry raven of Troy who croaks from thy nest at her princes. Only one doom irreparable treads down the soul of a nation, Only one downfall endures ; ’tis the ruin of greatness and virtue, Mourning when Freedom departs from the life and the heart of a people,
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Into her room comes creeping the mind of the slave and it poisons Manhood and joy and the voice to lying is trained and subjection Easy feels to the neck of man who is next to the godheads. Not of the fire am I terrified, not of the sword and its slaying ; Vileness of men appals me, baseness I fear and its voices. What can man suffer direr or worse than enslaved from a victor Boons to accept, to take safety and ease from the foe and the stranger, Fallen from the virtue stern that heaven permits to a mortal? Death is not keener than this nor the slaughter of friends and our dear ones. Out and alas ! earth’s greatest are earth and they fail in the testing, Conquered by sorrow and doubt, fate’s hammerers, fires of her furnace. God in their souls they renounce and submit to their clay and its promptings. Else could the heart of Troya have recoiled from the loom of the shadow Cast by Achilles’ spear or shrunk at the sound of his car-wheels ? Now he has graven an oath austere in his spirit un pliant Victor at last to constrain in his stride the walls of Apollo Burning Troy ere he sleeps. ‘Tis the vow of a high-crested nature ; Shall it break ramparted Troy ? Yea, the soul of a man too is mighty More than the stones and the mortar ! Troy had a soul once, O Trojans, Firm as her god-built ramparts. When in the hour of his passion1, When Sarpedon fell and Zeus averted his visage, Xanthus red to the sea ran sobbing with bodies of Trojans, When in the day of the silence of heaven the far-glancing helmet Ceased from the ways of the fight, and panic slew with Achilles Hosts who were left un shepherded pale at the fall of their greatest, Godlike Troy lived on. Do we speak mid a city’s ruins ? Lo ! she confronts her heavens as when Tros and Laomedon ruled her. All now is changed, these mutter and sigh to you, all now is ended ; Strength has renounced you, Fate has finished the thread of her spinning. Hector is dead, he walks in the shadows ; Troilus fights not ; Resting his curls on the asphodel he has forgotten his country ; Strong Sarpedon lies in Bellerophon’s city sleeping : Memnon is slain and the blood of Rhesus has dried on the Troad : All of the giant Asius sums in a handful of ashes. Grievous2 are these things ; our hearts still keep all the pain of them treasured,
1 Alternatives to " in the hour of his passion": (i) in the hour of his uplifting (ii) by the Fates (gods) (spears) overtaken 2 Alternatives : Wretched, Miserable. Page-37
Hard though they grow by use and iron caskets of sorrow. Hear yet, O fainters in wisdom snared by your pathos, Know this iron world we live in where Hell casts its shadow. Blood and grief are the ransom of men for the joys of their transience, For we are mortals bound in our strength and beset in our labour. This is our human destiny ; every moment of living Toil and loss have gained in the constant siege of our bodies. Men must sow earth with their lives1 and their tears that their country may prosper ;
Earth who bore and devours us that life may be born from our remnants Then shall the Sacrifice reap2 its fruits when the war-shout is silent, Nor shall the blood be in vain that our mother has felt on her bosom Nor shall the seed of the mighty fail when Death is the sower. Still from the loins of the mother eternal are heroes engendered, Still Deiphobus shouts in the war-front trampling the Argives, Strong Aeneas’ far-borne voice is heard from our ramparts, Paris’ hands are swift and his feet in the chases of Ares. Lo, when deserted we fight3 by Asia’s soon-wearied peoples, Men ingrate who enjoyed the protection and loathed the protector, Heaven has sent us replacing a continent Penthesilea ! Low has the heart of Achaia sunk since it shook at her war-cry. Ajax has bit at the dust ; it is all he shall have of the Troad ; Tall Meriones lies and measures his portion of booty. Who is the fighter in Ilion thrills not rejoicing to hearken Even her name on unwarlike lips, much more in the mellay Shout of the daughter of battles, army potent Penthesilea ? If there were none but these only, if hosts came not surging behind them, Young men burning-eyed to out dare all the deeds of their elders, Each in his beauty a Troilus, each in his valour a Hector, Yet were the measures poised in the equal balance of Ares. Who then compels you, O people unconquered, to sink down abjuring All that was Troy ? For O, if she yield, let her use not for ever One of her titles ! shame not the shade of Teucer and Ilus, Soil not Tros ! Are you awed by the strength of the swift-foot Achilles ? Is it a sweeter lure in the cadenced voice of Antenor ? Or are you weary of Time and the endless roar of the battle ?
