Smiting the vision with harmony, splendid and mighty and golden,

Ilion stood up around him entrenched in her giant defenses.

Strength was uplifted on strength and grandeur supported by grandeur;

Beauty lay in her lap. Remote, hieratic and changeless,

Filled with her deeds and her dreams her gods looked out on the Argive,

Helpless and dumb with his hate as he gazed on her, they too like mortals

Knowing their centuries past, not knowing the morrow before them.

Dire were his eyes upon Troya the beautiful, his face like a doom-mask :

All Greece gazed in them, hated, admired, grew afraid, grew relentless.

But to the Greek Deiphobus cried and he turned from his passion

Fixing his ominous eyes with the god in them straight on the Trojan :

"Messenger, voice of Achaia, wherefore confronting the daybreak

Comest thou driving thy car from the sleep of the tents that besiege us ?

Fateful, I deem, was the thought that, conceived in the silence of midnight,

Raised up thy aged limbs from the couch of their rest in the stillness,—

Thoughts of a mortal but forged by the Will that uses our members

And of its promptings our speech and our acts are the tools and the image.

Oft from the veil and the shadow they leap out like stars in their brightness,

Lights that we think our own, yet they are but tokens and counters,

Signs of the Forces that flow through us serving a Power that is secret.

What in the dawning bringst thou to Troya the mighty and dateless

Now in the ending of Time, when the gods are weary of struggle ?

Sends Agamemnon challenge or courtesy, Greek, to the Trojans ?"

High like the north wind answered the voice of the doom from Achaia :

"Trojan Deiphobus, daybreak, silence of night and the evening

Sink and arise and even the strong sun rests from his splendour.

Not for the servant is rest nor Time is his, only his death-pyre.

I have not come from the monarch of men or the armoured assembly

Held on the wind-swept marge of the thunder and laughter of ocean.

One in his singleness greater than kings and multitudes sends me.

I am a voice out of Phthia, I am the will of the Hellene.

Peace in my right I bring to you, death in my left hand. Trojan,

Proudly receive them, honour the gifts of the mighty Achilles.

Death accept, if Ate deceives you and Doom is your lover,

Peace if your fate can turn and the god in you chooses to hearken.

Full is my heart and my lips are impatient of speech undelivered.

It was not made for the streets or the market, nor to be uttered

Meanly to common ears, but where counsel and majesty harbour

Far from the crowd in the halls of the great and to wisdom and foresight

Secrecy whispers, there I will speak among Ilion's princes."

Page-7

"Envoy," answered the Laomedontian, "voice of Achilles,
Vain is the offer of peace that sets out with a threat for its prelude.
Yet will we hear thee. Arise who are fleetest of foot in the gateway,-

Thou, Thrasymachus, haste. Let the domes of the mansion of Ilus
Wake to the bruit of the Hellene challenge. Summon AEneas."
Even as the word sank back into stillness, doffing his mantle
Started to run at the bidding a swift-footed youth of the Trojans
First in the race and the battle, Thrasymachus son of Aretcs.
He in the dawn disappeared into swiftness. Deiphobus slowly,
Measuring Fate with his thoughts in the troubled vasts of his spirit,
Back through the stir of the city returned to the house of his fathers,
Taming his mighty stride to the pace infirm of the Argive.

But with the god in his feet Thrasymachus rapidly running
Came to the halls in the youth of the wonderful city by Ilus
Built for the joy of the eye; for he rested from war and, triumphant,
Reigned adored by the prostrate nations. Now when all ended,
Last of its mortal possessors to walk in its flowering gardens,
Great Anchises lay in that luminous house of the ancients
Soothing his restful age, the far-warring victor Anchises,
High Bucoleon's son and the father of Rome by a goddess;
Lonely and vagrant once in his boyhood divine upon Ida
White Aphrodite ensnared him and she loosed her ambrosial girdle
Seeking a mortal's love. On the threshold Thrasymachus halted
Looking for servant or guard, but felt only a loneness of slumber
Drawing the soul's sight within away from its life and things human;
Soundless, unheeding, the vacant corridors fled into darkness.
He to the shades of the house and the dreams of the echoing rafters
Trusted his high-voiced call, and from chambers still dim in their twilight
Strong AEneas armoured and mantled, leonine striding,
Came, Anchises' son ; for the dawn had not found him reposing,
But in the night he had left his couch and the clasp of Creüsa,
Rising from sleep at the call of his spirit that turned to the waters
Prompted by Fate and his mother who guided him, white Aphrodite.
Still with the impulse of speed Thrasymachus greeted AEneas :
" Hero AEneas, swift be thy stride to the Ilian hill-top.
Dardanid, haste ! for the gods are at work ; they have risen with the morning,
Each from his starry couch, and they labour. Doom, we can see it,
Glows on their anvils of destiny, clang we can hear of their hammers.
Something they forge there sitting unknown in the silence eternal.

