-32_Two Poems in Quantitative Hexameters – CONTD.htm

Even as here upon earth I knew, in heaven as in Sparta;

I on Elysian fields will enjoy thee as now in the Troad."

Silent a moment she lingered like one who is lured by a music

Rapturous, heard by himself alone and his lover in heaven,

Then in her beauty compelling she rose up divine among women.

"Yes, it is good," she cried, "what the gods do and actions of mortals;

Good is this play of the world; it is good, the joy and the torture.

Praised be the hour of the gods when I wedded bright Menelaus!

Praised, more praised the keels that severed the seas towards Helen

Churning the senseless waves that knew not the bliss of their burden!

Praised to the end the hour when I passed through the doors of my husband

Laughing with joy in my heart for the arms that bore and enchained me!

Never can Death undo what life has done for us, Paris.

Nor, whatsoever betide, can the hour be unlived of our rapture.

This too is good that nations should meet in the shock of the battle,

Heroes be slain and a theme be made for the songs of the poets,

Songs that shall thrill with the name of Helen, the beauty of Paris.

Well is this also that empires should fall for the eyes of a woman;

Well that for Helen Hector ended, Memnon was slaughtered,

Strong Sarpedon fell and Troilus ceased in his boyhood.

Troy for Helen burning, her glory, her empire, her riches,

This is the sign of the gods and the type of things that are mortal.

Thou who art kin to the masters of heaven, unconstrained like thy kindred

High on this ancient stage of the Troad with gods for spectators

Play till the end thy part, O thou wondrous and beautiful actor:

Fight and slay the Greeks, my countrymen; victor returning

Take for reward of the play, thy delight of Argive Helen.

Force from my bosom a hint of the joy denied to the death-claimed,

Rob in the kiss of my lips a pang from the raptures of heaven."

Clasping him wholly her arms of desire were a girdle of madness,

Cestus divine of the dread Aphrodite. He with her kisses

Flushed like the gods with unearthly wine and rejoiced in his ruin.

Thus while they conversed now in this hour that was near to their parting

Last upon earth, a fleet-footed slavegirl came to the chamber:

"Paris, thy father and mother desire thee; there in the strangers’

Outer hall Aeneas and Halamus wait for thy coming."

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Far in Laomedon’s house where Troy looked upwards to Ida.

Priam and Hecuba there, the ancient grey-haired rulers,

Waiting him sat in their chairs of ivory calm in their greatness;

Hid in her robes at their feet lay Cassandra crouched from her visions.

“Since, O my father,” said Paris, “thy thoughts have been with me, thy blessing

Surely shall help me today in my strife with the strength of Achilles.

Surely the gods shall obey in the end the might of our spirits,

Pallas and Hera, flame-sandalled Artemis, Zeus and Apollo.

Ever serve the immortal brightnesses man when he stands up

Firm with his will uplifted a steadfast flame towards the heavens,

Ares works in his heart and Hephaestus burns in his labour.”

Priam replied to his son: “Forewilled by the gods, Alexander,

All things happen on earth and yet we must strive who are mortals,

Knowing all vain, yet we strive; for our nature seizing us always

Drives like the flock that is herded and urged towards shambles or pasture.

So have the high gods fashioned these tools of their action and pleasure;

Failure and grief are their engines no less than the might of the victor;

They in the blow descend and resist in the sobs of the smitten.

Such are their goads that I too must walk in the paths that are common,

Even I who know must send for thee, moved by Cassandra.

Speak, O my child, since Apollo has willed it, once, and be silent.”

But in her raiment hidden Cassandra answered her father:

“No, for my heart has changed since I cried for him, vexed by Apollo.

Why should I speak? For who will believe me in Troy? who believed me

Ever in Troy or the world? Event and disaster approve me

Only, my comrades, not men in their thoughts, not my brothers and kinsmen.

All by their hopes are gladly deceived and grow wroth with the warner,

Half-blind prophets of hope entertained by the gods in the mortal!

Wiser blind, if nothing they saw or only the darkness.

I too once hoped when Apollo pursued me with love in his temple.

Round me already there gleamed the ray of the vision prophetic,

Thrill of that rapture I felt and the joy of the god in his seeing

Nor did I know that the knowledge of mortals is bound unto blindness.