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Wearier still are the Greeks ! their eyes look out o’er the waters Nor with the flight of their spears is the wing of their hopes towards Troya. Dull are their hearts ; they sink from the war-cry and turn from the spear-stroke
Sullenly dragging backwards, desiring the paths of the Ocean, Dreaming of hearths that are far and the children growing to manhood Who are small infant faces still in the thoughts of their fathers. Therefore these call you to yield lest they wake and behold in the dawn-light All Poseidon whitening lean to the west in his waters Thick with the sails of the Greeks departing beaten to Hellas. Who is it calls ? Antenor the statesman, Antenor the patriot, Thus who loves his country and worships the soil of his fathers ! Which of you loves like him Troya ? which of the children of heroes Yearns for the touch of a yoke on his neck and desires the aggressor ? If there be any so made by the gods in the nation of I his, Leaving this city which freemen have founded, freemen have dwelt in, Far on the beach let him make his couch in the tents of Achilles, Not in this mighty Ilion, not with the lioness fighting, Guarding the lair of her young and roaring back at her hunters. We who are souls descended from Ilus and seeds of his making, Other-hearted shall march from our gates to answer Achilles. What ! shall this ancient Ilion welcome the day of the conquered ? She who was head of the world, shall she live in the guard of the Hellene Cherished as slave girls are, who are taken in war, by their captors ? Europe shall walk in our streets with the pride and the gait of the victor ? Greeks shall enter our homes and prey on our mothers and daughters ? This Antenor desires and this Ucalegon favours. Traitors ! whether ’tis cowardice drives or the sceptic of virtue, Cold-blooded age, or gold insatiably tempts from its coffers Pleading for safety from foreign hands and the sack and the plunder. Leave them, my brothers ! spare the baffled hypocrites ! Failure Sharpest shall torture their hearts when they know that still you are Trojans.
Silence, O reason of man ! for a voice from the gods has been uttered ! Dardanus, hearken the sound divine that comes to you mounting Out of the solemn ravines from the mystic seat on the tripod ! Phoebus, the master of Truth, has promised the earth to our peoples. Children of Zeus, rejoice ! for the Olympian brows have nodded Regal over the world. In earth’s rhythm of shadow and sunlight Storm is the dance of the locks of the God assenting to greatness, Page-39
Zeus who with secret compulsion orders the ways of our nature ; Veiled in events he lives and working disguised in the mortal Builds our strength by pain, and an empire is born out of ruins. Then if the tempest be loud and the thunderbolt leaping incessant Shatters the roof, if the lintels flame at last and each cornice Shrieks with pain of the blast, if the very pillars totter, Keep yet your faith in Zeus, hold fast to the word of Apollo. Not by a little pain and not by a temperate labour Trained is the nation chosen by Zeus for a dateless dominion. Long must it labour rolled in the wrath1 of the fathomless surges, Often neighbour with death and ere Ares grow firm to its banners Feel on the pride of its Capitol tread of the triumphing victor, Hear the barbarian knock at its gates or the neighbouring foeman Glad of the transient smile of his fortune suffer insulting ;— They, the nation eternal, brook their taunts who must perish ! Heaviest toils they must bear ; they must wrestle with Fate and her Titans, And when some leader returns from the battle sole of his thousands Crushed by the hammers of God, yet never despair of their country. Dread not the ruin, fear not the storm-blast, yield not, O Trojans. Zeus shall rebuild ! Death ends not our days, the fire shall not triumph. Death ? I have faced it. Fire ? I have watched it climb in my vision Over the timeless domes and over the rooftops of Priam, But I have looked beyond and have seen the smile of Apollo. After her glorious centuries, after her world-wide triumphs, If, near her ramparts outnumbered she fights, by the nations forsaken, Lonely again on her hill, by her streams, and her meadows and beaches, Once where she revelled, shake to the tramp of her countless invaders, Testings are these from the god. For Fate severe like a mother Teaches our wills by disaster and strikes down the props that would weaken, Fate and the Thought on high that is wiser than yearnings of mortals. Troy has arisen before, but from ashes, not shame, not surrender ! (Souls that are true to themselves are immortal; the soulless for ever Lingers helpless in Hades a shade among shades disappointed.) Now is the god in my bosom mighty compelling me, Trojans, Now I release what my spirit has kept and it saw in its vision; Nor will be silent for gibe of the cynic or sneer of the traitor. Troy shall triumph ! Hear, O ye peoples, the word of Apollo— Hear it and tremble, O Greece, in thy youth and the dawn of thy future;
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Rather forget while thou canst, but the gods in their hour shall remind thee. Tremble, nations of Asia, false to the greatness within you. Troy shall surge back on your realms with the sword and the yoke of the victor.