Page-8

Whether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are masters
Calm, unopposed ; they are gods and they work out their iron caprices.
Troy is their stage and Argos their background ; we are their puppets.
Always our voices are prompted to speech for an end that we know not,
Always we think that we drive, but are driven. Action and impulse,
Yearning and thought are their engines, our will is their shadow and helper.

Now too, deeming he comes with a purpose framed by a mortal,
Shaft of their will they have shot from the bow of the Grecian leaguer,
Lashing themselves at his steeds, Talthybius sent by Achilles."
"Busy the gods arc always, Thrasymachus son of Aretes,
Weaving Fate on their looms, and yesterday, now and tomorrow
Are but the stands they have made with Space and Time for their timber,
Frame but the dance of their shuttle. What eye unamazed by their workings

Ever can pierce where they dwell and uncover their far-stretching purpose ?

Silent they toil, they are hid in the clouds, they are wrapped with the midnight.

Yet to Apollo, I pray, the Archer friendly to mortals,
Yet to the rider on Fate I abase myself, wielder of thunder,
Evil and doom to avert from my fatherland. All night Morpheus,
He who with shadowy hands heaps error and truth upon mortals,
Stood at my pillow with images. Dreaming I erred like a phantom
Helpless in Ilion's streets with the fire and the foeman around me.
Red was the smoke as it mounted triumphant the house-top of Priam,
Clang of the arms of the Greeks was in Troya, and thwarting the clang our
Voices were crying and calling me over the violent Ocean
Borne by the winds of the West from a land where Hesperus harbours."
Brood ing they ceased, for their thoughts grew heavy upon them and voiceless.

Then, in a farewell brief and un thought and unconscious of meaning,
Parting they turned to their tasks and their lives now close but soon severed

Destined to perish even before his perishing nation,
Back to his watch at the gate sped Thrasymachus rapidly running ;
Large of pace and swift, but with eyes absorbed and unseeing,
Driven like a car of the gods by the whip of his thoughts through the highways,

Turned to his mighty future the hero born of a goddess.
One was he chosen to ascend into greatness through fall and disaster,

Page-9

Loser of his world by the will of a heaven that seemed ruthless and adverse.
Founder of a newer and greater world by daring adventure.
Now, from the citadel's rise with the townships crowding below it
High towards a pondering of domes and the mystic Palladium climbing,
Fronted with the morning ray and joined by the winds of the ocean,
Fate-weighed up Troy's slope strode musing strong AEneas.
Under him silent the slumbering roofs of the city of Ilus
Dreamed in the light of the dawn; above watched the citadel. sleepless
Lonely and strong like a goddess white-limbed and bright on a hill-top.
Looking far out at the sea and the foe and the prowling of danger.
Over the brow he mounted and saw the palace of Priam.
Home of the gods of the earth, Laomedon's marvellous vision
Held in the thought that accustomed his will to unearthly achievement
And in the blaze of his spirit compelling heaven with its greatness.
Dreamed by the harp of Apollo, a melody caught into marble.

Out of his mind it arose like an epic canto by canto ;

