{"id":1494,"date":"2013-07-13T01:35:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1494"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:35:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:12","slug":"79-ilion-vol-05-collected-poems-volume-05","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/05-collected-poems-volume-05\/79-ilion-vol-05-collected-poems-volume-05","title":{"rendered":"-79_Ilion.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\nV<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n


\nILION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nAn Epic in Quantitative Hexameters<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBOOK ONE<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Book of the Herald<\/b><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
\n

 <\/td>\n

\n

\n\t\tD<\/font><\/b>awn in her journey eternal compelling the labour of mortals,
Dawn the beginner of things with the night for their rest or their ending,
\n\t\t
Pallid and bright-lipped arrived from the mists and the chill of the Euxine.
\n\t\t
Earth in the dawn-fire delivered from starry and shadowy vastness
Woke to the wonder of life and its passion and sorrow and beauty,
All on her bosom sustaining, the patient compassionate Mother.
\n\t\t
Out of the formless vision of Night with its look on things hidden
\n\t\t
Given to the gaze of the azure she lay in her garment of greenness,
\n\t\t
Wearing light on her brow. In the dawn-ray lofty and voiceless
Ida climbed with her god-haunted peaks into diamond lustres,
Ida first of the hills with the ranges silent beyond her
Watching the dawn in their giant companies, as since the ages
First began they had watched her, upbearing Time on their summits.
\n\t\t
Troas cold on her plain awaited the boon of the sunshine.
There, like a hope through an emerald dream sole-pacing for ever,
\n\t\t
Stealing to wideness beyond, crept Simois lame in his currents,
Guiding his argent thread mid the green of the reeds and the grasses.
\n\t\t
Headlong, impatient of Space and its boundaries, Time and its slowness,
\n\t\t
Xanthus clamoured aloud as he ran to the far-surging waters,
Joining his call to the many-voiced roar of the mighty Aegean,
\n\t\t
Answering Ocean’s limitless cry like a whelp to its parent.
Forests looked up through their rifts, the ravines grew aware of their shadows.
\n\t\t
Closer now gliding glimmered the golden feet of the goddess.
Over the hills and the headlands spreading her garment of splendour,
\n\t\t
Fateful she came with her eyes impartial looking on all things,
Bringer to man of the day of his fortune and day of his downfall.
Full of her luminous errand, careless of eve and its weeping,
Fateful she paused unconcerned above Ilion’s mysteried greatness,
\n\t\t
Domes like shimmering tongues of the crystal flames of the morning,
\n\t\t
Opalesque rhythm-line of tower-tops, notes of the lyre of the sun-god.
\n\t\t
High over all that a nation had built and its love and its laughter,
\n\t\t
Lighting the last time highway and homestead, market and temple,
Looking on men who must die and women destined to sorrow,
Looking on beauty fire must lay low and the sickle of slaughter,
Fateful she lifted the doom-scroll red with the script of the Immortals,
\n\t\t
Deep in the invisible air that folds in the race and its morrows<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage \u2013 391<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFixed it, and passed on smiling the smile of the
\ngriefless and deathless, –
Dealers of death though death they know not, who in the morning
Scatter the seed of the event for the reaping ready at nightfall.
Over the brooding of plains and the agelong trance of the summits
Out of the sun and its spaces she came, pausing tranquil and fatal,
And, at a distance followed by the golden herds of the sun-god,
Carried the burden of Light and its riddle and danger to Hellas.
Even as fleets on a chariot divine through the gold streets of ether,
\n\t\t
Swiftly when Life fleets, invisibly changing the arc of the soul-drift,
And, with the choice that has chanced or the fate man has called and now suffers
Weighted, the moment travels driving the past towards the future,
Only its face and its feet are seen, not the burden it carries.
Weight of the event and its surface we bear, but the meaning is hidden.
Earth sees not; life’s clamour deafens the ear of the spirit:
Man knows not; least knows the messenger chosen for the summons.
Only he listens to the voice of his thoughts, his heart’s ignorant whisper,
\n\t\t
Whistle of winds in the tree-tops of Time and the rustle of Nature.
Now too the messenger hastened driving the car of the errand:
Even while dawn was a gleam in the east, he had cried to his coursers.
Half yet awake in light’s turrets started the scouts of the morning
Hearing the jar of the wheels and the throb of the hooves’ exultation,
Hooves of the horses of Greece as they galloped to Phrygian Troya.
Proudly they trampled through Xanthus thwarting the foam of his anger,
\n\t\t
Whinnying high as in scorn crossed Simois’ tangled currents,
Xanthus’ reed-girdled twin, the gentle and sluggard river.
\n\t\t
One and unarmed in the car was the driver; grey was he, shrunken,
Worn with his decades. To Pergama cinctured with strength Cyclopean
\n\t\t
Old and alone he arrived, insignificant, feeblest of mortals,
Carrying Fate in his helpless hands and the doom of an empire.
Ilion, couchant, saw him arrive from the sea and the darkness.
Heard mid the faint slow stirrings of life in the sleep of the city,
Rapid there neared a running of feet, and the cry of the summons
Beat round the doors that guarded the domes of the splendour of Priam.
\n\t\t
"Wardens charged with the night, ye who stand in Laomedon’s gateway,
\n\t\t
Waken the Ilian kings. Talthybius, herald of Argos,
Parleying stands at the portals of Troy in the grey of the dawning."
High and insistent the call. In the dimness and hush of his chamber
Charioted far in his dreams amid visions of glory and terror,
Scenes of a vivider world, – though blurred and deformed in the brain-cells,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage \u2013 392<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVague and inconsequent, there full of colour and
\nbeauty and greatness, –
Suddenly drawn by the pull of the conscious thread of the earth-bond
And of the needs of Time and the travail assigned in the transience
\n\t\t
Warned by his body, Deiphobus, reached in that splendid remoteness,
\n\t\t
Touched through the nerve-ways of life that branch to the brain of the dreamer,
Heard the terrestrial call and slumber startled receded
Sliding like dew from the mane of a lion. Reluctant he travelled
Back from the light of the fields beyond death, from the wonderful kingdoms
\n\t\t
Where he had wandered a soul among souls in the countries beyond us,
Free from the toil and incertitude, free from the struggle and danger:
Now, compelled, he returned from the respite given to the time-born,
Called to the strife and the wounds of the earth and the burden of daylight.
He from the carven couch upreared his giant stature.
\n\t\t
Haste-spurred he laved his eyes and regained earth’s memories, haste-spurred
\n\t\t
Donning apparel and armour strode through the town of his fathers,
Watched by her gods on his way to his fate, towards Pergama’s portals.
Nine long years had passed and the tenth now was wearily ending,
Years of the wrath of the gods, and the leaguer still threatened the ramparts
\n\t\t
Since through a tranquil morn the ships came past Tenedos sailing
And the first Argive fell slain as he leaped on the Phrygian beaches;
Still the assailants attacked, still fought back the stubborn defenders.
When the reward is withheld and endlessly lengthens the labour,
Weary of fruitless toil grows the transient heart of the mortal.
Weary of battle the invaders warring hearthless and homeless
Prayed to the gods for release and return to the land of their fathers:
Weary of battle the Phrygians beset in their beautiful city
Prayed to the gods for an end of the danger and mortal encounter.
Long had the high-beached ships forgotten their measureless ocean.
Greece seemed old and strange to her children camped on the beaches,
Old like a life long past one remembers hardly believing
But as a dream that has happened, but as the tale of another.
Time with his tardy touch and Nature changing our substance
Slowly had dimmed the faces loved and the scenes once cherished:
Yet was the dream still dear to them longing for wife and for children,
Longing for hearth and glebe in the far-off valleys of Hellas.
\n\t\t
Always like waves that swallow the shingles, lapsing, returning,
Tide of the battle, race of the onset relentlessly thundered
Over the Phrygian corn-fields. Trojan wrestled with Argive,
Caria, Lycia, Thrace and the war-lord mighty Achaia<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage 393<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJoined in the clasp of the fight. Death, panic and
\nwounds and disaster,
Glory of conquest and glory of fall, and the empty hearth-side,
Weeping and fortitude, terror and hope and the pang of remembrance,
\n\t\t
Anguish of hearts, the lives of the warriors, the strength of the nations
\n\t\t
Thrown were like weights into Destiny’s scales, but the balance wavered
\n\t\t
Pressed by invisible hands. For not only the mortal fighters,
Heroes half divine whose names are like stars in remoteness,
Triumphed and failed and were winds or were weeds on the dance of the surges,
But from the peaks of Olympus and shimmering summits of Ida
\n\t\t
Gleaming and clanging the gods of the antique descended.
Hidden from human knowledge the brilliant shapes of Immortals
\n\t\t
Mingled unseen in the mellay, or sometimes, marvellous, maskless,
\n\t\t
Forms of undying beauty and power that made tremble the heart-strings
\n\t\t
Parting their deathless secrecy crossed through the borders of vision,
\n\t\t
Plain as of old to the demigods out of their glory emerging,
Heard by mortal ears and seen by the eyeballs that perish.
Mighty they came from their spaces of freedom and sorrowless splendour.
\n\t\t
Sea-vast, trailing the azure hem of his clamorous waters,
Blue-lidded, maned with the Night, Poseidon smote for the future,
\n\t\t
Earth-shaker who with his trident releases the coils of the Dragon,
\n\t\t
Freeing the forces unborn that are locked in the caverns of Nature.
Calm and unmoved, upholding the Word that is Fate and the order
\n\t\t
Fixed in the sight of a Will foreknowing and silent and changeless.
Hera sent by Zeus and Athene lifting his aegis
Guarded the hidden decree. But for Ilion, loud as the surges,
Ares impetuous called to the fire in men’s hearts, and his passion
Woke in the shadowy depths the forms of the Titan and demon;
\n\t\t
<\/i>Dumb and coerced by the grip of the gods in the abyss of the being,
Formidable, veiled they sit in the grey subconscient darkness
Watching the sleep of the snake-haired Erinnys. Miracled, haloed,
\n\t\t
Seer and magician and prophet who beholds what the thought cannot witness,
\n\t\t
Lifting the godhead within us to more than a human endeavour,
Slayer and saviour, thinker and mystic, leaped from his sun-peaks
Guarding in Ilion the wall of his mysteries Delphic Apollo.
Heaven’s strengths divided swayed in the whirl of the Earth-force.
\n\t\t
All that is born and destroyed is reborn in the sweep of the ages;
Life like a decimal ever recurring repeats the old figure;
Goal seems there none for the ball that is chased throughout Time by the Fate-teams;<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

 Page 394<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEvil once ended renews and no issue comes out of
\nliving:
Only an Eye unseen can distinguish the thread of its workings.
Such seemed the rule of the pastime of Fate on the plains of the Troad;
All went backwards and forwards tossed in the swing of the death-game.
\n\t\t
Vain was the toil of the heroes, the blood of the mighty was squandered,
\n\t\t
Spray as of surf on the cliffs when it moans unappeased, unrequited
\n\t\t
Age after fruitless age. Day hunted the steps of the nightfall;
Joy succeeded to grief; defeat only greatened the vanquished,
Victory offered an empty delight without guerdon or profit.
\n\t\t
End there was none of the effort and end there was none of the failure.
\n\t\t
Triumph and agony changing hands in a desperate measure
Faced and turned as a man and a maiden trampling the grasses
Face and turn and they laugh in their joy of the dance and each other.
These were gods and they trampled lives. But though Time is immortal,
\n\t\t
Mortal his works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture.
Artists of Nature content with their work in the plan of the transience,
\n\t\t
Beautiful, deathless, august, the Olympians turned from the carnage,
Leaving the battle already decided, leaving the heroes
Slain in their minds, Troy burned, Greece left to her glory and downfall.
Into their heavens they rose up mighty like eagles ascending
Fanning the world with their wings. As the great to their luminous mansions
\n\t\t
Turn from the cry and the strife, forgetting the wounded and fallen,
Calm they repose from their toil and incline to the joy of the banquet,
\n\t\t
Watching the feet of the wine-bearers rosily placed on the marble,
Filling their hearts with ease, so they to their sorrowless ether
Passed from the wounded earth and its air that is ploughed with men’s anguish;
\n\t\t
Calm they reposed and their hearts inclined to the joy and the silence.
Lifted was the burden laid on our wills by their starry presence:
Man was restored to his smallness, the world to its inconscient labour.
Life felt a respite from height, the winds breathed freer delivered;
Light was released from their blaze and the earth was released from their greatness.
\n\t\t
But their immortal content from the struggle titanic departed.
Vacant the noise of the battle roared like the sea on the shingles;
\n\t\t
Wearily hunted the spears their quarry; strength was disheartened;
Silence increased with the march of the months on the tents of the leaguer.
\n\t\t
But not alone on the Achaians the steps of the moments fell heavy;
Slowly the shadow deepened on Ilion mighty and scornful:
Dragging her days went by; in the rear of the hearts of her people<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage 395<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSomething that knew what they dared not know and the
\nmind would not utter,
\n
Something that smote at her soul of defiance and beauty and laughter,
Darkened the hours. For Doom in her sombre and giant uprising
\n\t\t
Neared, assailing the skies: the sense of her lived in all pastimes;
Time was pursued by unease and a terror woke in the midnight:
Even the ramparts felt her, stones that the gods had erected.
Now no longer she dallied and played, but bounded and hastened,
\n\t\t
Seeing before her the end and, imagining massacre calmly,
Laughed and admired the flames and rejoiced in the cry of the captives.
Under her, dead to the watching immortals, Deiphobus hastened
Clanging in arms through the streets of the beautiful insolent city,
Brilliant, a gleaming husk but empty and left by the daemon.
Even as a star long extinguished whose light still travels the spaces,
Seen in its form by men, but itself goes phantom-like fleeting
Void and null and dark through the uncaring infinite vastness,
So now he seemed to the sight that sees all things from the Real.
\n\t\t
Timeless its vision of Time creates the hour by things coming.
Borne on a force from the past and no more by a power for the future
\n\t\t
Mighty and bright was his body, but shadowy the shape of his spirit
Only an eidolon seemed of the being that had lived in him, fleeting
\n\t\t
Vague like a phantom seen by the dim Acherontian waters.
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But to the guardian towers that
\nwatched over Pergama’s gateway
Out of the waking city Deiphobus swiftly arriving
Called, and swinging back the huge gates slowly, reluctant,
Flung Troy wide to the entering Argive. Ilion’s portals
Parted admitting her destiny, then with a sullen and iron
Cry they closed. Mute, staring, grey like a wolf descended
Old Talthybius, propping his steps on the staff of his errand;
Feeble his body, but fierce still his glance with the fire within him;
\n\t\t
Speechless and brooding he gazed on the hated and coveted city.
Suddenly, seeking heaven with her buildings hewn as for Titans,
Marvellous, rhythmic, a child of the gods with marble for raiment,
\n\t\t
Smiting the vision with harmony, splendid and mighty and golden,
Ilion stood up around him entrenched in her giant defences.
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,
\n\t\t
Helpless and dumb with his hate as he gazed on her, they too like mortals
\n\t\t
Knowing their centuries past, not knowing the morrow before them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage 396<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDire were his eyes upon Troya the beautiful, his face
\nlike 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,
\n\t\t
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 northwind answered the voice of the doom from Achaia:
"Trojan Deiphobus, daybreak, silence of night and the evening
\n\t\t
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.
\n\t\t
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.
\n\t\t
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
\n\t\t
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."
"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."
\n\t\t
Even as the word sank back into stilness, doffing his mantle
Started to run at the bidding a swift-footed youth of the Trojans<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage 397 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFirst in the race and
\nthe battle, Thrasymachus son of Aretes.
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.
\n\t\t
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,
\n\t\t
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;
\n\t\t
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;
\n\t\t
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
\n\t\t
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 Cre\u00fcsa,
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,
\n\t\t
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,
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,
\n\t\t
Yearning and thought are their engines, our will is their shadow and helper.
\n\t\t
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,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage- 398<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tLashing themselves at his steeds, Talthybius sent by Achilles."
"Busy the gods are 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,
\n\t\t
Frame but the dance of their shuttle. What eye unamazed by their workings
\n\t\t
Ever can pierce where they dwell and uncover their far-stretching purpose?
\n\t\t
Silent they toil, they are hid in the clouds, they are wrapped with the
\nmidnight.
Yet to Apollo, I pray, the Archer friendly to mortals, -4.
Yet to the rider on Fate I abase myself, wielder of
\n\t\t<\/i>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.
\n\t\t
Red was the smoke as it mounted triumphant the house-top of <\/i>Priam,
\n\t\t
Clang of the arms of the Greeks was in Troya, and thwarting the clangour
\n\t\t
Voices were crying and calling me over the violent Ocean
Borne by the winds of the West from a land where Hesperus harbours."
\n\t\t
Brooding they ceased, for their thoughts grew heavy upon them and voiceless.
\n\t\t
Then, in a farewell brief and unthought and unconscious of meaning,
\n\t\t
Parting they turned to their tasks and their lives now close but soon severed:
\n\t\t
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
\n\t\t<\/i>a goddess.
One was he chosen to ascend into greatness through fall and disaster,
\n\t\t
Loser of his world by the will of <\/i>a heaven that seemed ruthless and
\nadverse,
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,
\n\t\t
Fronted with the morning ray and joined by the winds of <\/i>the ocean,
\n\t\t
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
\n\t\t
Lonely and strong like a goddess white-limbed and bright on a hill-top,
\n\t\t
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
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage – 399<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nin 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
\nthreshold 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
\n\t\t<\/span>Troas,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHerald,
\nthy car while\u00b9<\/font> 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
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>though<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage
\n– 400 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\tArmed
\nby Fate now Pallas forgets, now Poseidon slumbers? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBronze
\nwere their throats to the battle like bugles blaring in chorus;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMercy
\nthey knew not, but shouted and ravened and ran to the slaughter
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEager
\nas hounds when they chase,<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\ttill<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\ta
\nwoman met the: and stayed them, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLoud
\nmy war-shout rang by Scamander. Herald of Argos, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhat
\nsay the vaunters of Greece to the virgin Pentresilea?" <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHigh
\nwas the Argive’s answer confronting the mighty in Troya. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t"Princes
\nof Pergama, whelps of the lion who roar for the mellay, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuffer
\nmy speech! It shall ring like a spear on the hearts of the mighty.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBlame
\nnot the herald; his voice is an impulse, an echo, a channel <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nfor the timbrels of peace and now for the drums of the battle.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nI have come from no cautious strength, from no half-hearted speaker,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfrom the Phthian. All know him! Proud is his soul as his fortunes,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwift
\nas his sword and his spear are the speech and the wrath from his bosom.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI
\nam his envoy, herald am I of the conquering Argives. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHas
\nnot one heard in the night when the breezes whisper and shudder,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDire,
\nthe voice of a lion unsatisfied, gnawed by his hunger, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSeeking
\nhis prey from the gods? For he prowls through the glens of the mountains,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tErrs
\na dangerous gleam in the woodlands, fatal and silent. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nfor a while he endures, for a while he seeks and he suffers <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPatient
\nyet in his terrible grace as assured of his banquet; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nhe has lacked too long and he lifts his head and to heaven <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRoars
\nin his wonder incensed, impatiently. Startled the valleys <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShrink
\nfrom the dreadful alarum, the cattle gallop to shelter. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArming
\nthe herdsmen cry to each other for comfort and courage." <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nTalthybius spoke, as a harper voicing his prelude <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTouches
\nhis strings to a varied music, seeks for a concord; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nhis strain he prepares. But one broke in on the speaker, – <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSweet
\nwas his voice like a harp’s though heard in the front of the onset, –
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nof the sons of Fate by the people loved whom he ruined, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeader
\nin counsel and battle, the Priamid, he in his beauty <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCarelessly
\nwalking who scattered the seeds of Titanic disaster. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t"Surely
\nthou dreamedst at night and awaking thy dreams have not left thee!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHast
\nthou not woven thy words to intimidate children in <\/span>
\n\t\tArgos
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSitting
\nalarmed in the shadows who listen pale to their nurses? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreek
\nthou art standing in Ilion now and thou speak’st to\u00b9<\/font>princes.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tUse
\nnot thy words but thy king\u2019s. If friendship their honey-breathed burden,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFriendship
\nwe clasp from Achilles, but challenge outpace with our challenge
\n\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>facest
\nher<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t  Page-401
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tMeeting
\nthe foe ere he moves in his will to the clash of encounter. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuch
\nis the way of the Trojans since Phryx by the Hellespont halting
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSeated
\nTroy on her hill with Ocean for comrade and sister." <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShaking
\nin wrath his filleted head. Talthybius answered: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t"Princes,
\nye speak their words who drive you! Thus said Achilles: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRise,\u00b9<\/font> Talthybius, meet in her spaces the car of the morning;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChallenge
\nher coursers divine as they bound through the plains of the, Troad.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHasten,
\nlet not the day wear gold ere thou stand in her ramparts <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHerald
\ncharged with my will to a haughty and obstinate nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeak
\nin the palace of Priam the word of the Phthian Achilles. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFreely
\nand not as his vassal who leads, Agamemnon, the Argive, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nas a ruler in Hellas I send thee, king of my nations. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nI lingered\u00b2<\/font> apart from the mellay of gods in the Troad,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nhas my listless spear leaned back on the peace of my tent-side,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeaf
\nto the talk of the trumpets, the whine of the chariots speeding;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSole
\nwith my heart I have lived, unheeding the Hellene murmur, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChid
\nwhen it roared for the hunt the lion-pack of the war-god, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDay
\nafter day I walked at dawn and in blush of the sunset, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFar
\nby the call of the seas and alone with the gods and my dreaming,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaned
\nto the unsatisfied chant of my heart and the rhythms of Ocean,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSung
\nto by hopes that were sweet-lipped and vain. Polyxena’s brothers
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nare the brood of the Titan Laomedon slain in his greatness, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEngines
\nof God unable to bear all the might that they harbour. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAwe
\nthey have chid from their hearts, nor our common humanity binds
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tthem,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStay
\nhave they none in the gods who approve, giving calmness to mortals:
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nlike the Titans of old they have hugged to them grandeur and ruin.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSeek
\nthen the race self-doomed and the leaders blinded by heaven \u2013 <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nin the agora swept by the winds of debate and the shoutings <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLion-voiced,
\nhuge of the people! In Troyas high-crested mansion <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeak
\nout my word to the hero Deiphobus, head of the mellay, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tParis
\nthe racer of doom and the stubborn strength of Aeneas <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHerald
\nof Greece, when thy feet shall stand\u00b3<\/font> on the gold and the marble,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRise
\nin the Ilian megaron, curb not the cry of the challenge. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThus
\nshalt thou say to them stroking the ground with the staff of defiance,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFronting
\nthe tempests of war, the insensate, the gamblers with ruin.4<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Princes
\nof Troy, I have sat in your halls, I have slept in your chambers;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nin the battle alone, as a warrior glad of his foemen,
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Haste<\/font><\/span>     
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font>I
\nhave walked<\/font>      \u00b3<\/font>be
\npressed<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t     
\n\t\t4<\/font><\/sup><\/span>downfall<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-402<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tGlad
\nof\u00b9 <\/font>the strength that mates with his own, in peace we encountered.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMarvelling
\nI 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,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAte
\nrejoicing the food of the East at the tables of Priam, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tServed
\nby the delicatest hands in the world, by Hecuba’s daughter, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nwith our souls reconciled in some careless and rapturous midnight
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDrank
\nof the sweetness of Phrygian wine, admired<\/span>\u00b2<\/font><\/span> your bodies
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShaped
\nby the gods indeed and my spirit revolted from hatred; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSoftening
\nit yearned in its strings to the beauty and joy of its foemen,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYearned
\nfrom the death that o’ertakes and the flame that cries arid desires
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nat the end to save and even on the verge to deliver <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nand her wonderful works and her sons and her deep-bosomed daughters.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWarned
\nby the gods who reveal to the heart what the mind cannot hearken
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeaf
\nwith its thoughts, I offered you friendship, I offered you bridal,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHellas
\nfor comrade, Achilles for brother, the world for enjoyment <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWon
\nby my spear. And one heard my call and one turned to my seeking.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhy
\nis it then that the war-cry sinks not to rest by the Xanthus? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWe
\nare not voices from Argolis, Lacedaemonian tricksters, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSplendid
\nand subtle and false; we are speakers of truth, we are Hellenes,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen
\nof the northland faithful in friendship and noble in anger, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrong
\nlike our fathers of old. But you answered my truth with evasion
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHoping
\nto seize what I will not yield and you flattered your people. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nhave I waited for wisdom to dawn on your violent natures. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLonely
\nI paced o’er the sands by the thousand-throated waters <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPraying
\nto Pallas the wise that the doom might turn<\/span>\u00b3<\/font><\/span>
\nfrom your mansions <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBuildings
\ndelightful, gracious as rhythms, lyrics in marble, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWorks
\nof the transient gods; – and I yearned for the end of the war-din
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHoping
\nthat Death might relent to the beautiful sons of the Trojans. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFar
\nfrom the cry of the spears, from the speed and the laughter of axles,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeavy
\nupon me like iron the intolerable yoke of inaction <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWeighed
\nlike a load on a runner. The war-cry rose by Scamander; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tXanthus
\nwas crossed on a bridge of the fallen, not by Achilles <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOften
\nI stretched out my hand to the spear, for the Trojan beaches <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRang
\nwith the voice of Deiphobus shouting and slaying the Argives; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOften
\nmy heart like an anxious mother for <\/span>
\n\t\tGreece<\/span>
\nand her children <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaped,
\nfor the air was full of the leonine roar of Aeneas. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAlways
\nthe evening fell or the gods protected the Argives<\/span>
\n. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nby the moat of the ships, on the hither plain of the Xanthus
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>Loving     
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>admiring    
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span>for
\nthe doom to swerve<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-403<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tNew
\nwas the voice that climbed through the din and sailed on the <\/span>
\n\t\tbreezes,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHigh,
\ninsistent, clear, and it shouted an unknown war-cry <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThreatening
\ndoom to the peoples. A woman had come in to aid you <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRegal
\nand insolent, fair as the morning and fell as the northwind, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFreed
\nfrom the distaff who grasps at the sword and spurns at subjection
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBreaking
\nthe rule of the gods. She is turbulent, swift in the battle. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tClanging
\nher voice of the swan as a summons to death and disaster, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFleet-footed,
\nhappy and pitiless, laughing she runs to the slaughter; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrong
\nwith the gait that allures she leaps from her car to the slaying,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDabbles
\nin blood smooth hands like lilies. Europe astonished <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tReels
\nfrom her shock to the Ocean. She is the panic and mellay, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWar
\nis her paean, the chariots thunder of Penthesilea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoom
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\twas<\/span>
\nher coming, it seems, to the men of the West <\/span>
\n\t\tand
\ntheir legions; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAjax sleeps for ever,\u00b9
\n\t\t<\/font>Meriones lies on the beaches, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nby one they are falling before you, the great in Achaia. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEver
\nthe wounded are borne like the stream of the ants when they forage,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPast
\nmy ships, and they hush their moans as they near and in silence
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGaze
\nat the legions inactive accusing the fame of Achilles. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nhave I borne with you, waited a little, looked for a summons, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLonging
\nfor bridal torches, not flame on the Ilian housetops, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBlood
\nin the chambers of sweetness, the golden amorous city <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwallowed
\nby doom. Not broken I turned from the wrestle Titanic, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHopeless,
\nweary of toil in the ebb of my glorious spirit, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfrom my stress of compassion for doom of the kindred nations, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfor her sake whom my soul desires, for the daughter of Priam. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nfor Polyxena’s sake I will speak to you yet as your lover <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\nere the Fury, abrupt from Erebus, deaf to your crying, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMad
\nwith the joy of the massacre, seizes on wealth and on women <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCalling
\nto Fire as it strides and Ilion sinks into ashes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYield;
\nfor your doom is impatient. No longer your helpers hasten, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLegions
\nswift to your call; the yoke of your pride and your splendour <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLies
\nnot now on the nations of earth as when Fortune desired you, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrength
\nwas your slave and Troya the lioness hungrily roaring <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThreatened
\nthe western world from her ramparts built by Apollo. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGladly
\nreleased from the thraldom they hated, the insolent shackles <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCurbing
\ntheir manhood the peoples arise and they pray for your ruin;
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>Here, as in some other
\nlines, Ajax is spoken of as having been slain by Penthesilea. Else- where in the
\npoem we come across a living Ajax. The discrepancy is explained by the fact that
\nin the Trojan War there were two Ajaxes, the Great and the small. The latter,
\ncalled also the Locrian, figures as alive in Ilion<\/i>
\n) <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-404<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tPiled
\nare their altars with gifts; their blessings help the Achaians.
Memnon came, but he sleeps, and the faces swart of his nation
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDarken
\nno more like a cloud over thunder and surge of the onset. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWearily
\nLycia fights; far fled are the Carian levies. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThrace
\nretreats to her plains preferring the whistle of storm-winds <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\non the banks of the Strymon to wheel in her Orphean measure, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nin the revel of swords and fronting the spears of the Hellenes.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPrinces
\nof Pergama, open your gates to our Peace who would enter <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLife
\nin her gracious clasp and forgetfulness, grave of earth’s passions,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHealer
\nof wounds and the past. In a comity equal, Hellenic, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAsia
\njoin with Greece, our world from the frozen rivers <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrod
\nby the hooves of the Scythian to farthest undulant Ganges. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTyndarid
\nHelen yield\u00b9<\/font>,  the desirable cause of your danger,
Back to Greece that is empty long of her smile and her movements.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBroider
\nwith\u00b2<\/font> riches her coming, pomp of her slaves and the wagons
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEndlessly
\ngroaning with gold that arrive with the ransom of nations. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nshall the Fury be pacified, she who exultant from Sparta <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBreathed
\nin the Sails of the Trojan ravisher helping his oarsmen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nshall the gods be appeased and the thoughts of their wrath shall be cancelled,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJustice
\ncontented trace back her steps and for brands of the burning <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTorches
\ndelightful shall break into Troy with\u00b3<\/font>  the
\nswords of the bridal. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI
\nlike a bridegroom will seize on your city and clasp and defend her
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSafe<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tfrom
\nthe hunger of<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tArgos<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tfrom
\nLacedaemonian hatred, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSafe<\/span>
\nfrom the hunger of Crete and the Locrian\u2019s violent rapine. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nif you turn from my voice and you hearken only to Ares <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCrying
\nfor battle within you deluded by Hera and Pallas, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwiftly
\nfierce death’s surges shall close over Troy and her ramparts <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBuilt
\nby the gods shall be stubble and earth to the tread of the Hellene.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nto my tents I return not, I swear it by Zeus and Apollo, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMaster
\nof Truth who sits within Delphi fathomless brooding <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSole
\nin the caverns of Nature and hearkens her underground murmur, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGiving
\nmy oath to his keeping mute and stern who forgets not. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nfrom the panting of Ares\u2019 toil to repose, from the wrestle <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLocked
\nof hope and death in the ruthless clasp of the mellay <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaving
\nagain the Trojan ramparts unmounted, leaving <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreece
\nunavenged, the Aegean a lake and Europe a province. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChoosing
\nfrom Hellas exile, from Peleus and Deidamia, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChoosing
\nthe field for my chamber of sleep and the battle for hearthside
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>Resign      
\n\t\t<\/font>\u00b2<\/font>Frame in, Chase in,
\nEqual with, Double with      <\/font>
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span>and<\/font><\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-405<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tI
\nshall go warring on till Asia enslaved to my footsteps <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFeels
\nthe tread of the God in my sandal pressed on her bosom. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRest
\nshall I then when the borders of Greece are fringed with the Ganges;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThus
\nshall the past pay its ransom\u00b9<\/font>and, Fate her balance
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChanging,
\na continent ravished suffer the fortune of Helen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nI have sworn allying my will to Zeus and Ananke <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nwas it spoken, the Phthian challenge. Silent the heroes <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLooked
\nback amazed on their past and into the night of their future. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\ntheir hearts felt a grasp from gods and had hints of the heavens.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHush
\nwas awhile in the room as if Fate were trying her balance <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPoised
\non the thoughts of her mortals. At length with a magical laughter
<\/span>
\n\t\tI
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tSweet
\nas the jangling of bells upon anklets leaping in measure <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnswered
\nhigh\u00b2<\/font>
\nto the gods the virgin Penthesilea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t"Long
\nI had heard in my distant realms of the fame of Achilles, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIgnorant
\nstill while I played with the ball and ran in the dances <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThinking
\nnot ever to war; but I dreamed of the shock of the hero. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nmight a poet inland who imagines the rumour of Ocean <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYearn
\nwith his lust for its\u00b3<\/font>
\ngiant upheaval, its4<\/font><\/sup><\/font> dance as of hill-tops,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tToss
\nof the yellow mane and the tawny march and the voices <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLionlike
\nclaiming earth as a prey for the, clamorous waters. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nhave I longed as I came for the cry and the speed of Achilles.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nhe has lurked in his ships, he has sulked like a boy that is angry.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlad
\nam I now of his soul that arises hungry for battle, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlad,
\nwhether victor I live or defeated travel to the shadows. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\nshall my spear have rung on the shield of the Phthian Achilles.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPeace
\nI desire not. I came to a haughty and resolute nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHonour
\nand fame they cherish, not life by the gift of a foeman. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSons
\nof the ancient house on whom Ilion looks as on Titans, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChiefs
\nwhom the world admires, do<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>you<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tfear
\nthen the shock of the
\n<\/span>Phthian?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGods,
\nit is said, have decided your doom. Are you less in your greatness?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAre
\nyou not gods to reverse their decrees or unshaken to suffer? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMemnon
\nis dead and the Carians leave you? Lycia lingers? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfrom the streams of my East I have come to you, Penthesilea."
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t"Virgin
\nof Asia," answered Talthybius, "doom of a nation <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBrought
\nthee to Troy and her haters Olympian shielded thy coming, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVainly
\nwho feedest men’s hearts with a hope that the gods have rejected.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoom
\nin thy sweet voice utters her counsels robed like a woman."
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnswered
\nthe virgin disdainfully, wroth at the words of the Argive:
\n  <\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>the Titan ransom be paid   
\n\t\t<\/font>\u00b2<\/font>aloud    
\n\t\t<\/font>\u00b3<\/font>the   
\n\t\t<\/font>4<\/font><\/sup><\/font><\/span>the<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-406<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t"Hast
\nthou not ended the errand they gave thee, envoy of Hellas? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot,
\ndo I think, as our counsellor cam’st thou elected from Argos, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nas a lover to Troy hast thou hastened with amorous footing <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHurting
\nthy heart with her frowardness. Hatred and rapine sent thee, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreed
\nof the Ilian gold and lust of the Phrygian women. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVoice
\nof Achaian aggression! Doom am 1 truly; let Gnossus <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWitness
\nit, Salamis speak of my fatal arrival and Argos <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\nremember her wounds." But the Argive answered the virgin:
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t"Hearken
\nthen to the words of the Hellene, Penthesilea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Virgin
\nto whom earth’s strongest are corn in the sweep of thy sickle,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLioness
\nvain of thy bruit thou besiegest the paths of the battle! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArt
\nthou not satiate yet? hast thou drunk then so little of slaughter?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeath
\nhas ascended thy car; he has chosen thy hand for his harvest. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nI have heard of thy pride and disdain, how thou scornest the Argives
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nof thy fate thou complainest that ever averse to thy wishes <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCloisters
\nthe Phthian and matches with weaklings Penthesilea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Not
\nof the Ithacan boar nor the wild-cat littered in Locris. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nof the sleek-coat Argive wild-bulls sates me the hunting;\u2019 <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nhast thou said, \u2018I would bury my spear in the lion of Hellas.\u2019
Blind and infatuate, art thou not beautiful, bright as the lightning?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWere
\nnot thy limbs made cunningly by linking sweetness to sweetness?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIs
\nnot thy laughter an arrow surprising hearts imprudent? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCharm
\nis the seal of the gods upon woman. Distaff and girdle, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWork
\nof the jar at the well and the hush of our innermost chambers;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThese
\nwere appointed thee, but thou hast scorned them, O Titaness grasping
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\nthe shield and the spear. Thou, obeying thy turbulent nature, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTramplest
\no’er laws that are old to the pleasure thy heart has demanded.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\nbow to the ancient Gods who are seated and constant. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfor thyself thou passest and what hast thou gained for the aeons
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMingled
\nwith men in their works and depriving the age of thy beauty? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFair
\nart thou, woman, but fair with a bitter and opposite sweetness
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tClanging
\nin war and when thou matchest thy voice with the shout of assemblies.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nto this end was thy sweetness made and the joy of thy members,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nto this rhythm Heaven tuned its pipe in thy throat of enchantment
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArmoured
\nlike men to go warring forth and with hardness and fierceness <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMix
\nin the strife and the hate while the varied meaning of Nature <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPerishes
\nhurt in its heart and life is emptied of music. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nhave I marked in your world a madness. Monarchs descending <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCourt
\nthe imperious mob of their slaves and their suppliant gesture
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-407<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tShameless
\nand venal offends the majestic tradition of ages: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPrinces
\nplead in the agora; spurred by the tongue of a coward, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeroes
\nmarch to an impious war at a priestly bidding. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGold
\nis sought by the great with the chaffering heart <\/span>
\n\t\tof
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tthe
\ntrader. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAsia
\nfails and the Gods are abandoning Ida for Hellas. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhy
\nmust thou come here to perish, 0 noble and exquisite virgin, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHere
\nin a cause not thine, in a quarrel remote from thy beauty, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaving
\na land that is lovely and far to be slain among strangers? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGirl,
\nto thy rivers go back and thy hills where the grapes are aspirant.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrust
\nnot a fate that indulges; for all things, Penthesilea,
Break with excess and he is the wisest who walks by a measure.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet,
\nif thou wilt, thou shalt meet me today in the shock of the battle;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere
\nwill I give thee the fame thou desirest; captive in Hellas, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen
\nshall point to thee always, smiling and whispering, saying, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nis the woman who fought with the Greeks, overthrowing their heroes;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nis the slayer of Ajax, this is the slave of Achilles.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nwith her musical laughter the fearless Penthesilea: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cWell
\ndo I hope that Achilles enslaved shall taste of that glory <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\non the Phrygian fields lie slain by the spear of a women.\u201d <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nto the herald Achaian the Priamid, leader of Troya: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cRest
\nin the halls of thy foes and ease thy fatigue and thy winters.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHerald,
\nabide till the people have heard and reply to Achilles. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nas the kings of the<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tWest<\/span>
\nare Ilion\u2019s princes and archons, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMonarchs
\nof men who drive their nations dumb to the battle. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nin the palace of Priam and not in the halls of the mighty <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhispered
\ncouncils prevail and the few dispose of the millions; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nwith their nation consulting, feeling the hearts of the commons
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlion\u2019s
\nprinces march to the war or give peace to their foemen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLightning
\ndeparts from her kings and the thunder returns from her people
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMet
\nin the ancient assembly where Ilus founded his columns <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nsince her famous centuries, names that the ages remember <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeading
\nher, Troya proclaims her decrees to obedient nations.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCeasing
\nhe cried to the thralls of his house and they tended the Argive.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBrought
\nto a chamber of rest in the luminous peace of the mansion, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGrey
\nhe sat and endured the food and the wine of his foemen, – <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChiding
\nhis spirit that murmured within him and gazed undelighted, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tVexed
\nwith the endless pomps of Laomedon. Far from those glories <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMemory
\nwinged it back to a sward half-forgotten, a village <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNestling
\nin leaves and low hills watching it crowned with the sunset.
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-408<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tSo
\nfor his hour he abode in earth\u2019s palace of lordliest beauty, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nin its caverns his heart was weary and, hurt by the splendours,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLonged
\nfor Greece and the smoke-darkened roof of a cottage in Argos, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEyes
\nof a Woman faded and children crowding the hearthside. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJoyless
\nhe rose <\/span>
\n\t\tand
\neastward expected the sunrise<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\ton I<\/span>da.
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-409
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBOOK
\nTWO<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe Book of the Statesman<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
\n

