Appendix Poems in Greek and in French Greek Epigram Lorsque rien n'existait Sur les grands sommets blancs Note on the Texts Index of Titles Index of First Lines

BOOK II

The Book of the Statesman

Now from his cycle sleepless and vast round the dance of the earth-globe

Gold Hyperion rose in the wake of the dawn like the eyeball

Flaming of God revealed by his uplifted luminous eyelid.

Troy he beheld and he viewed the transient labour of mortals.

All her marble beauty and pomp were laid bare to the heavens.

Sunlight streamed into Ilion waking the voice of her gardens,

Amorous seized on her ways, lived glad in her plains and her pastures,

Kissed her leaves into brightness of green. As a lover the last time

Yearns to the beauty desired that again shall not wake to his kisses,

So over Ilion doomed leaned the yearning immense of the sunrise.

She like a wordless marble memory dreaming for ever

Lifted the gaze of her perishable immortality sunwards.

All her human past aspired in the clearness eternal,

Temples of Phryx and Dardanus touched with the gold of the morning,

Columns triumphant of Ilus, domes of their greatness enamoured,

Stones that intended to live; and her citadel climbed up to heaven

White like the soul of the Titan Laomedon claiming his kingdoms,

Watched with alarm by the gods as he came. Her bosom maternal

Thrilled to the steps of her sons and a murmur began in her high-roads.

Life renewed its ways which death and sleep cannot alter,

Life that pursuing her boundless march to a goal which we know not,

Ever her own law obeys, not our hopes, who are slaves of her heart-beats.

Then as now men walked in the round which the gods have decreed them

Eagerly turning their eyes to the lure and the tool and the labour.

Chained is their gaze to the span in front, to the gulfs they are blinded

Meant for their steps. The seller opened his shop and the craftsman

Bent o'er his instruments handling the work he never would finish,

Busy as if their lives were for ever, today in its evening

Sure of tomorrow. The hammers clanged and the voice of the markets

Waking desired its daily rumour. Nor only the craftsman,

Only the hopes of the earth, but the hearts of her votaries kneeling

Came to her marble shrines and upraised to our helpers eternal

Missioned the prayer and the hymn or silent, subtly adoring

Ventured upwards in incense. Loud too the clash of the cymbals

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Filled all the temples of Troy with the cry of our souls to the azure.

Prayers breathed in vain and a cry that fell back with Fate for its answer!

Children laughed in her doorways; joyous they played, by their mothers

Smiled on still, but their tender bodies unknowing awaited

Grecian spearpoints sharpened by Fate for their unripe bosoms,

Tasks of the slave in Greece. Like bees round their honey-filled dwellings

Murmuring swarmed to the well-heads the large-eyed daughters of Troya,

Deep-bosomed, limbed like the gods, — glad faces of old that were sentient

Rapturous flowers of the soul, bright bodies that lived under darkness

Nobly massed of their locks like day under night made resplendent,

Daughters divine of the earth in the ages when heaven was our father.

They round Troy's well-heads flowerlike satisfied morn with their beauty

Or in the river baring their knees to the embrace of the coolness

Dipped their white feet in the clutch of his streams, in the haste of Scamander,

Lingering this last time with laughter and talk of the day and the morrow

Leaned to the hurrying flood. All his swiftnesses raced down to meet them,

Crowding his channel with dancing billows and turbulent murmurs.

Xanthus primaeval met these waves of our life in its passing

Even as of old he had played with Troy's ancient fair generations

Mingling his deathless voice with the laughter and joy of their ages,

Laughter of dawns that are dead and a joy that the earth has rejected.

Still his whispering trees remembered their bygone voices.

Hast thou forgotten, O river of Troy? Still, still we can hear them

Now, if we listen long in our souls, the bygone voices.

Earth in her fibres remembers, the breezes are stored with our echoes.

Over the stone-hewn steps for their limpid orient waters

Joyous they leaned and they knew not yet of the wells of Mycenae,

Drew not yet from Eurotas the jar for an alien master,

Mixed not Peneus yet with their tears. From the clasp of the current

Now in their groups they arose and dispersed through the streets and the byways,

Turned from the freedom of earth to the works and the joy of the hearthside,

Lightly they rose and returned through the lanes of the wind-haunted city

Swaying with rhythmical steps while the anklets jangled and murmured.