Each of its halls was a strophe, its chambers lines of an epode,
Victor chant of Ilion's destiny. Absent he entered,
Voiceless with thought. the brilliant megaron crowded with paintings,
Paved with a splendour of marble. and saw Deiphobus seated.
Son of the ancient house by the opulent hearth of his fathers.
And at his side like a shadow the grey and ominous Argive.
Happy of light like a lustrous star when it welcomes the morning,
Brilliant, beautiful, glamoured with gold and a fillet of gem-fire,
Paris, plucked from the song and the lyre by the Grecian challenge,
Came with the joy in his face and his eyes that Fate could not alter.
Ever a child of the dawn at play near a turn of the sun-roads,
Facing destiny's look with the careless laugh of a comrade,
He with his vision of delight and beauty brightening the earth-field
Passed through its peril and grief on his way to the ambiguous Shadow.
Last from her chamber of sleep where she lay in the Ilian mansion
Far in the heart of the house with the deep-bosomed daughters of Priam.
Noble and tall and erect in a nimbus of youth and of glory.
Claiming the world and life as a fief of her strength and her courage.
Dawned through a doorway that opened to distant murmurs and laughter.
Capturing the eye like a smile or a sunbeam, Penthesilea,
She from the threshold cried to the herald, crossing the marble.
Regal and fleet, with her voice that was mighty and dire in its sweetness.
"What with such speed has impelled from the wind-haunted beaches of Troas,

Page-10

Herald, thy car while! the sun yet hesitates under the mountains ?
Comest thou humbler to Troy, Talthybius, now than thou camest
Once when the streams of my East sang low to my ear, not this Ocean
Loud, and I roamed in my mountains uncalled by the voice of Apollo?
Bringest thou dulcet-eyed peace or, sweeter to Penthesilea,
Challenge of war when the spears fall thick on the shields of the fighters,
Lightly the wheels leap onward chanting the anthem of Ares,
Death is at work in his fields and the heart is enamoured of danger?
What says Odysseus, the baffled Ithacan ? what Agamemnon ?
Are they then weary of war who were rapid and bold and triumphant,
Now that their gods are reluctant, now victory darts not from heaven
Down from the clouds above Ida directing the luminous legions
Armed by Fate, now Pallas forgets, now Poseidon slumbers ?
Bronze were their throats to the battle like bugles blaring in chorus
Mercy they knew not, but shouted and ravened and ran to the slaughter
Eager as hounds when they chase, till a woman met them and stayed them,
Loud my war-shout rang by Scamander. Herald of Argos,
What say the vaunters of Greece to the virgin Penthesilea ?"
High was the Argive's answer confronting the mighty in Troya,

"Princes of Pergama, whelps of the lion who roar for the mellay,
Suffer my speech! It shall ring like a spear on the hearts of the mighty.
Blame not the herald ; his voice is an impulse, an echo, a channel
Now for the timbrels of peace and now for the drums of the battle.
And I have come from no cautious strength, from no half-hearted speaker,
But from the Pthian. All know him ! Proud is his soul as his fortunes,
Swift as his sword and his spear are the speech and the wrath from his bosom.
I am his envoy, herald am I of the conquering Argives.
Has not one heard in the night when the breezes whisper and shudder,
Dire, the voice of a lion unsatisfied, gnawed by his hunger,
Seeking his prey from the gods? For he prowls through the glens of the mountains,

Errs a dangerous gleam in the woodlands, fatal and silent.

So for a while he endures, for a while he seeks and he suffers

Patient yet in his terrible grace as assured of his banquet ;

But he has lacked too long and he lifts his head and to heaven

Roars in his wonder incensed, impatiently.

Startled the valleys Shrink from the dreadful alarum, the cattle gallop to shelter.

Arming the herdsmen cry to each other for comfort and courage."

¹ though

Page-11

So Talthybius spoke, as a harper voicing his prelude
Touches his strings to a varied music, seeks for a concord
Long his strain h e prepares. But one broke in on the speaker,-
Sweet was his voice like a harp's though heard in the front of the onset, One
of the sons of Fate by the people loved whom he ruined,
Leader in counsel and battle, the Priamid, he in his beauty
Carelessly walking who scattered the seeds of Titanic disaster.
"Surely thou dreamedst at night and awaking thy dreams have not left thee!

Hast thou not woven thy words to intimidate children in Argos

Sitting alarmed in the shadows who listen pale to their nurses ?

Greek, thou art standing in Ilion now and thou speak'st to¹ princes.

Use not thy words but thy king's. If friendship their honey-breathed burden,

Friendship we clasp from Achilles, but challenge outpace with our challenge

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

Such is the way of the Trojans since Phryx by the Hellespont halting

Seated Troy on her hill with Ocean for comrade and sister."

Shaking in wrath his filleted head Talthybius answered :

"Princes, ye speak their words who drive you ! Thus said Achilles :

Rise,² Talthybius, meet in her spaces the car of the morning ;

Challenge her coursers divine as they bound through the plains of the Troad.