 <\/td>\n

\n

\n\t\tN<\/font><\/b>ow
\nfrom his cycle sleepless and vast round the dance of the Earth-globe<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGold
\nHyperions rose in the wake of the dawn like the eyeball<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFlaming
\nof God revealed by his uplifted luminous eyelid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nh<\/span>e beheld and he
\nviewed the transient labour of mortals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nher marble beauty and pomp were laid bare to the heavens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSunlight
\nstreamed into Ilion waking the voice of her gardens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAmorous
\nseized on her ways, lived glad in her plains and her pastures,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKissed
\nher leaves into brightness of green. As a lover the last, time<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYearns
\nto the beauty desired that again shall not wake to his kisses,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nover Ilion doomed leaned the yearning immense of the sunrise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShe
\nlike a wordless marble memory dreaming for ever<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLifted
\nthe, gaze of her perishable immortality sunwards.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nher human past aspired in the clearness eternal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTemples
\nof Phryx and Dardanus touched with the gold of the morning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tColumns
\ntriumphant of Ilus, domes of their greatness enamoured,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStones
\nthat intended to live; and her citadel climbed up to heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhite
\nlike the soul of the <\/span>Titan<\/span>
\nLaomedon claiming his kingdoms,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWatched
\nwith alarm by the gods as he came. Her bosom maternal<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThrilled to the steps of her sons and a murmur began
\nin her high-roads<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLife
\nrenewed its ways which death and sleep cannot alter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLife
\nthat pursuing her boundless march to a goal which we know not,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEver
\nher own law obeys, not our hopes, who are slaves of her heart-beats.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nas now men walked in the round which the gods have decreed them<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEagerly
\nturning their eyes to the lure and the tool and the labour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChained
\nis their gaze to the span in front, to the gulfs they are blinded<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMeant
\nfor their steps. The seller opened his shop and the craftsman<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBent
\no’er his instruments handling the work he never would finis,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBusy
\nas if their lives were for ever, today in its evening<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSure
\nof tomorrow. The hammers clanged and the voice of the markets<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWaking
\ndesired its daily rumour. Nor only the craftsman,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nthe hopes of the earth, but the hearts of her votaries kneeling<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCame
\nto her marble shrines and upraised to our helpers eternal<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMissioned
\nthe prayer and the hymn or silent, subtly adoring<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVentured
\nupwards in incense. Loud too the clash of the cymbals<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFilled
\nall the temples of Troy with the cry of our souls to the <\/span>
\n\t\tazure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPrayers
\nbreathed in vain and a cry that fell back with Fate for its answer<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-410<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 Children
\nlaughed in her doorways; joyous they played, by their mothers<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSmiled
\non still, but their tender bosoms unknowing awaited<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGrecian
\nspearpoints sharpened by <\/span>Fate<\/span>
\nfor their unripe bosoms,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTasks
\nof the slave in Greece. Like bees round their honey-filled dwellings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMurmuring
\nswarmed to the well-heads the large-eyed daughters of Troya,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeep-bosomed,
\nlimbed like the gods, – glad faces of old that were sentient<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRapturous
\nflowers of the soul, bright bodies that lived under darkness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeavily\u00b9<\/font> massed of their locks like
\nday under night made resplendent,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDaughters
\ndivine of the earth in the ages when heaven was our father.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nround Troy’s well-heads flowerlike satisfied mom with their beauty<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nin the river baring their knees to the embrace of the coolness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDipped
\ntheir white feet in the clutch of his streams, in the haste of Scamander,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLingering
\nthis last time with laughter and talk of the day and the morrow<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaned
\nto the hurrying flood. All his swiftnesses raced down to meet them<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCrowding
\nhis channel with dancing billows and turbulent murmurs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tXanthus
\nprimaeval met these waves of our life in its passing<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nas of old he had played with Troy’s ancient fair generations<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMingling
\nhis deathless voice with the laughter and joy of their ages,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLaughter
\nof dawns that are dead and a joy that the earth has rejected.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nhis whispering trees remembered their bygone voices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHast
\nthou forgotten, O river of Troy? Still, still we can hear them<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow,
\nif we listen long in our souls, the bygone voices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEarth
\nin her fibres remembers, the breezes are stored with our echoes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOver
\nthe stone-hewn steps for their limpid orient waters<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJoyous
\nthey leaned and they knew not yet of the wells of Mycenae,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDrew
\nnot yet from Eurotas the jar for an alien master,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMixed
\nnot Pineus yet with their tears. From the clasp of the current<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nin their groups they arose and dispersed through the streets and the
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tbyways,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTurned
\nfrom the freedom of earth to the works and the joy of the hearthside,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLightly,
\nthey rose and returned through the lanes of the wind-haunted city<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwaying
\nwith rhythmical steps while the anklets jangled and murmured.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\ntemples saw them passing; you too, O houses,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBuilt
\nwith such hopes by mortal man for his transient lodging;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFragrant
\nthe gardens strewed on dark tresses their white-smiling jasmines<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDropped
\nlike a silent boon of purity soft from the branches:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFlowers
\nby the wayside were budding, cries flew winged round the tree-tops.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBright
\nwas the glory of life in Ilion city of Priam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThrice to the city the doom-blast published its
\nsolemn alarum,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Nobly<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-411<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 Blast
\nof the trumpets that call to assembly clamoured through Troya<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThrice
\nand were still. From garden and highway, from palace and temple<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTurned
\nlike a steed to the trumpet, rejoicing in war and ambition,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGathered
\nalert to the call the democracy hated of heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFirst
\nin their ranks upbearing their age as Atlas his heavens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEagle-crested,
\nwith hoary hair like the snow upon Ida,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlion’s
\nsenators paced, Antenor and wide-browed Anchises.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAthamas
\nfamous for ships and the war of the waters, Tryas<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nwhose name was remembered by Oxus the orient river,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAstyoches
\nand Ucalegon, dateless Pallachus, Aetor,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAspetus
\nwho of the secrets divine knew all and was silent,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAscanus,
\nIliones, Alcesiphron, Orus, Aretes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNext
\nfrom the citadel came with the voice of the heralds before him<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPriam
\nand Priam’s sons, Aeneas leonine striding,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFollowed\u00b9<\/font> by
\nthe heart of a nation adoring her Penthesilea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nthat was noble in Troy attended the regal procession<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMarching
\nin front and behind and the tramp of their feet was a rhythm<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTuned
\nto the arrogant fortunes of Ilion ruled by incarnate<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDemigods,
\nIlus and Phryx and Dardanus, Tros of the conquests,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTros
\nand far-ruling Laomedon who to his grandiose\u00b2<\/font>labour<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDrew
\ndown the sons of the skies and was served by the ageless immortals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tInto
\nthe agora vast and aspirant besieged by its columns<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBathed
\nand anointed they came like gods in their beauty and grandeur.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLast
\nlike the roar of the winds came trampling the surge of the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tClamorous
\nled by a force obscure to its ultimate fatal<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSession
\nof wrath the violent mighty democracy hastened;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThousands
\nof ardent lives with the heart yet unslain in their bosoms<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLifted
\nto heaven the voice of man and his far-spreading rumour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSinging
\nthe young men with banners marched in their joyous processions,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrod
\nin martial measure or dancing with lyrical paces<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChanted
\nthe glory of\u00a0 <\/span>troy and the wonderful
\ndeeds of their fathers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tInto
\nthe columned assembly where Ilus had gathered his people,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThousands
\non thousands the tramp and the murmur poured; in their armoured<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlittering
\ntribes they were ranked, an untameable high-hearted nation<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWaiting
\nthe voice of its chiefs. Some gazed on the greatness of Priam<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAncient,
\nremote from their days, the last of the gods who were passing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeft
\nlike a soul uncompanioned in worlds where his strength shall not conquer:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Led    
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>soul\u2019s strong<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-412<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t <\/span>Sole
\nlike a column gigantic alone on a desolate hill-side<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOlder
\nthan mortals he seemed and mightier. Many in anger<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAimed
\ntheir hostile looks where calm though by heaven abandoned,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeft
\nto his soul and his lucid mind and its thoughts unavailing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHead
\nof\u00b9<\/font> the age-chilled few whom
\nthe might of their hearts had not blinded,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFamous
\nAntenor was seated, the fallen unpopular statesman,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWisest
\nof speakers in Troy but rejected, stoned and dishonoured.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent,
\naloof from the people he sat, a heart full of ruins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLow
\nwas the rumour that swelled like the hum of the bees in a meadow<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\nwith the thirst of the honey they swarm on the thyme and the linden,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHundreds
\nhumming and flitting till all that place is a murmur.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nfrom his seat like a tower arising Priam the monarch<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSlowly
\nerect in his vast tranquillity silenced the people:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLonely,
\naugust he stood like one whom death has forgotten,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tReared
\nlike a column of might and of silence over the assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nOlympus rises alone with his snows into heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCrowned
\nwere his heights by the locks that slept like the mass of the snow-swathe<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tClothing
\nhis giant shoulders; his eyes of deep meditation,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEyes
\nthat beheld now the end and accepted it like the beginning<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGazed
\non the throng of the people as on a pomp that is painted:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSlowly
\nhe spoke like one who is far from the scenes where he sojourns.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cLeader
\nof Ilion, hero Deiphobus, thou who hast summoned<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nin her people, arise; say wherefore thou callest us. Evil<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeak
\nthou or good, thou canst speak that only: Necessity fashions<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nthat the unseen eye has beheld. Speak then to the Trojans;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSay
\non this dawn of her making what issue of death or of triumph<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFate
\nin his suddenness puts to the unseeing, what summons to perish<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSend\u00b2<\/font> to this nation men who
\nrevolt and gods who are hostile.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRising Deiphobus spoke, in stature less than his
\nfather,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLess
\nin his build, yet the mightiest man and tallest whom coursers<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBore
\nor his feet to the fight since Ajax fell by the Xanthus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cPeople
\nof Ilion, long have you fought with the gods and the Argives<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSlaying
\nand slain, but the years persist and the struggle is endless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFainting
\nyour helpers cease from the battle, the nations forsake you.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAsia
\nweary of strenuous greatness, ease-enamoured<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuffers
\nthe foot of the Greek to tread on the beaches of Troas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nhave we striven for Troy and for Asia, men who desert us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nfor ourselves alone have we fought, for our life of a moment!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Leading   
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>Cry<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-413<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tOnce if the Greeks
\nwere triumphant, once if their nations were marshalled<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tUnder
\nsome far-seeing chief, Odysseus, Peleus, Achilles,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\non the banks of Scamander and skirts of the azure Aegean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFainting
\nwould cease the audacious emprise, the Titanic endeavour;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTigris
\nwould flee from their tread and Indus be drunk by their coursers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow in these days when each sun goes marvelling down
\nthat Troy stands yet<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuffering,
\nsmiting, alive, though doomed to all eyes that behold her,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFlinging
\nback Death from her walls and bronze to the shock and the clamour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDriven
\nby a thought that has risen in the dawn from the tents on the beaches<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGrey
\nTalthybius\u2019 chariot waits in the Ilian portals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFar
\nvoice of the Hellene demigod challenges timeless Troya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThus
\nhas he said to us: \u2018Know you not Doom when she walks in your heavens?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFeelst
\nthou not then thy set, O sun who illuminedst Nature?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNone
\ncan escape the wheel of the gods and its vast revolutions!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFate
\ndemands the joy and pride of the earth for the Argive,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAsia\u2019s
\nwealth for the lust of the young barbarian nations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSink
\neclipsed in the circle vast of my radiance; Troya,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJoined
\nto my northern realms deliver the East to the Hellene;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlian,
\nto Hellas <\/span>be
\nyoked; wide <\/span>Asia<\/span>, fringe thou Pineus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLay
\ndown golden Helen, a sacrifice lovely and priceless<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCast by your weakness and fall on immense
\nNecessity\u2019s altar;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYield
\nto the grasp of my longing Polyxena, Hecuba\u2019s deep-bosomed daughter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHer
\nwhom my heart desires. Accept from me\u00b9<\/font> peace and her healing<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJoy
\nof mornings secure and death repulsed from your hearthsides.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYield
\nthese\u00b2<\/font> and live, else I leap on
\nyou, Fate in front, Hades behind me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBound
\nto the gods by an oath I return not again from the battle<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTill
\nfrom high Ida my shadow extends to the Made and Euphrates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLet
\nnot your victories deceive you, steps that defeat has imagined;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHear
\nnot the voice of your heroes; their fame is a trumpet in Hades:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nthey conquer while yet my horses champ free in their stables.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEarth
\ncannot long resist the man whom Heaven has chosen;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGods
\nwith him walk; his chariot is led; his arm is assisted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHigh
\nrings the Hellene challenge, earth waits for the Ilian answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAlways
\nman\u2019s Fate hangs poised on the flitting breath of a moment;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCalled
\nby some word, by some gesture it leaps, then \u2019tis graven, \u2019tis granite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeak!
\nby what gesture high shall the stern gods recognise Troya?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSons
\nof the ancients, race of the gods, inviolate city,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFirmer
\nmy spear shall I grasp or cast from my hand and for ever?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>I bring to you<\/font><\/span>     
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/font><\/span>then<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-414<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tSearch
\nin your hearts if your fathers still dwell in them, children of Teucer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nDeiphobus spoke and the nation heard him in silence,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAwed<\/span> by the shadow vast of doom,
\nindignant with Fortune.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCalm from his seat Antenor arose as a wrestler
\narises,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTamer
\nof beasts in the cage of the lions, eyeing the monsters<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBrilliant,
\ntawny of mane, and he knows if his courage waver,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFalter
\nhis eye or his nerve be surprised by the gods that are hostile,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeath
\nwill leap on him there in the crowded helpless arena.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFearless
\nAntenor arose, and a murmur swelled in the meeting<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCruel
\nand threatening, hoarse like the voice of the sea upon boulders;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHisses
\nthrilled through the roar and one man cried to another,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cLo,
\nhe will speak of peace who has swallowed the gold of Achaia!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSurely
\nthe people of Troy are eunuchs who suffer Antenor<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRising
\nunharmed in the agora. Are there not stones in the city?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSurely
\nthe steel grows dear in the land when a traitor can flourish.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCalm
\nlike a god or a summit Antenor stood in the uproar.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nas he gazed on his soul came memory dimming the vision;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nhe beheld his past and the agora crowded and cheering,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPassionate,
\nfull of delight while Antenor spoke to the people,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nthat he loved and his fatherland proud of her eloquent statesman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTears
\nto his eyes came thick and he gripped at the staff he was holding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMounting
\nhis eyes met fully the tumult, mournful and thrilling,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tConquering
\nmen\u2019s hearts with a note of doom in its sorrowful sweetness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cPeople of Ilion, blood of my blood, O race of
\nAntenor,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\nwill I speak though you slay me; for who would shrink from<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tdestruction<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKnowing
\nthat soon of his city and nation, his house and his dear ones<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nthat remains will be a couch of trampled ashes? Athene,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSlain
\ntoday may I join the victorious souls of our fathers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nfor the anguish be kept and the irremediable weeping.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLoud
\nyet will I speak the word that the gods have breathed in my spirit,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrive
\nthis last time to save the death-destined. Who are these clamour<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Hear
\nhim not, the gold of the Greeks bought his words and his throat is accursed ?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nwhom my counsels made great, hast thou heard this roar of their frenzy<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTearing
\nthy ancient bosom? Is it thy voice heaven-abandoned, my mother?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tO
\nmy country, O my creatress, earth of my longings!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEarth
\nwhere our fathers lie in their sacred ashes undying,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMemoried
\ntemples shelter the shrines of our gods and the altars<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPure
\nwhere we worshipped, the beautiful children smile on us passing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-415<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tWomen
\ndivine and the men of our nation! O land where our childhood<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPlayed
\nat a mother\u2019s feet mid the trees and the hills of our country<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHoping
\nour manhood toiled and our youth had its seekings for godhead<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThou
\nfor our age keepst repose mid the love and the honour of kinsmen<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\nour relics shall lie with the city guarding our ashes!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEarth
\nwho hast fostered our parents, earth who hast given us\u00b9<\/font> our offspring<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSoil
\nthat created our race where fed from the bosom of <\/span>
\n\t\tNature<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHappy
\nour children shall dwell\u00b2<\/font>in the storied homes of their father<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSouls
\nthat our souls have stamped, sweet forms of ourselves when we perish!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\neven then have they seen thee in their hearts, or dreamed of thee over<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nfrom thy spirit revolt and only thy name make an idol<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHating
\nthy faithful sons and the cult of thy ancient ideal!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWake,
\nO my mother divine, remember thy gods and thy wisdom,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilence
\nthe tongues that degrade thee, prophets profane of thy godhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMadmen,
\nto think that a man who has offered his life for his country<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tServed
\nher with words and deeds and adored with victories and triumphs<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEver
\ncould think of enslaving her breast to the heel of a foeman!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSurely
\nAntenor\u2019s halls are empty, he begs from the stranger<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeading
\nhis sons and his children\u2019s sons by the hand in the market,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShowing
\nhis rags since his need is so bitter of gold from the Argives!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYou
\nwho demand a reply when Laocoon lessens Antenor,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHush
\nthen your feeble roar and your ear to the past and the <\/span>
\n\t\tdistance<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTurn.
\nYou fields that are famous for ever, reply for me calling,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFields
\nof the mighty mown by my sword\u2019s edge, Chersonese <\/span>
\n\t\tconquered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThrace
\nand her snows where we fought on the frozen streams and were victors<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nwhen they were unborn who are now your delight and <\/span>
\n\t\tyour<\/span> leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnswer
\nreturn, you columns of Ilus, here where my counsels<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMade
\nTroy mightier guiding her safe through the shocks <\/span>
\n\t\tof her foemen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGold!
\nI have heaped it up high, I am rich with the spoils of your haters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIt
\nwas your fathers dead who gave me that wealth as my guerdon,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nmy reproach, your fathers who saw not the Greeks round their ramparts:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nwere not cooped by an upstart race in the walls of Apollo,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSaw
\nnot Hector slain and Troilus dragged by his coursers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFar\u00b3<\/font>over wrathful Jaxartes they rode; the shaken Achaian<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tProstrate
\nadored their strength who now shouts at your portals and<\/span> <\/span>
\n\t\tconquers<\/span>4<\/font><\/sup><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nwhen Antenor guided Troy, this old man, this traitor,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nLaocoon, nay, not even Pans nor Hector.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>cherished<\/font><\/span>    
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>reign   
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font>Fast<\/font>
\n\t\t     4<\/font><\/sup><\/font>gates as your victor
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-416<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tBut
\nI have changed, I have grown a niggard of blood and of treasure,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSelfish,
\nchilled as old men seem to the young and the headstrong,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCounselling
\nsafety and ease, not the ardour of noble decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCome
\nto my house and behold, my house that was filled once with voices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSons
\nwhom the high gods envied me crowded the halls that are silent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhere
\nare they now? They are dead, their voices are silent in Hades,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFallen
\nslaying the foe in a war between sin and the Furies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\nthey went to the battle to die unmourned for their country,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDie
\nas they knew in vain. Do I keep now the last ones remaining,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSparing
\ntheir blood that my house may endure? Is there any in Troya<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeeds
\nto the front of the mellay outstripping the sons of Antenor?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLet
\nhim arise and speak and proclaim it and bid me be silent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeavy
\nis this war that you love on my heart and I hold you as madmen<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoomed
\nby the gods, abandoned by<\/span> <\/span>Pallas,<\/span> <\/span>
\n\t\tby Hera afflicted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nwould not hate to behold his work undone by the foolish?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nwould not weep if he saw Laocoon ruining Troya,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tParis
\ndoomed in his beauty, Aeneas slain by his velour?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nyou need to be taught that the high gods see and remember,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDream
\nthat they care not if justice be done on the earth or oppression!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHappy
\nto live, aspire while you violate man and the immortals!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVainly
\nthe sands of Time have been strewn with the ruins of empires,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSigns
\nthat the gods have left, but in vain. For they look for a nation,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nthat can conquer itself having conquered the world, but they find none.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNone
\nhas been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nhave grown drunken with force and have gone down to Hell and to Ate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018All
\nhave been thrust from their heights,\u2019 say the fools; \u2018we shall live and for
\never.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWe
\nare the people at last, the children, the favourites; all things<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nto us are permitted.\u2019 They too descend to the silence,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeath
\nreceives their hopes and the void their stirrings of action.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cEviller fate there is none than life too long among
\nmortals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI
\nhave conversed with the great who have gone, I have fought in their war-cars;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTros
\nI have seen, Laomedon\u2019s hand has lain\u00b9<\/font>on my
\ntemples.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nI behold Laocoon, now our leader\u00b2<\/font><\/span>is Paris.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFirst
\nwhen Phryx by the Hellespont reared to the cry of the Ocean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHewing
\nher stones as vast as his thoughts his high-seated fortress,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPlanned
\nhe a lair for a beast of prey, for a pantheress dire-souled<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCrouched
\nin the hills for her bound or self-gathered against the avenger?<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>dwelt<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t    
\n\u00b2<\/font><\/span>greatest
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-417<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tDardanaus
\nshepherded Asia\u2019s coasts and her sapphire-girt islands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMild
\nwas his rule like the blessing of rain upon fields in the summer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGladly
\nthe harried coasts reposed confessing the Phrygian,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCaria,
\nLycia\u2019s kings and the Paphlagon, strength of the Mysian;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMinos\u2019
\nCrete recovered the sceptre of old Rhadamanthus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlus
\nand Tros had strength in the fight like a far-striding Titan\u2019s:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\ntriumphant following the urge of their souls to the vastness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t[Helmeted,
\ncrowned like a queen of the gods with the-fates for her coursers]*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRode
\nthrough the driving sleet of the spears to Indus and Oxus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\ntwice over she conquered the vanquished, with peace as in battle;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere
\nwhere discord had clashed, sweet Peace sat girded with plenty,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere
\nwhere tyranny counted her blows came the hands of a father.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNeither
\nwas\u00b9<\/font>
\nTeucer a soul like your chiefs\u00b2<\/font> who refounded this nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuch
\nwas the antique and noble tradition of Troy in her founders,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBuilders
\nof power that endured; but it perishes lost to their offspring,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrampled,
\nscorned by an arrogant age, by a violent nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrong
\nAnchises trod it down trampling victorious onwards,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStern
\nas his sword and hard as the silent bronze of his armour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMore
\nthan another I praise the man who is mighty and steadfast,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nas Ida the mountain I praise, a refuge for lions;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nin the council I laud him not, he who a god for his kindred<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLives
\nfor the rest without bowels of pity or fellowship, lone-souled,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tScorning
\nthe world that he rules, who untamed by the weight of an empire<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHolds
\nallies as subjects, subjects as slaves and drives to the battle,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCareless
\nmore of their wills than the coursers yoked to his war-car.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTherefore
\nthey fought while they feared, but gladly abandon us falling.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nhad they gathered to Teucer in the evil days of our nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhere
\nare they now? Do they gather then to the dreaded Anchises?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nhas Aeneas helped with his counsels hateful to wisdom?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHateful
\nis this, abhorred of the gods, imagined by Ate<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\nagainst subjects murmuring discord and faction appointed<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tScatter
\nunblest gold, the heart of a people is poisoned,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVirtue
\npursued and, baseness triumphs tongued like a harlot,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBrother
\nagainst brother arrayed that the rule may endure of a stranger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYes,
\nbut it lasts! For its hour. The high gods watch in their silence,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMute
\nthey endure for a while that the doom may be swifter and greater.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHast
\nthou then lasted, O Troy? Lo, the Greeks at thy gates and Achilles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDream,
\nwhen Virtue departs, that Wisdom will linger, her sister!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWisdom
\nhas turned from your hearts; shall Fortune dwell with the foolish?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t* <\/span>Brackets
\nin the original<\/font>.<\/span>
\n 
\n<\/span>\u00b9<\/font><\/span>had<\/font><\/span>     
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>chiefs<\/font>\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-418<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tFatal
\noracles came to you great-tongued, vaunting of empires<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStretched
\nfrom the risen sun to his rest in the occident waters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDreams
\nof a city throned on the hills with her foot on the nations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMeanwhile
\nthe sword was prepared for our breasts and the flame for our housetops.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWake,
\nawake, O my people! the fire-brand mounts up your doorsteps;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGods
\nwho deceived to slay, press swords on your children\u2019s bosoms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSee,
\nO ye blind, ere death in pale countries open your eyelids!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHear,
\nO ye deaf, the sounds in your ears and the voices of evening!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYoung
\nmen who vaunt in your strength! when the voice of this aged Antenor<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGoverned
\nyour fathers\u2019 youth, all the Orient was joined to our banners.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMacedon
\nleaned to the East and her princes yearned to the victor,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tScythians
\nworshipped in Ilion\u2019s shrines, the Phoenician trader<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBartered
\nher tokens, Babylon\u2019s wise men paused at our thresholds;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFair-haired
\nsons of the snows came rapt towards golden Troya<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDrawn
\nby the song and the glory. Strymon sang hymns unto Ida,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHoarse
\nChaleidice, dim Chersonesus married their waters<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tUnder
\nthe o\u2019erarching yoke of<\/span> <\/span>Troy<\/span> <\/span>
\n\t\ttwixt the term-posts of
\nOcean.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMeanwhile
\nfar through the world your fortunes led by my counsels<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFollowed
\ntheir lure like women snared by a magical tempter:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHigh
\nwas their chant as they paced and it came from continents distant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTurn
\nnow and hear! what voice approaches? what glitter of armies?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLoud
\nupon Trojan beaches the tread and the murmur of Hellas!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHark!
\n\u2019tis the Achaian\u2019s paean rings o\u2019er the Pergaman waters!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nwake the dreams of Aeneas; reaped is Laocoon\u2019s harvest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeakers
\nwhose counsels persuaded our strength from the labour before us,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArtisans
\nnew of your destiny fashioned this far-spreading downfall,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCounsellors
\nblind who scattered your strength to the hooves of the Scythian,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBarren
\nvictories, trophies of skin-clad Illyrian pastors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nbut the fool and improvident, who but the dreamer and madman<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaves
\nfor the far and ungrasped earth\u2019s close and provident labour?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChildren
\nof earth, our mother gives tokens, she lays down her sign-posts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStep
\nby step to advance on her bosom, to grow by her seasons,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOrder
\nour works by her patience and limit our thought by her spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nyou had chiefs who were demigods, souls of an earth-scorning stature,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMinds
\nthat saw vaster than life and strengths that God’s hour could not limit!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThese
\nmen seized upon Troy as the tool of their giant visions,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDreaming
\nof Africa\u2019s suns and bright Hesperian orchards,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-419<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tCarthage
\nour mart and our feet on the sunset hills of the Latins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlion\u2019s
\nhinds in the dream ploughed Libya, sowed Italy\u2019s cornfields,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nstretched to Gades; even the gods and the Fates had grown Trojan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nare the natures of men uplifted by Heaven in its satire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tScorning
\nthe bit of the gods, despisers of justice and measure,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLosing
\nthe shape of man in a dream that is splendid and monstrous.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTitans,
\nvaunting they stride and the world resounds with their footsteps;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTitans,
\nclanging they fall and the world is full of their ruin.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChildren,
\nyou dreamed with them, heard the roar of the Atlantic breakers<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWelcome
\nyour keels and the Isles of the Blest grew your wonderful gardens;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLulled
\nin the dream, you saw not the black-drifting march of the storm-rack,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeard
\nnot the galloping wolves of the doom and the howl of their hunger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreece
\nin her peril united her jarring clans; you suffered<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPatient,
\npreparing the north, the wisdom and silence of Peleus,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAtreus\u2019
\ncraft and the Argives gathered to King Agamemnon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nthere were prophecies, Pythian oracles, mutterings from Delphi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHow
\nshall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDreams
\nthat walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTouches
\nare these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nsole oracle helps, still armoured in courage and prudence<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPatient
\nand heedful to toil at the work that is near in the daylight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeave
\nto the night its phantoms, leave to the future its curtain!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\ntoday Heaven gave to mortal man for his labour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf thou hadst bowed not thy mane, O Troy, to the
\nchild and the dreamer,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHadst
\nthou been faithful to\u00b9<\/font>Wisdom
\nthe counsellor seated and ancient,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen would the hour not have dawned when Paris
\nlingered in Sparta<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLed
\nby the goddess fatal and beautiful, white Aphrodite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMan,
\nshun the impulses dire that spring armed from thy nature\u2019s abysms!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDread
\nthe dark rose of the gods, flee the honey that tempts from its petals!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTherefore
\nthe black deed was done and the hearth that welcomed was sullied.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSin-called
\nthe Fury uplifted her tresses of gloom o\u2019er the nations<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMaddening
\nthe earth with the scream of her blood-thirst, bowelless, stone-eyed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tClaiming
\nher victims from God and bestriding the hate and the clamour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nmidst the stroke and the wail when men\u2019s eyes were blind with the blood-mist,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nhad the high gods mercy remembering\u00b2<\/font>Teucer and Ilus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSped
\nby the hand of the Thunderer Discord flaming from Ida<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>If
\nthou hadst kept faith with<\/font><\/span>     
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>recalling<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-420<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlared
\nfrom the ships in her wrath\u00b9 <\/font><\/span>through the camp of the victor Achaians,
\n\t\t– <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLove
\nto the discord added her flowerlike lips of Briseis; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFaltering
\nlids of Polyxena conquered the strength of Pelides. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVainly
\nthose helpers high<\/span>\u00b2<\/font><\/span> have opened the gates of salvation!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVainly
\nthe winds of their mercy have breathed on our fevered existence!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMan
\nhis passion prefers to the voice that guides from the immortals.<\/span>\u00b3<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThese
\ntoo<\/span>4<\/font><\/sup><\/font><\/span> were here whom
\nHera had chosen to ruin this nation: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCharioteers
\ncracking the whips of their speed on the paths of destruction,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDemigods
\nthey! they have come down from Heaven glad to that labour; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFilled
\nis<\/span>5<\/font><\/sup><\/font><\/span>
\nthe world with the fame of their wheels as they race down to Hades.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tO
\nthat alone they could reach it! O that pity could soften <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHarsh
\nNecessity\u2019s dealings, sparing our innocent children, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSaving
\nthe Trojan women and aged from bonds and the sword-edge! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThese
\nhad not sinned whom you slay in your madness! Ruthless, O mortals,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMust
\nyou be then to yourselves, when the gods even faltering with pity
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTurn
\nfrom the grief that must come and the agony vast and the weeping?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSay
\nnot the road of escape sinks too low for your arrogant treading.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPride
\nis not for our clay; the earth, not heaven was our mother <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nwe are even as the ant in our toil and the beast in our dying;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nwho cling to the hands of the gods can rise up from the earth-mire.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChildren,
\nlie prone to their scourge, that your hearts may revive in their sunshine.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nis our lot! when the anger of-heaven has passed then the mortal
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRaises
\nhis head; soon he heals his heart and forgets he has suffered.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nif resurgence from weakness and shame were withheld from the creature,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEvery
\nfall without morrow, who then would counsel submission? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nsince the height of mortal fortune ascending must stumble, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFallen,
\nagain ascend, since death like birth is our portion, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRipening,
\nmowed, to be sown again like corn by the farmer, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLet
\nus be patient still with the gods and be clay for their handling.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDream
\nnot defeat I welcome. Think not to Hellas submitting <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeath
\nof proud hope I would seal. Not this have I counselled, O nation,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nto be even as your high-crested forefathers, greatest of mortals.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroya
\nof old enringed by the hooves of Cimmerian armies <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFlamed
\nto the heavens from her plains and her smoke-blackened citadel sheltered
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Hundred-eyed    
\n)<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t )  glared
\nfrom the ships<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHundred-voiced<\/font>  
\n)    <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font>Vainly
\nthe gods who pity     <\/font>\u00b3<\/font>heavens<\/font>.<\/span>     
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t4<\/font><\/sup><\/font>They still<\/font><\/span>    
\n\t\t
\n\t\t5<\/font><\/sup><\/font>Echoes<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t 
\nPage-421<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tHardly\u00b9<\/font> the joyless rest of her sons and the wreck of her greatness.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCourage
\nand wisdom survived in that fall and a stern-eyed prudence <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHelped
\nher to live; disguised from her mightiness Troy crouched weeping.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTeucer
\ndescended whose genius worked at this kingdom and nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPatient,
\nscrupulous, wise, like a craftsman carefully toiling <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOver
\na helmet or over a breastplate, testing it always, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tToiled
\nin the eye of the Masters of all and had heed of its labour. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nin the end they would not release him like souls that are common;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nout of Ida sent into Ilion Pallas Athene; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSecret
\nshe came and he went with her into the luminous silence. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTeucer\u2019s
\nchildren after their sire completed his labour. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\ntoo, O people, front adversity self-gathered, silent. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVeil
\nthyself, leonine mighty Ilion, hiding thy greatness! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBe
\nas thy father Teucer; be as a cavern for lions; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBe
\nas a Fate that crouches! Wordless and stern for your vengeance
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSelf-gathered
\nwork in the night and secrecy shrouding your bosoms. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLet
\nnot the dire heavens know of it; let not the foe seize a whisper!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRipen
\nthe hour of your stroke, while your words drip sweeter than honey.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSure
\nam I, friends, you will turn from death at my voice, you will hear me!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSome
\nday yet I shall gaze on the ruins of haughty Mycenae. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIs
\nthis not better than Ilion cast to the sword of her haters, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tIs
\nthis not happier than Troya captured and wretchedly burning, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTime
\nto await in his stride when the southern and northern Achaians
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGazing
\nwith dull distaste now over their severing isthmus <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHate-filled
\nshall move to the shock by the spur of the gods in them driven,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPelops
\nmarch upon Attica, Thebes descend on the Spartan? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nshall the hour now kept in heaven for us ripen to dawning, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nshall Victory cry to our banners over the Ocean <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCalling
\nour sons with her voice immortal. Children of Ilus, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nshall Troy rise in her strength and stride over Greece up to Gades.\u201d
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nAntenor spoke and the mind of the hostile assembly <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMoved
\nand swayed with his words like the waters ruled by Poseidon. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nas the billows rebellious lashed by the whips of the tempest <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCurvet
\nand rear their crests like the hooded wrath of a serpent, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreen-eyed
\nunder their cowls sublime, – <\/span>unwilling
\nthey journey <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFoam-bannered,
\nhoarse-voiced, shepherded, forced by the wind, to the margin <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMeant
\nfor their rest, and can turn not at all, though they rage, on their driver, –
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Mutely<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-422<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tLast
\nwith a sullen applause and consenting lapse into thunder, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhere
\nthey were led all the while they sink: down huge and astonished,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nin their souls that withstood and obeyed and hated the yielding,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLashed
\nby his censure, indignant, the Trojans moved towards his purpose:
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSometimes
\na roar arose, then only, weakened, rarer, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAngry
\nmurmurs swelled between sullen stretches of silence; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLast,
\na reluctant applause broke dull from the throats of the commons.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\nraged in their hearts Laocoon\u2019s following daunted; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroubled
\nthe faction of Paris turned to the face of their leader. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHe
\nas yet rose not; careless he sat in his beauty and smiling, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGazing
\nwith brilliant eyes at the sculptured pillars of Ilus. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoubtful,
\nswayed by Antenor, waited in silence the nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-423<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBOOK THREE<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe Book of the Assembly<\/font><\/b> \n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n\t\tB<\/font><\/b>ut
\nas the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWaited
\nmute for a voice that could lead and a heart to encourage, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tUp
\nin the silence deep Laocoon rose up, far-heard, – <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeard
\nby the gods in their calm and heard by men in their passion<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>\u2013 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tCloud-haired,
\nclad in mystic red, flamboyant, sombre, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPriam\u2019s
\nson Laocoon, fate-darkened seer of Apollo. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAs
\nwhen the soul of the Ocean arises rapt in the dawning <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nmid the rocks and the foam uplifting the voice of its musings <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOpens
\nthe chant of its turbulent harmonies, so rose the far-borne <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tVoice
\nof Laocoon soaring mid columns of Ilion\u2019s glories, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tClaiming
\nthe earth and the heavens for the field of its confident rumour.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cTrojans,
\ndeny your hearts to the easeful flutings of Hades! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLive,
\nO nation!\u201d he thundered forth and Troy\u2019s hearts and her pillars
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSent
\nback their fierce response. Restored to her leonine spirits <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlion
\nrose in her agora filling the heavens with shoutings, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBearing
\na name to the throne of Zeus in her mortal defiance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAs
\nwhen a sullen calm of the heavens discourages living, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNature
\nand man feel the pain of the lightnings repressed in their bosoms,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDangerous
\nand dull is the air, then suddenly strong from the anguish <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tZeus
\nof the thunders starts into glories releasing his storm-voice,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEarth
\nexults in the kiss of the rain and the life-giving laughters, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nfrom the silence broke forth the thunder of Troya arising; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFiercely
\nshe turned from prudence and wisdom and turned back to greatness,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCasting
\nher voice to the heavens from the depths of her fathomless spirit.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRaised
\nby those clamours, triumphant once more in this scene of his greatness,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTool
\nof the gods, but he deemed of his strength as a leader in Nature,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTook
\nfor his own a voice that was given and dreamed that he fashioned
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFate
\nthat fashions us all, Laocoon stood mid the shouting <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaned
\non the calm of an ancient pillar. In eyes self-consuming <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKindled
\nthe flame of the prophet that blinds at once and illumines; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tQuivering
\nthought-besieged lips and shaken locks of the lion, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLifted
\nhis gaze the storm-led enthusiast. Then as the shouting <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTired
\nof itself at last disappeared in the bosom of silence, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\nmore he started erect and his voice o’er the hearts of his hearers
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwept
\nlike Ocean’s impatient cry when it calls from its surges,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-424<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tOcean
\nloud with a thought sublime in its measureless marching. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEach
\nman felt his heart like foam in the rushing of waters. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cIlion
\nis vanquished then! she abases her grandiose spirit <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMortal
\nfound in the end to the gods and the Greeks and Antenor, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nwhen a barbarous chieftain\u2019s menace and insolent mercy <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBring
\nhere their pride to insult the columned spirit of Ilus, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrojans
\nhave sat and feared! For a man has arisen and spoken, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nwhom the gods in their anger have hired. Since the Argive prevailed not,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArmed,
\nwith his strength and his numbers, in Troya they sought for her <\/span>
\n\t\tslayer, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGathered
\ntheir wiles in a voice and they chose a man famous and honoured,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSummoned
\nAte to aid and corrupted the heart of Antenor. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFlute
\nof the breath of the Hell-witch, always he scatters among you <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoubt,
\naffliction and weakness chilling the hearts of the fighters, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAlways
\nhis voice with its cadenced and subtle possession for evil <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBreaks
\nthe constant will and maims the impulse heroic. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTherefore
\nwhile yet her heroes fight and her arms are unconquered, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nin your hearts is defeated! The souls of your Fathers have heard you
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDallying,
\nshamefast, with vileness, lured by the call of dishonour. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuch
\nis the power Zeus gave to the winged words of a mortal! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFoiled
\nin his will, disowned by the years that stride on for ever, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nin the frenzy cold of his greed and his fallen ambition <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoom
\nfrom heaven he calls down on his countrymen, Trojan abuses <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy,
\nhis country, extolling her enemies, blessing her slayers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuch
\nare the gods Antenor has made in his heart\u2019s own image <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThat
\nif one evil man have not way for his greed and his longing <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCities
\nare doomed and kings must be slain and a nation must perish! <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfrom the mind of the free and the brave I will answer thy bodings,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGold-hungry
\nraven of Troy who croakst from thy nest at her princes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\none doom irreparable treads down the soul of a nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\none downfall endures; \u2019tis the ruin of greatness and virtue, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMourning
\nwhen Freedom departs from the life and the heart of a people, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tInto
\nher room comes creeping the mind of the slave and it poisons <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tManhood
\nand joy and the voice to lying is trained and subjection <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEasy
\nfeels to the neck of man who is next to the godheads. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nof the fire am I terrified, not of the sword and its slaying; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tVileness
\nof men appals me, baseness I fear and its voices. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhat
\ncan man suffer direr or worse than enslaved from a victor <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBoons
\nto accept, to take safety and ease from the foe and the stranger,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFallen
\nfrom the virtue stern that heaven permits to a mortal?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-425<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tDeath
\nis not keener than this nor the slaughter of friends and our dear ones.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOut
\nand alas! earth\u2019s greatest are earth and they fail in the testing,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tConquered
\nby sorrow and doubt, fate\u2019s hammerers, fires of her furnace. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGod
\nin their souls they renounce and submit to their clay and its promptings.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tElse
\ncould the heart of Troya have recoiled from the loom of the shadow
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCast
\nby Achilles\u2019 spear or shrunk at the sound of his car-wheels? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nhe has graven an oath austere in his spirit unpliant <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVictor
\nat last to constrain in his stride the walls of Apollo <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBurning
\nTroy ere he sleeps. \u2019Tis the vow of a high-crested nature; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tShall
\nit break ramparted Troy? Yea, the soul of a man too is mighty <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMore
\nthan the stones and the mortar! Troy had a soul once, O Trojans,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFirm
\nas her god-built ramparts. When in the hour of his passion\u00b9<\/font> When
\nSarpedon fell and Zeus averted his visage, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tXanthus
\nred to the sea ran sobbing with bodies of Trojans, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\nin the day of the silence of heaven the far-glancing helmet <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCeased
\nfrom the ways of the fight, and panic slew with Achilles <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHosts
\nwho were left unshepherded pale at the fall of their greatest,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGodlike
\nTroy lived on. Do we speak mid a city\u2019s ruins? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLo!
\nshe confronts her heavens as when Tros and Laomedon ruled her.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nnow is changed, these mutter and sigh to you, all now is ended;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrength
\nhas renounced you, Fate has finished the thread of her spinning.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHector
\nis dead, he walks in the shadows; Troilus fights not; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tResting
\nhis curls on the asphodel he has forgotten his country; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrong
\nSarpedon lies in Bellerophon\u2019s city sleeping: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMemnon
\nis slain and the blood of Rhesus has dried on the Troad: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nof the giant Asius sums in a handful of ashes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGrievous\u00b2<\/font> are these
\nthings; our hearts still keep all the pain of them treasured, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHard
\nthough they grow by use and iron caskets of sorrow. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHear
\nyet, O fainters in wisdom snared by your pathos, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKnow
\nthis iron world we live in where Hell casts its shadow. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBlood
\nand grief are the ransom of men for the joys of their transience,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nwe are mortals bound in our strength and beset in our labour. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nis our human destiny; every moment of living <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tToil
\nand loss have gained in the constant siege of our bodies. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen
\nmust sow earth with their lives\u00b3<\/font>and their tears that their country may prosper;<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>(<\/font><\/span>i)
\nin the hour of his uplifting   <\/span>(ii)
\nby the Fates (gods) (spears)
\novertaken,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font>Wretched\/Miserable<\/font><\/span>     
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span>hearts<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-426<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tEarth
\nwho bore and devours us that life may be born from our remnants
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nshall the Sacrifice reap\u00b9<\/font>
\nits fruits when the war-shout is silent, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nshall the blood be in vain that our mother has felt on her bosom
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nshall the seed of the mighty fail when Death is the sower. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nfrom the loins of the mother eternal are heroes engendered, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nDeiphobus shouts in the war-front trampling the Argives, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrong
\nAeneas\u2019 far-borne voice is heard from our ramparts, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tParis\u2019
\nhands are swift and his feet in the chases of Ares. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLo,
\nwhen deserted we fight\u00b2<\/font> by Asia\u2019s soon-wearied peoples,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen
\ningrate who enjoyed the protection and loathed the protector, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeaven
\nhas sent us replacing a continent Penthesilea! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLow
\nhas the heart of Achaia sunk since it shook at her war-cry. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAjax
\nhas bit at the dust; it is all he shall have of the Troad; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTall
\nMeriones lies and measures his portion of booty. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nis the fighter in Ilion thrills not rejoicing to hearken <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nher name on unwarlike lips, much more in the mellay <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShout
\nof the daughter of battles, armipotent Penthesilea? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nthere were none but these only, if hosts came not surging behind them,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYoung
\nmen burning-eyed to outdare all the deeds of their elders, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEach
\nin his beauty a Troilus, each in his valour a Hector, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nwere the measures poised in the equal balance of Ares. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nthen compels you, O people unconquered, to sink down abjuring <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nthat was Troy? For O, if she yield, let her use not for ever <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nof her titles! shame not the shade of Teucer and Ilus, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSoil
\nnot Tros! Are you awed by the strength of the swift-foot Achilles?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIs
\nit a sweeter lure in the cadenced voice of Antenor? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nare you weary of Time and the endless roar of the battle? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWearier
\nstill are the Greeks! their eyes look out o’er the waters <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nwith the flight of their spears is the wing of their hopes towards Troya.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDull
\nare their hearts; they sink from the war-cry and turn from the spear-stroke
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSullenly
\ndragging backwards, desiring the paths of the Ocean, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDreaming
\nof hearths that are far and the children growing to manhood <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nare small infant faces still in the thoughts of their fathers.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTherefore
\nthese call you to yield lest they wake and behold in the dawn-light
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nPoseidon whitening lean to the west in his waters <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThick
\nwith the sails of the Greeks departing beaten to Hellas. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nis it calls? Antenor the statesman, Antenor the patriot, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThus
\nwho loves his country and worships the soil of his fathers!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>gather    
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>fought<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-427<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tWhich
\nof you loves like him Troya? which of the children of heroes <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tYearns
\nfor <\/i>the touch of a yoke on his neck and desires the aggressor?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nthere be any so made by the gods in the nation of Ilus, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeaving
\nthis city which freemen have founded, freemen have dwelt in, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFar
\non the beach let him make his couch in the tents of Achilles, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nin this mighty Ilion, not with the lioness fighting, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGuarding
\nthe lair of her young and roaring back at her hunters. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWe
\nwho are souls descended from Ilus and seeds of his making, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOther-hearted
\nshall march from our gates to answer Achilles. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhat!
\nshall this ancient Ilion welcome the day of the conquered? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tShe
\nwho was head of the world, shall she live in the guard of the Hellene
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCherished
\nas slave-girls are, who are taken in war, by their captors? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEurope
\nshall walk in our streets with the pride and the gait of the victor?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreeks
\nshall enter our homes and prey on our mothers and daughters? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nAntenor desires and this Ucalegon favours. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTraitors!
\nwhether \u2019tis cowardice drives or the sceptic of virtue, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCold-blooded
\nage, or gold insatiably tempts from <\/i>its coffers <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPleading
\nfor safety from foreign hands and the sack and the plunder. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeave
\nthem, my brothers! spare the baffled hypocrites! Failure <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSharpest
\nshall torture their hearts when they know that still you are Trojans.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilence,
\nO reason of man! for a voice from the gods has been uttered! <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tDardanus,
\nhearken the sound divine that comes to you mounting <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOut
\nof the solemn ravines from the mystic seat on the tripod! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPhoebus,
\nthe master of Truth, has promised the earth to our peoples. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tChildren
\nof Zeus, rejoice! for the Olympian brows have nodded <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRegal
\nover the world. In earth\u2019s rhythm of shadow and sunlight <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStorm
\nis the dance of the locks of the God assenting to greatness, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tZeus
\nwho with secret compulsion orders the ways of our nature; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVeiled
\nin events he lives and working disguised in the mortal <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBuilds
\nour strength by pain, and an empire is born out of ruins. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nif the tempest be loud and the thunderbolt leaping incessant <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tShatters
\nthe roof, if the lintels flame at last and each cornice <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShrieks
\nwith pain of the blast, if the very pillars totter, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKeep
\nyet your faith in Zeus, hold fast to the word of Apollo. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nby a little pain and not by a temperate labour <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrained
\nis the nation chosen by Zeus for a dateless dominion. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nmust it labour rolled in the wrath\u00b9<\/font>of the
\nfathomless surges, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOften
\nneighbour with death and ere Ares grow firm to its banners <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFeel
\non the pride of its Capitol tread of the triumphing victor, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>foam<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-428<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tHear
\nthe barbarian knock at its gates or the neighbouring foeman <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlad
\nof the transient smile of his fortune suffer insulting; – <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey,
\nthe nation eternal, brook their taunts who must perish! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeaviest
\ntoils they must bear; they must wrestle with Fate and her Titans,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nwhen some leader returns from the battle sole of his thousands
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCrushed
\nby the hammers of God, yet never despair of their country. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tDread
\nnot the ruin, fear not the storm-blast, yield not, O Trojans. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tZeus
\nshall rebuild! Death ends not our days, the fire shall not triumph.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeath?
\nI have faced it. Fire? I have watched it climb in my vision <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOver
\nthe timeless domes and over the roof-tops of Priam, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nI have looked beyond and have seen the smile of Apollo. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAfter
\nher glorious centuries, after her world-wide triumphs, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf,
\nnear her ramparts outnumbered she fights, by the nations forsaken,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLonely
\nagain on her hill, by her streams, and her meadows and beaches,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\nwhere she revelled, shake to the tramp of her countless invaders,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTestings
\nare these from the god. For Fate severe like a mother <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTeaches
\nour wills by disaster and strikes down the props that would weaken,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFate
\nand the Thought on high that is wiser than yearnings of mortals.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nhas arisen before, but from ashes, not shame, not surrender! <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t(<\/span><\/b>Souls
\nthat are true to themselves are immortal; the soulless for ever
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLingers
\nhelpless in Hades a shade among shades disappointed.) <\/b><\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nis the god in my bosom mighty compelling me, Trojans, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nI release what my spirit has kept and it saw in its vision; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nwill be silent for gibe of the cynic or sneer of the traitor. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nshall triumph! Hear, O ye peoples, the word of Apollo – <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHear
\nit and tremble, O Greece, in thy youth and the dawn of thy future;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\nforget while thou canst, but the gods in their hour shall remind thee.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTremble,
\nnations of Asia, false to the greatness within you. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nshall surge back on your realms with the sword and the yoke of the victor.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nshall triumph! Though nations conspire and the gods lead her foemen,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFate
\nthat is born of the spirit is greater than they and will shield her.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFoemen
\nshall help her with war, her defeats shall be victory\u2019s moulders.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWalls
\nthat restrain shall be rent; she shall rise out of sessions unsettled,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOceans
\nshall be her walls at the end and the desert her limit; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIndus
\nshall send to her envoys; her eyes shall look northward from Thule.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShe
\nshall enring all the coasts with her strength like the kingly Poseidon,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShe
\nshall o\u2019ervault all the lands with her rule like the limitless azure.\u201d
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCeasing
\nfrom speech Laocoon, girt with the shouts of a nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLapsed
\non his seat like one seized and abandoned and weakened; nor ended<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-429<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nin iron applause, but throughout with a stormy approval <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAres
\nbroke from the hearts of his people in ominous thunder. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSavage
\nand dire was the sound like a wild beast\u2019s tracked out and hunted,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWounded,
\nyet trusting to tear out the entrails live of its hunters, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSavage
\nand cruel and threatening doom to the foe and opponent. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nwhen the shouting sank at last, Ucalegon rose up <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrembling
\nwith age and with wrath and in accents hurried and piping <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFaltered
\na senile fierceness forth on the maddened assembly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cAh,
\nit is even so far that you dare, O you children of Priam, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFavourites
\nvile of a people sent mad by the gods, and thou risest, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDark
\nLaocoon, prating of heroes and spurning for cowards, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSmiting
\nfor traitors the aged and wise who were grey when they spawned thee!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tImp
\nof destruction, mane of mischief! Ah, spur us with courage, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThou
\nwho hast never prevailed against even the feeblest Achaian. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\ntwice hast thou raced in the rout to the ramparts for shelter,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLeading
\nthe panic, and shrieked as thou ranst to the foeman for mercy <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nwere a mile behind thee, O matchless and wonderful racer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSafely
\ncounsel to others the pride and the firmness of heroes, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThou
\nwho wilt not die in the battle! For even swiftest Achilles <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCould
\nnot o\u2019ertake thee, I ween, nor wind-footed Penthesilea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMask
\nof a prophet, heart of a coward, tongue of a trickster, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTimeless
\nIlion thou alone ruinest, helped by the Furies. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI,
\nUcalegon, first will rend off the mask from thee, traitor. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nI believe thee suborned by the cynic wiles of Odysseus <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nthou conspirest to sack this Troy with the greed of the Cretan.\u201d
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHasting
\nunstayed he pursued like a brook that scolds amid pebbles, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tVoicing
\nangers shrill; for the people astonished were silent; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nhe pursued not; a shouting broke from that stupor of fury, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen
\nsprang pale to their feet and hurled out menaces lethal; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nthat assembly swayed like a forest swept by the storm-wind. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tObstinate,
\nstraining his age-dimmed eyes, Ucalegon, trembling <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWorse
\nyet with anger, clamoured feebly back at the people, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhelmed
\nin their roar. Unheard was his voice like a swimmer in surges <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLost,
\nyet he spoke. But the anger grew in the throats of the people <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLion-voiced,
\nhurting the heart with sound and daunting the nature, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTill
\nfrom some stalwart hand a javelin whistling and vibrant <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMissing
\nthe silvered head of the senator rang disappointed <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOut
\non the distant wall of a house by the side of the market. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\neven then would the old man hush or yield to the tempest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-430<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tWagging
\nhis hoary beard and shifting his aged eyeballs, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTossing
\nhis hands he stood; but Antenor seized him and Aetor, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDragged
\nhim down on his seat though he strove, and chid him and silenced.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cCease,
\n0 friend; for the gods have won. It were easier piping <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHigh
\nwith thy aged treble to alter the rage of the Ocean <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThan
\nto o\u2019erbear this people stirred by Laocoon. Leave now <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEffort
\nunhelpful, wrap thy days in a mantle of silence; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGive
\nto the gods their will and dry-eyed wait for the ending.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nnow the old men ceased from their strife with the gods and with Troya;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCowed
\nby the storm of the people\u2019s wrath they desisted from hoping. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nthough the roar long swelled, like the sea when the winds have subsided,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\nman yet rose up unafraid and beckoned for silence, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nof the aged, but ripe in his look and ruddy of visage, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStalwart
\nand bluff and short-limbed, Halamus son of Antenor. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tForward
\nhe stood from the press and the people fell silent and listened,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nhe was ever first in the mellay and loved by the fighters. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHe
\nwith a smile began: \u201cCome, friends, debate is soon ended <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nthere is right but of lungs and you argue with javelins. Wisdom,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\npray for her aid in this dangerous hour of your fortunes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nto scalp Laocoon, too much praising his swiftness, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrojans,
\nI rise; for some are born brave with the spear in the war-car,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOthers
\nbold with the tongue, nor equal gifts unto all men <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tZeus
\nhas decreed who guides his world in a round that is devious <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCarried
\nthis way and that like a ship that is tossed on the waters. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhy
\nshould we rail then at one who is lame by the force of Cronion?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nby his will is he lame; he would race, if he could, with the swiftest
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nis the halt man no runner, nor, friends, must you rise up and slay me,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nI should say of this priest, he is neither Sarpedon nor Hector.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen,
\nif my father whom once you honoured, ancient Antenor, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHugs
\nto him Argive gold which I see not, his son, in his mansion, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMe
\ntoo accusest thou, prophet Laocoon? Friends, you have watched me
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSometimes
\nfight; did you see with my house’s allies how I gambolled, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tChanged,
\nwhen with sportive spear I was tickling the ribs of my Argives,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNudges
\nof friendly counsel inviting to entry in Troya? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen,
\nthese are visions of laekbrains; men, these are myths of the market.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLet
\nus have done with them, brothers and friends; hate only the Hellene.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tProphet,
\nI bow to the oracles. Wise are the gods in their silence, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWise
\nwhen they speak; but their speech is other than ours and their wisdom
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHard
\nfor a mortal mind to hold and not madden or wander; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfor myself I see only the truth as a soldier who battles<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-431<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tJudging
\nthe strength of his foes and the chances of iron encounter. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFew
\nare our armies, many the Greeks, and we waste in the combat <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBound
\nto our numbers, – they by the Ocean hemmed from their kinsmen,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWe
\nby our fortunes, waves of the gods that are harder to master, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nlike a rock that is chipped, but we like a mist that disperses.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nif Achilles, bound by an oath, bring peace to us, healing, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBring
\nto us respite, help, though bought at a price, yet full-measured,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrengths
\nof the North at our side and safety assured from the Achaian <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nhe is true though a Greek, will you shun this mighty advantage?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPeace
\nat the least we shall have, though gold we lose and much glory;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPeace
\nwe will use for our strength to breathe in, our wounds to recover,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTeaching
\nTime to prepare for happier wars in the future. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPause
\nere you fling from you life; you are mortals, not gods in your glory.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nfor submission to new ally or to ancient foeman <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPeace
\nthese desire; for who would exchange wide death for subjection?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nwould submit to a yoke? Or who shall rule Trojans in Troya? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSwords
\nare there still at our sides, there are warriors’ hearts in our bosoms.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPeace
\nyour senators welcome, not servitude, breathing they ask for. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nif for war you pronounce, if a noble death you have chosen, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThat
\nI approve. What fitter end for this warlike nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKnowing
\nthat empires at last must sink and perish all cities, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThan
\nto preserve to the end posterity\u2019s praise and its greatness <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCeasing
\nin clangour of arms and a city’s flames for our death-pyre? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tChoose
\nthen with open eyes what the dread gods offer to Troya. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHope
\nnot now Hector is dead and Sarpedon, Asia inconstant, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWe
\nbut a handful, Troy can prevail over Greece and Achilles. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPlay
\nnot with dreams in this hour, but sternly, like men and not children,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tChoose
\nwith a noble and serious greatness fates fit for Troya. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStark
\nwe will fight till buried we fall under Ilion\u2019s ruins, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr,
\nunappeased, we will curb our strength for the hope of the future.\u201d
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nwithout praise of his friends and assent of the thoughtfuller Trojans,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHalamus
\nspoke and ceased. But now in the Ilian forum <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBright,
\nof the sun-god a ray, and even before he has spoken <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSending
\nthe joy of his brilliance into the hearts of his hearers, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tParis
\narose. Not applauded his rising, but each man towards him <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEagerly
\nturned as if feeling that all before which was spoken <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWere
\nbut a prelude and this was the note he has waited for always. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSweet
\nwas his voice like a harp’s, when it chants of war, and its cadence
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSoftened
\nwith touches of music thoughts that were hard to be suffered, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSweet
\nlike a string that- is lightly struck, but it penetrates wholly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-432<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t <\/span>\u201cCalm with the greatness you hold from your sires by the right of your nature
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI
\ntoo would have you decide before Heaven in the strength of your spirits
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nto the past and its memories moored like the thoughts of Antenor
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHating
\nthe vivid march of the present, nor towards the future
Panting through dreams like my brother Laocoon vexed by Apollo.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDead
\nis the past; the void has possessed it; its drama is ended,
Finished its music. The future is dim and remote from our knowledge,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSilent
\nit lies on the knees of the gods in their\u00b9<\/font>
\nluminous stillness.
But to our gaze God’s light is a darkness, His plan is a_chaos.
Who shall foretell the event of a battle, the fall of a footstep?
Oracles, visions and prophecies voice but the dreams of the mortal,
\n\t\t<\/span>And \u2018tis our
\nsprit within is the Pythoness tortured<\/span>
\ni<\/span>n<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>Dclphi.
Heavenly voices to us are a silence, those colours a whiteness.
Neither the thought of the statesman prevails nor the dream of the prophet,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhether
\none cry ‘Thus devise and thy heart shall be given its wanting’,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVainly
\nthe other ‘The heavens have spoken; hear then their message’. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\ncan point out the way of the gods and the path of their travel,
Who shall impose on them bounds and an orbit? The winds have their treading,<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>–
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\ncan be followed and seized,  <\/span>not.
\nThe gods when they move towards <\/span>their purpose.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nare not bound by our deeds and our thinkings. Sin exalted 
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSeizes
\nsecure on the thrones of the world for her glorious portion,
Down to the bottomless pit the good man is thrust in his virtue.
Leave to the gods their godhead and, ‘mortal, turn to thy labour;
Take what thou canst from the hour that is thine and be fearless in spirit;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nis the greatness of  <\/span>man and the joy
\nof his stay in the sunlight.
Now whether over the waste of Poseidon the ships of the Argives
Empty and sad shall return or sacred Ilion perish,
Priam be slain and for ever cease this imperial nation,
These things the gods are strong to conceal from the hopings of mortals.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNeither
\nAntenor knows nor Laocoon. Only of one thing
Man can be sure, the will in his heart and his strength in his purpose:
This too is Fate and this too the gods, nor the meanest in Heaven.<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tParis
\nkeeps what he seized from Time and Fate while unconquered\u00b2<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\tLife speeds
\nwarm through his veins and his heart is assured of the sunlight.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAfter
\n’tis cold, none heeds, none hinders. Not for the dead man
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEarth
\nand her wars and her cares, her joys and her gracious concessions,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>the    
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>Paris
\nthe Priamid keeps what he seized from Time and  <\/span>Fate
\nwhile<\/font><\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 433<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tWhether
\nfor ever he sleeps in the chambers of Nature unmindful <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\ninto wideness wakes like a dreamer called from his visions. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlion
\nin flames I choose, not fallen from the heights of her spirit.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreat
\nand free has she lived since they raised her twixt billow and mountain,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreat
\nlet her end; let her offer her freedom to fire, not the Hellene.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShe
\nwas not founded by mortals; gods erected her ramparts, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLifted
\nher piles to the sky, a seat not for slaves but the mighty. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nmen marvelled at Troy; by her deeds and her spirit they knew her
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nfrom afar as the lion is known by his roar and his preying.
Sole she lived-royal and fell, erect in her leonine nature.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo,
\nO her children, still let her live unquelled in her purpose <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEither
\nto stand with her l feet on the world oppressing the nations <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nin her l ashes to lie and her\u00b9<\/font>
\nname be forgotten for ever. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tJustly
\nyour voices approve me, armipotent children of Ilus; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStraight
\nfrom Zeus is our race and the Thunderer lives in our nature. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLong
\nI have suffered this\u00b2<\/font>
\ntaunt that Paris was Ilion\u2019s ruin <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBorn
\non a night of the gods and of Ate, clothed in a body. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tScornful
\nI strode on my path\u00b3<\/font> secure of the light in my bosom,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTurned
\nfrom the muttering voices of envy, their hates who are fallen,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVoices
\nof hate that cling round the wheels of the triumphing victor; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nif I speak, \u2019tis the strength in me answers, not to belittle, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThat
\nexcusing which most I rejoice in and glory for ever, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTyndaris\u2019
\nrape whom I seized by the will of divine Aphrodite. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMortal
\nthis error that Greece would have slumbered apart in her mountains,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSunk,
\nby the trumpets of Fate unaroused and the morning within her, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nwere Paris unborn and the world had not gazed upon Helen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFools,
\nwho say that a spark was the cause of this giant destruction! <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWar
\nwould have stridden on Troy though Helen were still in her Sparta
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTending
\nan Argive loom, not the glorious prize of the Trojans, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGreece
\nwould have banded her nations though Paris had drunk not Eurotas,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCoast
\nagainst coast I set not, nor Ilion opposite Argos. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPhryx
\naccuse who upreared Troy\u2019s domes by the azure Aegean, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tCurse
\nPoseidon who fringed with Greece the blue of his waters: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nwas this war first decreed and then Agamemnon was fashioned; <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tArmed
\nhe strode forth in the secret Thought that is womb of the future,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFate
\nand Necessity guided these vessels, captained their armies. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\nthey stood mailed at her gates, when they cried in the might of their union,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Troy,
\nrenounce thy alliances, draw back humbly from Hellas\u2019,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>your    
\n\t\t<\/font>\u00b2<\/font>brooked
\ntheir     <\/font>\u00b3<\/font><\/span>way<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-434<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tShould
\nshe have hearkened persuading her strength to a shameful compliance,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIlian
\nqueen of the world\u00b9<\/font>
\nwhose voice was the breath of the storm-gods? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShould
\nshe have drawn back her foot as it strode towards the hills of the Latins?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThrace
\nleft bare to her foes, recoiled from Illyrian conquests? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nall this without battle were possible, people of Priam, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBlame
\nthen Paris, say then that Helen was cause of the struggle. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nI have sullied the hearth and unsealed the gaze of the Furies,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHeaven
\nI have armed with my sin, I have trampled the gift and the guest-rule,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nwas Tray doomed who righteous had triumphed, locked with the Argive.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFools
\nor hypocrites! Meanest falsehood is this among mortals, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVeils
\nof purity weaving, names misplacing ideal <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\nour desires we disguise and paint the lusts of our nature. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen,
\nye are men in your pride and your strength, be not sophists and tonguesters.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLie
\nnot! say\u00b2<\/font>
\nnot that nations live by righteousness, justice <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShields
\nthem, gods out of heaven look down\u00b3<\/font>
\non the crimes of the mighty!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tKnown
\nhave men what screened itself4<\/font><\/sup><\/font> mouthing
\nthese semblances. Crouching <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDire
\nlike a beast in the green of the thicket, selfishness silent <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCrunches
\nthe bones of its prey while the priest and the statesman are glozing.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nare the nations soothed and deceived by the clerics of virtue,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTaught
\nto reconcile fear of the gods with their lusts and their passions,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nwith a lie on their lips they march to the rapine and slaughter.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTruly
\nthe vanquished were guilty! Else would their cities have perished,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShrieked
\ntheir ravished virgins, their peasants been hewn in the vineyards?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTruly
\nthe victors were tools of the gods and their glorious servants!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tElse
\nwould the war-cars have ground triumphant their bones whom they hated?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tServants
\nof God are they verily, even as the ape and the tiger. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDoes
\nnot the wild beast too triumph enjoying the flesh of his captives?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTell
\nus then what was the sin of the antelope, wherefore they doomed her
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWroth
\nat her many crimes? Come, justify God to his creatures! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nto her sins was she offered, not to the Furies or justice, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nto the strength of the lion the high gods offered a victim, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tForce
\nthat is God in the lion’s breast with the forest for altar. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhat,
\nin the cities stormed and sacked by Achilles in Troas<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>ways\/world
\nways<\/font>      \u00b2<\/font><\/span>prate    
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span>wroth    
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t4<\/font><\/sup><\/font><\/span>thing
\nlies screened<\/font> <\/span>
\n\t\t <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-435<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tWas
\nthere no just man slain? Was Brises then a transgressor? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHearts
\nthat were pierced in his walls were they sinners tracked by the Furies?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNo,
\nthey were pious and just and their altars burned for Apollo, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tReverent
\nflamed up to Pallas who slew them aiding the Argives. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nif the crime of Paris they shared and his doom has embraced them,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhom
\nhad the island cities offended, stormed by the Locrian, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWave-kissed
\nhomes of peace but given to the sack and the spoiler? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWas
\nthen King Atreus just and the house accursed of Pelops, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTantalus\u2019
\nrace, whose deeds men shuddering hear and are silent? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLook!
\nthey endure, their pillars are firm, they are regnant and triumph.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nare Thyestean banquets sweet to the gods in their savour? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\na woman\u2019s heart is pursued in their wrath by the Furies! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNo,
\nwhen the wrestlers meet and embrace in the mighty arena, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nat their sins and their virtues file high gods look in that trial;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhich
\nis the strongest, which is the subtlest, this they consider. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNay,
\nthere is none in the World to befriend save ourselves and our courage;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tProwess
\nalone in the battle is virtue, skill in the fighting <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nhelps, the gods aid only the strong and the valiant. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPut
\nforth your lives in the blow, you shall beat back the banded aggressors.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNeither
\nbelieve that for justice denied your subjects have left you <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nthat for justice trampled Pallas and Hera abandon. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTwo
\nare the angels of God whom men worship, strength and enjoyment.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tInto
\nthis life which the sunlight bounds and the greenness has cradled,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArmed
\nwith strength we have come; as our strength is, so is our joyance.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhat
\nbut for joyance is birth and what but for joyance is living? <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\non this earth that is narrow, this stage that is crowded, increasing
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\non another we press. There is hunger for lands and for oxen, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHorses
\nand armour and gold required;\u00b9<\/font>
\npossession allures us <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAdding
\nalways as field to field some fortunate farmer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHearts
\ntoo and minds are our prey; we seize on men\u2019s souls and their bodies,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSlaves
\nto our works and desires that our hearts may bask golden in leisure.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\non another we prey and one by another are mighty. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nis the world and we have not made it; if it is evil, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBlame
\nfirst the gods; but for us, we must live by its laws or we perish.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPower
\nis divine; divinest of all is power over mortals. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPower
\nthen the conqueror seeks and power the imperial nation, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nas luminous, passionless, wonderful, high over all things <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSit
\nin their calmness the gods and oppressing our grief-tortured nations
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStamp
\ntheir wills on the world. Nor less in our death-besieged natures<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>desired<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-436<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tGods
\nare and altitudes. Earth resists, but my soul in me widens <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHelped
\nby the toil behind and the agelong effort of Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nin the worm is a god and it writhes for a form and an outlet. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWorkings
\nimmortal obscurely struggling, hints-of a godhead <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLabour
\nto form in this clay a divinity. Hera widens, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPallas
\naspires in me, Phoebus in flames goes battling and singing, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAres
\nand Artemis chase through the fields of my soul in their hunting,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLast
\nin some hour of the Fates a Birth stands released and triumphant;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPoured
\nby its deeds over earth it rejoices fulfilled in its splendour.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tConscious
\ndimly of births unfinished hid in our being <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRest
\nwe cannot; a world cries in us for space and for fullness. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFighting
\nwe strive by the spur of the gods who are in us and o\u2019er us, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tStamping
\nour image on man and events to be Zeus or be Ares. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLove
\nand the need of mastery, joy and the longing for greatness <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRage
\nlike a fire unquenchable burning the world and creating, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\ntill humanity dies will they sink in the ashes of Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAll
\nis injustice of love or all is injustice of battle. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMan
\nover woman, woman o’er man, over lover and foeman
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWrestling
\nwe strive to expand in our souls, to be wide, to be joyous<\/span>.\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nthou wouldst only be just, then wherefore at all shouldst thou conquer?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nto be just, but to rule, though with kindness and high-seated mercy,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTaking
\nthe world for our own and our will from our slaves and our subjects,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSmiting
\nthe proud and sparing the suppliant, Trojans, is conquest. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tJustice
\nwas base of thy government? Vainly, O statesman, thou liest. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf
\nthou wert just, thou wouldst free thy slaves and be equal with all men.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSuch
\nwere a dream of some sage at night when he muses in fancy, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tImaging
\nfreely a flawless world where none were afflicted, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNo
\nman inferior, all could sublimely equal and brothers <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLive
\nin a peace divine like the gods in their luminous regions. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis,
\nO Antenor, were justice known but in words to us mortals. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nfor the justice thou vauntest enslaving men to thy purpose, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSetting
\nan iron yoke, nor regarding their need and their nature, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nto say \u2018I am just; I slay not save by procedure, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRob
\nnot save by law\u2019 is an outrage to Zeus and his creatures. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTerms
\nare these feigned by the intellect making a pact with our yearnings,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLures
\nof the sophist within us draping our passions with virtue. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\nthou art weak, thou art just, when thy subjects are strong and remember.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTherefore,
\nO Trojans, be firm in your will and, though all men abandon,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font>happy<\/font>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-437<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tBow
\nnot your heads to reproach nor your hearts to the sin of repentance;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFor
\nyou have done what the gods desired in your breasts and are blameless.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tProudly
\nenjoy the earth that they gave you, enthroning their natures, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFight
\nwith the Greeks and the world and trample down the rebellious,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhat
\nyou have lost recover, nor yield to the hurricane passing. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tYou
\ncannot utterly die while the Power lives untired in your bosoms;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen
\n\u2019tis withdrawn, not a moment of life can be added by virtue. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFaint
\nnot for helpers fled! Though your yoke had been mild as a father\u2019s
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nwould have gone as swiftly. Strength men desire in their masters;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>All men worship
\nsuccess and in failure and weakness abandon. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nfor his justice they clung to Teucer, but for their safety, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSeeing
\nin Troy a head and by barbarous foemen afflicted. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFaint
\nnot, 0 Trojans, cease not from battle, persist in your labour!
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tConquer
\nthe Greeks, your allies shall be yours and fresh nations your subjects.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne
\ncare only lodge in your hearts, how to fight, how to conquer. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPeace
\nhas smiled out of Phthia; a hand comes outstretched from the Hellene.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nwould not join with the godlike? who would not grasp at Achilles?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere
\nis a price for his gifts, it is such as Achilles should ask for,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNever
\nthis nation concede.\u00b9<\/font>
\nO Antenor’s golden phrases <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlorifying
\nrest to the tired and confuting patience and courage, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGarbed
\nwith a subtlety lax and the hopes that palliate surrender! <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tCharmed
\nmen applaud the skilful purpose, the dexterous speaker, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThis
\nthey forget that a Force decides, not the wiles of the statesman.\u00b2<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Now
\nlet us yield,\u2019 do you say, \u2018we will rise when our masters are weakened\u2019?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNay,
\nthen our master\u2019s master shall find us an easy possession! <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tEasily
\nnations bow to a yoke when their virtue relaxes; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHard
\nis the breaking fetters once worn, for the virtue has perished.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHope
\nyou when custom has shaped men into the mould of a vileness, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHugging
\ntheir chains when the weak feel easier trampled than rising <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nthough they groan, yet have heart nor strength for the anguish of effort,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThen
\nto cast down whom, armed and strong, you prevailed not\u00b3<\/font> opposing?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEasy
\nis lapse into uttermost hell, not easy salvation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nhave you dreamed that Achilles will save, this son of the gods and the
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t <\/span>                                                                                                          
\n\t\t<\/span>Ocean? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNaught
\nelse can be with the strong and the bold <\/span>
\n\t\t4<\/sup><\/font><\/span>
\nsave foeman or master. <\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>endure<\/font><\/span>.  
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>After
\nthis line come two verses which seem to have been rejected in the manuscript:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tO let us give
\nourselves bound to the swallowing lust of the Ocean!<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSurely \u2019twill bear
\nup our sloth on its crests to a harbour of Triumph!<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span>could
\nhold not \/ were mastered       4<\/sup><\/font><\/span>mighty<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-438<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tKnow
\nyou so little the mood of the pursuer? Think you the lion <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnly
\nwill lick his prey, that his jaws will refrain from the banquet?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRest
\nfrom thy bodings, Antenor! Not all the valour of Troya <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPerished
\nwith Hector, nor with polydamas vision has left her; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nis not eager to slay her soul in a pyre of dishonour. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStill
\nshe has children left who remember the mood of their mother. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHelen
\nnone shall take from me living, gold not a drachma <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTravels
\nfrom coffers of Priam to Greece. Let another and older <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPay
\ndown his wealth if he will and his daughters serve Menelaus. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\nfrom Ilion I will go forth with my brothers and kinsmen; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTroy
\nI will leave and her shame and live with my heart and my honour
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRefuged
\nwith lions in Ida or build in the highlands a city <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOr
\nin an isle of the seas or by dark-driven Pontic waters. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDear
\nare the halls of our childhood, dear are the fields of our fathers,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYet
\nto the soul that is free no spot on the earth is an exile. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\nwherever sunlight is bright, flowers bloom and the rivers <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFlow
\nin their lucid streams to the Ocean, there is our country. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nwill I live in my soul\u2019s wide freedom, never in Troya <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tShorn
\nof my will and disgraced in my strength and the mock of my rival.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFirst
\nhad you yielded, shame at least had not stained your surrender.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrength
\nindulges the weak! But what Hector has fallen refusing, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMen!
\nWhat through ten loud years we denied with the spear for our answer,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThat
\nwhat Trojan will ever renounce, though his city should perish?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOnce
\nhaving fought we will fight to the end nor that end shall be evil.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tClamour
\nthe Argive spears in our walls? Are the ladders erected? <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFar
\non the plain is their flight, on the farther side of the Xanthus.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhere
\nare the deities hostile? Vainly the eyes of the tremblers <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSee
\nthem stalking vast in the ranks of the Greeks and the shoutings
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDire
\nof Poseidon they hear and are blind with the aegis of Pallas. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWho
\nthen sustained so long this Troy, if the gods are against her?
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tEven
\nthe hills could not stand save upheld by their concert immortal.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow
\nnot with Tydeus\u2019 son, not now with <\/span>
\n\t\tOdysseus
\n<\/span>and Ajax <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTrample
\nthe gods in the sound of their chariot-wheels, victory leading:
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tArgos
\nfalls red in her heaps to their scythes; they shelter the Trojans;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tVictory
\nunleashed follows and fawns upon Penthesilea. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPonder
\nno more, O Ilion, city of ancient Priam! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRise,
\nO beloved of the gods, and go forth in thy strength to the battle.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nby the dreams of Laocoon strung to the faith that is febrile, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\nwith the tremblings vain and the haunted thoughts of Antenor, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nwith a noble and serious strength and an obstinate valour<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-439<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tSuffer
\nthe shock of your foes, O nation chosen by Heaven; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tProudly
\ndetermine on victory, live by disaster unshaken.
Either Fate receive like men, nay, like gods, nay, like Trojans.\u201d
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nlike an army that, streams and that marches, speeding and pausing
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDrawing
\nin horn and wing or widened for scouting and forage, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBridging
\nthe floods, avoiding the mountains, threading the valleys, <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tFast
\nwith their flashing panoply clad in gold and in iron <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMoved
\nthe array of his thoughts; and throughout delight and <\/span>
\n\t\tapproval <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFollowed
\ntheir march, in triumph led but like prisoners willing, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tGlad
\nand unbound to a land they desire. Triumphant he ended, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLord
\nof opinion, though by the aged frowned on and censured, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut
\nto this voice of their thoughts the young men vibrated wholly.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLoud
\nlike a storm on the ocean mounted the roar of the people. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cCease
\nfrom debate,\u201d men cried, \u201carise, O thou warlike Aeneas! <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSpeak
\nfor this nation, launch like a spear at the tents of the Hellene,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI1ion\u2019s
\nvoice of war!\u201d Then up mid a limitless shouting <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStern
\nand armed from his seat like a war-god helmed Aeneas <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRose
\nby King Priam approved in this last of Ilion\u2019s sessions, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHolding
\nthe staff of the senate\u2019s authority. \u201cSilence, O commons, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHear
\nand assent or refuse as your right is, masters of Troya, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAncient
\nand sovereign people, act that your kings have determined <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tSitting
\nin council high, their reply to the strength of Achilles. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u2018Son
\nof the Aeacids, vain is thy offer; the pride of thy challenge <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRather
\nwe choose; it is nearer to Dardanus, King of the Hellenes. <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNeither
\nshall Helen be led back, the Tyndarid, weeping to Argos <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNor
\ndown the paths of peace revisit her fathers\u2019 Eurotas. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tDeath
\nand the fire may prevail o\u2019er us, never our wills shall surrender
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLowering
\nPriam\u2019s heights and darkening Ilion\u2019s splendours. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nof such sires were we born but of kings and of gods, O Larissan.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNot
\nwith her gold Troy traffics for safety,\u00b9<\/font> but with her spear-points.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStand
\nwith thy oath in the war-front, Achilles; call on thy helpers <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tArmed
\nto descend from the calm of Olympian heights to thy succour <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tHedging
\nthy fame from defeat; for we all desire thee in battle, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMighty
\nto end thee or tame at last by the floods of the Xanthus.\u2019 \u201d <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSo
\nAeneas resonant spoke, stern, fronted like Ares, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tAnd
\nwith a voice that conquered the earth and invaded the heavens <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLoud
\nthey approved their doom and fulfilled their impulse immortal.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLast
\nDeiphobus rose in their meeting, head of their mellay: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u201cProudly
\nand well have you answered, O nation beloved of Apollo; <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>seeks
\nout her foemen<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-440<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tFearless
\nof death<\/span> they
\nmust walk who would live and be mighty for ever. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tNow,
\nfor the <\/span>sun is
\nhastening up the empyrean azure, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tHasten
\nwe also. Tasting of food round the call of your captains <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tMeet
\nin your armed<\/span>
\ncompanies, chariots and hoplites and archers, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStrong
\nbe y<\/span>our<\/span>
\nhearts, let your courage be stern like the sun when it blazes;
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFierce
\nwill <\/span>the shock<\/span>
\nbe today ere he sink blood-red in the waters.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThey
\nwith <\/span>a voice<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>as of Oceans
\nmeeting rose from their session, – <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tFilling
\nthe streets with her tread Troy strode from her Ilian forum.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-441<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBOOK FOUR
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe Book of
\n Partings <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
\n