Either only they walk mid the coloured dreams of the senses

Treading the greenness of earth and deeming the touch of things real,

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Or if they see, by the curse of the gods their sight into falsehood

Easily turns and leads them more stumbling astray than the sightless.

So are we either blind in a darkness or dazzled by seeing.

Thus have the gods protected their purpose and baffled the sages;

Over the face of the Truth their shield of gold is extended.

But I deemed otherwise, urged by the Dreadful One, he who sits always

Veiled in us fighting the gods whom he uses. I cried to Apollo,

Give me thy vision sheer, not such as thou giv’st to thy prophets,

Troubled though luminous; clear be the vision and ruthless to error,

Far-darting god who art veiled by the sun and by death thou art shielded.

Then I shall know that thou lovest.’ He gave, alarmed and reluctant,

Driven by Fate and his heart; but I mocked him, I broke from my promise,

Courage fatal helping my heart to its ruin with laughter.

Always now I remember his face that grew tranquil and ruthless,

Hear the voice divine and implacable: Since thou deceivest

Even the gods and thou hast not feared to lie to Apollo,

Speak shalt thou henceforth only truth, but none shall believe thee:

Scorned in thy words, rejected yet more for their bitter fulfilment,

Scourged by the gods thou must speak though thy sick heart yearns to be silent.

For in this play thou hast dared to play with the masters of heaven,

Girl, it is thou who hast lost; thy voice is mine and thy bosom.’

Since then all I foreknow; therefore anguish is mine for my portion:

Since then all whom I love must perish slain by my loving.

Even of that I denied him, violent force shall bereave me

Grasped mid the flames of my city and shouts of her merciless victors.”

But to Cassandra answered gently the voice of her brother:

“Sister of mine, afflicted and seized by the dreadful Apollo,

All whose eyes can pierce that curtain, gaze into dimness;

This they have glimpsed and that they imagine deceived by their natures

Seeing the forms in their hearts of dreadful things and of joyous;

As in the darkness our eyes are deceived by shadows uncertain,

Such is their sight who rend the veil that the dire gods have woven.

Busy our hearts are weaving thoughts and images always:

After their kind they see what here we call truth. So thy nature

Tender and loving, plagued by this war and its fears for thy loved ones,

Sees calamity everywhere; when the event like the vision

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Then the heart cries, It has happened as all shall happen I mourn for.’

All that was bright it misses and only seizes on sorrow.

Dear, on the brightness look and if thou must prophesy, tell us

Rather of great Pelides slain by my spear in the onset.”

But with a voice of grief the sister answered her brother:

“Yes, he shall fall and his slayer too perish and Troy with his slayer.”

But in his spirit rejoicing Paris answered Cassandra:

“Let but this word come true; for the rest, the gods shall avert it.

Look once more, O Cassandra, and comfort the heart of thy mother,

See, O seer, my safe return with the spoils of Achilles.”

And with a voice of grief the sister answered her brother:

“Thou shalt return for thy hour while Troy yet stands in the sunshine.”

But in his spirit exultant Paris seizing the omen:

“Hearst thou, my father, my mother? She who still prophesied evil

Now perceives of our night this dawning. Yet is it grievous,

Since through a heart that we love must be pierced the heart of Achilles.

Fate, with this evil satisfied, turn in the end from Troya.

Bless me, my father, and thou, O Hecuba, mother long-patient,

Still forgive that thy children have fallen for Helen and Paris.”

Tenderly yearning his mother drew him towards her and murmured:

“All for thy hyacinth curls was forgiven even from childhood

And for thy sunlit looks, O wonder of charm, O Paris.

Paris, my son, though Troy must fall, thy mother forgives thee,

Blessing the gods who have lent thee to me for a while in their sunshine.

Theirs are fate and result, but ours is the joy of our children;

Even the griefs are dear that come from their hands while they love us.

Fight and slay Achilles, the murderer dire of thy brothers;

Venging Hector return, my son, to the clasp of thy mother.”

But in his calm august to Paris Priam the monarch:

“Victor so mightst thou come, so gladden the heart of thy mother.”