Silent temples saw them passing; you too, O houses

Built with such hopes by mortal man for his transient lodging;

Fragrant the gardens strewed on dark tresses their white-smiling jasmines

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Dropped like a silent boon of purity soft from the branches:

Flowers by the wayside were budding, cries flew winged round the tree-tops.

Bright was the glory of life in Ilion city of Priam.

Thrice to the city the doom-blast published its solemn alarum;

Blast of the trumpets that call to assembly clamoured through Troya

Thrice and were still. From garden and highway, from palace and temple

Turned like a steed to the trumpet, rejoicing in war and ambition,

Gathered alert to the call the democracy hated of heaven.

First in their ranks upbearing their age as Atlas his heavens,

Eagle-crested, with hoary hair like the snow upon Ida,

Ilion's senators paced, Antenor and wide-browed Anchises,

Athamas famous for ships and the war of the waters, Tryas

Still whose name was remembered by Oxus the orient river,

Astyoches and Ucalegon, dateless Pallachus, Aetor,

Aspetus who of the secrets divine knew all and was silent,

Ascanus, Iliones, Alcesiphron, Orus, Aretes.

Next from the citadel came with the voice of the heralds before him

Priam and Priam's sons, Aeneas leonine striding,

Followed by the heart of a nation adoring her Penthesilea.

All that was noble in Troy attended the regal procession

Marching in front and behind and the tramp of their feet was a rhythm

Tuned to the arrogant fortunes of Ilion ruled by incarnate

Demigods, Ilus and Phryx and Dardanus, Tros of the conquests,

Tros and far-ruling Laomedon who to his soul's strong labour

Drew down the sons of the skies and was served by the ageless immortals.

Into the agora vast and aspirant besieged by its columns

Bathed and anointed they came like gods in their beauty and grandeur.

Last like the roar of the winds came trampling the surge of the people.

Clamorous led by a force obscure to its ultimate fatal

Session of wrath the violent mighty democracy hastened;

Thousands of ardent lives with the heart yet unslain in their bosoms

Lifted to heaven the voice of man and his far-spreading rumour.

Singing the young men with banners marched in their joyous processions,

Trod in martial measure or dancing with lyrical paces

Chanted the glory of Troy and the wonderful deeds of their fathers.

Into the columned assembly where Ilus had gathered his people,

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Thousands on thousands the tramp and the murmur poured; in their armoured

Glittering tribes they were ranked, an untameable high-hearted nation

Waiting the voice of its chiefs. Some gazed on the greatness of Priam

Ancient, remote from their days, the last of the gods who were passing,

Left like a soul uncompanioned in worlds where his strength shall not conquer:

Sole like a column gigantic alone on a desolate hill-side

Older than mortals he seemed and mightier. Many in anger

Aimed their hostile looks where calm though by heaven abandoned,

Left to his soul and his lucid mind and its thoughts unavailing,

Leading the age-chilled few whom the might of their hearts had not blinded,

Famous Antenor was seated, the fallen unpopular statesman,

Wisest of speakers in Troy but rejected, stoned and dishonoured.

Silent, aloof from the people he sat, a heart full of ruins.

Low was the rumour that swelled like the hum of the bees in a meadow

When with the thirst of the honey they swarm on the thyme and the linden,

Hundreds humming and flitting till all that place is a murmur.

Then from his seat like a tower arising Priam the monarch

Slowly erect in his vast tranquillity silenced the people:

Lonely, august he stood like one whom death has forgotten,

Reared like a column of might and of silence over the assembly.

So Olympus rises alone with his snows into heaven.

Crowned were his heights by the locks that swept like the mass of the snow-swathe

Clothing his giant shoulders; his eyes of deep meditation,

Eyes that beheld now the end and accepted it like the beginning

Gazed on the throng of the people as on a pomp that is painted:

Slowly he spoke like one who is far from the scenes where he sojourns.

"Leader of Ilion, hero Deiphobus, thou who hast summoned

Troy in her people, arise; say wherefore thou callest us. Evil

Speak thou or good, thou canst speak that only: Necessity fashions

All that the unseen eye has beheld. Speak then to the Trojans;

Say on this dawn of her making what issue of death or of triumph

Fate in her suddenness puts to the unseeing, what summons to perish

Send to this nation men who revolt and gods who are hostile."

Rising Deiphobus spoke, in stature less than his father,

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Less in his build, yet the mightiest man and tallest whom coursers

Bore or his feet to the fight since Ajax fell by the Xanthus.