Hasten, let not the day wear gold ere thou stand in her ramparts

Herald charged with my will to a haughty and obstinate nation,

Speak in the palace of Priam the word of the Pthian Achilles.

Freely and not as his vassal who leads, Agamemnon, the Argive,

But as a ruler in Hellas I send thee, king of my nations.

Long I lingered³ apart from the mellay of gods in the Troad,

Long has my listless spear leaned back on the peace of my tent-side,

Deaf to the talk of the trumpets, the whine of the chariots speeding ;

Sole with my heart I have lived, unheeding the Hellene murmur,

Child when it roared for the hunt the lion-pack of the war-god,

Day after day I walked at dawn and in blush of the sunset,

Far by the call of the seas and alone with the gods and my dreaming,

Leaned to the unsatisfied chant of my heart and the rhythms of Ocean,

Sung to by hopes that were sweet-lipped and vain. Polyxena's brothers

Still are the brood of the Titan Laomedon slain in his greatness,

Engines of God unable to bear all the might that they harbour.

¹ Alternative to "speak'st to" : facest her

² Haste          ³ Alternative to ''I Lingered'': I have walked

Page-12

Awe they have chid from their hearts, nor our common humanity binds them,

Stay have they none in the gods who approve, giving calmness to mortals :

But like the Titans of old they have hugged to them grandeur and ruin.

Seek then the race self-doomed and the leaders blinded by heaven—

Not in the agora swept by the winds of debate and the shoutings

Lion-voiced, huge of the people ! In Troya's high-crested mansion

Speak out my word to the hero Deiphobus, head of the mellay,

Paris the racer of doom and the stubborn strength of AEneas.

Herald of Greece, when thy feet shall stand¹ on the gold and the marble,

Rise in the Ilian megaron, curb not the cry of the challenge.

Thus shalt thou say to them stroking the ground with the staff of defiance,

Fronting the tempests of war, the insensate, the gamblers with ruin.²

'Princes of Troy, I have sat in your halls, I have slept in your chambers ;

Not in the battle alone, as a warrior glad of his foemen,

Glad of³ the strength that mates with his own, in peace we encountered.

Marvelling I sat in the halls of my enemies, close to the bosoms

Scarred by the dints of my sword and the eyes I had seen through the battle,

Ate rejoicing the food of the East at the tables of Priam,

Served by the delicatest hands in the world, by Hecuba's daughter,

Or with our souls reconciled in some careless and rapturous midnight

Drank of the sweetness of Phrygian wine, admired⁴ your bodies

Shaped by the gods indeed and my spirit revolted from hatred;

Softening it yearned in its strings to the beauty and joy of its foemen,

Yearned from the death that o'ertakes and the flame that cries and desires

Even at the end to save and even on the verge to deliver

Troy and her wonderful works and her sons and her deep-bosomed daughters.

Warned by the gods who reveal to the heart what the mind cannot hearken

Deaf with its thoughts, I offered you friendship, I offered you bridal,

Hellas for comrade, Achilles for brother, the world for enjoyment

Won by my spear. And one heard my call and one turned to my seeking.

Why is it then that the war-cry sinks not to rest by the Xanthus ?

We are not voices from Argolis, Lacedaemonian tricksters,

Splendid and subtle and false; we are speakers of truth, we are Hellenes,

Men of the northland faithful in friendship and noble in anger,

Strong like our fathers of old. But you answered my truth with evasion

¹ be pressed 

² downfall           ³ Alternative to "glad of" : Loving

⁴ admiring

Page-13

Hoping to seize what I will not yield and you flattered your people.

Long have I waited for wisdom to dawn on your violent natures.

Lonely I paced o'er the sands by the thousand-throated waters

Praying to Pallas the wise that the doom might turn¹ from your mansions

Buildings delightful, gracious as rhythms, lyrics in marble,

Works of the transient gods;—and I yearned for the end of the war-din

Hoping that Death might relent to the beautiful sons of the Trojans.

Far from the cry of the spears, from the speed and the laughter of axles,

Heavy upon me like iron the intolerable yoke of inaction

Weighed like a load on a runner. The war-cry rose by Scamander;

Xanthus was crossed on a bridge of the fallen, not by Achilles.