Troy shall triumph! Though nations conspire and the gods lead her foemen, Fate that is born of the spirit is greater than they and will shield her. Foemen shall help her with war, her defeats shall be victory’s moulders. Walls that restrain shall be rent; she shall rise out of sessions unsettled, Oceans shall be her walls at the end and the desert her limit; Indus shall send to her envoys; her eyes shall look northward from Thule. She shall enring all the coasts with her strength like the kingly Poseidon, She shall o’ervault all the lands with her rule like the limitless azure."
Ceasing from speech Laocoon, girt with the shouts of a nation, Lapsed on his seat like one seized and abandoned and weakened; nor ended Only in iron applause, but throughout with a stormy approval Ares broke from the hearts of his people in ominous thunder. Savage and dire was the sound like a wild beast’s tracked out and hunted, Wounded, yet trusting to tear out the entrails live of its hunters, Savage and cruel and threatening doom to the foe and opponent. Yet when the shouting sank at last, Ucalegon rose up Trembling with age and with wrath and in accents hurried and piping Faltered a senile fierceness forth on the maddened assembly. "Ah, it is even so far that you dare, O you children of Priam, Favourites vile of a people sent mad by the gods, and thou risest, Dark Laocoon, prating of heroes and spurning for cowards, Smiting for traitors the aged and wise who were grey when they spawned thee Imp of destruction, mane of mischief! Ah, spur us with courage, Thou who hast never prevailed against even the feeblest Achaian. Rather twice hast thou raced in the rout to the ramparts for shelter, Leading the panic, and shrieked as thou ranst to the foemen for mercy Who were a mile behind thee, O matchless and wonderful racer. Safely counsel to others the pride and the firmness of heroes, Thou who wilt not die in the battle ! For even swiftest Achilles Could not o’ertake thee, I ween, nor wind-footed Penthesilea. Mask of a prophet, heart of a coward, tongue of a trickster, Timeless Ilion thou alone ruinest, helped by the Furies. I, Ucalegon, first will rend off the mask from thee, traitor. For I believe thee suborned by the cynic wiles of Odysseus And thou conspirest to seek this Troy with the greed of the Cretan." Hasting un stayed he pursued like a brook that scolds amid pebbles,
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Voicing angers shrill; for the people astonished were silent; Long he pursued not; a shouting broke from that stupor of fury, Men sprang pale to their feet and hurled out menaces lethal; All that assembly swayed like a forest swept by the storm-wind. Obstinate, straining his age-dimmed eyes, Ucalegon, trembling Worse yet with anger, clamoured feebly back at the people, Whelmed in their roar. Unheard was his voice like a swimmer in surges Lost, yet he spoke. But the anger grew in the throats of the people Lion-voiced, hurting the heart with sound and daunting the nature, Till from some stalwart hand a javelin whistling and vibrant Missing the silvered head of the senator rang disappointed Out on the distant wall of a house by the side of the market. Not even then would the old man hush or yield to the tempest. Wagging his hoary beard and shifting his aged eyeballs, Tossing his hands he stood; but Antenor seized him and Aetor, Dragged him down on his seat though he strove, and chid him and silenced. "Cease, O friend; for the gods have won. It were easier piping High with thy aged treble to alter the rage of the Ocean Than to o’erbear this people stirred by Laocoon. Leave now Effort unhelpful, wrap thy days in a mantle of silence; Give to the gods their will and dry-eyed wait for the ending." So now the old men ceased from their strife with the gods and with Troya; Cowed by the storm of the people’s wrath they desisted from hoping. But though the roar long swelled, like the sea when the winds have subsided, One man yet rose up unafraid and beckoned for silence, Not of the aged, but ripe in his look and ruddy of visage, Stalwart and bluff and short-limbed, Halamus son of Antenor. Forward he stood from the press and the people fell silent and listened, For he was ever first in the mellay and loved by the fighters. He with a smile began: "Come, friends, debate is soon ended If there is right but of lungs and you argue with javelins. Wisdom, Rather pray for her aid in this dangerous hour of your fortunes. Not to scalp Laocoon, too much praising his swiftness, Trojans, I rise; for some are born brave with the spear in the war-car, Others bold with the tongue, nor equal gifts unto all men Zeus has decreed who guides his world in a round that is devious Carried this way and that like a ship that is tossed on the waters. Why should we rail then at one who is lame by the force of Cronion? Not by his will is he lame; he would race, if he could, with the swiftest Yet is the halt man no runner, nor, friends, must you rise up and slay me,