"People of Ilion, long have you fought with the gods and the Argives

Slaying and slain, but the years persist and the struggle is endless.

Fainting your helpers cease from the battle, the nations forsake you.

Asia weary of strenuous greatness, ease-enamoured

Suffers the foot of the Greek to tread on the beaches of Troas.

Yet have we striven for Troy and for Asia, men who desert us.

Not for ourselves alone have we fought, for our life of a moment!

Once if the Greeks were triumphant, once if their nations were marshalled

Under some far-seeing chief, Odysseus, Peleus, Achilles,

Not on the banks of Scamander and skirts of the azure Aegean

Fainting would cease the audacious emprise, the Titanic endeavour;

Tigris would flee from their tread and Indus be drunk by their coursers.

Now in these days when each sun goes marvelling down that Troy stands yet

Suffering, smiting, alive, though doomed to all eyes that behold her,

Flinging back Death from her walls and bronze to the shock and the clamour,

Driven by a thought that has risen in the dawn from the tents on the beaches

Grey Talthybius' chariot waits in the Ilian portals,

Voice of the Hellene demigod challenges timeless Troya.

Thus has he said to us: Know you not Doom when she walks in your heavens?

Feelst thou not then thy set, O sun who illuminedst Nature?

Stripped of helpers you stand alone against Doom and Achilles,

Left by the earth that served you, by heaven that helped you rejected:

Death insists at your gates and the flame and the sword are impatient.

None can escape the wheel of the gods and its vast revolutions!

Fate demands the joy and pride of the earth for the Argive,

Asia's wealth for the lust of the young barbarian nations.

City divine, whose fame overroofed like heaven the nations,

Sink eclipsed in the circle vast of my radiance; Troya,

Joined to my northern realms deliver the East to the Hellene;

Ilion, to Hellas be yoked; wide Asia, fringe thou Peneus.

Lay down golden Helen, a sacrifice lovely and priceless

Cast by your weakness and fall on immense Necessity's altar;

Yield to my longing Polyxena, Hecuba's deep-bosomed daughter,

Her whom my heart desires. She shall leave with you peace and her healing

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Joy of mornings secure and death repulsed from your hearthsides.

Yield these and live, else I leap on you, Fate in front, Hades behind me.

Bound to the gods by an oath I return not again from the battle

Till from high Ida my shadow extends to the Mede and Euphrates.

Let not your victories deceive you, steps that defeat has imagined;

Hear not the voice of your heroes; their fame is a trumpet in Hades:

Only they conquer while yet my horses champ free in their stables.

Earth cannot long resist the man whom Heaven has chosen;

Gods with him walk; his chariot is led; his arm is assisted.'

High rings the Hellene challenge, earth waits for the Ilian answer.

Always man's Fate hangs poised on the flitting breath of a moment;

Called by some word, by some gesture it leaps, then 'tis graven, 'tis granite.

Speak! by what gesture high shall the stern gods recognise Troya?

Sons of the ancients, race of the gods, inviolate city,

Firmer my spear shall I grasp or cast from my hand and for ever?

Search in your hearts if your fathers still dwell in them, children of Teucer."

So Deiphobus spoke and the nation heard him in silence,

Awed by the shadow vast of doom, indignant with Fortune.

Calm from his seat Antenor arose as a wrestler arises,

Tamer of beasts in the cage of the lions, eyeing the monsters

Brilliant, tawny of mane, and he knows if his courage waver,

Falter his eye or his nerve be surprised by the gods that are hostile,

Death will leap on him there in the crowded helpless arena.

Fearless Antenor arose, and a murmur swelled in the meeting

Cruel and threatening, hoarse like the voice of the sea upon boulders;

Hisses thrilled through the roar and one man cried to another,

"Lo he will speak of peace who has swallowed the gold of Achaia!

Surely the people of Troy are eunuchs who suffer Antenor

Rising unharmed in the agora. Are there not stones in the city?

Surely the steel grows dear in the land when a traitor can flourish."

Calm like a god or a summit Antenor stood in the uproar.

But as he gazed on his soul came memory dimming the vision;

For he beheld his past and the agora crowded and cheering,

Passionate, full of delight while Antenor spoke to the people,

Troy that he loved and his fatherland proud of her eloquent statesman.