Often I stretched out my hand to the spear, for the Trojan beaches

Rang with the voice of Deiphobus shouting and slaying the Argives;

Often my heart like an anxious mother for Greece and her children

Leaped, for the air was full of the leonine roar of Aeneas.

Always the evening fell or the gods protected the Argives.

Then by the moat of the ships, on the hither plain of the Xanthus

New was the voice that climbed through the din and sailed on the breezes,

High, insistent, clear, and it shouted an unknown war-cry

Threatening doom to the peoples. A woman had come in to aid you

Regal and insolent, fair as the morning and fell as the north wind,

Freed from the distaff who grasps at the sword and spurns at subjection

Breaking the rule of the gods. She is turbulent, swift in the battle.

Clanging her voice of the swan as a summons to death and disaster,

Fleet-footed, happy and pitiless, laughing she runs to the slaughter;

Strong with the gait that allures she leaps from her car to the slaying,

Dabbles in blood smooth hands like lilies. Europe astonished

Reels from her shock to the Ocean. She is the panic and mellay,

War is her paean, the chariots thunder of Penthesilea.

Doom was her coming, it seems, to the men of the West and their legions;

Ajax sleeps for ever², Meriones lies on the beaches,

One by one they are falling before you, the great in Achaia.

Ever the wounded are borne like the stream of the ants when they forage,

Past my ships, and they hush their moans as they near and in silence

Gaze at the legions inactive accusing the fame of Achilles.

¹ Alternative to "that the doom might turn" : for the doom to swerve

² Here, as in some other lines, Ajax is spoken of as having been slain by Penthesilea. Elsewhere in the poem we come across a living Ajax. The discrepancy is explained by the fact that in the Trojan War there were two Ajaxes, the Great and the Small. The latter, called also the Locrian, figures as alive in llion.

Page-14

Still have I borne with you, waited a little, looked for a summons,

Longing for bridal torches, not flame on the Ilian housetops,

Blood in the chambers of sweetness, the golden amorous city

Swallowed by doom. Not broken I turned from the wrestle Titanic,

Hopeless, weary of toil in the ebb of my glorious spirit,

But from my stress of compassion for doom of the kindred nations,

But for her sake whom my soul desires, for the daughter of Priam.

And for Polyxena's sake I will speak to you yet as your lover

Once ere the Fury, abrupt from Erebus, deaf to your crying,

Mad with the joy of the massacre, seizes on wealth and on women

Calling to Fire as it strides and Ilion sinks into ashes.

Yield; for your doom is impatient. No longer your helpers hasten,

Legions swift to your call; the yoke of your pride and your splendour

Lies not now on the nations of earth as when Fortune desired you,

Strength was your slave and Troya the lioness hungrily roaring

Threatened the western world from her ramparts built by Apollo.

Gladly released from the thraldom they hated, the insolent shackles

Curbing their manhood the peoples arise and they pray for your ruin;

Piled are their altars with gifts; their blessings help the Achaians.

Memnon came, but he sleeps, and the faces swart of his nation

Darken no more like a cloud over thunder and surge of the onset.

Wearily Lycia fights; far fled are the Carian levies.

Thrace retreats to her plains preferring the whistle of storm-winds

Or on the banks of the Strymon to wheel in her Orphean measure,

Not in the revel of swords and fronting the spears of the Hellenes.

Princes of Pergama, open your gates to our Peace who would enter

Life in her gracious clasp and forgetfulness, grave of earth's passions,

Healer of wounds and the past. In a comity equal, Hellenic,

Asia join with Greece, our world from the frozen rivers

Trod by the hooves of the Scythian to farthest undulant Ganges.

Tyndarid Helen yield,¹ the desirable cause of your danger,

Back to Greece that is empty long of her smile and her movements.

Broider with² riches her coming, pomp of her slaves and the wagons

Endlessly groaning with gold that arrive with the ransom of nations.

So shall the Fury be pacified, she who exultant from Sparta

Breathed in the sails of the Trojan ravisher helping his oarsmen.

¹ resign

² Alternatives : Frame in, Chase in, Equal with, Double with

Page-15

So shall the gods be appeased and the thoughts cancelled,

Justice contented trace back her steps and for brands of the burning

Torches delightful shall break into Troy with¹ the swords of the bridal.