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If I should say of this priest, he is neither Sarpedon nor Hector. Then, if my father whom once you honoured, ancient Antenor, Hugs to him Argive gold which I see not, his son, in his mansion, Me too accusest thou, prophet Laocoon? Friends, you have watched me Sometimes fight; did you see with my house’s allies how I gambolled, Changed, when with sportive spear I was tickling the ribs of my Argives, Nudges of friendly counsel inviting to entry in Troya ? Men, these are visions of lackbrains; men, these are myths of the market. Let us have done with them, brothers and friends; hate only the Hellene. Prophet, I bow to the oracles. Wise are the gods in their silence, Wise when they speak; but their speech is other than ours and their wisdom Hard for a mortal mind to hold and not madden or wander; But for myself I see only the truth as a soldier who battles Judging the strength of his foes and the chances of iron encounter. Few are our armies, many the Greeks, and we waste in the combat Bound to our numbers,—they by the ocean hemmed from their kinsmen, We by our fortunes, waves of the gods that are harder to master, They like a rock that is chipped, but we like a mist that disperses. Then if Achilles, bound by an oath, bring peace to us, healing, Bring to us respite, help, though bought at a price, yet full-measured, Strengths of the North at our side and safety assured from the Achaian For he is true though a Greek, will you shun this mighty advantage ? Peace at the least we shall have, though gold we lose and much glory; Peace we will use for our strength to breathe in, our wounds to recover, Teaching Time to prepare for happier wars in the future. Pause ere you fling from you life; you are mortals, not gods in your glory. Not for submission to new ally or to ancient foeman Peace these desire; for who would exchange wide death for subjection ? Who would submit to a yoke ? Or who shall rule Trojans in Troya ? Swords are there still at our sides, there are warriors’ hearts in our bosoms. Peace your senators welcome, not servitude, breathing they ask for. But if for war you pronounce, if a noble death you have chosen, That I approve. What fitter end for this warlike nation, Knowing that empires at last must sink and perish all cities, Than to preserve to the end posterity’s praise and its greatness Ceasing in clang our of arms and a city’s flames for our death-pyre ? Choose then with open eyes what the dread gods offer to Troya. Hope not now Hector is dead and Sarpedon, Asia inconstant, We but a handful, Troy can prevail over Greece and Achilles. Play not with dreams in this hour, but sternly, like men and not children,
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Choose with a noble and serious greatness fates fit for Troya. Stark we will fight till buried we fall under Ilion’s ruins, Or, unappeased, we will curb our strength for the hope of the future." Not without praise of his friends and assent of the thought fuller Trojans, Halamus spoke and ceased. But now in the Ilian forum Bright, of the sun-god a ray, and even before he had spoken Sending the joy of his brilliance into the hearts of his hearers, Paris arose. Not applauded his rising, but each man towards him Eagerly turned as if feeling that all before which was spoken Were but a prelude and this was the note he has waited for always. Sweet was his voice like a harp’s, when it chants of war, and its cadence Softened with touches of music thoughts that were hard to be suffered, Sweet like a string that is lightly struck, but it penetrates wholly. "Calm with the greatness you hold from your sires by the right of your nature
I too would have you decide before Heaven in the strength of your spirits Not to the past and its memories moored like the thoughts of Antenor Hating the vivid march of the present, nor towards the future Panting through dreams like my brother Laocoon vexed by Apollo. Dead is the past; the void has possessed it; its drama is ended, Finished its music. The future is dim and remote from our knowledge, Silent it lies on the knees of the gods in their1 luminous stillness. But to our gaze God’s light is a darkness, His plan is a chaos. Who shall foretell the event of a battle, the fall of a footstep ? Oracles, visions and prophecies voice but the dreams of the mortal, And ’tis our spirit within is the Pithiness tortured in Delphi. Heavenly voices to us are a silence, those colours a whiteness. Neither the thought of the statesman prevails nor the dream of the prophet, Whether one cry ‘Thus devise and thy heart shall be given its wanting’, Vainly the other ‘The heavens have spoken; hear then their message’. Who can point out the way of the gods and the path of their travel, Who shall impose on them bounds and an orbit ? The winds have their treading,—
They can be followed and seized, not the gods when they move towards their purpose.