Then to the aged father of Paris Helen the Argive

Bright and immortal and sad like a star that grows near to the dawning

And on its pale companions looks who now fade from its vision:

“Me too pardon and love, my parents, even Helen,

Cause of all bane and all death; but I came from the gods for this ruin

Born as a torch for the burning of empires, cursed with this beauty.

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Nor have I known a father’s embrace, a mother’s caresses,

But to the distant gods I was born and nursed as an alien

Here by earth from fear, not affection, compelled by the thunders.

Two are her monstrous births, from the Furies and from the immortals;

Either touching mortality suffers and bears not the contact.

I have been both, a monster of doom and a portent of beauty.”

Slowly Priam the monarch answered to Argive Helen:

“That which thou art the gods have made thee; thou couldst not be other:

That which thou didst, the gods have done; thou couldst not prevent them.

Who here shall blame or whom shall he pardon? Should not my people

Rail at me murmuring, Priam has lost what his fathers had gathered;

Cursed is this king by heaven and cursed who are born as his subjects’?

Masked the high gods act; the doer is hid by his working.

Each of us bears his punishment, fruit of a seed that’s forgotten;

Each of us curses his neighbour protecting his heart with illusions:

Therefore like children we blame each other and hate and are angry.

Take, my child, the joy of the sunshine won by thy beauty.

I who lodge on this earth as an alien bound by the body,

Wearing my sorrow even as I wear the imperial purple,

Praise yet the gods for my days that have seen thee at last in my ending.

Fitly Troy may cease having gazed on thy beauty, O Helen.”

He became silent, he ceased from words. But Paris and Helen

Lightly went and gladly; pursuing their footsteps the mother,

Mother once of Troilus, mother once of Hector,

Stood at the door with her death in her eyes, nor returned from her yearning,

But as one after a vanishing sunbeam gazes in prison,

Gazed down the corridors after him, long who had passed from her vision.

Then in the silent chamber Cassandra seized by Apollo

Staggered erect and tossing her snow-white arms of affliction

Cried to the heavens in her pain; for the fierce god tortured her bosom:

“Woe is me, woe for the guile and the bitter gift of Apollo!

Woe, thrice woe, for my birth in Troy and the lineage of Teucer!

So do you deal, O gods, with those who have served you and laboured,

Those who have borne for your sake the evil burden of greatness.

Blessed is he who holds mattock in hand or who bends o’er the furrow

Taking no thought for the good of mankind, with no yearnings for knowledge.

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Woe unto thee, O King, for thy strength which shall not deliver!

Better the eye that is sealed, more blest is the spirit that’s feeble.

Vainly your hopes with iron Necessity struggle, O mortals.

Virtue shall lie in her pangs, for the gods have need of her torture;

Sin shall be scourged, though her deeds were compelled by the gods in their anger.

None shall avail in the end, the coward shall die and the hero.

Troy shall fall in her sin and her virtues shall not protect her;

Argos shall grow by her crimes till the gods shall destroy her for ever.

Now have I fruit of thy love, O Loxias, dreadful Apollo.

Woe is me, woe for the flame that approaches the house of my fathers!

Woe is me, woe for the hand of Ajax laid on my tresses!

Woe, thrice woe to him who shall ravish and him who shall cherish!

Woe for the ships that shall bound too swift o’er the azure Aegean!

Woe for thy splendid shambles of hell, O Argive Mycenae!

Woe for the evil spouse and the house accursed of Atreus!”

So with her voice of the swan she clanged out doom on the peoples,

Over the palace of Priam and over the armed nation

Marching resolved to the war in the pride of its centuries conquered,

Centuries slain by a single day of the anger of heaven.

Dim to the thoughts like a vision of Hades the luminous chamber

Grew; in his ivory chair King Priam sat like a shadow

Throned mid the ghosts of departed kings and forgotten empires.

But in his valiance careless and blithe the Priamid hastened

Seeking the pillared megaron wide where Deiphobus armoured

Waited his coming forth with the warlike chiefs of the Trojans.