I like a bridegroom will seize on your city and clasp and defend her

Safe from the envy of Argos, from Lacedaemonian hatred,

Safe from the hunger of Crete and the Locrian's violent rapine.

But if you turn from my voice and you hearken only to Ares

Crying for battle within you deluded by Hera and Pallas,

Swiftly fierce death's surges shall close over Troy and her ramparts

Built by the gods shall be stubble and earth to the tread of the Hellene.

For to my tents I return not, I swear it by Zeus and Apollo,

Master of Truth who sits within Delphi fathomless brooding

Sole in the caverns of Nature and hearkens her underground murmur,

Giving my oath to his keeping mute and stern who forgets not.

Not from the panting of Ares' toil to repose, from the wrestle

Locked of hope and death in the ruthless clasp of the mellay

Leaving again the Trojan ramparts unmounted, leaving

Greece unavenged, the Aegean a lake and Europe a province.

Choosing from Hellas exile, from Peleus and Deidamia,

Choosing the field for my chamber of sleep and the battle for hearthside

I shall go warring on till Asia enslaved to my footsteps

Feels the tread of the God in my sandal pressed on her bosom.

Rest shall I then when the borders of Greece are fringed with the Ganges:

Thus shall the past pay its Titan ransom² and, Fate her balance

Changing, a continent ravished suffer the fortune of Helen.

This I have sworn allying my will to Zeus and Ananke.' "

So was it spoken, the Pthian challenge. Silent the heroes

Looked back amazed on their past and into the night of their future.

Silent their hearts felt a grasp from gods and had hints of the heavens.

Hush was awhile in the room as if Fate were trying her balance

Poised on the thoughts of her mortals. At length with a magical laughter

Sweet as the jangling of bells upon anklets leaping in measure

Answered high³ to the gods the virgin Penthesilea.

"Long I had heard in my distant realms of the fame of Achilles,

Ignorant still while I played with the ball and ran in the dances

¹ and

² Alternative to "the past pay its Titan ransom" : the Titan ransom be paid

³ aloud

Page-16

Thinking not ever to war; but I dreamed of the shock of the hero.

So might a poet inland who imagines the rumour of Ocean

Yearn with his lust for its¹ giant upheaval, its² dance as of hill-tops,

Toss of the yellow mane and the tawny march and the voices

Lionlike claiming earth as a prey for the clamorous waters.

So have I longed as I came for the cry and the speed of Achilles.

But he has lurked in his ships, he has sulked like a boy that is angry.

Glad am I now of his soul that arises hungry for battle,

Glad, whether victor I live or defeated travel to the shadows.

Once shall my spear have rung on the shield of the Pthian Achilles.

Peace I desire not. I came to a haughty and resolute nation,

Honour and fame they cherish, not life by the gift of a foeman.

Sons of the ancient house on whom Ilion looks as on Titans,

Chiefs whom the world admires, do you fear then the shock of the Pthian?

Gods, it is said, have decided your doom. Are you less in your greatness?

Are you not gods to reverse their decrees or unshaken to suffer?

Memnon is dead and the Carians leave you ? Lycia lingers ?

But from the streams of my East I have come to you, Penthesilea."

"Virgin of Asia," answered Talthybius, "doom of a nation Brought thee to Troy and her haters Olympian shielded thy coming,

Vainly who feedest men's hearts with a. hope that the gods have rejected.

Doom in thy sweet voice utters her counsels robed like a woman."

Answered the virgin disdainfully, wroth at the words of the Argive:

"Hast thou not ended the errand they gave thee, envoy of Hellas?

Not, do I think, as our counsellor cam'st thou elected from Argos,

Nor as a lover to Troy hast thou hastened with amorous footing

Hurting thy heart with her forwardness. Hatred and rapine sent thee,

Greed of the Ilian gold and lust of the Phrygian women.

Voice of Achaian aggression! Doom am I truly; let Gnossus

Witness it, Salamis speak of my fatal arrival and Argos

Silent remember her wounds." But the Argive answered the virgin:

"Hearken then to the words of the Hellene, Penthesilea. .

'Virgin to whom earth's strongest are corn in the sweep of thy sickle,

Lioness vain of thy bruit thou besiegest the paths of the battle!

Art thou not satiate yet? hast thou drunk then so little of slaughter?