Tears to his eyes came thick and he gripped at the staff he was holding.

Mounting his eyes met fully the tumult, mournful and thrilling,

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Conquering men's hearts with a note of doom in its sorrowful sweetness.

"People of Ilion, blood of my blood, O race of Antenor,

Once will I speak though you slay me; for who would shrink from destruction

Knowing that soon of his city and nation, his house and his dear ones

All that remains will be a couch of trampled ashes? Athene,

Slain today may I join the victorious souls of our fathers,

Not for the anguish be kept and the irremediable weeping.

Loud will I speak the word that the gods have breathed in my spirit,

Strive this last time to save the death-destined. Who are these clamour

Hear him not, gold of the Greeks bought his words and his throat is accursed'?

Troy whom my counsels made great, hast thou heard this roar of their frenzy

Tearing thy ancient bosom? Is it thy voice, heaven-abandoned, my mother?

O my country, O my creatress, earth of my longings!

Earth where our fathers lie in their sacred ashes undying,

Memoried temples shelter the shrines of our gods and the altars

Pure where we worshipped, the beautiful children smile on us passing,

Women divine and the men of our nation! O land where our childhood

Played at a mother's feet mid the trees and the hills of our country,

Hoping our manhood toiled and our youth had its seekings for godhead, —

Thou for our age keepst repose mid the love and the honour of kinsmen,

Silent our relics shall lie with the city guarding our ashes!

Earth who hast fostered our parents, earth who hast given us our offspring,

Soil that created our race where fed from the bosom of Nature

Happy our children shall dwell in the storied homes of their fathers,

Souls that our souls have stamped, sweet forms of ourselves when we perish!

Once even then have they seen thee in their hearts, or dreamed of thee ever

Who from thy spirit revolt and only thy name make an idol

Hating thy faithful sons and the cult of thy ancient ideal!

Wake, O my mother divine, remember thy gods and thy wisdom,

Silence the tongues that degrade thee, prophets profane of thy godhead.

Madmen, to think that a man who has offered his life for his country,

Served her with words and deeds and adored with victories and triumphs

Ever could think of enslaving her breast to the heel of a foeman!

Surely Antenor's halls are empty, he begs from the stranger

Leading his sons and his children's sons by the hand in the market

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Showing his rags since his need is so bitter of gold from the Argives!

You who demand a reply when Laocoon lessens Antenor,

Hush then your feeble roar and your ear to the past and the distance

Turn. You fields that are famous for ever, reply for me calling,

Fields of the mighty mown by my sword's edge, Chersonese conquered,

Thrace and her snows where we fought on the frozen streams and were victors

Then when they were unborn who are now your delight and your leaders.

Answer return, you columns of Ilus, here where my counsels

Made Troy mightier guiding her safe through the shocks of her foemen.

Gold! I have heaped it up high, I am rich with the spoils of your haters.

It was your fathers dead who gave me that wealth as my guerdon,

Now my reproach, your fathers who saw not the Greeks round their ramparts:

They were not cooped by an upstart race in the walls of Apollo,

Saw not Hector slain and Troilus dragged by his coursers.

Far over wrathful Jaxartes they rode; the shaken Achaian

Prostrate adored your strength who now shouts at your portals and conquers

Then when Antenor guided Troy, this old man, this traitor,

Not Laocoon, nay, not even Paris nor Hector.

But I have changed, I have grown a niggard of blood and of treasure,

Selfish, chilled as old men seem to the young and the headstrong,

Counselling safety and ease, not the ardour of noble decisions.

Come to my house and behold, my house that was filled once with voices.

Sons whom the high gods envied me crowded the halls that are silent.

Where are they now? They are dead, their voices are silent in Hades,

Fallen slaying the foe in a war between sin and the Furies.

Silent they went to the battle to die unmourned for their country,

Die as they knew in vain. Do I keep now the last ones remaining,

Sparing their blood that my house may endure? Is there any in Troya

Speeds to the front of the mellay outstripping the sons of Antenor?

Let him arise and speak and proclaim it and bid me be silent.

Heavy is this war that you love on my heart and I hold you as madmen

Doomed by the gods, abandoned by Pallas, by Hera afflicted.

Who would not hate to behold his work undone by the foolish?

Who would not weep if he saw Laocoon ruining Troya,

Paris doomed in his beauty, Aeneas slain by his valour?