Now as he passed by the halls of the women, the chambers that harboured

Daughters and wives of King Priam and wives of his sons and their playmates,

Niches of joy that were peopled with murmurs and sweet-tongued laughters,

Troubled like trees with their birds in a morning of sun and of shadow

Where in some garden of kings one walks with his heart in the sunshine,

Out from her door where she stood for him waiting Polyxena started,

Seized his hand and looked in his face and spoke to her brother.

Then not even the brilliant strength of Paris availed him;

Joyless he turned his face from her eyes of beauty and sorrow.

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“So it is come, the hour that I feared, and thou goest, O Paris,

Armed with the strength of Fate to strike at my heart in the battle;

For he is doomed and thou and I, a victim to Hades.

This thou preferrest and neither thy father could move nor thy mother

Burning with Troy in their palace, nor could thy country persuade thee,

Nor dost thou care for thy sister’s happiness pierced by thy arrows.

Will she remember it all, my sister Helen, in Argos

Passing tranquil days with her husband, bright Menelaus,

Holding her child on her knees? But we shall lie joyless in Hades.”

Paris replied: “O sister Polyxena, blame me not wholly.

We by the gods are ensnared; for the pitiless white Aphrodite

Doing her will with us both compels this. Helpless our hearts are

And when she drives perforce must love, for death or for gladness:

Weighed in unequal scales she deals them to one or another.

Happy who holding his love can go down into bottomless Hades.”

But to her brother replied in her anguish the daughter of Priam:

“Evilly deal with my days the immortals happy in heaven;

Yes, I accuse the gods and I curse them who heed not our sorrow.

This they have done with me, forcing my heart to the love of a foeman,

One whose terrible hands have been stained with the blood of my brothers.

This now they do, they have taken the two whom I love beyond heaven,

Brother and husband, and drive to the fight to be slain by each other.

Nay, go thou forth; for thou canst not help it, nor I, nor can Helen.

Since I must die as a pageant to satisfy Zeus and his daughter,

Since now my heart must be borne as a victim bleeding to please them,

So let it be, let me deck myself and be bright for the altar.”

Into her chamber she turned with her great eyes blind, unregarding;

He for a moment stood, then passed to the megaron slowly;

Dim was the light in his eyes and clouded his glorious beauty.

Meanwhile armed in the palace of Priam Penthesilea.

Near her her captains silent and mighty stood, from the Orient

Distant clouds of war, Surabdas and iron Surenas,

Pharatus planned like the hills, Somaranes, Valarus, Tauron,

High-crested Sumalus, Arithon, Sambus and Artavoruxes.

There too the princes of Phrygian Troya gathered for counsel

And with them Eurus came, Polydamas’ son, who most dearly

Loved was of all the Trojan boys by the glorious virgin.

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“Eurus, forgotten of grace, dost thou gad like a stray in the city

Eager to mix with the armoured men and the chariots gliding?

High on the roofs wouldst thou watch the swaying speck that is battle?

Better to aim with the dart or seek with thy kind the palaestra;

So wilt thou sooner be part of this greatness rather than straining

Yearn from afar to the distance that veils the deeds of the mighty.”

But with an anxious lure in his smile on her Eurus answered:

“Not that remoteness to see have I come to the palace of Priam

Leaving the house of my fathers, but for the spear and the breastpiece.

Hast thou not promised me long I shall fight in thy car with Achilles?”

Doubtful he eyed her, a lion’s cub at play in his beauty,

And mid the heroes who heard him laughter arose for a moment,

Yet with a sympathy stirred; they remembered the days of their childhood,

Thought of Troy still mighty, life in its rose-touched dawning

When they had longed for the clash of the fight and the burden of armour.

Glad, with the pride of the lioness watching her cub in the desert,  —

Couchant she lies with her paws before her and joys in his gambols,

Over the prey as he frisks and is careless,  —  answered the virgin:

“Younger than thou in my nation have mounted the steed and the war-car.

Eurus, arm; from under my shield thou shalt gaze at the Phthian,

Reaching my shafts for the cast from the rim of my car in the battle

Handle perhaps the spear that shall smite down the Phthian Achilles.

What sayst thou, Halamus? Were not such prowess a perfect beginning

Worthy Polydamas’ son and the warlike house of Antenor?”

Halamus started and smiting his hand on the grief of his bosom,

Sombre replied and threatened with Fate the high-hearted virgin.