Death has ascended thy car; he has chosen thy hand for his harvest,

But I have heard of thy pride and disdain, how thou scornest the Argives

And of thy fate thou complainest that ever averse to thy wishes

¹ the                    ² the

Page-17

Cloisters the Pthian and matches with weaklings Penthesilea.
'Not of the Ithacan boar nor the wild-cat littered in Locris
Nor of the sleek-coat Argive wild-bulls sates me the hunting;'
So hast thou said, 'I would bury my spear in the lion of Hellas.'
Blind and infatuate, art thou not beautiful, bright as the lightning?
Were not thy limbs made cunningly by linking sweetness to sweetness?
Is not thy laughter an arrow surprising hearts imprudent?
Charm is the seal of the gods upon woman. Distaff and girdle,
Work of the jar at the well and the hush of our innermost chambers;
These were appointed thee, but thou hast scorned them, O Titaness grasping
Rather the shield and the spear. Thou, obeying thy turbulent nature,
Tramplest o'er laws that are old to the pleasure thy heart has demanded.
Rather bow to the ancient Gods who are seated and constant.
But for thyself thou passest and what hast thou gained for the aeons
Mingled with men in their works and depriving the age of thy beauty?
Fair art thou, woman, but fair with a bitter and opposite sweetness
Clanging in war and when thou matchest thy voice with the shout of assemblies.

Not to this end was thy sweetness made and the joy of thy members,

Not to this rhythm Heaven tuned its pipe in thy throat of enchantment

Armoured like men to go warring forth and with hardness and fierceness

Mix in the strife and the hate while the varied meaning of Nature

Perishes hurt in its heart and life is emptied of music.

Long have I marked in your world a madness. Monarchs descending

Court the imperious mob of their slaves and their suppliant gesture

Shameless and venal offends the majestic tradition of ages:

Princes plead in the agora; spurred by the tongue of a coward,

Heroes march to an impious war at a priestly bidding.

Gold is sought by the great with the chaffering heart of the trader.

Asia fails and the Gods are abandoning Ida for Hellas.

Why must thou come here to perish, O noble and exquisite virgin,

Here in a cause net thine, in a quarrel remote from thy beauty,

Leaving a land that is lovely and far to be slain among strangers ?

Girl, to thy rivers go back and thy hills where the grapes are aspirant.

Trust not a fate that indulges; for all things, Penthesilea,

Break with excess and he is the wisest who walks by a measure.

Yet, if thou wilt, thou shalt meet me today in the shock of the battle;

There will I give thee the fame thou desires; captive in Hellas,

Men shall point to thee always, smiling and whispering, saying,

'This is the woman who fought with the Greeks, overthrowing their heroes; 

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This is the slayer of Ajax, this is the slave of Achilles.' "

Then with her musical laughter the fearless Penthesilea :

"Well do I hope that Achilles enslaved shall taste of that glory

Or on the Phrygian fields lie slain by the spear of a woman.

" But to the herald Achaian the Priamid, leader of Troya :

"Rest in the halls of thy foes and ease thy fatigue and thy winters.

Herald, abide till the people have heard and reply to Achilles.

Not as the kings of the West are Ilion's princes and archons,

Monarchs of men who drive their nations dumb to the battle.

Not in the palace of Priam and not in the halls of the mighty

Whispered councils prevail and the few dispose of the millions;

But with their nation consulting, feeling the hearts of the commons

Ilion's princes march to the war or give peace to their foemen.

Lightning departs from her kings and the thunder returns from her people

Met in the ancient assembly where Ilus founded his columns

And since her famous centuries, names that the ages remember

Leading her, Troya proclaims her decrees to obedient nations."

Ceasing he cried to the thralls of his house and they tended the Argive.

Brought to a chamber of rest in the luminous peace of the mansion,

Grey he sat and endured the food and the wine of his foemen,—

Chiding his spirit that murmured within him and gazed un delighted,

Vexed with the endless pomps of Laomedon. Far from those glories

Memory winged it back to a sward half-forgotten, a village

Nestling in leaves and low hills watching it crowned with the sunset.

So for his hour he abode in earth's palace of lordliest beauty,

But in its caverns his heart was weary and, hurt by the splendours,

Longed for Greece and the smoke-darkened roof of a cottage in Argos,

Eyes of a woman faded and children crowding the hearthside.

Joyless he rose and eastward expected the sunrise on Ida. 

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