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Still you need to be taught that the high gods see and remember,

Dream that they care not if justice be done on the earth or oppression!

Happy to live, aspire while you violate man and the immortals!

Vainly the sands of Time have been strewn with the ruins of empires,

Signs that the gods had left, but in vain. For they look for a nation,

One that can conquer itself having conquered the world, but they find none.

None has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered,

All have grown drunken with force and have gone down to Hell and to Ate.

All have been thrust from their heights,' say the fools; we shall live and for ever.

We are the people at last, the children, the favourites; all things

Only to us are permitted.' They too descend to the silence,

Death receives their hopes and the void their stirrings of action.

"Eviller fate there is none than life too long among mortals.

I have conversed with the great who have gone, I have fought in their war-cars;

Tros I have seen, Laomedon's hand has dwelt on my temples.

Now I behold Laocoon, now our greatest is Paris.

First when Phryx by the Hellespont reared to the cry of the ocean

Hewing her stones as vast as his thoughts his high-seated fortress,

Planned he a lair for a beast of prey, for a pantheress dire-souled

Crouched in the hills for her bound or self-gathered against the avenger?

Dardanus shepherded Asia's coasts and her sapphire-girt islands.

Mild was his rule like the blessing of rain upon fields in the summer.

Gladly the harried coasts reposed confessing the Phrygian,

Caria, Lycia's kings and the Paphlagon, strength of the Mysian;

Minos' Crete recovered the sceptre of old Rhadamanthus.

Ilus and Tros had strength in the fight like a far-striding Titan's:

Troy triumphant following the urge of their souls to the vastness,

Helmeted, crowned like a queen of the gods with the fates for her coursers

Rode through the driving sleet of the spears to Indus and Oxus.

Then twice over she conquered the vanquished, with peace as in battle;

There where discord had clashed, sweet Peace sat girded with plenty,

There where tyranny counted her blows, came the hands of a father.

Neither had Teucer a soul like your chiefs' who refounded this nation.

Such was the antique and noble tradition of Troy in her founders,

Builders of power that endured; but it perishes lost to their offspring,

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Trampled, scorned by an arrogant age, by a violent nation.

Strong Anchises trod it down trampling victorious onwards

Stern as his sword and hard as the silent bronze of his armour.

More than another I praise the man who is mighty and steadfast,

Even as Ida the mountain I praise, a refuge for lions;

But in the council I laud him not, he who a god for his kindred,

Lives for the rest without bowels of pity or fellowship, lone-souled,

Scorning the world that he rules, who untamed by the weight of an empire

Holds allies as subjects, subjects as slaves and drives to the battle

Careless more of their wills than the courser's yoked to his war-car.

Therefore they fought while they feared, but gladly abandon us falling.

Yet had they gathered to Teucer in the evil days of our nation.

Where are they now? Do they gather then to the dreaded Anchises?

Or has Aeneas helped with his counsels hateful to wisdom?

Hateful is this, abhorred of the gods, imagined by Ate

When against subjects murmuring discord and faction appointed

Scatter unblest gold, the heart of a people is poisoned,

Virtue pursued and baseness triumphs tongued like a harlot,

Brother against brother arrayed that the rule may endure of a stranger.

Yes, but it lasts! For its hour. The high gods watch in their silence,

Mute they endure for a while that the doom may be swifter and greater.

Hast thou then lasted, O Troy? Lo, the Greeks at thy gates and Achilles.

Dream, when Virtue departs, that Wisdom will linger, her sister!

Wisdom has turned from your hearts; shall Fortune dwell with the foolish?

Fatal oracles came to you great-tongued, vaunting of empires

Stretched from the risen sun to his rest in the occident waters,

Dreams of a city throned on the hills with her foot on the nations.

Meanwhile the sword was prepared for our breasts and the flame for our housetops.

Wake, awake, O my people! the fire-brand mounts up your doorsteps;

Gods who deceived to slay, press swords on your children's bosoms.

See, O ye blind, ere death in pale countries open your eyelids!

Hear, O ye deaf, the sounds in your ears and the voices of evening!

Young men who vaunt in your strength! when the voice of this aged Antenor

Governed your fathers' youth, all the Orient was joined to our banners.