“Virgin armipotent, wherefore mockst thou thy friend, though unwitting?

Nay,  —  for the world will know at the end and my death cannot hide it,  —

Slain by a father’s curse we fight who are kin to Antenor.

Take not the boy in thy car, lest the Furies, Penthesilea,

Aim through the shield and the shielder to wreak the curse of the grandsire.

They will not turn nor repent for thy strength nor his delicate beauty.”

Swiftly to Halamus answered the high-crested might of the virgin:

“Curses leave lightly the lips when the soul of a man is in anger

Even as blessings easily crowd round the head that is cherished.

Yet have I never seen that a curse has sharpened a spear-point;

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Never Death drew back from the doomed by the power of a blessing.

Valour and skill and chance are Fate and the gods and the Furies.

Give me the boy; a hero shall come back formed from the onset.”

“Do as thou wilt,” replied Halamus; “Fate shall guard or shall end him.”

Then to the boy delighted and smiling-eyed and exultant

Cried with her voice like the call of heaven’s bugles waking the heroes,

Blown by the lips of gold-haired Valkyries, Penthesilea.

“Go, find the spear, gird the sword, don the cuirass, child of the mighty.

Armed when thou standst on the plain of the Xanthus, field of thy fathers,

See that thou fight on this day like the comrade of Penthesilea.

Bud of a hero, gaze unalarmed in the eyes of Achilles.”

Light as a hound released he ran to the hall of the armour

Where were the shields of the mighty, the arms of the mansion of Teucer;

There from the house-thralls he wrung the greaves and the cuirass and helmet

Troilus wore, the wonderful boy who, ere ripened his prowess,

Conquered the Greeks and drove to the ships and fought with Achilles.

These on his boyish limbs he donned and ran back exulting

Bearing spears and a sword and rejoiced in the clank on his armour.

Meanwhile Deiphobus, head of the mellay, moved by Aeneas

Opened the doors of their warlike debate to the strength of the virgin:

“Well do I hope that our courage outwearying every opponent

Triumph shall lift to her ancient seat on the Pergaman turrets;

Clouds from Zeus come and pass; his sunshine eternal survives them.

Yet we are few in the fight and armoured nations besiege us.

Surging on Troy today a numberless foe well-captained

Hardly pushed back in shock after shock with the Myrmidon numbers

Swelled returns; they fight with a hope that broken refashion

Helpful skies and a man now leads them who conquers and slaughters,

One of the sons of the gods and armed by the gods for the struggle.

We unhelped save by Ares stern and the mystic Apollo

And but as mortals striving with stubborn mortal courage,

Hated and scorned and alone in the world, by the nations rejected,

Fight with the gods and mankind and Achilles and numbers against us

Keeping our country from death in this bitter hour of her fortunes.

Therefore have prudence and hardihood severed contending our counsels

Whether far out to fight on the seaward plain with the Argives

Or behind Xanthus the river impetuous friendly to Troya.

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Prudent masters of war who prepare by defence their aggression.

But for myself from rashness I seek a more far-seeing wisdom,

Not behind vain defences choosing a tardy destruction,

Rather as Zeus with his spear of the lightning and chariot of tempest

Scatters and chases the heavy mass of the clouds through the heavens,

So would I hunt the Greeks through the plains to their lair by the Ocean,

Straight at the throat of my foeman so would I leap in the battle.

Swiftly to smite at the foe is prudence for armies outnumbered.”

Then to the Dardanid answered the high-crested Penthesilea:

“There where I find my foe I will fight him, whether by Xanthus

Or at the fosse of the ships where they crouch behind bulwarks for shelter,

Or if they dare by Scamander the higher marching on Troya.”

Sternly approved her the Trojan, “So should they fight who would triumph

Meeting the foe ere he move in his will to the clash of encounter.”

But with his careless laughter the brilliant Priamid Paris:

“Joy of the battle, joy of the tempest, joy of the gamble

Mated are in thy blood, O virgin, daughter of Ares.

Thou like the deathless wouldst have us combat, us who are human?

Come, let the gods do their will with us, Ares let lead and his daughter!

Always the blood is wiser and knows what is hid from the thinker.

