Journeys Through Bookland Volume Iv Part 37

*[Footnote: The eagle was sacred to Jove.]

*[Footnote: _Hesper_ was the old name for Venus, the evening star, the brightest of the planets.]

*[Footnote: Patroclus was the friend of Achilles, whom Hector had killed. Hector had, after the usual custom, taken possession of the armor of Patroclus, which had originally belonged to Achilles.]

"At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain, Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain: Then, prince! you should have fear'd what now you feel; Achilles absent was Achilles still: Yet a short s.p.a.ce the great avenger stayed, Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid.

Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn'd, Forever honor'd, and forever mourn'd: While cast to all the rage of hostile power, Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs' devour."

Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death: By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath!

By all the sacred prevalence of prayer; Oh, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear!

The common rites of sepulture bestow, To soothe a father's and a mother's woe: Yet their large gifts procure an urn at least, And Hector's ashes in his county rest."

"No, wretch accursed!" relentless he replies (Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes); "Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, For all the sacred prevalence of prayer, Would I myself the b.l.o.o.d.y banquet join!

So--to the dogs that carcase I resign.

Should Troy, to bribe me, bring forth all her store, And giving thousands, offer thousands more; Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame: Their Hector on the pile they should not see.

Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee."

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew: "Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew: The Furies* that relentless breast have steel'd, And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield.

Yet think, a day will come, when fate's decree And angry G.o.ds shall wreak this wrong on thee; Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, And stretch thee here before the Scaean gate."

*[Footnote: The Furies were three hideous sisters who sometimes drove people mad with rage and remorse.]

He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his laboring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death; To the dark realm the spirit wings its way (The manly body left a load of clay), And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!

Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes O'er the dead hero, thus unheard, replies.

"Die thou the first! When Jove and heaven ordain, I follow thee."--He said, and stripp'd the slain.

Then forcing backward from the gaping wound The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground.

The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes His manly beauty and superior size; While some, ign.o.bler, the great dead deface With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace.

"How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter'd fate!"

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands; And thus aloud, while all the host attends: "Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!

Since now at length the powerful will of heaven The dire destroyer to our arm has given, Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye powers!

See, if already their deserted towers Are left unmann'd; or if they yet retain The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain.

But what is Troy, or glory what to me?

Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, Divine Patroclus! Death hath seal'd his eyes; Unwept, unhonor'd, uninterr'd he lies!

Can his dear image from my soul depart, Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?

If in the melancholy shades below, The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow, Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay'd, Burn on through death, and animate my shade.

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring The corpse of Hector, and your paeans sing.

Be this the song, slow-moving toward the sh.o.r.e, Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more."

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred (Unworthy of himself, and of the dead); The nervous* ancles bored, his feet he bound With thongs inserted through the double wound; These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, His graceful head was trail'd along the plain.

Proud on his car the insulting victor stood, And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.

He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies; The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.

Now lost is all that formidable air; The face divine, and long-descending hair, Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand; Deform'd, dishonor'd, in his native land, Given to the rage of an insulting throng, And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along!

*[Footnote: _Nervous_ here means _strong, sinewy_.]

The mother first beheld with sad survey; She rent her tresses, venerable gray, And cast, far off, the regal veils away.

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, While the sad father answers groans with groans.

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow, And the whole city wears one face of woe: No less than if the rage of hostile fires, From her foundations curling to her spires, O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.

THE WOODEN HORSE

_From VERGIL'S AENEID_

NOTE.--As the _Iliad_ is the greatest of Greek poems, so the _Aeneid_ is the greatest of Latin poems. It was written by Vergil, who lived in the first century B. C., and is one of the cla.s.sics which every one who studies Latin takes up. References to it are almost as frequent in literature as are references to the _Iliad_, to which it is closely related. The translation from which this selection of the _Wooden Horse_ is taken is by John Conington.

The _Iliad_ deals with the Trojan War (see introductory note to _Death of Hector_), while the _Aeneid_ deals with the wanderings of a Trojan hero after the fall of his city. Aeneas, from whom the _Aeneid_ takes its name, was the son of Anchises and Venus, G.o.ddess of love, and was one of the bravest of the Trojan heroes; indeed, he was second only to Hector.