 <\/td>\n

\n

\n\t\tE<\/b>agerly, spurred by Ares swift in their souls to the
\nwar-cry,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

All now pressed to their homes for the food of their
\nstrength in the battle;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Ilion turned her thoughts in a proud expectancy seaward\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Waiting to hear the sounds that she loved and the cry of the
\nmellay.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Now to their citadel Priam\u2019s sons returned with their father,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Now from the gates Talthybius issued grey in his chariot;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

But in the halls of Anchises Aeneas not doffing his
\nbreastpiece.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Hastily ate of the corn of his country, cakes of the millet.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Doubled with wild-deer\u2019s flesh, from the quiet hands of
\nCre\u00fcsa.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

She, as he ate, with her calm eyes watching him smiled on
\nher husband:\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cEver thou hastest to battle, O warrior, ever thou fightest\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Far in the front of the ranks and thou seekest out Locrian
\n\t\tAjax, <\/span><\/p>\n

Turnest thy ear to the roar for the dangerous shout of
\nTydides;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

There, once heard, leaving all thou drivest, O stark in
\n\t\tthy courage. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yet am I blest among women who tremble not, left in thy
\nmansion,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Quiet at old Anchises\u2019 feet when I see thee in vision\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Sole with the shafts hissing round thee and say to my
\nquivering spirit,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u2018Now he is striking at Ajax, now he has met Diomedes.\u2019\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Such are the mighty twain who are ever near to protect thee,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Phoebus, the Thunderer\u2019s son, and thy mother, gold Aphrodite;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Such are the fates that demand thee, O destined head of the
\nfuture.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

But though my thoughts for their own are not troubled,
\nalways, Aeneas,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Sore is my heart with pity for other Ilian women\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Who in this battle are losing their children and well-loved
\nhusbands,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Brothers too dear, for the eyes that are wet, for the hearts
\nthat are silent.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Will not this war then end that thunders for ever round
\nTroya?\u201d\n\t\t<\/p>\n

But to Cre\u00fcsa the hero answered,
\nthe son of Anchises:\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely the gods protect, yet is Death too always mighty.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Most in his shadowy envy he strikes at the brave and the
\nlovely,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Grudging works to abridge their days and to widow the
\nsunlight;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Most, disappointed, he rages against the beloved of Heaven;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Striking their lives through their hearts he mows down their
\nloves and their pleasures.
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