Macedon leaned to the East and her princes yearned to the victor,

Scythians worshipped in Ilion's shrines, the Phoenician trader

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Bartered her tokens, Babylon's wise men paused at our thresholds;

Fair-haired sons of the snows came rapt towards golden Troya

Drawn by the song and the glory. Strymon sang hymns unto Ida,

Hoarse Chalcidice, dim Chersonesus married their waters

Under the o'erarching yoke of Troy twixt the term-posts of Ocean.

Meanwhile far through the world your fortunes led by my counsels

Followed their lure like women snared by a magical tempter:

High was their chant as they paced and it came from continents distant.

Turn now and hear! what voice approaches? what glitter of armies?

Loud upon Trojan beaches the tread and the murmur of Hellas!

Hark! 'tis the Achaian's paean rings o'er the Pergaman waters!

So wake the dreams of Aeneas; reaped is Laocoon's harvest.

Artisans new of your destiny fashioned this far-spreading downfall,

Counsellors blind who scattered your strength to the hooves of the Scythian,

Barren victories, trophies of skin-clad Illyrian pastors.

Who but the fool and improvident, who but the dreamer and madman

Leaves for the far and ungrasped earth's close and provident labour?

Children of earth, our mother gives tokens, she lays down her signposts,

Step by step to advance on her bosom, to grow by her seasons,

Order our works by her patience and limit our thought by her spaces.

But you had chiefs who were demigods, souls of an earth-scorning stature,

Minds that saw vaster than life and strengths that God's hour could not limit!

These men seized upon Troy as the tool of their giant visions,

Dreaming of Africa's suns and bright Hesperian orchards,

Carthage our mart and our feet on the sunset hills of the Latins.

Ilion's hinds in the dream ploughed Libya, sowed Italy's cornfields,

Troy stretched to Gades; even the gods and the Fates had grown Trojan.

So are the natures of men uplifted by Heaven in its satire.

Scorning the bit of the gods, despisers of justice and measure,

Zeus is denied and adored some shadow huge of their natures

Losing the shape of man in a dream that is splendid and monstrous.

Titans, vaunting they stride and the world resounds with their footsteps;

Titans, clanging they fall and the world is full of their ruin.

Children, you dreamed with them, heard the roar of the Atlantic breakers

Welcome your keels and the Isles of the Blest grew your wonderful gardens.

Lulled in the dream, you saw not the black-drifting march of the storm-rack,

Heard not the galloping wolves of the doom and the howl of their hunger.

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Greece in her peril united her jarring clans; you suffered

Patient, preparing the north, the wisdom and silence of Peleus,

Atreus' craft and the Argives gathered to King Agamemnon.

But there were prophecies, Pythian oracles, mutterings from Delphi.

How shall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers,

Dreams that walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence?

Touches are these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin.

One sole oracle helps, still armoured in courage and prudence

Patient and heedful to toil at the work that is near in the daylight.

Leave to the night its phantoms, leave to the future its curtain!

Only today Heaven gave to mortal man for his labour.

If thou hadst bowed not thy mane, O Troy, to the child and the dreamer,

Hadst thou been faithful to Wisdom the counsellor seated and ancient,

Then would the hour not have dawned when Paris lingered in Sparta

Led by the goddess fatal and beautiful, white Aphrodite.

Man, shun the impulses dire that spring armed from thy nature's abysms!

Dread the dusk rose of the gods, flee the honey that tempts from its petals!

Therefore the black deed was done and the hearth that welcomed was sullied.

Sin-called the Fury uplifted her tresses of gloom o'er the nations

Maddening the earth with the scream of her blood-thirst, bowelless, stone-eyed,

Claiming her victims from God and bestriding the hate and the clamour.

Yet midst the stroke and the wail when men's eyes were blind with the blood-mist,

Still had the high gods mercy recalling Teucer and Ilus.

Just was the heart of their anger. Discord flaming from Ida,

Hundred-voiced glared from the ships through the camp of the victor Achaians, —

Love to that discord added her flowerlike lips of Briseis;

Faltering lids of Polyxena conquered the strength of Pelides.

Vainly the gods who pity open the gates of salvation!

Vainly the winds of their mercy breathe on our fevered existence!

Man his passions prefers to the voice that guides from the heavens.

These too were here whom Hera had chosen to ruin this nation:

Charioteers cracking the whips of their speed on the paths of destruction,

Demigods they! they have come down from Heaven glad to that labour,

Deaf is the world with the fame of their wheels as they race down to Hades.