They are not bound by our deeds and our thinkings. Sin exalted Seizes secure on the thrones of the world for her glorious portion, Down to the bottomless pit the good man is thrust in his virtue.
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Leave to the gods their godhead and, mortal, turn to thy labour; Take what thou canst from the hour that is thine and be fearless in spirit; This is the greatness of man and the joy of his stay in the sunlight. Now whether over the waste of Poseidon the ships of the Argives Empty and sad shall return or sacred Ilion perish, Priam be slain and for ever cease this imperial nation, These things the gods are strong to conceal from the hopping of mortals. Neither Antenor knows nor Laocoon. Only of one thing Man can be sure, the will in his heart and his strength in his purpose : This too is Fate and this too the gods, nor the meanest in Heaven. Paris keeps what he seized from Time and Fate while unconquered1 Life speeds warm through his veins and his heart is assured of the sunlight. After ’tis cold, none heeds, none hinders. Not for the dead man Earth and her wars and her cares, her joys and her gracious concessions, Whether for ever he sleeps in the chambers of Nature unmindful Or into wideness wakes like a dreamer called from his visions. Ilion in flames I choose, not fallen from the heights of her spirit. Great and free has she lived since they raised her twixt billow and mountain, Great let her end; let her offer her freedom to fire, not the Hellene. She was not founded by mortals; gods erected her ramparts, Lifted her piles to the sky, a seat not for slaves but the mighty. All men marvelled at Troy; by her deeds and her spirit they knew her Even from afar as the lion is known by his roar and his preying. Sole she lived royal and fell, erect in her leonine nature. So, O her children, still let her live un quelled in her purpose Either to stand with her2 feet on the world oppressing the nations Or in her3 ashes to lie and her4 name be forgotten for ever. Justly your voices approve me, arm potent children of Ilus; Straight from Zeus is our race and the Thunderer lives in our nature. Long I have suffered this5 taunt that Paris was Ilion’s ruin Born on a night of the gods and of Ate, clothed in a body. Scornful I strode on my path6 secure of the light in my bosom, Turned from the muttering voices of envy, their hates who are fallen, Voices of hate that cling round the wheels of the triumphing victor; Now if I speak, ’tis the strength in me answers, not to belittle,
1 Paris the Priamid keeps what he seized from Time and Fate while 2,3,4 your 5 Alternative to "suffered this": brooked their 6 way Page-45
That excusing which most I rejoice in and glory for ever, Tyndaris’ rape whom I seized by the will of divine Aphrodite. Mortal this error that Greece would have slumbered apart in her mountains, Sunk, by the trumpets of Fate unaroused and the morning within her, Only were Paris unborn and the world had not gazed upon Helen. Fools, who say that a spark was the cause of this giant destruction ! War would have stridden on Troy though Helen were still in her Sparta Tending an Argive loom, not the glorious prize of the Trojans, Greece would have banded her nations though Paris had drunk not Eurotas, Coast against coast I set not, nor Ilion opposite Argos. Phryx accuse who upreared Troy’s domes by the azure Aegean, Curse Poseidon who fringed with Greece the blue of his Waters : Then was this war first decreed and then Agamemnon was fashioned; Armed he strode forth in the secret Thought that is womb of the future. Fate and Necessity guided these vessels, captained their armies. When they stood mailed at her gates, when they cried in the might of their union, ‘Troy, renounce thy alliances, draw back humbly from Hellas’, Should she have hearkened persuading her strength to a shameful compliance, Ilion queen of the world1 whose voice was the breath of the storm-gods ? Should she have drawn back her foot as it strode towards the hills of the Latins ? Thrace left bare to her foes, recoiled from Illyrian conquests ? If all this without battle were possible, people of Priam, Blame then Paris, say then that Helen was cause of the struggle. But I have sullied the hearth and unsealed the gaze of the Furies, Heaven I have armed with my sin, I have trampled the gift and the guest-rule, So was Troy doomed who righteous had triumphed, locked with the Argive. Fools or hypocrites ! Meanest falsehood is this among mortals, Veils of purity weaving, names misplacing ideal When our desires we disguise and paint the lusts of our nature. Men, ye are men in your pride and your strength, be not sophists and tonguesters. Lie not ! say2 not that nations live by righteousness, justice Shields them, gods out of heaven look down3 on the crimes of the mighty !