When Troy was taken by the stratagem which Aeneas describes in this selection, he set sail with numerous followers for Italy, where fate had ordained that he should found a great nation. Juno, however, who hated the Trojans, drove the hero from his course, and brought upon him many sufferings. At last in his wanderings he came to the northern sh.o.r.e of Africa, where he found a great city, Carthage. Dido, queen of the Carthaginians, received Aeneas hospitably, and had prepared for him a great feast, at the conclusion of which she besought him to relate to her the story of the fall of Troy. Aeneas objected at first, as he feared he could not endure the pain which the recital would give him, but in the end he complied with her request.

The following selection gives the account of the stratagem by which the Greeks, after thirteen years' siege, finally took Troy.

Torn down by wars, Long beating 'gainst Fate's dungeon-bars, As year kept chasing year,*

The Danaan* chiefs, with cunning given.

By Pallas,* mountain-high to heaven A giant horse uprear, And with compacted beams of pine The texture of its ribs entwine, A vow for their return they feign: So runs the tale, and spreads amain.

There in the monster's cavernous side Huge frames of chosen chiefs they hide, And steel-clad soldiery finds room Within that death-producing womb.

*[Footnote: The Greeks besieged Troy, or Ilium, for nine years without making much head against it, and in the tenth year succeeded in taking the city only by fraud, which Aeneas here describes.]

*[Footnote: _Danaans_ is a poetical name for the Greeks.]

*[Footnote: Pallas was Minerva, daughter of Jupiter, and one of the most powerful of the G.o.ddesses. She favored the Greeks, and longed to take their part against the Trojans, but was forbidden by Jupiter to aid them in any way except by advising them.]

An isle there lies in Ilium's sight, And Tenedos its name, While Priam's fortune yet was bright, Known for its wealth to fame: Now all has dwindled to a bay, Where ships in treacherous shelter stay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WOODEN HORSE]

Thither they sail, and hide their host Along its desolated coast.

We thought them to Mycenae* flown And rescued Troy forgets to groan.

Wide stand the gates: what joy to go The Dorian camp to see, The land disburthened of the foe, The sh.o.r.e from vessels free!

There pitched Thessalia's squadron, there Achilles' tent was set: There, drawn on land, their navies were, And there the battle met.

Some on Minerva's offering gaze, And view its bulk with strange amaze: And first Thymoetes loudly calls To drag the steed within our walls, Or by suggestion from the foe, Or Troy's ill fate had willed it so.

But Capys and the wiser kind Surmised the snare that lurked behind: To drown it in the whelming tide, Or set the fire-brand to its side, Their sentence is: or else to bore Its caverns, and their depths explore.

In wild confusion sways the crowd: Each takes his side and all are loud.

*[Footnote: Mycenae was the capital city of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.]

Girt with a throng of Ilium's sons, Down from the tower Laoc.o.o.n runs, And, "Wretched countrymen," he cries, "What monstrous madness blinds your eyes?

Think you your enemies removed?

Come presents without wrong From Danaans? have you thus approved Ulysses,* known so long?

Perchance--who knows?--the bulk we see Conceals a Grecian enemy, Or 'tis a pile to o'erlook the town, And pour from high invaders down, Or fraud lurks somewhere to destroy: Mistrust, mistrust it, men of Troy!

Whate'er it be, a Greek I fear, Though presents in his hand he bear."

He spoke, and with his arm's full force Straight at the belly of the horse His mighty spear he cast: Quivering it stood: the sharp rebound Shook the huge monster; and a sound Through all its caverns pa.s.sed.

And then, had fate our weal designed Nor given us a perverted mind, Then had he moved us to deface The Greeks' accursed lurking-place, And Troy had been abiding still, And Priam's tower yet crowned the hill.

*[Footnote: Ulysses was the craftiest of the Greeks, the man to whom they appealed when in need of wise advice.]