Truly thou say\u2019st, thou need\u2019st not to fear for my life in
\nthe battle;\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Ever for thine I fear lest he find thee out in his anger,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Missing my head in the fight, when he comes here crossed in
\nhis godhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-442<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Yet shall Phoebus protect and my
\nmother, gold Aphrodite."
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But to Aeneas answered the tranquil
\nlips of Cre\u00fcsa:
"So may it be that I go before thee, seeing, Aeneas,
Over my dying eyes thy lips bend down for the parting.
Blissfullest end is this for a woman here mid earth’s sorrows;
Afterwards there we hope that the hands shall join which were parted."
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>So she spoke, not knowing the gods:
\nbut Aeneas departing
Clasped his father’s knees, the ancient mighty Anchises:
"Bless me, my father; I go to the battle. Strong with thy blessing
Even today may I hurl down Ajax, slay Diomedes,
And on the morrow gaze on the empty beaches of Troas."
Troubled and joyless, nought replying to warlike Aeneas
Long Anchises sat unmoving, silent, sombre,
Gazing into his soul with eyes that were closed to the sunlight.
"Prosper, Aeneas," slowly he answered him, "son of a goddess,
Prosper, Aeneas; and if for Troy some doom is preparing,
Suffer always the will of the gods with a piety constant.
Only they will what Necessity fashions, impelled by the Silence.
Labour and war she has given to man as the law of his transience.
Work;\u00b9 she shall give thee the crown of thy deeds or their ending appointed,
Whether glorious thou pass or in silent shadows forgotten.
But what thy mother commands perform ever, loading thy vessels.
Who can know what the gods have hid with the mist of our hopings?"
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>So\u00b2from
\nthe house of his fathers Aeneas rapidly striding
Came to the city echoing now with the wheels of the chariots,
Clanging with arms and astream with the warlike tramp of her thousands.
Fast through the press he strode and men turning knew Aeneas,
Greatened in heart and went on with loftier thoughts towards battle.
He through the noise and the crowd to Antenor’s high-built mansion
Striding came, and he turned to its courts and the bronze of its threshold
Trod which had suffered the feet of so many princes departed.
But as he crossed its brazen square from the hall there came running,
Leaping up light to his feet and laughing with sudden pleasure,
Eurus the youngest son of Polydamas. Clasping the fatal
War-hardened hand with a palm that was smooth as a maiden’s or infant’s,
"Well art thou come, Aeneas," he said, "and good fortune has
\nsent thee!
Now I shall go to the field; thou wilt speak with my grandsire Antenor,
And he shall hear thee though chid by his heart reluctant. Rejoicing
I shall go forth in thy car or warring by Penthesilea,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9Fight<\/span>      <\/span>\u00b2Then<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-443<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Famous, give to her grasp the spear
\nthat shall smite down Achilles."
Smiling answered Aeneas, "Surely will, Eurus, thy prowess
Carry thee far to the front; thou shalt fight with Epeus and slay him.
Who shall say that this hand was not chosen to pierce Menelaus?
But for a while with the bulls should it rather strive, 0 hero,
Till in the play and the wrestle its softness grow hard\u00b9 for the smiting."
Eagerly Eurus answered, "But they have told me, Aeneas,
This is the last of our fights for today will Penthesilea
Meet Achilles in battle and slay him ending the Argives.
Then shall I never have mixed in this war that is famous for ever.
What shall 1 say when my hairs are white like the aged Antenor’s?
Men will ask, ‘And what were thy deeds in the warfare Titanic?
Whom didst thou slay of the Argives, son of Polydamas, venging
Bravely thy father?’ Then must 1 say, ‘I lurked in the city.
I was too young and only ascending the Ilian ramparts
Saw the return or the flight, but never the deed and the triumph’?
Friend, if thou take me not forth, I shall die of grief ere the sunset."
Plucking the hand of Aeneas he drew him into the mansion
Vast; and over the floor of the spacious hall they hastened
Laughing, the gracious child and the mighty hero and statesman,
Flower of a present stock and the burdened star of the future.
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Meanwhile girt by his sons and the
\nsons of his sons in his chamber
Cried\u00b2 to the remnants left of
\nhis blood the aged Antenor:
\u201cHearken you who are sprung from my loins and children, their offspring!
None shall again go forth to the fight who is kin to Antenor.
Weighed with my curse he shall go and the spear-points athirst ofthe Argives
Meet him wroth; he shall die in his sin and his name be forgotten.
Oft have I sent forth my blood to be spilled in vain in the battle
Fighting for Troy and her greatness earned by my toil and my fathers’.
Now all the debt has been paid; she rejects us driven by the immortals.
Much do we owe to the mother who bore us, much to our country;
But at the last our life is ours and the gods’ and the future’s.
Gather the gold of my house and our kin, 0 ye sons of Antenor.
Warned by a voice in my soul I will go forth tonight from this city,
Fleeing the doom and bearing my treasures; the ships shall receive them
Gathered, new-keeled by my care and the gods’, in the narrow Propontis.
Over God’s waters guided, treading the rage of Poseidon,
Bellying out with their sails let them cleave to the untravelled distance
Ocean’s crests and resign to their fates the doomed and the evil."<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9is
\ntrained     <\/span>\u00b2Spoke<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-444<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\u00a0<\/span>So Antenor spoke and his children heard him in
\nsilence;
Awed by his voice and the dread of his curse they obeyed, though in sorrow.
Halamus only replied to his father: "Dire are the white hairs
Reverend, loved, of a father, dreadful his curse to his children.
Yet in my heart there is one who cries, ’tis the voice of my country,
She for whose sake I would be in Tartarus tortured for ever.
Pardon me then if thou wilt; if the gods can, then let them pardon.
For I will sleep in the dust of Troy embracing her ashes,
There where Polydamas sleeps and the many comrades I cherished.
So let me go to the darkness remembered or wholly forgotten,
Yet having fought for my country, true in my fall to my nation."
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Then in his aged wrath to Halamus
\nanswered Antenor:
"Go then and perish doomed with the doomed and the hated of heaven;
Nor shall the gods forgive thee dying nor shall thy father."
Out from the chamber Halamus strode with grief in his bosom
Wrestling with wrath and he went to his doom nor looked back at his dear\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00a0<\/span>                                                                                                            
\n\t\t<\/span>ones.
Crossing the hall the son of Antenor and son of Anchises
Met in the paths of their fates where they knotted and crossed for the parting,
One with the curse of the gods and his sire fast wending to Hades,
Fortunate, blessed the other; yet equal their minds were and virtues.
Cypris’ son to the Antenorid: "Thee I have sought and thy brothers,
Bough of Antenor; sore is our need today of thy counsels,
Endless our want of their arms that are strong and their hearts that recoil not
Meeting myriads stark with the spear in unequal battle."
Halamus answered him: "I will go forth to the palace of Priam,
There where Troy yet lives and far from the halls of my fathers;
There will I speak, not here. For my kin they repose in the mansion
Sitting unarmed in their halls while their brothers fall in the battle."
Eurus eagerly answered the hero: "Me rather, therefore,
Take to the fight with you; I will make war on the Greeks for my uncles;
One for all I will fill their place in the shock with the foemen."
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But from his chamber-door Antenor
\nheard and rebuked him:
"Scamp of my heart, thou torment! into thy chamber and rest there,
Bound with cords lest thou cease, thou flutter-brain, scourged into quiet;
So shall thy lust of the fight be healed and our mansion grow tranquil."
Chid by the old man Eurus slunk from the hall discontented,
Yet with a dubious smile like a moonbeam lighting his beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-445<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tBut
\nto Antenor the Dardanid born from the white Aphrodite:
"Late the Antenorids learn to flinch from the spears of the Argives,
Even this boy of their blood has Polydamas’ heart and his valour.
Nor should a life that was honoured and noble be stained in its ending.
Nay, then, the mood of a child would shame a grey-headed wisdom,
If for the fault of the people virtue and Troy were forgotten.
For, though the people hear us not, yet are we bound to our nation:
Over the people the gods are; over a man is his country;
This is the deity first adored by the hearths of the noble.
For by our nation’s will we are ruled in the home and the battle
And for our nation’s weal we offer our lives and our children’s.
Not by their own wills led nor their passions men rise to their manhood,
Selfishly seeking their good, but the gods’ and the State’s and the
\nfathers’."<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Wroth Antenor replied to the
\nwarlike son of Anchises:
"Great is the soul in thee housed and stern is thy will, O Aeneas;
Onward it moves undismayed to its goal though a city be ruined.
They too guide thee who deepest see of the unageing immortals,
One with her heart and one in his spirit, Cypris and Phoebus.
Yet might a man not knowing this think as he watched thee, Aeneas,
‘Spurring Priam’s race to its fall he endangers this city,
Hoping to build a throne out of ruins sole in the Troad.’
I too have gods who warn me and lead, Athene and Hera.
Not as the ways of other mortals are theirs who are guided,
They whose eyes are the gods and they walk by a light that is secret."
Coldly Aeneas made answer, stirred into wrath by the taunting:
"High wert thou always, nurtured in wisdom, ancient Antenor.
Walk then favoured and led, yet watch lest passion and evil
Feign auguster names and mimic the gait of the deathless."
And with a smile on his lips but wrath in his bosom answered,
Wisest of men but with wisdom of mortals, aged Antenor:
"Led or misled we are mortals and walk by a light that is given;
Most they err who deem themselves most from error excluded.
Nor shalt thou hear in this battle the shout of the men of my lineage
Holding the Greeks as once and driving back Fate from their country.
His alone will be heard for a space while the stern gods are patient
Even now who went forth a victim self-offered to Hades,
Last whom their wills have plucked from the fated house of Antenor."
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>They now with wrath in their bosoms
\nsundered for ever and parted.
Forth from the hall of Antenor Aeneas rapidly striding<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 446<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Passed\u00b9 once more through the city
\nhurrying now with its car-wheels,
Filled with a mightier rumour of war and the march of its thousands,
Till at Troy’s upward curve he found the Antenorid crestward
Mounting the steep incline that climbed to the palace of Priam
White in her proud and armed citadel. Silent, ascending
Hardly their feet had attempted the hill when behind them they hearkened
Sweet-tongued a call and the patter and hurry of light-running sandals;
Turning they beheld with a flush on his cheeks and a light on his lashes
Challenging mutely and pleading the boyish beauty of Eurus.
"Racer to mischief," said Halamus, "couldst thou not sit in thy
\nchamber?
Surely cords and the rod await thee, Eurus, returning."
Answered with laughter the child, "I have broken through ranks of the
\nfighters,
Dived under chariot-wheels to arrive here and I return not.
I too for counsel of battle have come to the palace of Priam."
Burdened with thought they mounted slowly the road of their fathers,
Breasting the Ilian hill where Laomedon’s mansion was tented,
They from the crest down gazing saw their country’s house-tops
Under their feet and heard the murmur of Troya below them.
But in the palace of Priam coming and going of house-thralls
Filled all the corridors; smoke from the kitchens curled in its plenty
Rich with savour and breathed from the labouring lungs of Hephaestus.
Far in the halls and the chambers voices travelled and clustered,
Anklets jangling ran and sang back from doorway to doorway,
Mocking with music of speed and its laughters the haste of the happy,
Sound came of arms, there was tread of the great, there were murmurs of women, –
Voices glad of the doomed in Laomedon’s marvellous mansion.
Six were the halls of its splendour, a hundred and one were its chambers
Lifted high upon columns that soared like the thoughts of its dwellers,
Thoughts that transcended the earth though they sank down at last into ashes.
So had Apollo dreamed to his lyre; and its tops were a grandeur
Domed, as if seeking to roof men’s lives with a hint of the heavens;
Marble his columns rose and with marble his roofs were appointed,
Conquered wealth of the world in its largeness suffered, supporting
Purities of marble, glories of gold. Nor only of matter
Blazed there the brutal pomps, but images mystic or mighty
Crowded ceiling and wall, a work that the gods even admire<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\u00b9Pressed<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage \u2013 447<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\u00a0<\/span>Hardly believing that forms like these were
\nimagined by mortals
Here upon earth where sight is a blur and the soul lives encumbered.
Scrolls that remembered in gems the thoughts austere of the ancients
Bordered the lines of the stone and the forms of serpent and Naiad
Ran in relief on those walls of pride in the palace of Priam
Mingled with Dryads who tempted and fled and Satyrs who followed,
Sports of the nymphs in the sea and the woods and their meetings with mortals,
Sessions and battles of Trojan demigods, deaths that were famous,
Wars and loves of men and the deeds of the golden immortals.
Pillars sculptured with gods and with giants soared from bases
Lion-carved or were seated on bulls and bore into grandeur
Amply those halls where they soared, or in\u00b9lordliness slenderly fashioned,
Dressed in flowers and reeds like virgins standing on Ida,
Guarded the screens of stone and divided alcove and chamber.
Ivory carved and broidered robes and the riches of Indus
Cherished in sandalwood triumphed and teemed in the palace of Priam;
Doors that were carven and fragrant sheltered the joys of its princes.
\n\t\t\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Here in a chamber of luminous
\nprivacy Paris was arming.
Near him moved Helen, a whiteness divine and intent on her labour
Fastened his cuirass, bound the greaves and settled the hauberk,
Thrilling his limbs with her touch that was heaven to the yearning of mortals,
She with her hands of delight caressing the senseless metal
Pressed her lips to his brilliant armour; she bowed down, she whispered:
"Cuirass, allowed by the gods, protect the beauty of Paris:
Keep for me that for which country was lost and my child and my brothers."
Yearning she bent to his feet, to the sandal-strings of her lover;
Then as she gazed up, changed grew her mood; for the Daemon within her
Rose that had banded Greece and was burning Troy into ashes.
Slowly a smile that was perfect and perilous over her beauty
Dawned like the sunlight on Paradise; strangely she looked on her lover.
So might a goddess have gazed as she played with the love of a mortal
Passing an hour on the earth ere she rose up white to Olympus.
"So art thou winner, Paris, yet and thy spirit ascendant
Leads this Troy where thou wilt, 0 thou mighty one veiled in thy beauty
First in the dance and the revel, first in the joy of the mellay;
Who would not leave for thy sake and repent it not country and homestead?
Winning thou reignest still over Troy, over Fate, over Helen.
Always so canst thou will? Has Death no claim on thy beauty,\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u00b9to
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage \u2013 448<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tFate
\nno scourge for thy sins? How the years have passed by in a glory,
Years of this heaven of the gods, 0 ravisher, since from my hearthstone
Seizing thou borest me compelled to thy ships and my joy on the waters.
Troy is enringed with the spears, her children fall and her glories,
Mighty souls of heroes have gone down prone to the darkness;
Thou and I abide! the mothers wail for our pleasure.
Wilt thou then keep me for ever, 0 son of Priam, in Troya ?
Fate was my mother, they say, and Zeus for this hour begot me.
Art thou a god too, 0 hero, disguised in this robe of the mortal,
Brilliant, careless of death and of sin as if sure of thy rapture?
What then if Fate today were to lay her hand on thee, Paris ?"
Calmly he looked on the face of which Greece was enamoured, the body
For whose desire great Troy was a sacrifice, tranquil regarded
Lovely and dire on the lips he loved that smile of a goddess,
Saw the daughter of Zeus in the woman, yet was not shaken.
"Temptress of Argos," he answered, "thou snare for the world to
\nbe seized in,
Thou then hop’st to escape! But the gods could not take thee, 0 Helen,
How then thy will that to mine is a captive, or how, though with battle,
He who has lost thee, unhappy, the Spartan, bright Menelaus?
All things yield to a man and Zeus is himself his accomplice
When like a god he wills without remorse or longing.
Thou on this earth art mine since I claimed thee beheld, not speaking,
But with thy lids that fell thou veiledst thy heart of compliance.
Then in whatever beyond I shall know how to take thee, 0 Helen,
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
\nmortals:
Good is the 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, whatever betide, can the hour be unlived of our rapture.
This too is good that nations should meet in the shock of the battle,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage \u2013 449<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tHeroes
\nbe 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, 0 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 slave-girl came to the chamber:
"Paris, thy father and mother desire thee; there in the strangers’
Outer hall Aeneas and Halamus wait for thy coming."
So with the Argive he wended to Priam’s ample chamber
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, 0 my father," said Paris, "thy thoughts have been with
\nme, 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 god fashioned these tools of their action and pleasure;<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Brackets in the original.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-450<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Failure and grief are their engines
\nno 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, 0 my child, since Apollo has willed it, once, and be silent." <\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut in her raiment hidden
\nCassandra 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,
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
                                                                                                     
\nsilent.
For in this play thou hast dared to play with the masters of heaven,<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-451<\/font> <\/font>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

Girl, it is thou who hast lost; thy
\nvoice 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 fear for thy loved ones,
Sees calamity everywhere; when the event like the vision
Seems, as in every war the beloved must fall and the cherished,
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 shall perish and Troy with his
\nslayer."
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, 0 Cassandra, and comfort the heart of thy mother,
See, 0 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
\nsunshine."
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, 0 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, 0 wonder of charm, 0 Paris.
Paris, my son, though Troy must fall, thy mother forgives thee,<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-452<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Blessing the gods who have lent
\nthee 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.
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 suffyrs 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:
\n\t\t<\/i>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, 0 Helen."
He became silent, he ceased from words. But Paris and Helen
Lightly went forth 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-453<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Then in the
\nsilent 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 <\/p>\n

\t\tTroy
\nand the lineage of Teucer!
So do you deal, 0 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.
Woe unto me for my wisdom which none shall value nor hearken!
Woe unto thee, 0 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, 0 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
\nanger.
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, 0 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, 0 Argive Mycenae!
Woe for the evil spouse and 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,<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-454<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Troubled like trees with
\ntheir 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;<\/p>\n

Joyless he turned his
\nface from her eyes of beauty and sorrow.
"So is it come, the hour that I feared, and thou goest, 0 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: "0 my 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 thy 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.
\n\t\t\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\t\t<\/span>Meanwhile
\narmed 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, Sambas and Artavoruxes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-455<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 There too the princes of
\nPhrygian 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.
She from her arming stayed to caress his curls and to chide him:
"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 breast-piece.
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,
Thinking\u00b9 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 strength 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\u00b9Thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-456<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Yet have I never seen that a curse
\nhas sharpened a spear-point;
Never Death has drawn\u00b9 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
\nend him."
Then to the boy delighted and smiling-eyed and exultant
Cried with her voice like the call of heaven’s bugles Penthesilea:\u00b2
"Go, find the spear, gird the sword, don the cuirass, child of the mighty.
Armed when thou standest 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.
\u00b9drew    \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u00b2Cried with her voice like the call
\nof heaven’s bugles waking the heroes,
Blown by the lips of gold-haired Valkyries, Penthesilea:<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-457<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

This my brother approves and the
\nson of Antenor advises.
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 moves 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, 0 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 answered 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.
Easy the Greeks to destroy if 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, <\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-458<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Paris’ fatal shafts and the
\nmissiles 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 stem 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 the 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
\nLocrian!
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 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\u00b9 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
Rather than Locrian Ajax, rather than Phthian Achilles.
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<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9darkness<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-459<\/font> <\/font>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

And, as a robber might, with my
\ncaptive 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, 0 Eums, the childhood of Penthesilea,
There 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
Gazing 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 blood-red evening,
Slow, foreboding, reluctant, and through the yawn of the gateway
Drove with a cry her steeds the virgin Penthesilea
Calling aloud, "0 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,
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,<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-460<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 Helenus, Priam’s son,
\nThrasymachus, grizzled Aretes,
Came like the tempest his father, Aiamos, son of the Northwind –
Orus old in the battle\u00b9 and Eumachus, kin to Aeneas,
Who was Cre\u00fcsa’s brother and richest of men in the Troad
After Antenor only and Priam, Ilion’s monarch.
Halamus drove and Corecbus\u00b2 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 talked and conversed.
\n\t\t"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,
\n\t\t"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-shouting hynm of 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 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,
Arms that have fought by the Oxus and conquered the Orient’s heroes
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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9fight    
\n\u00b2Arintheus<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-461<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Only once from their speed(as they
\ndrove) 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-462<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n\t\tBOOK FIVE<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe Book of Achilles<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tM<\/b>eanwhile
\ngrey from the Trojan gates Talthybius journeyed,
Spurred by the secret thought of the Fates who change not nor falter.
Simois sighed round his wheels and Xanthus roared at his passing,
Troas’ god like a lion wroth and afraid; to meet him
Whistling the ocean breezes came and Ida regarded.
So with his haste in his wheels the herald oceanward driving
Came through the gold of the morn o’er the trampled green of the pastures
Back to the ships and the roar of the sea and the iron-hooped leaguer.
Wide to the left his circle he wrote where the tents of Achilles
Trooped like a flock of the sea-fowl pensive and still on the margin.
He past the outposts rapidly coursed to the fosse\u00b9 of the Argives.
In with a quavering cry to the encampment over the causeway
Bridging the moat of the ships Talthybius drove in his chariot
Out of the wide plains azure-roofed and the silence of Nature
Passing in to the murmur of men and the thick of the leaguer.
There to a thrall of the Hellene he cast his reins and with labour
Down from the high seat climbed of the war-car framed for the mighty.
Then betwixt tent-doors endless, vistaed streets of the canvas,
Slowly the old man toiled with his eager heart, and to meet him
Sauntering forth from his tent at the sound of the driving car-wheels
Strong Automedon came who was charioteer of Achilles.
"Grey Talthybius, whence art thou coming From Troya the ancient?
Or from a distant tent was thy speed and the King Agamemnon?
What in their armoured assembly counsel the Kings\u00b2 of the Argives?"
"Not from the host but from Troy, Automedon, come I with tidings,
Nor have I mixed with the Greeks in their cohorts ranked by the Ocean,
Nor have I stood in their tents who are kings in sceptred Achaia,
But from Achilles sent to Achilles I bring back the message.
Tell me, then, what does Pelides, – whether his strength he reposes
Soothed by the lyre or hearing the chanted deeds of the mighty,
Or does he walk as he loves by the shore of the far-sounding waters ?"
And to the Argive herald grey Automedon answered:
"Now from the meal he rests and Briseis lyres to him singing
One of the Ilian chants of old in the tongue of the Trojans."
"Early then he has eaten, Automedon, early reposes ?"<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00b9moat      \u00b2chiefs<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-463<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t"Early
\nthe meat was broached on the spits, Talthybius, early
High on the sands or under the tents we have eaten and rested.
None knows the hour of the hunt red, fierce nor the prey he shall leap on,
All are like straining hounds; for Achilles shares not his counsels,
But on the ships, in the tents the talk has run like Peneus;
These upon Troy to be loosed and the hard-fighting wolf-brood of Priam,
These hope starkly with Argos embraced, to have done with the Spartan,
Ending his brilliance in blood, to sport on the sands of the margent
Playing at bowls with the heads of the Cretan and crafty Odysseus.
Welcome were either or both; we shall move in the dances of Ares,
Quicken heart-beats dulled and limbs that are numb with reposing.
War we desire and no longer this ease by the drone of the waters."
So as they spoke, they beheld far-off the tent of Achilles,
Splendid and spacious even as the hall of a high-crested chieftain,
Lofty, held by a hundred stakes to the Phrygian meadow.
Hung were its sides with memories bronze and trophies of armour,
Sword and spear and helmet and cuirass of fallen heroes
Slain by the hand of mighty Achilles warring with Troya.
Teemed in its canvas rooms the plundered riches of Troas,
Craftsman’s work and the wood well-carved and the ivory painted,
Work of bronze and work of gold and the dreams of the artist.
And in those tents of his pride, in the dreadful guard of the Hellene,
Nobler boys and daughters of high-born Pbrygians captive,
Borne from the joyless ruins that now were the sites of their childhood,
Served in the land of their sires the will of the Phthian Achilles.
There on a couch reclined in his beauty mighty and golden,
Loved by the Fates and doomed by them, spear of their will against Troya,
Peleus’ hero son by the foam-white child of the waters
Dreaming reposed and his death-giving hand hung lax o’er the couch-side.
Near him dark-eyed Briseis, the fatal and beautiful captive,
Sung to the Grecian victor chants of the land of her fathers,
Sang the chant of Ilus, the tale of the glories of Troya.
Trojan boys and maidens sat near the singer and listened
Heart-delighted if with some tears; for easy are mortal
Hearts to be bent by Fate and soon we consent to our fortunes.
But in the doorway Automedon stood with the shadowy Argive
And at the ominous coming the voice of the singer faltered,
Faltering hushed like a thought melodious ceasing in heaven.
But from his couch the Peleid sprang to action, rejoicing,
Gladly delivered from patience long and he cried to the herald:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage-464<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t"Long
\nhast thou lingered in Ilion, envoy, mute in the chambers
Golden of Priam old; while around thee darkened the counsels
Wavering blindly and fiercely of minds that revolt from compulsion,
Natures at war with the gods and their fortunes. Fain would I fathom
Whatever the thoughts of Deiphobus locked in that nature of iron
Now that he stands confronting his fate in the town of his fathers.
Peace dwells not in thy aspect. Sowst thou a seed then of ruin
Cast from the inflexible heart and the faltering tongue of Aeneas
Or with the golden laugh of the tameless bright Alexander?"
Grey Talthybius answered: "Surely their doom has embraced them
Wrapping her locks round their ears and their eyes, lest they see and escape
\nher,
Kissing their tongue with her fatal lips and dictating its answers.
Dire is the hope of their chiefs and fierce is the will of their commons.
‘Son of the Aeacids, spurned is thy offer. The pride of thy challenge
Rather we choose; it is nearer to Dardanus, King of the Hellenes.
Neither shall Helen captive be dragged to the feet of her husband,
Nor down the paths of peace revisit her fathers’ Eurotas.
Death and the fire may prevail on us, never our wills shall surrender
Lowering Priam’s heights and darkening Ilion’s splendours;
Not of such sires were we born, but of kings and of gods. Larissan,
Not with her gold Troy purchases safety but with her spear-point.
Stand with thy oath in the war-front, Achilles, call on thy helpers
Armed to descend from the calm of Olympian heights to thy succour,
Hedging thy fame from defeat; for we all desire thee in battle,
Mighty to end thee or tame at last by the floods of the Xanthus.’
So they reply; they are true to their death, they are constant for ruin.
Humbler answer hope not, O hero, from Penthesilea;
Insolent, warlike, regal and swift as herself is her message:
‘Sea of renown and of valour that fillest the world with thy rumour,
Speed of the battle incarnate, mortal image of Ares!
Terror and tawny delight like a lion one hunts or is hunted!
Dread of the world and my target, swift-footed glorious hero!
Thus have I imaged thee, son of Peleus, dreaming in countries
Far from thy knowledge, in mountains that never have rung to thy war-cry.
0, I have longed for thee, warrior! Therefore today by thy message
So was I seized with delight that my heart was hurt with its rapture,
Knowing today I shall gaze with my eyes on that which I imaged
Only in air of the mind or met in the paths of my dreaming.
Thus have I praised thee first with my speech; with my spear I would answer.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-465
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tYet for thy haughty scorn who deeming of me as some Hellene
Or as a woman weak of these plains fit but for the distaff,
Promisest capture in war and fame as thy slave-girl in Phthia, –
Surely I think that death today will reply to that promise, –
Now I will give thee my answer and warn thee ere we encounter.
Know me queen of a race that never was conquered in battle!
Know me armed with a spear that never has missed in the combat!
There where my car-wheels run, good fruit gets the husbandman after.
This thou knowest. Ajax has told thee, thy friend, in his dying.
Has not Meriones’ spirit come in thy dreams then to warn thee?
Didst thou not number the Argives over ere I came to the battle?
Number them now and measure the warrior Penthesilea.
Such am I then whom thy dreams have seen meek-browed in Larissa,
And in the battle behind me thunder the heroes Eoan,
Ranks whose feeblest can match with the vaunted chiefs of the Argives.
Never yet from the shock have they fled; if they turn from the foeman,
Always ’tis to return like death recircling on mortals.
Yet being such, having such for my armies, this do I promise:
I on the left of the Trojans war with my bright-armed numbers,
Thou on the Argive right come forth, Achilles, and meet me!
If thou canst drive us with rout into Troy, I will own thee for master,
Do thy utmost will and make thee more glorious than gods are,
Serving thy couch in Phthia and drawing the jar from thy rivers.
Nay, if thou hast that strength, then hunt me, 0 hunter, and seize me,
If ’tis thy hope indeed that the sun can turn back from the Orient.
But if thou canst not, death of myself or thyself thou shalt capture."
Musing heard and was silent a while the strength of Achilles,
Musing of Fate and the wills of men and the purpose of Heaven,
Then from his thoughts he broke and turned in his soul towards battle.
"Well did I know what reply would come winged from the princes of Troya.
Prone are the hearts of heroes to wrath and to god-given blindness
When from their will they are thrust and harried by Fate and disaster:
Fierceness then is the armour of strength against grief and its yieldings.
So have the gods made man for their purpose, cunningly fashioned.
Once had defiance waked from my depths a Fury far-striding
Flaming for justice and vengeance, nor had it, satisfied, rested,
Sunk to its lair till the insulter died torn or was kneeling for pardon.
Fierce was my heart in my youth and exulted in triumph and slaughter.
Now as I grow in my spirit like to my kin the immortals,
Joy more I find in saving and cherishing than in the carnage.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-466<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tGreater it seems to my mind to be king over men than their slayer,
Nobler to build and to govern than what the ages have laboured
Putting their godhead forth to create or the high gods have fashioned,
That to destroy in our wrath of a moment. Ripened, more widely
Opens my heart to the valour of man and the beauty of woman,
Works of the world and delight; the cup of my victory sweetens
Not with the joys of hate, but the human pride of the triumph.
Yet was the battle decreed for the means supreme of the mortal
Placed in a world where all things strive from the worm to the Titan.
So will I seize by the onset what peace from my soul would sequester,
So will I woo with the sword and with love the delight of my foeman,
Troy and Polyxena. beauty of Paris and glory of Priam.
This was the ancient wrestling, this was the spirit of warfare
Fit for the demigods. Soon in the city of gold and of marble,
There where Ilus sat and Tros, where Laomedon triumphed,
Peleus’ house shall reign, the Hellene sit where the Trojan
Thought himself deathless.
\n\t\t<\/span>Arise, Automedon!
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tOut to the people!
Send forth the cry through the ships and the tents of the Myrmidon nation.
Let not a man be found then lingering when o’er the causeway
Thunder my chariot-wheels, nor let any give back in the battle,
Good if he wills from me, till through the conquered gates of the foeman
Storming we herd in their remnants and press into Troy as with evening
Helios rushing sinks to the sea. But thou, Briseis,
Put by thy lyre, 0 girl; it shall gladden my heart in my triumph
Victor returned from Troy to listen pleased to thy singing,
Bearing a captive bound to my car-wheels Penthesilea,
Bearing my valour’s reward, Polyxena, daughter of Priam,
Won in despite of her city and brothers and spears of her kindred.
So by force it is best to take one’s will and be mighty."
Joyful, Automedon ran through the drowsy camp of the Hellenes
Changing the hum of the tents as he raced into shoutings of battle;
For with the giant din of a nation triumphant arising
Hellas sprang from her irksome ease and mounted her war-car;
Donning her armour bright she rejoiced in the trumpet of battle.
But to the herald grey the Peleid turned and the old man
Shuddered under his gaze and shrank from the voice of the hero:
"Thou to the tents of thy kings, Talthybius, herald of Argos!
Stand in the Argive assembly, voice of the strength of Achilles.
Care not at all though the greatest and fiercest be wroth with thy message.
Deem not thyself, old man, as a body and flesh that is mortal,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-467<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tRather as living speech from the iron breast of the
\nHellene.
Thus shalt thou chide the vanquished chiefs who have fled from a woman
Thus shalt thou speak my will to the brittle and fugitive legions: –
Now Achilles turns towards Troya and fast-flowing Xanthus,
Now he leaps at the iron zone, the impregnable city.
Two were the Forms of the Gods that o’erhung the sails of Pelides
When with a doubtful word in his soul he came wind-helped from Hellas
Cleaving the Aegean deep towards the pine-crested vision of Ida.
Two are the Fates that stride with the hero counting his exploits.
Over all earthly things the soul that is fearless is master,
Only on death he can reckon not whether it comes in the midnight
Treading the couch of Kings in their pride or speeds in the spear-shaft.
Now will I weigh down that double beam of the Olympian balance
Claiming one of the equal Fates that stand robed for the fighter,
For to my last dire wrestle I go with the Archer of heaven,
And ere the morning gleam have awakened the eagles on Ida,
Troy shall lie prone\u00b9 or earth shall be empty of Phthian Achilles.
But for whatever Fate I accept from the ageless Immortals,
Whether cold Hades dim or Indus waits for my coming
Pouring down vast to the sea with the noise of his numberless waters,
I with Zeus am enough. Your mortal aid I desire not,
Rushing to Troy like the eagle of Zeus when he flies towards the thunders, –
Winged with might, the bird of the spaces, upbuoying his pinions.
Nor shall my spirit look back for the surge of your Danaan fighters,
Tramp of the Argive multitudes helping my lonely courage,
Neither the transient swell of the cry Achaian behind me
Seek, nor the far-spreading voice of Atrides guiding his legions.
Need has he none for a leader who himself is the soul of his action.
Zeus and his Fate and his spear are enough for the Phthian Achilles.
Rest, 0 wearied hosts; my arm shall win for you Troya,
Quelled when the stern Eoans break and Penthesilea
Lies like a flower in the dust at my feet. Yet if Ares desire you,
Come then and meet him once more mid the cry and the trampling! Assemble
Round the accustomed chiefs, round the old victorious wrestlers
Wearied strengths Deiphobus leaves you or sternest Aeneas.
But when my arm and my Fate have vanquished their gods and Apollo,
Brilliant with blood when we stand amid Ilion’s marble splendours,
Then let none seat deaf flame on the glory of Phrygia’s marbles
Or with his barbarous rapine shatter the chambers of sweetness<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>stoop
\nlow <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-468<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tSlaying the work of the gods and the beauty the
\nages have lived for.
For he shall moan in the night remote from the earth and her greenness,
Spurred like a steed to its goal by my spear dug deep in his bosom;
Fast he shall fleet to the waters of wailing, the pleasureless pastures.
Touch not the city Apollo built, where Poseidon has laboured.
Seized and dishelmed and disgirdled of Apollonian ramparts,
Empty of wide-rolling wheels and the tramp of a turbulent people
Troy with her marble domes shall live for our nations in beauty
Hushed mid the trees and the corn and the pictured halls of the ancients,
Watching her image of dreams in the gliding waves of Scamander,
Sacred and still, a city of memory spared by the Grecians.\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tSo shalt thou warn the arrogant hearts of Achaia’s chieftains
Lest upon Greece an evil should fall and her princes should perish.
Herald, beware how thou soften my speech in the ears of thy nation
Sparing their pride and their hearts but dooming their lives to the
\ndeath-stroke.
Even thy time-touched snows shall not shield thy days from my sword-edge."
Wroth grew the old man’s heart, but he feared Achilles and slowly
Over the margin grey on the shore of the far-sounding Ocean
Silent paced to the tents of the Greeks and the Argive assembly.
There on the sands while the scream of the tide as it dragged at the pebbles
Strove in vain with their droning roar, awaiting their chieftains
Each in his tribe and his people far down the margin Aegean,
Argolis’ sons and Epirote spears and the isles and the southron,
Locris’ swarms and Messene’s pikes and the strength of the Theban,
Hosts bright-armed, bright-eyed, bright-haired, time-hardened to Ares,
Stretched in harsh and brilliant lines with a glitter of spear-points
Far as the eye could toil. All Eufope helmeted, armoured
Swarmed upon Asia’s coasts disgorged from their ships in their hundreds.
There in the wide-winged tent of the council that peered o’er the margin,
High where the grass and the meadow-bloom failed on the sand-rifted<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tsward-edge,
Pouring his argent voice Epeus spoke to the princes,
Rapid in battle and speech; and even as boy in a courtyard
Tosses his ball in the air and changes his hands for the seizing,
So he played with his counsel and thought and rejoiced in his swiftness.
But now a nearing Fate he felt and his impulse was silenced.
Stilled were his thoughts by the message that speeds twixt our minds in their<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tshadows<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>nobles<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-469<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tDumb, unthought, unphrased, to us dark, but the cverns of Nature
Hear its cry when God’s moment changing our fate comes visored
Silently into our lives and the spirit too knows, for it watches.
Quiet he fell and all men turned to the face of the herald.
Mute and alone through the ranks of the seated and silent princes
Old Talthybius paced, nor paused till he stood at the midmost
Fronting that council of Kings and nearest to Locrian Ajax
And where Sthenelus sat and where sat the great Diomedes,
Chiefs of the South, but their love was small for the Kings of the Spartans.
There like one close to a refuge he lifted his high-chanting accents.
High was his voice like the wind’s when it whistles shrill o’er a forest
Sole of all sounds at night, for the kite is at rest and the tiger
Sleeps from the hunt returned in the deepest hush of the jungle.
"Hearken, 0 Kings of the world, to the lonely will of the Phthian!
One is the roar of the lion heard by the jungle’s hundreds,
One is the voice of the great and the many shall hear it inclining.
Lo, he has shaken his mane for the last great leap upon Troya
And when the eagle’s scream shall arise in the dawn over Ida.
Troy shall have fallen or earth shall be empty of Phthian Achilles.
But by whatever Fate he is claimed that waits for the mortal,
Whether the fast-closed hands above have kept for his morrows
Chill of the joyless shades or earth and her wooings of sunlight
Still shall detain his days with the doubtful meed of our virtues,
He and Zeus shall provide, not mortals. Chaff are men’s armies
Threshed by the flails of Fate; ’tis the soul of the hero that conquers.
Not on the tramp of the multitudes, not in the cry of the legions
Founds the strong man his strength but the god that he carries within him.
Zeus and his Fate and his spear are enough for the Phthian Achilles.
Prudence of men shall curb no more his god-given impulse.
He has no need of thy voice, 0 Atreus, guiding the legions,
He is the leader, he is the soul of magnificent emprise.
Rest, 0 ye sons of the Greeks<\/span><\/font>,\u00b9<\/font><\/span>
\nthe Phthian shall conquer for Hellas!
Rest! expose not your hearts to the war-cry of Penthesilea.
Yet if the strength in you thirsts for the war-din, if Ares is hungry,
Meet him stark in the mellay surging Deiphobus’ coursers,
Guiding Aeneas’ spear; recover the souls of your fathers.
Bronze must his heart be who looks in the eyes of the implacable war-god!
But when his Fate has conquered their gods and slaughtered their heroes,
And in this marble Ilion bowed<\/span><\/font>\u00b2<\/font><\/span>to
\nthe tread of her foemen<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>0
\nGreeks in your tents,     <\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b2forced <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-470<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tWatched by the ancient domes you stand by the timeless turrets,
Then let no chieftain crowned<\/span><\/font>\u00b9<\/font><\/span>
\nfor offering lift against Troya,
Counselled of Ate, torch of the burning, hand of the plunder
Groping for gold but finding death in her opulent chambers.
For he shall moan in the night regretting the earth and her greenness,
Spurred by the spear in his arrogant breast like a steed to the gorges:
Fast he shall fleet to the flowerless meadows, the sorrowful pastures.
Touch not the city Apollo built, where Poseidon laboured,
Slay not the work of the gods and the glory the ages have lived for.
Mute of the voice of her children, void of the roll of her war-cars
Timeless Troy leave solitary dreaming by ancient Scamander
Sacred and still, a city of memory spared by the Grecians.\u201d<\/span><\/font>\u00b2<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tSo Talthybius spoke and anger silenced the Argives.
Mute was the warlike assembly, silent Achaia’s princes.
Wrath and counsel strove in the hush for the voice of the speakers.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9garbed<\/font><\/span>     
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b2Phthian<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-471<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n