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Known have men what screened itself1 mouthing these semblances. Crouching Dire like a beast in the green of the thicket, selfishness silent Crunches the bones of its prey while the priest and the statesman are glozing.
So are the nations soothed and deceived by the clerics of virtue, Taught to reconcile fear of the gods with their lusts and their passions, So with a lie on their lips they march to the rapine and slaughter. Truly the vanquished were guilty ! Else would their cities have perished, Shrieked their ravished virgins, their peasants been hewn in the vineyards ? Truly the victors were tools of the gods and their glorious servants ! Else would the war-cars have ground triumphant their bones whom they hated ? Servants of God are they verily, even as the ape and the tiger. Does not the wild beast too triumph enjoying the flesh of his captives ? Tell us then what was the sin of the antelope, wherefore they doomed her Wroth at her many crimes ? Come, justify God to his creatures ! Not to her sins was she offered, not to the Furies or justice, But to the strength of the lion the high gods offered a victim, Force that is God in the lion’s breast with the forest for altar. What, in the cities stormed and sacked by Achilles in Troas Was there no just man slain ? Was Brises then a transgressor ? Hearts that were pierced in his walls were they sinners tracked by the Furies? No, they were pious and just and their altars burned for Apollo, Reverent flamed up to Pallas who slew them aiding the Argives. Or if the crime of Paris they shared and his doom has embraced them, Whom had the island cities offended, stormed by the Locrian, Wave-kissed homes of peace but given to the sack and the spoiler ? Was then King Atreus just and the house accursed of Pelops, Tantalus’ race, whose deeds men shuddering hear and are silent? Look ! they endure, their pillars are firm, they are regnant and triumph. Or are Thyestean banquets sweet to the gods in their savour ? Only a woman’s heart is pursued in their wrath by the Furies ! No, when the wrestlers meet and embrace in the mighty arena, Not at their sins and their virtues the high gods look in that trial; Which is the strongest, which is the subtlest, this they consider. Nay, there is none in the world to befriend save ourselves and our courage; Prowess alone in the battle is virtue, skill in the fighting
1 Alternative to "screened itself " : thing lies screened Page-47
Only helps, the gods aid only the strong and the valiant. Put forth your lives in the blow, you shall beat back the banded aggressors. Neither believe that for justice denied your subjects have left you Nor that for justice trampled Pallas and Hera abandon. Two are the angels of God whom men worship, strength and enjoyment. Into this life which the sunlight bounds and the greenness has cradled, Armed with strength we have come; as our strength is, so is our joyance. What but for joyance is birth and what but for joyance is living? But on this earth that is narrow, this stage that is crowded, increasing One on another we press. There is hunger for lands and for oxen, Horses and armour and gold required1; possession allures us Adding always as field to field some fortunate farmer. Hearts too and minds are our prey ; we seize on men’s souls and their bodies,
Slaves to our works and desires that our hearts may bask golden in leisure. One on another we prey and one by another are mighty. This is the world and we have not made it ; if it is evil, Blame first the gods ; but for us, we must live by its laws or we perish. Power is divine ; divinest of all is power over mortals. Power then the conqueror seeks and power the imperial nation, Even as luminous, passionless, wonderful, high over all things Sit in their calmness the gods and oppressing our grief-tortured nations Stamp their wills on the world. Nor less in our death-besieged natures Gods are and altitudes. Earth resists, but my soul in me widens Helped by the toil behind and the agelong effort of Nature. Even in the worm is a god and it writhes for a form and an outlet. Workings immortal obscurely struggling, hints of a godhead Labour to form in this clay a divinity. Hera widens, Pallas aspires in me, Phoebus in flames goes battling and singing, Ares and Artemis chase through the fields of my soul in their hunting, Last in some hour of the Fates a Birth stands released and triumphant ; Poured by its deeds over earth it rejoices fulfilled in its splendour. Conscious dimly of births unfinished hid in our being Rest we cannot ; a world cries in us for space and for fullness. Fighting we strive by the spur of the gods who are in us and o’er us, Stamping our image on man and events to be Zeus or be Ares. Love and the need of mastery, joy and the longing for greatness Rage like a fire unquenchable burning the world and creating,