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O that alone they could reach it! O that pity could soften

Harsh Necessity's dealings, sparing our innocent children,

Saving the Trojan women and aged from bonds and the sword-edge!

These had not sinned whom you slay in your madness! Ruthless, O mortals,

Must you be then to yourselves when the gods even faltering with pity

Turn from the grief that must come and the agony vast and the weeping?

Say not the road of escape sinks too low for your arrogant treading.

Pride is not for our clay; the earth, not heaven was our mother

And we are even as the ant in our toil and the beast in our dying;

Only who cling to the hands of the gods can rise up from the earth-mire.

Children, lie prone to their scourge, that your hearts may revive in their sunshine.

This is our lot! when the anger of heaven has passed then the mortal

Raises his head; soon he heals his heart and forgets he has suffered.

Yet if resurgence from weakness and shame were withheld from the creature,

Every fall without morrow, who then would counsel submission?

But since the height of mortal fortune ascending must stumble,

Fallen, again ascend, since death like birth is our portion,

Ripening, mowed, to be sown again like corn by the farmer,

Let us be patient still with the gods accepting their purpose.

Deem not defeat I welcome. Think not to Hellas submitting

Death of proud hope I would seal. Not this have I counselled, O nation,

But to be even as your high-crested forefathers, greatest of mortals.

Troya of old enringed by the hooves of Cimmerian armies

Flamed to the heavens from her plains and her smoke-blackened citadel sheltered

Mutely the joyless rest of her sons and the wreck of her greatness.

Courage and wisdom survived in that fall and a stern-eyed prudence

Helped her to live; disguised from her mightiness Troy crouched waiting.

Teucer descended whose genius worked at this kingdom and nation,

Patient, scrupulous, wise, like a craftsman carefully toiling

Over a helmet or over a breastplate, testing it always,

Toiled in the eye of the Masters of all and had heed of its labour.

So in the end they would not release him like souls that are common;

They out of Ida sent into Ilion Pallas Athene;

Secret she came and he went with her into the luminous silence.

Teucer's children after their sire completed his labour.

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Now too, O people, front adversity self-gathered, silent.

Veil thyself, leonine mighty Ilion, hiding thy greatness!

Be as thy father Teucer; be as a cavern for lions;

Be as a Fate that crouches! Wordless and stern for your vengeance

Self-gathered work in the night and secrecy shrouding your bosoms.

Let not the dire heavens know of it; let not the foe seize a whisper!

Ripen the hour of your stroke, while your words drip sweeter than honey.

Sure am I, friends, you will turn from death at my voice, you will hear me!

Some day yet I shall gaze on the ruins of haughty Mycenae.

Is this not better than Ilion cast to the sword of her haters,

Is this not happier than Troya captured and wretchedly burning,

Time to await in his stride when the southern and northern Achaians

Gazing with dull distaste now over their severing isthmus

Hate-filled shall move to the shock by the spur of the gods in them driven,

Pelops march upon Attica, Thebes descend on the Spartan?

Then shall the hour now kept in heaven for us ripen to dawning,

Then shall Victory cry to our banners over the Ocean

Calling our sons with her voice immortal. Children of Ilus,

Then shall Troy rise in her strength and stride over Greece up to Gades."

So Antenor spoke and the mind of the hostile assembly

Moved and swayed with his words like the waters ruled by Poseidon.

Even as the billows rebellious lashed by the whips of the tempest

Curvet and rear their crests like the hooded wrath of a serpent,

Green-eyed under their cowls sublime, — unwilling they journey,

Foam-bannered, hoarse-voiced, shepherded, forced by the wind to the margin

Meant for their rest and can turn not at all, though they rage, on their driver, —

Last with a sullen applause and consenting lapse into thunder,

Where they were led all the while they sink down huge and astonished,

So in their souls that withstood and obeyed and hated the yielding,

Lashed by his censure, indignant, the Trojans moved towards his purpose:

Sometimes a roar arose, then only, weakened, rarer,

Angry murmurs swelled between sullen stretches of silence;

Last, a reluctant applause broke dull from the throats of the commons.

Silent raged in their hearts Laocoon's following daunted;

Troubled the faction of Paris turned to the face of their leader.

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He as yet rose not; careless he sat in his beauty and smiling,

Gazing with brilliant eyes at the sculptured pillars of Ilus.

Doubtful, swayed by Antenor, waited in silence the nation.

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