\n
\nBOOK  S<\/font><\/span><\/b>IX
\n<\/font><\/b><\/span>
\n
\n
<\/span>
\nThe
\n Book of The Chieftains<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tB<\/span><\/font>ut from their midst uprearing a brow that no crown could ennoble,
Male and kingly of front like a lion conscious of puissance
Rose a form august, the monarch great Agamemnon.
Wroth he rose yet throwing a rein on the voice of his passion,
Governing the beast and the demon within by the god who is mighty.
"Happily for thy life and my fame that thou comst with the aegis of heaven
Shadowing thy hoary brows, thou herald of pride and of insult.
Well is it too for his days who sent thee that other and nobler
Heaven made my heart than his who insults and a voice of the immortals\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tCries to my soul forbidding its passions. 0 hardness of virtue
Thus to be seized and controlled as in fetters by Zeus and Athene.
Free is the peasant to smite in the pastures the mouth that has wronged him,
Chained in his soul is Atrides. Bound by their debt to the fathers,
Curbed by the god in them painfully move the lives of the noble,
Forced to obey the eye that watches within in their bosoms.
Ever since Zeus Cronion turned in our will towards the waters,
Scourged by the heavens in my dearest, wronged by men and their clamours
Griefs untold I have borne in Argos and Aulis and Troas,
Yoked to the sacred toil of the Greeks for their children and country,
Bound by the gods to a task that is heavy, a load that is bitter.
Seeing the faces\u00b2
\nof foes in the mask of a friend I was silent.
Hateful I hold him who sworn to a cause that is holy and common
Broods upon private wrongs or serving his\u00b3lonely ambition<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tAlternative
\nto lines 4-9:<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t
Wroth he rose with a reddened brow as reddens the forehead
Wide of the heavens with a glory of wrath on the eve of a* tempest.
"Well is it, herald, that sacred thou comst with the aegis of heaven
Sheltering thy hoary brows; for thy age should not shield thee nor pardon.\u2020
Shame to the ancient years and the Argive tongue that can utter
Words like these into Argive ears from the mouth of a Hellene.
Well is it too for the length of his days who sent thee, 0 envoy,
Voicing\u2021 his pride, the haughty\u00a7 chief of a barbarous nation,
One who imagines that sole upon earth he is brave and a fighter.
Well for his days that my strength is restrained by a voice that within me<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t*<\/span><\/font>some <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t \u2020Alternative: Well is it, herald, that sacred thou comst and protected of
\nheaven,
                                        
\nBearing this stab to Achaia nor fearest insulting her princes.<\/font>
\u2021 Vioce of     
\n\u00a7 insolent     <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span>eyes    
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span>lured
\nby a<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-472<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tStudies
\nto reap his gain from the labour and woe of his fellows.
Mire is the man who hears not the gods when they cry to his bosom.
Grief and wrath I coerced nor carried my heart to its record,
All that has hurt its chords and wounded the wings of my spirit.
Nobler must kings be than natures of earth on whom Zeus lays no burden.
Other is Peleus’ son than the race of his Aeacid fathers,
Nor like his sire of the wise-still heart deep-sighted and patient
Bearing the awful ruin of the gods, but hastes to his longings;
Dire is his wrath and pursued by the band of his giant ambitions.
Measure and virtue forsake him as Ate grows in his bosom.
Yet not for tyrant wrong nor to serve as a sword for our passions
Zeus created our strength, but that earth might have help from her children.
Not of our moulding its gifts to our soul nor were formed by our labour.
When did we make them, and where were they forged, in what workshop<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\tor
\nfurnace?\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tFound in what aeon of Time, that pride should bewilder the mortal?
Bowed to our will are the folk and our prowess dreadful and godlike?
Shadows are these of the gods which the deep heavens cast on our spirits.
Transient we made not ourselves, but at birth from the first we were fashioned
Valiant or fearful and as was our birth by the gods and their thinkings
Formed, so already enacted and fixed by their wills are our fortunes.
What were the strength of Atrides and what were the craft of Odysseus
Save for their triumphing gods? They would fail and be helpless as infants.
Stronger a woman, wiser a child were, favoured by Heaven.
Ceased not Sarpedon slain who was son of Zeus and unconquered?
Not to Achilles he fell, but Fate and the gods were his slayers.
Kings, to the arrogant shaft that was launched, the unbearable insult
Armoured wisdoms oppose, let not Ate seize on your passions.
Be not as common souls, 0 you who are Greece and her fortunes,
Nor of your spirits of wrath take counsel of Athene.
Merit the burden laid by Zeus, his demand from your natures
Suffer, 0 hearts of his seed, 0 souls who are chosen and mighty,
All forgetting but Greece and her good; resolve what is noble.
I will not speak nor advise, for ’tis known we are rivals and foemen."
Calmed by his words and his will he sat down mighty and kinglike;
Bul Menelaus arose, the Spartan, the husband of Helen,
Atreus’ younger son from a lesser womb, in his brilliance
Dwarfed by the other’s port, yet tall was he, gracile and splendid,
As if a panther might hunt by a lion’s side in the forest.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9of 
\nbeing?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t   Page-473<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tSmiting
\nhis thigh with his firm-clenched hand he spoke mid the Argives:
"Woe to me, shameless, born to my country a cause of affliction,
Since for my sake all wrongs must be borne and all shames be encountered;
And for my sake you have spun through the years down the grooves of<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tdisaster
Bearing the shocks of the Trojans and ravaged by Zeus and by Hector,
Slaughtered by Rhesus and Memnon, Sarpedon and Penthesilea
Or by the Archer pierced, the hostile dreadful Apollo,
Evilly end the days of the Greeks remote from their kindred-
Slain on an alien soil by Asian Xanthus and Ida.
Doomed to the pyre we have toiled for a woman ungracious who left us
Passing serenely my portals to joy in the chambers of Troya.
Here let it cease, 0 my brother! how much wilt thou bear for this graceless
Child of thy sire, cause still of thy griefs and never of blessing?
Easily Zeus afflicts who trouble their hearts for a woman;
But in our ships that sailed close-fraught with this dolorous Ate
Worse was the bane they bore which King Peleus begot on white Thetis.
Evil ever was sown by the embrace of the gods with a mortal!
Alien a portent is born and a breaker of men and their labours,
One who afflicts with his light or his force mortality’s weakness
Stripping for falsehoods their verities, shaking the walls they erected.
Neither without him his fellows can prosper nor will his spirit
Fit in the frame of things earthly but shatters their rhythm and order
Rending the measures just that the wise have decreed for our growing.
So have our mortal plannings broken in this fateful Achilles
And with our blood and our anguish Heaven has fostered his greatness.
It is enough; let the dire gods choose between Greece and their offspring.
Even as he bids us, aloof let our hosts twixt the ships and the Xanthus
Stand from the shock and the cry where Hellene meets with Eoan.
Troy and Phthia locked, Achilles and Penthesilea,
Nor any more than watchers care who line an arena;
Calm like the impartial gods they approve the bravest and swiftest.
So let him fight! The fates shall preserve him he vaunts of or gather,
Even as death shall gather us all for memory’s clusters,
All in their day who were great or were little, heroes or cowards.
So shall he slay or be slain, a boon to mankind and his country.
Since if he mow down this flower of bale, this sickle by Hades
Whirled if he break – for the high gods ride on the hiss of his spear-shaft, –
Ours is the gain who shall break rejoicing through obdurate portals
Praising Pallas alone and Hera daughter of Heaven.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-474<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tBut
\nif he sink in this last of his fights, as they say it is fated, –
Nor do I deem that the man has been born in Asia or Hellas
Who in the dreadful field can prevail against Penthesilea, –
If to their tents the Myrmidons fleeing cumber the meadows
Slain by a girl in her speed and leaving the corpse of their leader,
Ours is the gain, we are rid of a shame and a hate and a danger.
True is it, Troy shall exultant live on in the shadow of Ida,
Yet shall our hearts be light because earth is void of Achilles.
And for the rest of the infinite loss, what we hoped, what we suffered,
Let it all go, let the salt floods swallow it, fate and oblivion
Bury it out in the night; let us sail o’er the waves to our country
Leaving Helen in Troy since the gods are the friends of transgressors."
So Menelaus in anger and grief miscounselled the Argives.
Great Idomeneus next, the haughty king of the Cretans,
Raised his brow of pride in the lofty Argive assembly.
Tall like a pine that stands up on the slope of Thessaian mountains
Overpeering a cascade’s edge and is seen from the valleys,
Such he seemed to their eyes who remembered Greece and her waters,
Heard in their souls the torrent’s leap and the wind on the hill-top:
"Long\u00b9
\nhave I marvelled at heart\u00b2
\nto behold in this levy of heroes
Armies so many, chieftains so warlike suffer in silence
Pride of a single man when he thunders and lightens in Troas.
Doubtless the nations that follow his cry are many and valiant,
Doubtless the winds of the north have made him a runner and spearman.
Shall not then force be the king? is not strength the seal of the godhead?
This my soul replies, ‘Agamemnon the Atreid only
Choosing for leader and king I have come to the toil and the warfare.
Wisdom and greatness he owns and the wealth and renown of his fathers
But for this whelp of the northlands, nursling of rocks and the sea-cliff,
Who with his bleak and rough-hewn Myrmidons hastes to the carnage,
Leader of wolves to their prey, not the king of a humanised nation.
Not to such head of the cold-drifting mist and the gloom-vigilled Chaos,
Crude to our culture and light and void of our noble fulfilments
Minos shall bend his knee nor Crete, a barbarian’s vassal,
Stain her old glories.’ Oh, but he boasts of a goddess for mother
Born in the senseless seas mid the erring wastes of the Ocean\u00b3
Gods we adore enough in the heavens, and if from us Hades
Claim one more of this breed, we can bear that excess to her glories,
Not upon earth these new-born deities huge-passioned, sateless<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>Oft<\/font><\/span><\/font>      \u00b2<\/font><\/span>O
\nGreeks<\/span><\/font>     
\n\u00b3<\/font><\/span><\/font>White
\nand swift and foam-footed, vast Oceanus’ daughter!<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-475<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tWho
\nwith their mouth as of Orcus and stride of the ruinous Ocean
Sole would be seen mid her sons and devour all life’s joy and its greatness.
Millions must empty their lives that a few men may o’ershadow the<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tnations,
Numberless homes must weep but their hunger of glory is sated!
Troy shall descend to the shadow; gods and men have condemned her,
Weary, hating her fame. Her dreams, her grandeur, her beauty,
All her greatness and deeds that now end in miserable ashes,
Ceasing shall fade and be as a tale that was forged by the poets.
Only a name shall go down from her past and the woe of her ending
Naked to hatred and rapine and punished with rape and with slaughter.
Never again must her marble pride high-crowned on her hill-top
Look forth dominion and menace over the crested Aegean
Shadowing<\/span><\/font>\u00b9<\/font><\/span> Achaia.
\nFire shall abolish the fame of her ramparts,
Earth her foundations forget. Shall she stand then affronting the azure?
Dire in our path like a lioness once again must we meet her
Leap and roar of her led by the spear of Achilles, not Hector!
Asia by Peleus guided<\/span><\/font>\u00b2<\/font><\/span> shall
\nstride on us after Antenor?
"Though one should plan in the night of his thoughts where no eye can
\npursue<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\thim,
Instincts of men discover their foe and like hounds in the darkness
Bay at a danger hid. No silence of servitude trembling
Trains to bondage sons of the race of whom Aeolus father
Storm-voiced was and free, nor like other groupings of mortals
Moulded we were by Zeus, but supremely were sifted and fashioned;
Other are Danaus’ son and other the lofty Achaians:
Chainless like Nature’s tribes in their many-voiced colonies founded
They their god-given impulse shall keep and their natures of freedom.
Only themselves shall rule them, only their equal spirits
Bowed to the voice of a law that is just, obeying their leaders
Awed by the gods. So with order and balance and harmony noble
Life shall move golden, free in its steps and just in its measure,
Glad of a manhood complete, by excess and defect untormented.
Freedom is life to the Argive’s soul, to Aeolia’s peoples.
Dulled by a yoke our nations would perish, or live but as shadows,
Changed into phantoms of men with the name of a Greek for a byword.
Not like the East and her sons is our race, they who bow to a mortal.
Gods there may be in this flesh that suffers and dies; Achaia
Knows them not. Need if he feels of a world to endure and adore him,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9Lessening
\n\/ Stunting \/ Dwarfing     \u00b2prompted<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-476<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tHearts
\nlet him seek that are friends with the dust, overpowered by their<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\theavens,
Here in these Asian vastnesses, here where the heats and the perfumes
Sicken the soul and the sense and a soil of indolent plenty
Breeds like the corn in its multitudes natures accustomed to thraldom.
Here let the northern Achilles seek for his slaves and adorers,
Not in the sea-ringed isles and not in the mountains Achaian.
Ten long years of the shock and the war-cry twixt rampart and ocean
Hurting our hearts we have toiled; shall they reap not their ease in the<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\tvengeance?
Troas is strewn\u00b9
\nwith the lives of our friends and with ashes remembered;
Shall not Meriones slain be reckoned in blood and in treasure?
Cretan Idomeneus girt with the strength of his iron retainers
Slaying and burning will stride through the city of music and pleasure,
Babes of her blood borne high on the spears at the head of my column,
Wives of her princes dragged through her streets in its pomp to their passion,
Gold of Troy stream richly past in the gaze of Achilles.
Then let him threaten my days, then let him rally the might of his trumpets,
Yet shall a Cretan spear make search in his heart for his godhead.
Limbs of this god can be pierced; not alone shall I fleet down to Hades."
After him rose from the throne the Locrian swift-footed Ajax.
"Kings of the Greeks, throw a veil 0’e\u00b2
\nyour griefs, lay a curb on your anger.
Moved man’s tongue in its wrath looses speech that is hard to be pardoned,
Afterwards stilled we regret, we forgive. If all were resented,
None could live on this earth that is thick with our stumblings. Always
This is the burden of man that he acts from his heart and his passions,
Stung by the goad of the gods he hacks\u00b3
\nat the ties that are dearest.
Lust was the guide they sent us, wrath was a whip for his coursers,
Madness they made the heart’s comrade, repentance they gave for its<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tscourger.
This too our hearts demand that we bear with our friend when he chides us.
Insult forgive from the noble embittered soul of Achilles!
When with the scorn and the wrath of a lover our depths are tormented,
Who shall forbid the cry and who shall measure the anguish?
Sharper the pain that looses the taunt than theirs who endure it.
Rage has wept in my blood as I lived through the flight o’er the pastures,
Shame coils a snake in my back when thought whispers of Penthesilea.
Bright shine his morns if he mows down this hell-bitch armed by the Furies!
But for this shaft of his pity it came from a lesser Pelides,
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>sown<\/span><\/font>      \u00b2<\/font><\/span>on<\/span><\/font>      \u00b3<\/font><\/span><\/font>hews<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t Page-477<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tNot
\nfrom the slayer of Hector, not from the doom of Sarpedon,
Memnon’s mighty o’erthrower, the blood-stained splendid Achilles.
These are the Trojan snares and the fateful smile of a woman!
This thing the soul of a man shall not bear that blood of his labour
Vainly has brought him victory leaving life to the hated;
This is a wound to our race that a Greek should whisper of mercy.
Who can pardon a foe though a god should descend to persuade him?
Justice is first of the gods, but for Pity ’twas spawned by a mortal,
Pity that only disturbs God’s measures and false and unrighteous
Holds man back from the joy he might win and troubles his bosom.
Troy has a debt to our hearts; she shall pay it all down to the obol,
Blood of the fall and anguish of flight when the heroes are slaughtered,
Days without joy while we labour and see not the eyes of our parents,
Toil of the war-cry, nights that drag past upon alien beaches,
Helen ravished, Paris triumphant, endless the items
Crowd on a wrath in the memory, kept as in bronze the credit
Stretches out long and blood-stained and savage. Most for the terror
Graved in the hearts of our fathers that still by our youth is remembered,
Hellas waiting and crouching, dreading the spear of the Trojan,
Flattering, sending gifts and pale in her mortal anguish,
Agony long of a race at the mercy of iron invaders,
This shall pay most, the city of pride, the insolent nation,
Pay with her temples charred and her golden mansions in ruins,
Pay with the shrieks of her ravished virgins, the groans of the aged
Burned in their burning homes for our holiday. Music and dancing
Shall be in Troy of another sort than she loved in her greatness,
Merry with conquered gold and insulting the world with her flutings.
All that she boasted of, statue and picture, all shall be shattered;
Out of our shame she chiselled them, rich with our blood they were coloured.
This not the gods from Olympus crowding, this not Achilles,
This not your will, 0 ye Greeks, shall deny to the Locrian Ajax.
Even though Pallas divine with her aegis counselling mercy
Cumbered my path I would push her aside to leap on my victims.
Learn shall all men on that day how a warrior deals with his foemen."
Darting flames from his eyes the barbarian sate and there rose up
Frowning Tydeus’s son, the Tirynthian, strong Diomedes.
‘Ajax Oileus, thy words are foam on the lips of a madman.
Cretan Idometeus, silence the vaunt that thy strength can fulfil not.
Strong art thou, fearless in battle, but not by thy spear-point,
\n\t\tO hero,
Hector fell, nor Sarpedon, nor Troilus leading the war-cry.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-478<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tThese
\nwere Achilles’ deeds which a god might have done out of heaven.
Him we upbraid who saved, nor would any now who revile him
Still have a living tongue for ingratitude but for the hero.
Much to the man forgive who has saved his race and his country:
Him shall the termless centuries praise when we are forgotten.
Curb then your speech, crush down in your hearts the grief and the choler;
Has not Atrides curbed who is greatest of all in our nations
Wrath in the heart and the words that are winged for our bale from our<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tbosoms?
For as a load be borne were these passions given to mortals.
HonourAchilles, conquer Troy by his god-given valour.
Now of our discords and griefs debate not for joy of our foemen!
First over Priam’s corpse stand victors in Ilion’s ramparts;
Discord then let arise or concord solder our nations."
Rugged words and few as fit for the soul that he harboured
Great Tydides spoke and ceased; and there rose up impatient
Tall mid the spears of the north the hero king Protho\u00ebnor,
Prince in Cadmeian Thebes who with Leitus led on his thousands:
"Loudly thou vauntest thy freedom Ionian Minos recalling:
Lord of thy southern isles who gildst with thy tribute. Mycenae!
We have not bowed our neck to Pelops’ line or at Argos’
Iron heel have not crouched nor clasped like thy time-wearied nations,
Python-befriended, gripped in the coils of an iron protection,
Bondage soothed by a name and destruction masked as a helper.
We are the young and lofty and free-souled sons of the Northland.
Nobly Peleus, the Aeacid, seer of a vaster Achaia,
Pride and his strength and his deeds renouncing for joy of that vision,
Yielded his hoary right to the sapling stock of Atrides.
Noble, we gave to that nobleness freely our grandiose approval.
Not as a foe then, 0 King, who angered sharpens his arrows,
Fits his wrath and hate to the bow and aims at the heart-strings
But from the Truth that is seated within me compelling my accents,
Taught by my fathers stern not to lie nor to hide what I harbour,
Truth the goddess I speak, nor constrain the voice in my bosom.
Monarch, I own thee first of the Greeks save in valour and counsel,
Brave but less than Achilles, wise but not as Odysseus,
First still in greatness and calm and majesty. Yet, Agamemnon,
Love of thy house and thy tribe disfigures the king in thy nature;
Thou thy brother preferrest, thy friends and thy nation unjustly,
Even as a common man whose heart is untaught by Athene,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-479<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tBeastlike
\nfavours his brood forgetting the law of the noble.
Therefore Ajax grew wroth and Teucer sailing abandoned
Over the angry seas this stern fierce toil of the nations;
Therefore Achilles has turned in his soul and gazed towards the Orient.
Yet are we fixed in our truth like hills in heaven, Atrides;
Greece and her safety and good in our passions strive to remember.
Nor of this stamp was thy brother’s speech; such words Lacedaemon
Hearing may praise in her kings; we speak not in Thebes what is shameful.
Shamefuller thoughts have never escaped from lips that were high-born.
We will not send forth earth’s greatest to die in a friendless battle,
Nor will forsake the daughter of, Zeus and white glory of Hellas,
Helen the golden-haired Tyndarid, left for the joy of our foemen,
Chained to Paris’ delight, earth’s goddess the slave of the Phrygian,
Though Menelaus the Spartan abandon his wife to the Trojans
And from the field where he lavished the unvalued blood of his people
Flee to a hearth dishonoured. Not the Atreid’s sullied grandeurs,
Greece to defend we have toiled through the summers and lingering autumns
Blind with our blood; for our country we bleed, repelling her foemen.
Dear is that loss to our veins and still that expense we would lavish,
Claiming its price from the heavens, though thou sail with thy brother and<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\tcohorts.
Weakling, flee! take thy southern ships, take thy Spartan levies,
Still will the Greeks fight on in the Troad helped by thy absence.
For though the beaches vast grow empty, the tents can be numbered
Standing friendless and few on the huge and hostile champaign,
Always a few will be left whom the threatenings of Fate cannot conquer,
Always earth has sons\u00b9
\nwhose courage waits not on fortune;
Hellas’ heart will be firm confronting the threat of the victor,
Sthenelus war and Tydides, Odysseus and Locrian Ajax,
Thebes’ unconquered sons and the hero chiefs of the northland.
Stern and persistent as Time or the seas and as deaf to affliction
We will clash on in the fight unsatisfied, fain of the war-cry,
Helped by the gods and our cause through the dawns and the blood-haunted<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tevenings,
Rising in armour with morn and outstaying the red of the sunset,
Till in her ashes Troy forgets that she lusted for empire
Or in our own the honour and valour of Greece are extinguished."
So Protho\u00ebnor spoke nor pleased with his words Agamemnon;
But to the northern kings they were summer rain on the visage.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span>souls
\nare born <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-480<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tLast
\nLaertes’ son, the Ithacan, war-wise Odysseus,
Rose up wide-acclaimed; like an oak was he stunted in stature,
Broad-shouldered, firm-necked, lone and sufficient, as on some island
Regnant one peak whose genial streams flow down to the valley,
Dark on its slopes are the olives, the storms butt in vain at its shoulders, –
Such he stood and pressed the earth with his feet like one vanquished,
Striving, but held to his will. So Atlas might seem were he mortal,
Atlas whose vastness free from impatience suffers the heavens,
Suffering spares the earth, the thought-haunted motionless Titan,
Bearer of worlds. In those jarring tribes no man was his hater ;
For as the Master of all guides humanity, so this Odysseus
Dealt with men and helped and guided them, careful and selfless,
Crafty, tender and wise, – like the Master who bends o’er his creatures,
Suffers their sins and their errors and guides them screening his guidance;
Each through his nature He leads and the world by the lure of His wisdom.
"Princes of Argolis, chiefs of the Locrians, spears of the northland,
Warriors vowed to a sacred hate and a vengeance that’s holy,
Sateless still is that hate, that vengeance cries for its victims,
Still is the altar unladen, the priest yet waits with the death-knife.
Who while the rites are unfinished, the gods unsatisfied, impious
Turns in his heart to the feuds of the house and his strife with his equals?
None will approve the evil that fell from the younger Atrides;
But it was anger and sorrow that spoke, it was not Menelaus.
Who would return from Troy and arrive with his war-wasted legions
Back to his home in populous city or orcharded island;
There from his ships disembarked look round upon eyes that grow joyless
Seeking a father or husband slain, a brother heart-treasured,
Mothers in tears for their children, and when he is asked, ‘0 our chieftain,
What dost thou bring back in place of our dead to fill hearts that are empty?’
Who then will say, ‘I bring back my shame and the shame of my nation;
Troy yet stands confronting her skies and Helen in Troya ?’
Nor for such foil will I go back to Ithaca or to Laertes,
Rather far would I sail in my ships past southern Cythera,
Turning away in silence from waters where on some headland
Gazing south o’er the waves my father waits for my coming,
Leaving Sicily’s shores and on through the pillars of Gades.
Far I would sail whence sound of me never should come to Achaia
Out into tossing worlds and weltering reaches of tempest
Dwarfing the swell of the wide-wayed Aegean, – oceans unbounded
Either by cliff or by sandy margin, only the heavens<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t<\/span>Page-481<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tEver
\nreceding before my keel as it ploughs on for ever
Frail and alone in a world of waves. Even there would I venture
Seeking some island unknown, not return with shame to my fathers.
Well might they wonder how souls like theirs begot us for their offspring.
Fighters<\/span><\/font>\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/sup> war-afflicted, princes<\/span><\/font>\u00b2<\/font><\/span><\/sup> banded by heaven,
Wounds and defeat you have borne; bear too their errors who lead you.
Mortals are kings and have hearts; our leaders too have their passions.
Then if they err, yet still obey lest anarchy fostered,
Discord and deaf rebellion that speed like a poison through kingdoms,
Break all this army in pieces while Ate mocking at mortals
Trails to a shameful end this noble<\/span><\/font>\u00b3<\/font><\/span><\/sup> essay of the nations.
Who among men has not thoughts that he holds for the wisest, though<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tfoolish?
Who, though feeble and nought, esteems not his strength o’er his fellow’s?
Therefore the wisest and strongrst choose out a king and a leader,
Not as a perfect arbiter armed with impossible virtues
Far o’er our heads and our ken like a god high-judging his creatures,
But as a man among men who is valiant, wise and far-seeing,
One of ourselves and the knot of our wills and the sword of our action.
Him they advise and obey and cover his errors with silence.
Not Agamemnon the Atreid. Greeks, we obey in this mortal;
Greece we obey; for she walks in his gait and commands by his gestures.
Evil he works then who loosens this living knot of Achaia.
Falling apart from his nation; who, wed to a solitary virtue,
Deeming he does but right, renounces the yoke of his fellows, –
Errs more than hearts of the mire that in blindness and weakness go<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tstumbling.
Man when he, spurns his kind, when he equals himself with the deathless,
Even in his virtues sins and, erring, calls up Ate:
For among men we were born, not as wild beasts sole in a fastness.
Oft with a name are misled the passionate hearts of the noble;
Chasing highly some image of good they trample its substance.
Evil is worked, not justice, when into the mould of our thinkings
God we would force and enchain to the throb of our hearts the immortals,-
Justice and Virtue, her sister; for where is justice mid creatures
Perfectly? Even the gods are betrayed by our clay to a semblance.
Evil not good he sows who lifted high o’er his fellows
Dreams by his light or his force to compel this deity earth-born,
Evil though his wisdom exceeded the gathered light of the millions,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/sup>Chieftains    
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b2<\/font><\/span><\/sup>champions    
\n\t\t<\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\u00b3<\/font><\/span><\/sup>lofty<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-482<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tEvil
\nthough his single fate were vaster than Troy and Achaia.
Less is our gain from gods upon earth than from men in our image;
Just is the slow and common march, not a lonely swiftness
Far from our human reach that is vowed to impossible strivings.
Better the stumbling leader of men than inimitable paces.
If he be Peleus’ son and his name the Phthian Achilles,
Worse is the bane: lo, the Ilian battlefield red with his errors!
Yet, 0 ye Greeks, if the heart returns that was loved, though it wandered,
Though with some pride it return and reproaching the friends that it fled<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\tfrom,
Be not less fond than heart-satisfied parents who yearn o’er that coming,
Smile at its pride and accept the wanderer. Happier music
Never has beat on my grief-vexed ears than the steps of Achilles
Turning back to this Gretce and the cry of his strength in its rising.
Zeus is awake in this man who his dreadful and world-slaying puissance
Gave in an hour of portentous birth to the single Achilles.
Taken today are Ilion’s towers, a dead man is Priam.
Cross not the hero’s will in his hour, Agamemnon Atrides,
Cross not the man whom the gods have chosen to work out their purpose
Then when he rises; his hour is his, though thine be all morrows.
First in the chambers of Paris’ delight let us stable our horses,
Afterwards bale that is best shall be done persuading Achilles;
Doubt not the gods’ decisions, awful, immutable, ruthless.
Flame shall lick Troy’s towers and the limbs of her old men and infants.
0 not today, not now remember the faults of the hero!
Follow him rather bravely and blindly as children their leader,
Guide your fate through the war-surge loud in the wake of his exploits,
Rise, 0 ye kings of the Greeks! leave debate for the voices of battle.
Peal forth the war-shout, pour forth the spear-sleet, surge towards Troya.
Ilion falls today; we shall turn in our ships to our children."
So Odysseus spoke and the Achaians heard him applauding;
Ever the pack by the voice ofthe mighty is seized and attracted!
Then from his seat Agamemnon arising his staff to the herald
Gave and around him arose the Kings of the west and its leaders.
Loud their assembly broke with a stern and martial rumour.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage-483<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