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Nor till humanity dies will they sink in the ashes of Nature. All is injustice of love or all is injustice of battle. Man over woman, woman o’er man, over lover and foeman Wrestling we strive to expand in our souls, to be wide, to be joyous.1 If thou wouldst only be just, then wherefore at all shouldst thou conquer ? Not to be just, but to rule, though with kindness and high-seated mercy, Taking the world for our own and our will from our slaves and our subjects,
Smiting the proud and sparing the suppliant, Trojans, is conquest. Justice was base of thy government ? Vainly, O statesman, thou liest. If thou wert just, thou wouldst free thy slaves and be equal with all men. Such were a dream of some sage at night when he muses in fancy, Imaging freely a flawless world where none were afflicted, No man inferior, all could sublimely equal and brothers Live in a peace divine like the gods in their luminous regions. This, O Antenor, were justice known but in words to us mortals. But for the justice thou vauntest enslaving men to thy purpose, Setting an iron yoke, nor regarding their need and their nature, Then to say T am just ; I slay not save by procedure, Rob not save by law’ is an outrage to Zeus and his creatures. Terms are these feigned by the intellect making a pact with our yearnings, Lures of the sophist within us draping our passions with virtue. When thou art weak, thou art just, when thy subjects are strong and remember. Therefore, O Trojans, be firm in your will and, though all men abandon, Bow not your heads to reproach nor your hearts to the sin of repentance ; For you have done what the gods desired in your breasts and are blameless. Proudly enjoy the earth that they gave you, enthroning their natures, Fight with the Greeks and the world and trample down the rebellious, What you have lost recover, nor yield to the hurricane passing. You cannot utterly die while the Power lives untried in your bosoms ; When ’tis withdrawn, not a moment of life can be added by virtue. Faint not for helpers fled ! Though your yoke had been mild as a father’s They would have gone as swiftly. Strength men desire in their masters ; All men worship success and in failure and weakness abandon. Not for his justice they clung to Teucer, but for their safety, Seeing in Troy a head and by barbarous foemen afflicted. Faint not, O Trojans, cease not from battle, persist in your labour !
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Conquer the Greeks, your allies shall be yours and fresh nations your subjects. One care only lodge in your hearts, how to fight, how to conquer. Peace has smiled out of Pthia ; a hand comes outstretched from the Hellene.
Who would not join with the godlike ? who would not grasp at Achilles ? There is a price for his gifts, it is such as Achilles should ask for, Never this nation concede.1 O Antenor’s golden phrases Glorifying rest to the tired and confuting patience and courage, Garbed with a subtlety lax and the hopes that palliate surrender ! Charmed men applaud the skilful purpose, the dexterous speaker, This they forget that a Force decides, not the wiles of the statesman.2 ‘ Now let us yield’, do you say, ‘we will rise when our masters are weakened’ ?
Nay, then our master’s master shall find us an easy possession ! Easily nations bow to a yoke when their virtue relaxes ; Hard is the breaking fetters once worn, for the virtue has perished. Hope you when custom has shaped men into the mould of a vileness, Hugging their chains when the weak feel easier trampled than rising Or though they groan, yet have heart nor strength for the anguish of effort,
Then to cast down whom, armed and strong, you prevailed not3 opposing? Easy is lapse into uttermost hell, not easy salvation. Or have you dreamed that Achilles will save, this son of the gods and the ocean ?