Life and treasure and fame to cast on the wings of a moment,

Fiercer joy than this the gods have not given to mortals.”

Highly to Paris the virgin armipotent Penthesilea,

“Paris and Halamus, shafts of the war-god, fear not for Troya.

Not as a vaunt do I speak it, you gods who stern-thoughted watch us,

But in my vision of strength and the soul that is seated within me,

Not while I live and war shall the host of the Myrmidon fighters

Forcing the currents lave, as once they were wont, in Scamander

Vaunting their victor car-wheels red with the blood of the vanquished.

Then when I lie by some war-god slain on the fields of the Troad,

Fight again if you will behind high-banked fast-flowing Xanthus.”

Halamus answered her, “Never so by my will would I battle

Flinging Troy as a stake on the doubtful diceboard of Ares.

But you have willed it and so let it be; yet hearken my counsel.

Massed in the fight let us aim the storm of our spears at one greatness,

Mighty Pelides’ head who gives victory still to the Argives.

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Easy the Greeks to destroy lay Achilles once slain on the Troad,

But if the Peleid lives the fire shall yet finish with Troya.

Join then Orestes’ speed to the stubborn might of Aeneas,

Paris’ fatal shafts and the missiles of Penthesilea.

Others meanwhile, a puissant screen of our bravest and strongest,

Fighting shall hold back Pylos and Argolis, Crete and the Locrian.

Thou, Deiphobus, front the bronze-clad stern Diomedes,

I with Polydamas’ spear will dare to restrain and discourage

Ajax’ feet though they yearn for pursuit and are hungry for swiftness.

Knot of retreat behind let some strong experienced captain

Stand with our younger levies guarding the fords of the Xanthus,

Fortify the wavering line and dawn as fresh strength on the wearied.

Then if the fierce gods prevail we shall perish not driven like cattle

Over the plains, but draw back sternly and slowly to Troya.”

Answered the Priamid, “Wise is thy counsel, branch of Antenor.

Chaff are the southern Achaians, only the hardihood Hellene,

Only the savage speed of the Locrian rescues their legions.

Marshal we so this field. Stand, Halamus, covering Xanthus,

Helping our need when the foe press hard on the Ilian fighters.

Paris, my brother, thou with our masses aid the Eoan.

I with Aeneas’ single spear am enough for the Argive.”

“Gladlier” Halamus cried “would I fight in the front with the Locrian!

This too let be as you will; for one is the glory and service

Fighting in front or guarding behind the fate of our country.”

So in their thoughts they ordered battle. Meanwhile Eurus

Gleaming returned and the room grew glad with the light of his armour.

Glad were its conscious walls of that vision of boyhood and valour;

Gods of the household sighed and smiled at his courage and beauty,

They who had seen so many pass over their floors and return not

Hasting to battle, the fair and the mighty, the curled and the grizzled,

All of them treading one path like the conscious masks of one pageant

Winding past through the glare of a light to the shadows beyond them.

But on her captains proudly smiling Penthesilea

Seized him and cried aloud, her wild and warlike nature

Moved by the mother’s heart that the woman loses not ever.

“Who then shall fear for the fate of Troy when such are her children?

Verily, Eurus, yearning has seized me to meet thee in battle

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There acquiring a deathless fame I would make thee my captive,

Greedy and glad who feel as a lioness eyeing her booty.

Nay, I can never leave thee behind, my delicate Trojan,

But, when this war ends, will bear thee away to the hills of my country

And, as a robber might, with my captive glad and unwilling

Bring thee a perfect gift to my sisters Ditis and Anna.

Eurus, there in my land thou shalt look on such hills as thy vision

Gazed not on yet, with their craggy tops besieging Cronion,

Sheeted in virgin white and chilling his feet with their vastness.

Thou shalt rejoice in our wooded peaks and our fruit-bearing valleys,

Lakes of Elysium dreaming and wide and rivers of wonder.

All day long thou shalt glide between mystic woodlands in silence

Broken only by call of the birds and the plashing of waters.

There shalt thou see, O Eurus, the childhood of Penthesilea.

Thou shalt repose in my father’s house and walk in the gardens

Green where I played at the ball with my sisters, Ditis and Anna.”