BOOK
\nSEVEN<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/b>
\n<\/b>
\n
\n<\/span>The
\nBook of the Woman<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n
\nS<\/b><\/font>o to the voice of their best they were bowed and
\nobeyed undebating;
Men whose hearts were burning yet with implacable passion
Felt Odysseus’ strength and rose up clay to his counsels.
King Agamemnon rose at his word, the wide-ruling monarch,
Rose at his word the Cretan and Locrian, Thebes and Epirus,
Nestor rose, the time-tired hoary chief of the Pylians.
Round Agamemnon the Atreid Europe surged in her chieftains
Forth from their tent on the shores of the Troad, splendid in armour,
Into the golden blaze of the sun and the race of the sea-winds.
Fierce and clear like a flame to the death-gods bright on its altar
Shone in their eyes the lust of blood and of earth and of pillage;
For in their hearts those fires replaced the passions of discord,
Forging a brittle peace by a common hatred and yearning.
Joyous they were of mood; for their hopes were already in Troya
Sating with massacre, plunder and rape and the groans of their foemen
Death and Hell in our mortal bosoms seated and shrouded;
There they have altars and seats in mankind in this fair-builded temple
Made for purer gods; but we turn from tender luminous temptings,
Vainly the divine whispers seek us; the heights are rejected.\u00b9<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nMan to his earth drawn always prefers the murmurs of her promptings,
Man, devouring, devoured who is slayer and slain through the ages
Since by the beast he soars held and exceeds not that pedestal’s measure.
They now followed close on the steps of the mighty Atrides,
Glued like the forest pack to the war-scarred coat of its leader,
Glued as the pack when wolves follow their prey like Doom that can turn not.
Perfect forms and beautiful faces crowded the tent-door,
Brilliant eyes and fierce of souls that remembered the forest,
Wild beasts touched by thought and savages lusting for beauty,
Dire and fierce and formidable chieftains followed Atrides.
Merciless kings of merciless men and the founders of Europe,
Sackers of Troy and sires of the Parthenon, Athens and Caesar.
Here they had come to destroy the ancient perishing cultures;
For, it is said, from the savage we rose and were born to a wild beast.
So when the Eye supreme perceives that we rise up too swiftly,
Drawn towards height but fullness contemning, called by the azure,
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n\u00b9<\/font><\/span><\/font>man
\nrejects them<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-484
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nLife when we fail in, poor in our base and forgetting our mother,
Back we are hurled to our roots; we recover our sap from the savage.
So were these sent by Zeus to destroy the old that was grandiose,
Such were those frames of old as the sons of Heaven might have chosen
Who in the dawn of eternity wedded the daughters of Nature,
Cultures touched by the morning star, vast, bold and poetic,
Titans’ works and joys, but thrust down from their puissance and pleasure
Fainting now fell from the paces of Time or were left by his ages.
So were these born from Zeus to found the new that should flower
Lucid and slender and perfectly little as fit for this mortal
Ever who sinks back fatigued from immortality’s stature;
Man, repelled by the gulfs within him and shrinking from vastness,
Form of the earth accepts and is glad of the lap of his mother.
Safe through the infinite seas could his soul self-piloted voyage
Chasing the dawns and the wondrous horizons, eternity’s secrets
Drawn from her luminous gulfs! But he journeys rudderless, helmless,
Driven and led by the breath of God who meets him with tempest,
Hurls at him Night. The earth is safer, warmer its sunbeams;
Death and limits are known; so he clings to them hating the summons.
So might one dwell who has come to take joy in a fair-lighted prison;
Amorous grown of its marble walls and its noble adornments,
Lost to mightier cares and the spaces boundlessly calling,
Lust of the infinite skies he forgets and the kiss of the storm-winds,
So might one live who inured to his days of the field and the farm-yard
Shrinks from the grandiose mountain-tops; shut up in lanes and in hedges
Only his furrows he leads and only orders his gardens,
Only his fleeces weaves and drinks of the yield of his vine-rows:
Lost to his ear is the song of the waterfall, wind in the forests.
Now to our earth we are bent and we study the skies for its image.
That was Greece and its shining, that now is France and its keenness,
That still is Europe though by the Christ-touch troubled and tortured,
Seized by the East but clasping her chains and resisting our freedom.
Then was all founded on Phrygia’s coasts, round Ilion’s ramparts,
Then by the spear of Achilles, then in the Trojan death-cry;
Bearers mute of a future world were those armoured Achaians.
So they arrived from Zeus, an army led by the death-god.
So one can see them still who has sight from the gods in the trance-sleep
Out from the tent emerging on Phrygia’s coasts in their armour;
Those of the early seed Pelasgian slighter in stature,
Dark-haired, hyacinth-curled from the isles of the sea and the southron
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 485
\n<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSoft-eyed men with
\npitiless hearts; bright-haired the Achaians
Hordes of the Arctic Dawn who had fled from the ice and death-blasts;
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nChildren of conquerors lured to the
\ncoasts and the breezes and olives,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nNoons of Mediterranean
\nsuns and the kiss of the south-wind <\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nMingled their brilliant force with the plastic
\nwarmth of the Hamite. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere they shall rule
\nand their children long till Fate and the Dorian <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBreak down Hellene doors and trample
\nstern through the passes.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nMixed in a glittering
\nrout on the Ocean beaches one sees them,
Perfect and beautiful figures and fronts, not as now are we mortals
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMarred and crushed by our burden long
\nof thought and of labour;
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPerfect were these as our race
\nbright-imaged was first by the Thinker
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSeen who in golden
\nlustres shapes all the glories we tarnish,
Rich from the moulds of gods and unmarred in their splendour and
\n  <\/span>                                                                                       
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/span>swiftness
Many and mighty they came o’er the beaches loud of the Aegean,
Roots of an infant world and the morning stars of this Europe,
Great Agamemnon’s kingly port and the bright Menelaus,<\/span>
\n<\/span>Tall Idomeneus,
\nNestor; Odysseus Atlas-shouldered,
Helmeted Ajax, his chin of the beast and his eyes of the dreamer.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOver the<\/span>
\nsands <\/span>they dispersed to
\ntheir armies ranked by the Ocean. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n     
\n<\/span>But from the Argive front Acirrous <\/u>loosed by Tydides
Parted as hastens a shaft from the string and he sped on intently
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSwift where the
\nbeaches were bare or threading the gaps of the nations; <\/span><\/p>\n

\nCrossing Thebes and Epirus he passed through the
\nLemnian archers,
Ancient Gnossus’ hosts and Meriones’ leaderless legions.
Heedless of cry and of laughter and calling over the sea-sands
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSwiftly he laboured, wind in his hair and the sea
\nto him crying,
Straight he ran to the Myrmidon hosts and the tents of Achilles.
There he beheld at his tent-door the Phthian gleaming in armour,
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlittering-helmed with
\nthe sun that climbed now the cusp of Cronion,
Nobly tall, excelling humanity, planned like Apollo.
Proud at his side like a pillar upreared of snow or of marble,
Golden-haired, hard and white was the boy Neoptolemus, fire-eyed.
New were his feet to the Trojan sands from the ships and from Scyros:
Led to this latest of all his father’s fights in the Trod<\/span>
\n<\/span>He for his
\nearliest battle waited, the son of Achilles.
So In her mood had Fate brought them together, the son and the father,
Even as our souls travelling different paths have met in the ages
Each for its work and they cling for an hour to the names of affection,
Then Time’s long waves bear them apart for new forms we shall know not,
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-486<\/font> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nSo these two long severed had met in the shadow of parting.
Often he smote his hand on the thigh-piece for sound of the armour,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nBent his ear to the plains or restless
\nmoved like a war-horse
Curbed by his master’s will, when he stands new-saddled for battle
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHearing the voice of ,the trumpets afar
\nand pawing the meadows.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOver the sands Acirrous came to them running and
\ntoiling,
Known from far-off for he ran unhelmeted. High on the hero
Sunlike smiled the golden Achilles and into the tent-space
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeized by the hand and
\nbrought him and seated. "War-shaft of Troezen,
Whence was thy speed, Acirrous? Com’st thou, O friend, to my tent-side
Spurred by thy eager will or the trusted stern Diomedes?
Or from the Greeks like the voice still loud from a heart that is hollow?
What say the banded princes of Greece to the single Achilles?
Bringst thou flattery pale or an empty and futureless menace?"
But to the strength of
\nPelides the <\/u>hero Acirrous answered:
"Response none send\u00b9<\/font><\/span>
\nthe Greeks to thy high-voiced message and challenge;
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly their shout at thy side will reply when thou leapst into
\nTroya. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSo have their chieftains willed and the wisdom calm of Odysseus."
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut with a haughty scorn made answer the high-crested Hellene:<\/font> 
\n<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n"Wise is Odysseus, wise are the hearts of Achaia’s
\nchieftains.
Iiion\u2019s chiefs are enough for their strength and life is too brittle
Hurrying Fate to advance on the spear of the Phthian Achilles."
"Not from the Greeks have I sped to thy tents, their friendship or quarrel<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUrged not my feet; but Tiryn’s
\nchieftain strong Diomedes
Sent me claiming a word long old that first by his war-car
Young Neoptolemus come from island
\nScyros <\/u>should enter
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nFar-crashing into the fight that has
\nlacked this shoot of Achilies,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPressing in front with his father’s
\nstrength in the playground of Ares,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nShouting his father’s
\ncry as he clashed to his earliest battle.<\/span>
\n<\/span>So let Achilles\u2019
\nson twin-carred fight close by Tydides,
Seal of the ancient friendship new-sworn twixt your sires in their boyhood
Then when they learned the spear to guide and strove in the wrestle."
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSo he spoke recalling other times and
\nregretted
And to the Argive’s word consented the strength of Pelides.
He on the shoulder white of his son with a gesture of parting
Laid his fateful hand and spoke from his prescient spirit:
\n"pyrrhus, <\/u>go. No mightier guide couldst thou hope into battle
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOpening the foemen’s ranks than the hero stern
\nDiomedes.
Noble that rugged heart, thy father’s friend and his father’s.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00b9<\/font><\/span>give\/make<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-487
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nJourney through all wide Greece, seek her prytanies, schools and palaestras,
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nTraverse Ocean’s rocks and the cities
\nthat dream on his margin,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPhocian dales, Aetolia’s cliffs and Arcady’s pastures,
Never a second man Wilt thou find, but alone Diomedes.
Pyrrhus, follow his counsels. always losing thy father,
If in this battle I fall and Fate has denied to me Troya.
Pyrrhus, be like thy father in virtue, thou canst not excel him;
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nNoble be in peace, invincible, brave in the battle,
Stern and calm to thy foe, to the suppliant merciful. Mortal
Favour and wrath as thou walkst heed never, son of Achilles.
Always thy will and the right impose on thy friend and thy foeman.
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nCount not life nor death, defeat nor
\ntriumph, Pyrrhus.
Only thy soul regard and the gods in thy joy or thy labour."
Pyrrhus heard and erect with a stride that was rigid and stately
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nForth with Acirrous went from his sire
\nto the joy of the battle. <\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nLittle he heeded the word of death that
\nthe god in our bosom
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSpoke from the lips of Achilles, but
\ndeemed at sunset returning,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSlaying Halamus, paris or dangerous mighty Aeneas,
Proudly to lay at his father’s feet the spoils of the foeman.
\n       <\/span>But
\nin his lair alone the godlike doomed Pelides
Turned to the door of his tent and was striding forth to the battle,
When from her inner chamber Briseis parting the curtain, –
Long had she stood there spying and waiting her lonely occasion,-
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nCame and caught and held his hand like
\na creeper detaining
Vainly a moment the deathward stride of the kings of the forest.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n"Tarry awhile,
\nAchilles; not yet have the war-horns clamoured.
Nor have the scouts streamed yet from Xanthus fierily running.
Lose a moment for her who has only thee under heaven.
Nay, had war sounded, thou yet wouldst squander that moment, Achilles,
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHearkening a woman’s fears and the
\nvoice of a dream in the midnight.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nArt thou not gentle, even as terrible, lion of
\nHellas ?
Others have whispered the deeds of thy wrath; we have heard, but not seen it;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMarvelling much at their pallor and awe we have listened and
\nwondered.
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nNever with thrall or slave-girl or captive saw I
\nthee angered,
Hero, nor any humble heart ever trembled to near thee.
Pardoning rather our many faults and our failures in service
Lightly thou layest thy yoke on us, kind as the clasp of a lover
Sparing the weak as thou breakest the mighty, O godlike Achilles.
Only thy equals have felt all the dread of the death-god Within thee;  
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n 
\n Page-488 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nWe have presumed and played with the
\nstrength at which nations have trembled.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nLo, thou hast leaned thy mane to the clutch of the boys and the
\nmaidens."
But to Briseis white-armed made answer smiling Achilles:
"Something surely, thou needst, for thou flatterest long, O. Briseis.
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nTell me, O woman, thy
\nfear or thy dream that my touch may dispel it,
White-armed net of bliss slipped down from the gold Aphrodite."<\/span>
\n<\/span>And to Achilles
\nanswered the captive white Briseis:
"Long have they vexed my soul in the tents of the Greeks, O Achilles,
Telling of Thetis thy mother who bore thee in caves of the Ocean<\/span>
\n<\/span>Clasped by a
\nmortal and of her fear from the threats of the Ancients,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nWeavers of doom who play with our hopes
\nand smile at our passions
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPainting Time with the red of our
\nhearts on the web they have woven,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHow on the Ocean’s bosom she hid thee
\nin vine-tangled Scyros
Clothed like a girl among girls with the daughters of King Lycomedes, –
Art thou not fairer than woman’s beauty, yet great as Apollo?-
Fearing; Paris’ shafts and the anger of Delian Phoebus. .
Now in the night has a vision three times besieged me from heaven.
Over the sea in my dream an argent bow was extended;
Nearing I saw a terror august over moonlit waters,
Cloud and a fear and a face that was young and lovely and hostile.
Then three times I heard arise in the grandiose silence, –
Still was the sky and still was the land and still were the waters, –
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nEchoing a mighty voice, ‘Take back, O
\nKing, what thou gavest;
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nStrength, take thy strong man, sea,
\ntake thy wave, till the warfare eternal
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nNeed him again to
\nthunder through Asia\u2019s plains to the. Ganges.’
That fell silent, but nearer the beautiful Terror approached me,
Clang I heard of the argent bow and I gazed on Apollo.
Shrilly I cried, for ’twas\u00b9<\/font><\/span>
\nthee that the shaft of the heavens had yearned for,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThee that it sought like a wild thing
\nin anger straight at its quarry,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nQuivering into thy heel. I awoke and
\nfound myself trembling,
Held thee safe in my arms, yet hardly believed that thou livest.
Lo, in the night came this dream; on the morn thou arisest for battle."
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut to Briseis white-armed made answer the golden
\nAchilles:
"This was a dream indeed, O princess, daughter of Brises!
Will it restrain Achilles from fight, the lion from preying<\/span>? <\/span><\/p>\n

\nCome, thou hast heard of my prowess and
\nknowest what man is Achilles.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nDeemst thou so near my end? or does Polyxena vex thee,<\/font> 
\n<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nJealousy shaping thy
\ndreams to frighten me back from her capture?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n"  
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00b9<\/font><\/span>it was<\/font><\/p>\n

\n 
\n Page-489 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nPassionate, vexed
\nBriseis, smiting his arm with her fingers,
\n<\/span>
<\/span>
\nYet with a smile
\nhalf-pleased made answer to mighty Achilles:
"Thinkst thou I fear thee at all? I am brave and will chide thee and threaten.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSee that thou recklessly throw not,
\nAchilles, thy life into battle
Hurting this body, my world, nor venture sole midst thy foemen,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nLeaving thy shielders behind as oft
\nthou art wont in thy war-rage
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nLured by thy tempting gods who seek
\ntheir advantage to slay thee,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nFighting divinely, careless of all but
\nthy spear and thy foeman.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nCover thy limbs with thy shield, speed
\nslowly restraining thy coursers.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nDost thou not know all the terrible
\nvoid and cold desolation
Once again my life must become if I lose thee, Achilles?
Twice then thus wilt thou smite me, O hero, a desolate woman?
I will not stay behind on an earth that is empty and kingless.
Into the grave I will leap, through the fire I will burn, I will follow
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nDown into Hades’ depths or wherever thy
\nfootsteps go clanging,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nHunting thee always, – didst thou not
\nseize me here for thy pleasure? –
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nStronger there by my love as thou than I here, O
\nAchilles.
Thou shalt not dally alone with Polyxena safe in the shadows."
But to Briseis answered the hero, mighty Pelides,
Holding her delicate hands like gathered flowers in his bosom,
Pressing her passionate mouth like a rose that trembles with beauty<\/span>:<\/p>\n

\n"There then follow me even as I would
\nhave drawn thee, O woman,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nVoice that chimes with my soul and
\nhands that are eager for service,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nBeautiful spoil beloved of my foemen,
\nperfect Briseis.
But for the dreams that come to us mortals sleeping or waking,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nShadows are these from our souls and
\nwho shall discern what they figure?
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nFears from the heart speak voiced like
\nZeus, take <\/u>shape as Apollo.
But were they truer than Delphi’s cavern voice or Dodona’s
Moan that seems wind in his oaks immemorable, how should they alter
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nFate that the stern
\ngods have planned from the first when the earth was <\/span>
\nunfashioned,
\n<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nShapeless the gyre of the sun? For
\ndream or for oracle adverse
Why should man swerve from the path of his feet? The gods have invented
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly one way for a man through the
\nworld, O my slave-girl Briseis,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nValiant to be and noble and truthful
\nand just to the humble.
Only one way for a woman, to love and serve and be faithful.
This observe, thy task in thy destiny noble or fallen;
Time and result are the gods’; with these things be not thou troubled."
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSo he spoke and kissed
\nher lips and released her and parted.
Out from the tent he strode and into his chariot leaping
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n 
\n Page-490 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nSeized the reins and shouted his cry and drove with a far-borne
Sound of wheels mid the clamour of hooves and neigh of the war-steeds
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nSwift through the line of the tents and
\nforth from the heart the leaguer.
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOver the causeway Troyward thundered the wheels of Achilles.
After him crashing loud with a fierce and resonant rumour
Chieftains impetuous prone to the mellay and swift at the war-cry
Came, who long held from the lust of the spear and the joy of the war-din
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nRushed
\nover earth like hawks released through the air; a shouting
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nLimitless
\nrolled behind, for nations followed each war-cry.<\/span>
\n<\/span>.
<\/span>
\nLords renowned
\nof the northern hills and the plains and the coast-lands,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nMany
\na Dorian, many a Phthian, many a Hellene,
Names now lost to the ear though then reputed immortal!
Night has swallowed them, Zeus has devoured the light of his children<\/span>;<\/p>\n

\nDrawn
\nare they back to his bosom vast whence they came in their fierceness
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nThinking
\nto conquer the earth and dominate Time and his ages.
Nor on their left less thick came numerous even as the sea-sands
Forth from the line of the leaguer that skirted the far-sounding waters,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nRanked
\nbehind Tydeus\u2019 son and the Spartan, bright Menelaus,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nIthaca’s
\nchief and<\/span>
\n<\/span>Epeus<\/span>
\n<\/span>Idomeneus lord
\nof the Cretans,
Acamos. Nestor, Neleus\u2019<\/span>
\n<\/span>son, and the
\nbrave Ephialtus,<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/u>Prothous,<\/span>
\n<\/span>Meges, leitus
\nthe bold and the king prothoenor,
<\/span>
\nWise Alceste’s
\nson and the Lemnian, stern Philoctetes,
These and unnumbered warlike captains marching the Argives.
Last in his spacious car drove shaping the tread of his armies,
Even as a shepherd who follows his flock to the green the pastures,
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nAtreus
\nfar-famed son, the monarch great Agamemnon.
They on the plain moved out and gazing far over the pastures
Saw behind Xanthus rolling with dust like a cloud full of thunder;
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nOminous,
\nsteadily nearing, shouting their war-cry the Trojans<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\n 
\n Page-491
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

\n
\nBOOK EIGHT<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Book of the
\nGods<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\nS<\/font><\/b><\/span>o
\non the earth the seed that was sown of the centuries ripened;<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEurope and Asia, met
\non their borders, clashed in the Troad.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll over earth men
\nwept and bled and laboured, world-wide<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSowing Fate with their
\ndeeds and had other fruit than they hoped for.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of desires and
\ntheir passionate griefs and fleeting enjoyments<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeaving a tapestry fit
\nfor the gods to admire, who in silence<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJoy, by the cloud and
\nthe sunbeam veiled, and men know not their movers.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey in the glens of
\nOlympus, they by the waters of Ida<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr in their temples
\nworshipped in vain or with heart-strings of mortals<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSated their vast
\ndesire and enjoying the world and each other<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSported free and
\nunscourged; for the earth was their prey and their play- ground.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut from his luminous
\ndeep domain, from his estate of azure<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nZeus looked forth; he
\nbeheld the earth in its flowering greenness<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSpread like an emerald
\ndream that the eyes have enthroned in the sunlight,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeard the symphonies
\nold of the ocean recalling the ages<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLost and dead from its
\nmarches salt and unharvested furrows,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFelt in the pregnant
\nhour the unborn hearts of the future.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTroubled kingdoms of
\nmen he beheld, the hind in the furrow,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLords of the glebe and
\nthe serf subdued to the yoke of his fortunes,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSlave-girls tending
\nthe fire and herdsmen driving the cattle,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArtisans labouring
\nlong for a little hire in men\u2019s cities,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLabour long and the
\nmeagre reward for a toil that is priceless.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nKings in their seats
\naugust or marching swift with their armies<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFounded ruthlessly
\nbrittle empires. Merchant and toiler<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPatiently heaped up
\nour transient wealth like the ants in their hillock.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd to preserve it
\nall, to protect this dust that must perish,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHurting the eternal
\nsoul and maiming heaven for some metal<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJudges condemned their
\nbrothers to chains ‘and to death and to torment,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCriminals scourgers of
\ncrime, – for so are these ant-heaps founded, –<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPunishing sin by a
\nworse affront to our crucified natures.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll the uncertainty,
\nall the mistaking, all the delusion<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNaked were to ills.
\ngaze; in the moonlit orchards there wandered<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLovers dreaming of
\nlove that endures<\/span>
\n<\/span>–<\/span>
\n<\/span>till the moment
\nof treason;<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelped by the anxious
\njoy of their kindred supported their anguish<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWomen with travail
\nracked for the child who shall rack them with sorrow.  
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\n
\nPage-492<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n Hopes that were
\nconfident, fates that sprang dire from the seed of a moment,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYearning that claimed
\nall time for its date and all life for its fuel,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll that we wonder at
\ngazing back when the passion has fallen,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLabour blind and vain
\nexpense and sacrifice wasted,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese he beheld with a
\nheart unshaken; to each side he studied<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeas of confused
\nattempt and the strife and the din and the crying.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll things he pierced
\nin us gazing down with his eyelids immortal,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLids on which sleep
\ndare not settle, the Father of men on his creatures;<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor by the cloud and
\nthe mist was obscured which baffles our eyeballs,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut he distinguished
\nour source and saw to the end of our labour.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe in the animal
\nracked knew the god that is slowly delivered;<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTherefore his heart
\nrejoiced. Not alone the mind in its trouble<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGod beholds, but the
\nspirit behind that has joy of the torture.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMight not our human
\ngaze on the smoke of a furnace, the burning<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRed, intolerable,
\nanguish of ore that is fused in the hell-heat,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShrink and yearn for
\ncoolness and peace and condemn all the labour?<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRather look to the
\npurity coming, the steel in its beauty,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRather rejoice with
\nthe master who stands in his gladness accepting<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeat of the glorious
\ngod and the fruitful pain of the iron.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLast the eternal gaze
\nwas fixed on Troy and the armies<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMarching swift to the
\nshock. It beheld the might of Achilles<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelmed and armed, knew
\nall the craft in the brain of Odysseus,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSaw Deiphobus stern in
\nhis car and the fates of Aeneas,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGreece of her heroes
\nempty, Troy enringed by her slayers,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nParis a setting star
\nand the beauty of Penthesilea.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese things he saw
\ndelighted; the heart that contains all our ages<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBlessed our toil and
\ngrew full of its fruits, as the Artist eternal<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWatched his vehement
\ndrama staged twixt the sea and the mountains,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPhrased in the clamour
\nand glitter of arms and dosed by the firebrand,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAct itself out in the
\nBlood and in passions fierce on the Troad.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet as a father his
\nchildren, who sits in the peace of his study<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHearing the noise of
\nhis brood and pleased with their play and their quarrels,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo he beheld our
\nmortal race. Then, turned from the armies,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInto his mind he gazed
\nwhere Time is reflected and, conscient,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nKnew the iron knot of
\nour human fates in their warfare.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCalm he arose and left
\nour earth for his limitless kingdoms.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFar from this lower
\nblue and high in the death-scorning spaces<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLifted above mortal
\nmind where Time and Space are but figures<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLightly imagined by
\nThought divine in her luminous stillness,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nZeus has his palace
\nhigh and there he has stabled his war-car.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n


\n
\n 
\n Page-493<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThence he descends to
\nour mortal realms; where the heights of our mountains<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMeet with the divine
\nair, he touches and enters our regions.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNow he ascended back
\nto his natural realms and their rapture,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere where all life
\nis bliss and each feeling an ecstasy mastered<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThence his eagle
\nThought with its flashing pinions extended<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWinged through the
\nworld to the gods, and they came at the call, they<\/p>\n

<\/span>ascended<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUp from their play and
\ntheir calm and their works through the infinite azure.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome from our mortal
\ndomains in grove or by far-flowing river<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCool from the winds of
\nthe earth or quivering with perishable fragrance<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCame, or our laughter
\nthey bore and the song of the sea in their paces.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome from the heavens
\nabove us arrived, our vital dominions<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhence we draw breath;
\nfor there all things have life, the stone like the ilex,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nClay of those realms
\nlike the children of men and the brood of the giants.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere Enceladus groans
\noppressed and draws strength from his anguish<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnder a living Aetna
\nand flames that have joy of his entrails.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFiercely he groans and
\nrejoices expecting the end of his foemen<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHastened by every pang
\nand counts long Time by his writhings.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere in the
\nchampaigns unending battle the gods and the giants,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere in eternal
\ngroves the lovers have pleasure for ever,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere are the faery
\nclimes and there are the wonderful pastures.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSome from a marvellous
\nParadise hundred-realmed in its musings<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMillion-ecstasied,
\nclimbed like flames that in silence aspire<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWindless, erect in a
\nmotionless dream, yet ascending for ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll grew aware of the
\nwill divine and grew near1<\/sup>
\nto their Father.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGrandiose, calm in her
\ngait, imperious, awing the regions,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHera came in her
\npride, the spouse of Zeus and his sister.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs at her birth from
\nthe foam of the spaces white Aphrodite<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRose in the cloud of
\nher golden hair like the moon<\/span>
\n<\/span>hi<\/span>
\n<\/span>its halo.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAegi<\/span>s-bearing
\nAthene, shielded and helmeted, answered<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRushing the call and
\nthe heavens thrilled with the joy of her footsteps<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDumbly repeating her
\nname, as insulted and trampled by beauty<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThrill might the soul
\nof a lover and cry out the name of its tyrant.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOthers there were as
\nmighty; for Artemis, archeress ancient,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCame on her sandals
\nlightning-tasselled. Up the vast incline<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShaking the world with
\nthe force of his advent thundered Poseidon;<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSpace grew full of his
\nstride and his cry. Immortal Apollo<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShone and his silver
\nclang was heard with alarm in our kingdoms.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAres\u2019 impetuous eyes
\nlooked forth from a cloud-drift of splendour;<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup><\/span>The
\noriginal which seems scratched out in favour of \u201cgrew near\u201d was \u201cwere drawn\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font>
\n Page-494<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThemis\u2019 steps appeared
\nand Ananke, the mystic Erinnys;<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor was Hephaestus\u2019
\nflaming strength from his father divided.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven the ancient Dis
\nto arrive dim-featured, eternal,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeemed; but his rays
\nare the shades and his voice is the call of the silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInto the courts divine
\nthey crowded, radiant, burning,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPerfect in utter grace
\nand light. The joy of their spirits<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCalls to eternal Time
\nand the glories of Space are his answer:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThence were these
\nbright worlds born and persist by the throb of their<\/p>\n

heart-beats.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot in the forms that
\nmortals have seen when assisted they scatter
\nMists of this earthly dust from their eyes in their moments of greatness<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShone those unaging
\nPowers; nor as in our centuries radiant<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMortal-seeming bodies
\nthey wore when they mixed with our nations.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen the long youth of
\nthe world had not faded still out of our natures,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFlowers and the
\nsunlight were felt and the earth was glad like a mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen for a human
\ndelight they were masked in this denser vesture<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEarth desires for her
\nbliss, – thin veils, for the god through them glimmered,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nQuick were men’s days
\nwith the throng of the brilliant presences near them:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGods from the wood and
\nthe valley, gods from the obvious wayside,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGods on the secret
\nhills leaped out from their light on the mortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOft in the haunt and
\nthe grove they met with our kind and their touches<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeized and subjected
\nour clay to the greatness of passions supernal,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGrasping the earthly
\nvirgin and forcing heaven on this death-dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlorifying human
\nbeauty Apollo roamed in our regions<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nClymene when he
\npursued or yearned in vain for Marpessa;<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlorifying earth with
\na human-seeming face of the beauty<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrought from her
\nheavenly climes Aphrodite mixed with Anchises.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlimpsed in the wilds
\nwere the Satyrs, seen in the woodlands the Graces,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDryad and Naiad in
\nriver and forest, Oreads haunting<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlens and the
\nmountain-glades where they played with the manes of our lions<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlimmered on
\ndeath-claimed eyes; for the gods then were near us and clasped us,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeaven leaned down in
\nlove with our clay and yearned to its transience.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut we have coarsened
\nin heart and in mood; we have turned in our natures<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNearer our poorer
\nkindred; leaned to the ant and the ferret.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSight we have darkened
\nwith sense and power we have stifled with labour,<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLikened in mood, to
\nthe things we gaze at and are in our vestures:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTherefore we toil
\nunhelped; we are left to our weakness and blindness.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot in those veils now
\nthey rose to their skies, but like loose-fitting mantles<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nPage-495<\/span> 
\n<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n Dropped in the vestibules huge
\n\tof their vigorous realms that besiege us<\/span><\/p>\n