Naught else can be with the strong and the bold4 save foeman or master. Know you so little the mood of the pursuer ? Think you the lion Only will lick his prey, that his jaws will refrain from the banquet ? Rest from thy bodings, Antenor ! Not all the valour of Troya Perished with Hector, nor with Polydamas vision has left her ; Troy is not eager to slay her soul in a pyre of dishonour. Still she has children left who remember the mood of their mother. Helen none shall take from me living, gold not a drachma Travels from coffers of Priam to Greece. Let another and older
1 endure 2 After this line come two verses which seem to have been rejected in the manuscript : O let us give ourselves bound to the swallowing lust of the Ocean ! Surely ’twill bear up our sloth on its crests to a harbour of Triumph ! 3 Alternatives to "prevailed not" : could hold not, were mastered. 4 mighty Page-50
Pay down his wealth if he will and his daughters serve Menelaus. Rather from Ilion I will go forth with my brothers and kinsmen; Troy I will leave and her shame and live with my heart and my honour Refuged with lions in Ida or build in the highlands a city Or in an isle of the seas or by dark-driven Pontic waters. Dear are the halls of our childhood, dear are the fields of our fathers, Yet to the soul that is free no spot on the earth is an exile. Rather wherever sunlight is bright, flowers bloom and the rivers Flow in their lucid streams to the Ocean, there is our country. So will I live in my soul’s wide freedom, never in Troya Shorn of my will and disgraced in my strength and the mock of my rivals. First had you yielded, shame at least had not stained your surrender. Strength indulges the weak ! But what Hector has fallen refusing, Men! what through ten loud years we denied with the spear for our answer, That what Trojan will ever renounce, though his city should perish ? Once having fought we will fight to the end nor that end shall be evil. Clamour the Argive spears in our walls ? Are the ladders erected ? Far on the plain is their flight, on the farther side of the Xanthus. Where are the deities hostile ? Vainly the eyes of the tremblers See them stalking vast in the ranks of the Greeks and the shoutings Dire of Poseidon they hear and are blind with the aegis of Pallas. Who then sustained so long this Troy, if the gods are against her ? Even the hills could not stand save upheld by their concert immortal. Now not with Tydeus’ son, not now with Odysseus and Ajax Trample the gods in the sound of their chariot-wheels, victory leading: Argos falls red in her heaps to their scythes; they shelter the Trojans; Victory unleashed follows and fawns upon Penthesilea. Ponder no more, O Ilion, city of ancient Priam! Rise, O beloved of the gods, and go forth in thy strength to the battle. Not by the dreams of Laocoon strung to the faith that is febrile, Nor with the trembling vain and the haunted thoughts of Antenor, But with a noble and serious strength and an obstinate valour Suffer the shock of your foes, O nation chosen by Heaven ; Proudly determine on victory, live by disaster unshaken. Either Fate receive like men, nay, like gods, nay, like Trojans." So like an army that streams and that marches, speeding and pausing, Drawing in horn and wing or widened for scouting and forage, Bridging the floods, avoiding the mountains, threading the valleys, Fast with their flashing panoply clad in gold and in iron Moved the array of his thoughts; and throughout delight and approval
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Followed their march, in triumph led but like prisoners willing, Glad and unbound to a land they desire. Triumphant he ended, Lord of opinion, though by the aged frowned on and censured, But to this voice of their thoughts the young men vibrated wholly. Loud like a storm on the ocean mounted the roar of the people. "Cease from debate," men cried, "arise, O thou warlike Aeneas ! Speak for this nation, launch like a spear at the tents of the Hellene, Ilion’s voice of war!" Then up mid a limitless shouting Stern and armed from his seat like a war-god helmed Aeneas Rose by King Priam approved in this last of Ilion’s sessions, Holding the staff of the senate’s authority. "Silence, O commons, Hear and assent or refuse as your right is, masters of Troya, Ancient and sovereign people, act that your kings have determined Sitting in council high, their reply to the strength of Achilles. ‘ Son of the A acids, vain is thy offer; the pride of thy challenge Rather we choose; it is nearer to Dardanus, King of the Hellenes. Neither shall Helen be led back, the Tyndarid, weeping to Argos Nor down the paths of peace revisit her fathers’ Eurotas. Death and the fire may prevail o’er us, never our wills shall surrender Lowering Priam’s heights and darkening Ilion’s splendours. Not of such sires were we born but of kings and of gods, O Larissan. Not with her gold Troy traffics for safety1, but with her spear-points. Stand with thy oath in the war-front, Achilles; call on thy helpers Armed to descend from the calm of Olympian heights to thy succour Hedging thy fame from defeat; for we all desire thee in battle, Mighty to end thee or tame at last by the floods of the Xanthus.’ " So Aeneas resonant spoke, stern, fronted like Ares, And with a voice that conquered the earth and invaded the heavens Loud they approved their doom and fulfilled their impulse immortal. Last Deiphobus rose in their meeting, head of their mellay; "Proudly and well have you answered, O nation beloved of Apollo; Fearless of death they must walk who would live and be mighty for ever. Now, for the sun is hastening up the empyrean azure, Hasten we also. Tasting of food round the call of your captains Meet in your armed companies, chariots and hoplites and archers, Strong be your hearts, let your courage be stern like the sun when it blazes; Fierce will the shock be today ere he sink blood-red in the waters." They with a voice as of Oceans meeting rose from their session,— Filling the streets with her tread Troy strode from her Ilian forum.
1 Alternative to "traffics for safety" : seeks out her foemen. Page-52 |