Musing she ceased, but if any god had touched her with prescience

Bidding her think for the last time now of the haunts of her childhood,

Gaze in her soul with a parting love at the thought of her sisters

And of the lovely and distant land where she played through her summers,

Brief was the touch; for she changed at once and only of triumph

Dreamed and only yearned in her heart for the shock of Achilles.

So they passed from the halls of Priam fated and lofty,

Halls where the air seemed sobbing yet with the cry of Cassandra;

Clad in their brilliant armour, bright in their beauty and courage,

Sons of the passing demigods, they to their latest battle

Down the ancestral hill of the Pergamans moved to the gateway.

Loud with an endless march, with a tireless gliding to meet them,

All Troy streamed from her streets and her palaces armed for the combat.

Then to the voice of Deiphobus clanging high o’er the rumour

Wide the portals swung that shall close on a blood-red evening,

Slow, foreboding, reluctant, and through the yawn of the gateway

Drove with a cry her steeds the virgin Penthesilea

Calling aloud, “O steeds of my east, we drive to Achilles.”

Blithe in the car behind her Eurus scouted around him

Scared with his eyes lest Antenor his grandsire should rise in the gateway,

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Hardly believing his fate that led him safe through the portals.

After her trampled and crashed the ranks of her orient fighters.

Paris next with his hosts came brilliant, gold on his armour,

Gold on his helm; a mighty bow hung slack on his shoulder,

Propped o’er his arm a spear, as he drove his car through the gateway.

Next Deiphobus drove and the hero strong Aeneas,

Leading their numbers on. Behind them Dus and Polites,

Helenus, Priam’s son, Thrasymachus, grizzled Aretes,

Came like the tempest his father, Adamas, son of the Northwind  —

Orus old in the fight and Eumachus, kin to Aeneas,

¨

Who was Creüsa’s brother and richest of men in the Troad

After Antenor only and Priam, Ilion’s monarch.

Halamus drove and Arintheus led on his Lycian levies.

Who were the last to speed out of Troya of all those legions

Doomed to the sword? for never again from the ancient city

Foot would march or chariots crash in their pride to the Xanthus.

Aetor the old and Tryas the conqueror known by the Oxus.

They in the portals met and their ancient eyes on each other

Looked amazed, admiring on age the harness of battle.

They in the turreted head of the gateway halted and conversed.

“Twenty years have passed, O Tryas, chief of the Trojans,

Since in the battle thy car was seen and the arm of thy prowess

Age has wronged. Why now to the crowded ways of the battle

Move once more thy body infirm and thy eyes that are faded?”

And to Antenor’s brother the Teucrian, “Thou too, O Aetor,

Old and weary hast sat in thy halls and desisted from battle.

Now in Troy’s portals I meet thee driving forth to the mellay.”

Aetor answered, “Which then is better, to wretchedly perish

Crushed by the stones of my falling house or slain like a victim

Dragged through the blood of my kin on the sacred hearth of my fathers,

Or in the battle to cease mid the war-cry and hymn of the chariots

Knowing that Troy yet stands in her pride though doomed in her morrows?

So have the young men willed and the old like thee who age not,

Old are thy limbs, but thy heart is still young and hot for the war-din.”

Tryas replied, “To perish is better for man or for nation

Nobly in battle, nor end disgraced by disease or subjection.

So have I come here to offer this shoulder Laomedon leaned on,

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Famous in Priam’s wars, and a heart that is faithful to Troya.

These I will offer to death on his splendid altar of battle,

Tribute from Ilion. If she must fall, I shall see not her ending.”

Aetor replied to Tryas, “Then let us perish together,

Joined by the love of our race who in life were divided in counsel.

All things embrace in death and the strife and the hatred are ended.”

Silent together they drove for the last time through Ilion’s portals

Out with the rest to the fight towards the sea and the spears of the Argives.

Only once, as they drove, they gazed back silent on Troya

Lifting her marble pride in the golden joy of the morning.

So through the ripening morn the army, crossing Scamander,

Filling the heavens with the dust and the war-cry, marched on the Argives.

Far in front Troy’s plain spread wide to the echoing Ocean.

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