\n All that reminded of earth;
\n\tthen clothed with raiment of swiftness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Straight they went quivering
\n\tup in a glory like fire or the storm-blast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Even those natural vestures of
\n\tpuissance they leave when they enter<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Mind’s more subtle fields and
\n\tagree with its limitless regions<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Peopled by creatures of bliss
\n\tand forms more true than earth’s shadows,\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Mind  that pure from this
\n\tdensity, throned in her splendours immortal<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Looks up at Light and suffers
\n\tbliss from ineffable kingdoms<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Where beyond Mind and its rays
\n\tis the gleam of a glory supernal:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n There our sun cannot shine and
\n\tour moon has no place for her lustres,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n There our lightnings flash
\n\tnot, nor fire of these spaces is suffered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n They with bodies impalpable
\n\there to our touch and our seeing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But for a higher delight, to a
\n\tbrighter sense, with more sweetness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Palpable there and visible,
\n\tthrilled with a lordlier joyance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Came to the courts of Zeus and
\n\this heavens sang to their footsteps.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Harmonies flowed through the
\n\tblissful coils of the kingdoms of rapture.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Then by his mighty equals
\n\tsurrounded the Thunderer regnant<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Veiled his thought in sound
\n\tthat was heard in their souls as they listened,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Veiled are the high gods
\n\talways lest there should dawn on the mortal<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Light too great from the skies
\n\tand men to their destiny clear-eyed<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Walk unsustained like the
\n\tgods; then Night and Dawn were defeated<\/span><\/p>\n

\n And of their masks the deities
\n\trobbed would be slaves to their subjects,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n        
\n\t"Children of Immortality, gods who are joyous for ever,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Rapture is ours and eternity
\n\tmeasures our lives by his aeons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n For we desireless toil who
\n\thave joy in the fall as the triumph,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Knowledge eternal possessing
\n\twe work for an end that is destined<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Long already beyond by the
\n\tWill of which Time is the courser.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Therefore death cannot alter
\n\tour lives nor pain our enjoyment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But in the world of mortals
\n\ttwilight is lord of its creatures.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Nothing they perfectly see,
\n\tbut all things seek and imagine,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Out of the clod who have come
\n\tand would climb from their mire to our heavens<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Blindly mistaking the throb of
\n\ttheir mortal desires for our guidance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Yet are the heavenly seats not
\n\teasy even for the chosen:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Rough and remote is that path;
\n that ascent is too hard for the death-bound,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Hard are God’s terms and few can meet them of men who are
\n\tmortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Mind resists; their breath is a clog; by their tools they are
\n\thampered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n How shall they win in their earth to our skies who are clay
\n\tand a life-wind,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But that their hearts we invade ?
\n Our shocks on their lives come incessant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Ease discourage and penetrate coarseness; sternness celestia <\/span><\/p>\n

\n Page \u2013 496<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n Forces their souls towards the skies and their bodies by
\n\tanguish are sifted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n We in the mortal wake an
\n\timmortal strength by our tortures<\/span><\/p>\n

\n And by the flame of our
\n\tlightnings choose out the vessels of godhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n This is the nature of earth
\n\tthat to blows she responds and by scourgings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Travails excited; pain is the
\n\tbed of her blossoms of pleasure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Earth that was wakened by pain
\n\tto life and by hunger to thinking<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Left to her joys rests inert
\n\tand content with her gains and her station.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But for the unbearable whips
\n\tof the gods back soon to her matter<\/span><\/p>\n

\n She would go glad and the goal would be missed and the aeons
\n\tbe wasted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But for the god in their
\n\tbreasts unsatisfied, but for his spurrings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Soon would the hero turn beast
\n\tand the sage reel back to the savage;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Man from his difficult heights would recoil and be mud in the
\n\tearth-mud.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n This by pain we prevent; we compel his feet to the journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But in their minds to impression made subject, by forms of
\n\tthings captured<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Blind is the thought and presumptuous the hope and they swerve
\n\tfrom our goading;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Blinded are human hearts by desire and fear and possession,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Darkened is knowledge on earth by hope the helper of mortals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Now too from earth and her
\n\tchildren voices of anger and weeping<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Beat at our thrones; ’tis
\n\tthe grief and the wrath of fate-stricken creatures,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Mortals struggling with destiny, hearts that are slaves to
\n\ttheir sorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n We unmoved by the cry will fulfil our unvarying purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Troy shall fall at last and
\n\tthe ancient ages shall perish.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n You who are lovers of Ilion turn from the moans of her people,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Chase from your hearts their prayers, blow back from your
\n\tnostrils the incense.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Let not one nation resist by its glory the good of the ages.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Twilight thickens over man and he moves to his winter of
\n\tdarkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Troy that displaced with her
\n\tforce and her arms the luminous ancients,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Sinks in her turn by the ruder strength of the half-savage
\n\tAchaians.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n They to the Hellene shall yield and the
\n .Hellene fall by the Roman<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Rome too shall not endure, but
\n\tby strengths ill-shaped shall be broken,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Nations formed in the ice and mist, confused and
\n\tcrude-hearted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n So shall the darker and ruder always prevail o’er the
\n\tbrilliant<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Till in its turn to a ruder and darker it falls and is
\n\tshattered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n So shall mankind make speed to destroy what ’twas mighty
\n\tcreating.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Ever since knowledge failed and the ancient ecstasy slackened,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Light has been helper to death and darkness increases the
\n\tvictor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n So shall it last till the fallen ages return to their
\n\tgreatness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n For if the twilight be helped not, night o’er the world cannot
\n\tdarken; <\/span><\/p>\n

\n Page \u2013 497<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n Night forbidden how shall a
\n\tgreater dawn be effected?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Gods of the light who know and resist that the doomed may have
\n\tsuccour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Always then shall desire and
\n\tpassion strive with Ananke?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Conquer the cry of your heart-strings that man too may conquer
\n\this sorrow<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Stilled in his yearnings.
\n\tCease, 0 ye gods, from the joy of rebellion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Open the eye of the soul,
\n\tadmit the voice of the Silence."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n So in the courts of Heaven
\n\taugust the Thunderer puissant<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Spoke to his sons in their souls and they heard him, mighty in
\n\tsilence.1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\n Then to her brother divine the white-armed passionless Hera:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n "Zeus, we remember, thy sons
\n\tforget, Apollo and Ares."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n "Hera, queen of the heavens, they forget not, but choose to be
\n\tmindless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n This is the greatness of gods that they know and can put back
\n\tthe knowledge;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Doing the work they have chosen they turn not for fruit nor
\n\tfor failure. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n Griefless they walk to their goal and strain not their eyes
\n\ttowards the ending.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Light that they have they can lose with a smile, not as souls
\n\tin the darkness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Clutch at every beam and mistake their one ray for all
\n\tsplendour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n All things are by Time and the Will eternal that moves us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n And for each birth its hour is set in the night or
\n the dawning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n There is an hour for knowledge, an hour to forget and to
\n\tlabour."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Great Cronion ceased and high
\n\tin the heavenly silence<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Rose in their midst the voice of the loud impetuous Ares<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Sounding far in the luminous fields of his soul as with
\n\tthunder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n "Father, we know and we have not forgotten. This is our
\n\tgodhead,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Still to strive and never to yield to the evil that conquers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n I will not dwell with the Greeks nor aid them save forced by
\n\tAnanke <\/span><\/p>\n

\n And because lives of the great and the blood of the strong are
\n\tmy portion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n This too thou knowest, our nature enjoys in mankind its
\n\tfulfilment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n War is my nature and greatness and hardness, the necks of the
\n\tvanquished;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Force is my soul and strength is my bosom;
\n I shout in the battle<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Breaking cities like toys and the nations are playthings of
\n\tAres:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Hither and thither I shove them and throw down or range on my
\n\ttable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Constancy most I love, nobility, virtue and courage;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Fugitive hearts I abhor and
\n\tthe nature fickle as sea-foam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Now if the ancient spirit of Titan
\n\tbattle is over, \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Tros fights no more on the earth, nor now Heracles tramples
\n\tand struggles,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Bane<\/span>
\n of the hydra or slaying the Centaurs o’er Pelion driven,\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Now if the earth no more must
\n\tbe shaken by Titan horse-hooves,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Since to a pettier framework
\n\tall things are fitted consenting,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Yet will I dwell not in <\/span>
\n Greece<\/span>
\n nor favour the nurslings of Palms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n \u00b9 "Silence" was cancelled in
\n\tthe MS. but remained unsubstituted.<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n Page \u2013 498<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n I will await the sons of my
\n\tloins and the teats of the she-wolf,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Consuls browed like the cliffs
\n\tand plebeians stern of the wolf-brood,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Senates of kings and armies of
\n\tgranite that grow by disaster;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Such be the nation august that
\n\tis fit for the favour of Ares <\/span><\/p>\n

\n They shall fulfil me and
\n\thonour my mother, imperial Hera.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Then with an iron march they
\n\tshall move to their world-wide dominion,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Through the long centuries
\n\trule and at last because earth is impatient,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Slowly with haughtiness perish
\n\tcompelled by mortality’s transience<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Leaving a Roman memory stamped
\n\ton the ages of weakness."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But to his son far-sounding
\n\tthe Father high of the Immortals:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n "So let it be since such is
\n\tthe will in thee, mightiest Ares;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Thou shalt till sunset
\n\tprevail, O war-god, fighting for Troya."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n So he decreed and the soul of
\n\tthe Warrior sternly consented.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n He from his seats arose and
\n\tdown on the summits of Ida.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Flaming through Space in his
\n\tcloud in a headlong glory descended,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Prone like a thunderbolt
\n\tflaming down from the hand of the Father.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Thence in his chariot drawn by
\n\tliving fire and by swiftness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Thundered down to earth’s
\n\tplains the mighty impetuous Ares.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Far where Deiphobus stern was
\n\tlabouring stark and outnumbered<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Smiting the Achaian myriads
\n\tback on the right of the carnage,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Over the hosts in his car he
\n\tstood .and darkened the Argives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n But in the courts divine the
\n\tThunderer spoke to his children:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Ares resisting a present Fate for the hope of the future<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Gods has gone forth from us.
\n\tChoose thou thy paths, O my daughter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n More than thy brother assailed
\n\tby the night that darkens o’er creatures.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Choose the silence in heaven
\n\tor choose the struggle mid mortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Golden joy of the worlds, O
\n\tthou roseate white Aphrodite."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Then with her starry eyes and
\n\tbosom of bliss from the Immortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Glowing and rosy-limbed cried
\n\tthe wonderful white Aphrodite,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Drawing her fingers like
\n\tflowers through the flowing gold of her tresses,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Calm, discontented, her
\n\tperfect mouth a rose of resistance<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Chidingly budded\u2019 gainst Fate,<\/i> a charm to their senses
\n\tenamoured:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n "Well do I know thou hast
\n\tgiven my world to Hera and Pallas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n What though my temples shall
\n\tstand in Paphos and island Cythera<\/span><\/p>\n

\n And though the Greek be a
\n\tpriest for my thoughts and a lyre for my singing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Beauty pursuing and light
\n\tthrough the figures of grace and of rhythm, \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Forms shall he mould for men’s
\n\teyes that the earth has forgotten and mourns for,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Mould even the workings of
\n\tPallas to commune with Paphia’s sweetness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Mould Hephaestus’ craft in the
\n\tgaze of the gold Aphrodite, \u2014<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n Page \u2013 499<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n Only my form he pursues that
\n\tI wear for a mortal enchantment,
\n He to whom now thou givest the world, the Ionian, the Hellene,
\n But for my might is unfit which Babylon worshipped and Sidon
\n <\/u>Palely received from the past in images faint of the gladness
\n Once that was known by the children of men when the thrill of their members
\n Was but the immortal joy of the spirit overflowing in Nature
\n Wine-cups of God’s desire; but their clay from my natural greatness
\n Falters betrayed to pain, their delight they have turned into ashes.
\n Nor to my peaks shall he rise and the perfect fruit of my promptings,
\n There where the senses swoon but the heart is delivered by rapture:
\n Never my touch can cling to his soul nor reply from his heart-strings.
\n Once could my godhead surprise all the stars with the seas of its rapture;
\n Once the world in its orbit danced to a marvellous rhythm.
\n Men in their limits, gods in their amplitudes answered my calling;
\n Life was moved by a chant of delight that sang\u00b9  from the spaces
\n Sung from the Soul of the Vast, His\u00b2 ecstasy clasping His creatures.
\n Sweetly agreed my fire with their soil and their hearts were as altars.
\n Pure were its crests; ’twas not dulled with earth, ’twas not lost in the
\n\thazes.
\n Then when the sons of earth and the daughters of heaven together
\n Met on lone mountain peaks or, linked on wild beach and green meadow,
\n Twining embraced. For I danced on Taygetus’ peaks and o’er Ida
\n Naked and loosing my golden hair like a nimbus of glory
\n O’er a deep-ecstasied earth that was drunk with my roses and whiteness.
\n There was no shrinking nor veil in our old Saturnian kingdoms,
\n Equal were heaven and earth, twin gods on the lap of Dione.
\n Now shall my waning greatness perish and pass out of Nature.
\n For though the Romans, my children, shall grasp at the strength of their
\n mother,
\n They shall not hold the god, but lose in unsatisfied orgies
\n Yet what the earth has kept of my joy, my glory, my puissance,
\n Who shall but drink for a troubled hour in the dusk of the sunset
\n Dregs of my wine Pandemian missing the Uranian sweetness.
\n So shall the night descend on the greatness and rapture of living;
\n Creeds that refuse shall persuade the world to revolt from its mother.
\n Pallas’ adorers shall loathe me and Hera’s scorn me for lowness;<\/p>\n

\u00b9There is some uncertainty about this word in relation to the
\n\tnext line which now begins with "Sung" but originally did so with "Out".
\n\tOriginally, "sprang" stood instead of "sang" in the first line.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n 2 <\/font>
\n <\/sup>Its<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page – 500<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n Beauty shall pass from men’s
\n\twork and delight from their play and their Rama labour;
\n Earth restored to the Cyclops shall shrink from the gold Aphrodite.
\n So shall I live diminished, owned but by beasts in the forest,
\n Birds of the air and the gods in their heavens, but disgraced in the mortal."
\n Then to the discontented rosy-mouthed Aphrodite
\n Zeus replied, the Father divine: "O goddess Astarte,
\n What are these thoughts thou hast suffered to wing from thy rose-mouth
\n\timmortal?
\n Bees that sting and delight are the words from thy lips, Cytherea.
\n Art thou not womb of the world and from thee are the throngings of creatures?
\n And didst thou cease the worlds too would cease and the aeons be ended.
\n Suffer my Greeks; accept who accept thee, O gold Dionaean.
\n They in the works of their craft and their dreams shall enthrone thee for
\n\tever,
\n Building thee temples in Paphos and Eryx and island Cythera,
\n Building the fane more enduring and bright of thy golden ideal.
\n Even if natures of men could renounce thee and God do without thee,
\n Rose of love and sea of delight, O my child Apnfodite
\n Still wouldst thou live in the worship they gave thee protected from fading,
\n Splendidly statured and shrined in men’s works and men’s thoughts Cytherea. "
\n Pleased and blushing with bliss of her praise and the thought of her empire
\n Answered, as cries a harp in heaven, the gold Aphrodite:
\n "Father, I know and I spoke but to hear from another my praises.
\n I am the womb of the world and the cause of this teeming of creatures,
\n And if discouraged I ceased, God’s world would lose heart and perish.
\n How will you do then without me your works of wisdom and greatness,
\n Hera, queen of heaven, and thou, 0 my sister Athene?
\n Yes, I shall reign and endure though the pride of my <\/i>workings be
\n\tconquered.
\n What though no second Helen find a second Paris,
\n Lost though the glories of form to the earth, though their confident gladness
\n Pass from a race misled and forgetting the sap that it sprang from,
\n They are eternal in man in the worship of beauty and rapture.
\n Ever while earth is embraced by the sun and hot with his kisses
\n And while a Will supernal works through the passions of Nature,
\n Me shall men seek with my light or their darkness, sweetly or crudely,
\n Cold on the ice of the north or warm with the heats of the southland,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page – 501<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n Slowly enduring my touch or
\n\twith violence rapidly burning.
\n I am the sweetness of living, I am the touch of the Master.
\n Love shall die bound to my stake like a victim adorned as for bridal,
\n Life shall be bathed in my flames and be purified gold or be ashes.
\n I, Aphrodite shall move the world for ever and ever.
\n Yet now since most to me, Father of all, the ages arriving,
\n Hostile, rebuke my heart and turn from my joy and my sweetness,
\n I will resist and not yield, nor care what I do, so I conquer.
\n Often I curbed my mood for your sakes and was gracious and kindly,
\n Often I lay at Hera’s feet and obeyed her commandments
\n Tranquil and proud or o’er come by a honeyed and ancient compulsion
\n Fawned on thy pureness and served thy behests, O my sister Pallas.
\n Deep was the love that united us, happy the wrestle and clasping;
\n Love divided, love united, love was our mover\u00b9
\n\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n But since you now overbear
\n\tand would scourge me and chain and control me,
\n War I declare on you all, O my Father and brothers and sisters.
\n Henceforth I do my will as the joy in me prompts or the anger.
\n Ranging the earth with my beauty and passion and golden enjoyments
\n All whom I can, I will bind; I will drive at the bliss of my workings,
\n Whether men’s hearts are seized by the joy or seized by the torture.
\n Most will I plague your men, your worshippers and in my malice
\n Break up your works with confusion divine, O my mother and sister;
\n Then shall you fume and resist and be helpless and pine with my torments.
\n Yet will I never relent but always be sweet and malignant,
\n Cruel and tyrannous, hurtful and subtle, a charm and a torture.
\n Thou too, 0 father Zeus, shalt always be vexed with my doings;
\n Called in each moment to judge thou shalt chafe at our cry and our quarrels,
\n Often grope for thy thunderbolt, often frown magisterial
\n Joining in vain thy awful brows o’er thy turbulent children.
\n Yet in thy wrath recall my might and my wickedness, Father;
\n Hurt me not then too much lest the world and thyself too should suffer.
\n Save, O my Father, life and grace and the charm of the senses;
\n Love preserve lest the heart of the world grow dulled and forsaken."
\n Smiling her smile immortal of love and of mirth and of malice
\n White Aphrodite arose in her loveliness armed for the conflict.
\n Golden and careless and joyous she went like a wild bird that winging
\n Flits from bough to bough and resumes its chant interrupted.
\n Love where her fair feet trod bloomed up like a flower from the spaces;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>the
\nmaster<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page – 502<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\nM<\/font><\/b>ad
\nround her touches billowed incessantly laughter and rapture.1<\/sup>
\nRich as a summer fruit and fresh as Spring’s blossoms her body
\nGleaming and blushing, veiled and bare and with ecstasy smiting
\nBurned out rosy and white through her happy ambrosial raiment,
\nGolden-tressed and a charm, her bosom a fragrance and peril.
\nSo was she framed to the gaze as she came from the seats of the Mighty.
\nSo embodied she visits the hearts of men and their dwellings
\nAnd in her breathing tenement laughs at the eyes that can see her.
\nSwift-footed down to the Troad she hastened thrilling the earth-gods.
\nThere with ambrosial secrecy veiled, admiring the heroes
\nStrong and beautiful, might of the warring and glory of armour,
\nOver her son Aeneas she stood, his guard in the battle.
\nBut in the courts divine the Thunderer spoke mid his children:
\n"Thou for a day and a night and another day and a nightfall,
\nWhite Aphrodite, prevail; o’er thee too the night is extended.
\nShe has gone forth who made men like gods in their glory and gladness.
\nNow in the darkness coming all beauty must wane or be tarnished;
\nJoy shall fade and mighty Love grow fickle and fretful;
\nEven as a child that is scared in the night, he shall shake in his chambers.
\nYet shall a portion be kept for these, Ares and white Aphrodite.
\nThou whom already thy Pythoness bears not, torn by thy advent,
\nCaverned already who sittest in Delphi knowing thy future,
\nWhat wilt thou do with the veil and the night, O burning Apollo?"
\nThen from the orb of his glory unbearable save to immortals
\nBright and austere replied the beautiful mystic Apollo:
\n"Zeus I know that I fade; already the night is around me.
\nDusk she extends her reign and obscures my lightnings with error.
\nTherefore my prophets mislead men’s hearts to the ruin appointed,
\nTherefore Cassandra cries in vain to her sire and her brothers.
\nAll I endure I foresee and the strength in me waits for its coming;
\nAll I foresee I approve; for I know what is willed, O Cronion.
\nYet is the fierce strength wroth in my breast at the need of approval
\nAnd for the human race fierce pity works in my bosom;
\nWroth is my splendid heart with the cowering knowledge of mortals,
\nWroth are my burning eyes with the purblind vision of reason.
\nI will go forth from your seats and descend to the night among the mortals
\nThere to guard the flame and the mystery; vast in my moments<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/sup>Alternatives
\nto this line and the preceding :<\/font><\/p>\n

\n   
\n(Thrilled with her feet was the bosom of Space, for her amorous motion
\n    Floated a flower on the wave of her bliss or swayed like the
\nlightning.)<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 503<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nRare and sublime to sound like
\na sea against Time and its limits,
\nCry like a spirit in pain in the hearts of the priest and the poet,
\nCry against limits set and disorder sanities bounded.
\nJealous for truth to the end my might shall prevail and for ever
\nShatter the moulds that men make to imprison their limitless spirits.
\nDire, overpowering the brain I shall speak out my oracles splendid.
\nThen in their ages of barren light or lucidity fruitful
\nWhen so the clear gods think they have conquered earth and its mortals,
\nHidden God from all eyes, they shall wake from their dream and recoiling
\nStill they shall find in their paths the fallen and darkened Apollo."
\nSo he spoke, repressing his dreadful might in his bosom,
\nAnd from their high seats passed, his soul august and resplendent
\nDrawn to the anguish of men and the fierce terrestrial labour.
\nDown he dropped with a roar of light invading the regions,
\nAnd in his fierce and burning spirit intense and uplifted
\nSure of his luminous truth and careless for weakness of mortals
\nFlaming oppressed the earth with his dire intolerant beauty.
\nOver the summits descending that slept in the silence of heaven,
\nHe through the spaces angrily drew towards the tramp and the shouting
\nOver the speeding of Xanthus and over the pastures of Troya.
\nClang of his argent bow was the wrath restrained of the mighty,
\nStern was his pace like Fate’s; so he came to the warfare of mortals
\nAnd behind Paris strong and inactive waited God’s moment
\nKnowing what should arrive, nor disturbed like men by their hopings.
\nBut in the courts of Heaven Zeus to his brother immortal
\nTurned like a menaced king on his counsellor smiling augustly:
\n"Seest thou, Poseidon, this sign that great gods revolting have left us,
\nFollow their hearts and strive with Ananke? Yet though they struggle,
\nThou and I will do our will with the world, O earth-shaker."
\nAnswered to Zeus the besieger of earth, the voice of the waters:
\n"This is our strength and our right, for we are the kings and the masters.
\nToo much pity has been and yielding of Heaven to mortals.
\nI will go down with my chariot drawn by my thunder-maned coursers
\nInto the battle and thrust down Troy with my hand to the silence,
\nEven though she cling round the snowy knees of our child Aphrodite
\nOr with Apollo’s sun take refuge from Night and her shadows.
\nI will not pity her pain, who am ruthless even as my surges.
\nBrother, thou knowest, O Zeus, that I am a king and a trader;
\nFor on my paths I receive earth’s skill and her merchandise gather,
\nTraffic richly in pearls and bear the swift ships in my bosom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage – 504<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nBlue are my waves and they
\ncall men’s hearts to wealth and adventure.
\nLured by1<\/sup> the, shifting surges they launch their delight and their
\ntreasures
\nTrusting the toil of years to the perilous moments of Ocean.
\nHuge man’s soul2<\/sup> in its petty frame goes wrestling with Nature
\nOver her vasts and his fragile ships between my horizons
\nBuffeting death in his solitudes labour through swell and through storm-blast
\nBound for each land with her sons and watched for by eyes in each haven.
\nI from Tyre up to Gades trace on billows their trade-routes
\nAnd on my vast and spuming Atlantic suffer their rudders.
\nCarthage and Greece are my children, the marts of the world are my term-posts.
\nWho then deserves the earth if not he who enriches and fosters?
\nBut thou hast favoured thy sons, O Zeus; O Hera, earth’s sceptres
\nStill were denied me and kept for strong Ares and brilliant Apollo.
\nNow all your will shall be done, so you give me the earth for my nations.
\nGold shall make men like gods and bind their thoughts into oneness;
\nPeace I will build with gold and heaven with the pearls of my caverns.’"
\nSmiling replied to, his brother’s craft the mighty Cronion:
\n"Lord of the boundless seas, Poseidon. soul of the surges,
\nWell thou knowest that earth shall be seized as a booth for the trader.
\nRome nor Greece nor Erance can drive back Carthage for ever.
\nAlways each birth of the silence attaining the field and the movement
\nTakes from Time its reign; for it came for its throne and its godhead.
\nSo too shall Mammon take and his sons their hour from the ages.
\nYet is the flame and the dust last end of the silk and the iron,
\nAnd at their end the king and the prophet shall govern the nations.
\nEven as Troy, so shall Babylon flame up to heaven for the spoiler
\nWailed by the merchant afar as he sees the red glow from the Ocean."
\nUp from the seats of the Mighty the Earth-shaker rose; his raiment
\nRound him purple and dominant rippled3<\/sup> and murmured and whispered,
\nWhispered of argosies sunk and the pearls and the Nereids playing,
\nMurmured of azure solitudes, sounded of storm and the death-wail.
\nEven as the march of his waters so was the pace of the sea-god
\nFlowing on endless through Time; with the glittering symbol4<\/sup>  of
\nempire
\nCrowned were his fatal brows; in his grasp was the wrath of the trident,
\nTripled forces, life-shattering, brutal, imperial, sombre.
\nResonant, surging, vast in the pomp of his clamorous greatness
\nProud and victorious he came to his home in the far-spuming waters.
\nEven as a soul from the heights of thought plunges back into living,<\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/sup>On  2<\/sup>mind
\n3<\/sup>Originally the word here was: sounded  4<\/sup>shadow<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 505<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nSo he plunged like a rock
\nthrough the foam; for it falls from a mountain
\nOverpeering the waves in some silence of desolate waters
\nLeft to the wind and the sea-gull where Ocean alone with the ages
\nDreams of the calm of the skies or tosses its spray to the wind-gods,
\nTosses for ever its foam in the solitude huge of its longings ,
\nFar from the homes and the noises of men. So the dark-browed Poseidon
\nCame to his coral halls and the sapphire stables of Nereus
\nEver where champ their bits the harnessed steeds of the Ocean
\nWatched by foam-white girls in the caverns of still Amphitrite.
\nThere was his chariot yoked by the Tritons, drawn by his coursers
\nBorn of the fleeing sea-spray and shod with the north-wind who journey
\nBlack like the front of the storm and clothed with their manes as with thunder.
\nThis now rose from its depths to the upper tumults of Ocean
\nBearing the awful brows and the mighty form of the sea-god
\nAnd from the roar of the surges fast o’er the giant margin
\nCame remembering the storm and the swiftness wide1<\/sup>  towards the
\nTroad.
\nSo among men be arrived to the clamorous labours of Ares,
\nClose by the stern Diomedes stood and frowned o’er the battle.
\nHe for the Trojan slaughter chose for his mace and his sword-edge
\nIron Tydeus’ son and the adamant heart of young Pyrrhus.
\nBut in the courts divine the Father high of the immortals
\nTurned in his heart to the brilliant offspring born of his musings,
\nShe who tranquil observes and judges her father and all things.
\n"What shall I say to the thought that is calm in thy breasts, O Athene?
\nHave I not given thee earth for thy portion, throned thee and armoured,
\nDarkened Cypris’ smile, dimmed Hera’s son and Latona’s? "
\nSwift in thy silent ambition, proud in thy radiant sternness,
\nGirl, thou shalt rule with the Greek and the Saxon, the Frank and the Roman.
\nWorker and fighter and builder and thinker, light of the reason,
\nMen shall leave all temples to crowd in thy courts, O Athene.
\nGo then and do my will, prepare man’s tribes for their fullness."
\nBut with her high clear smile on him answered the mighty Athene, –
\nWisely and soberly, tenderly smiled she chiding her father
\nEven as a mother might rail at her child when he hides and dissembles:
\n"Zeus, I see and I am not deceived by thy words in my spirit.
\nWe but build forms for thy thought while thou smilest down high o’er our
\ntoiling;
\nEven as men are we tools for thee, who are thy children and dear ones.<\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/sup>straight<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 506<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nAll this life is thy sport and
\nthou workst like a boy at his engines
\nMaking a toil of the game and a play of the serious labour.
\nThen to that play thou callest us wearing a sombre visage,
\nThis consulting, that to our wills confiding, O Ruler;
\nChoosing thy helpers, hastened by those whom thou lurest to oppose thee
\nGuile thou usest with gods as with mortals, scheming, deceiving,
\nAnd at the wrath and the love thou hast prompted laughest in secret.
\nSo we too who are sisters and enemies, lovers and rivals,
\nFondled and baffled in turn obey thy will and thy cunning,
\nI, thy girl of war, and the rosy-white Aphrodite.
\nAlways we served but thy pleasure since our immortal beginnings,
\nAlways each other we helped by our play and our wrestlings and quarrels.
\nThis too I know that I pass preparing the paths of Apollo
\nAnd at the end as his sister and slave and bride I must sojourn
\nRapt to his courts of mystic light and unbearable brilliance.
\nWas I not ever condemned since my birth from <\/i>the toil of thy musings
\nSeized like a lyre in my body to sob and to laugh out his music,
\nShake as a leaf in his fierceness and leap as a flame in his splendours?
\nSo must I dwell overpowered and so must I labour subjected
\nRobbed of my loneliness pure and coerced in my radiant freedom,
\nNow whose clearness and pride are the sovereign joy of thy creatures.
\nSuch the reward that thou keepst for my labour obedient always.
\nYet I work and I do thy will, for ’tis mine, O my father."
\nProud of her ruthless lust of thought and action and battle,-
\nSwift-footed rose the daughter of Zets from <\/i>her sessions immortal:
\nBreasts of the morning unveiled in a purity awful and candid,
\nHead of the mighty Dawn, the goddess Pallas Athene!
\nStrong and rapacious she swooped on the world as her prey and her booty,
\nDown from the courts of the Mighty descending, darting on Ida.
\nDire she descended, a god in her reason, a child in her longings,
\nJoy and woe to the world that is given to the whims of the child-god
\nGreedy for rule and play and the minds of men and their doings!
\nSo with her aegis scattering light o’er the heads of the nations
\nShining-eyed in her boyish beauty severe and attractive
\nCame to the fields of the Troad, came to the fateful warfare,
\nVeiled, the goddess calm and pure in her luminous raiment
\nZoned with beauty and strength. Rejoicing, spurring the fighters
\nClose o’er Odysseus she stood and clear-eyed governed the battle.
\nZeus to Hephaestus next, the Cyclopean toiler
\nTurned, Hephaestus the strong-souled, priest and king and a bond-slave,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 507<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nServant of men in their homes
\nand their workshops, servant of Nature,
\nHe who has built these worlds and kindles the fire for a mortal.
\n"Thou, my son, art obedient always. Wisdom is with thee,
\nTherefore thou know’st and obeyest. Submission is wisdom and knowledge;
\nHe who is blind revolts and he who is limited struggles :
\nStrife is not for the infinite; wisdom observes to accomplish.
\nTroy and her sons and her works are thy food today, 0 Hephaestus."
\nAnd to his father the Toiler answered, the silent Seer:
\n"Yes, I obey thee, my Father, and That which than thou is more mighty;
\nEven as thou obeyest by rule, so I by my labour.
\nNow must I heap the furnace, now must I toil at the smithy,
\nI who have flamed on the altar of sacrifice helping the sages.
\nI am the Cyclops, the lamester, who once was pure and a high-priest.
\nHoly the pomp of my flames ascendent from pyre and from altar
\nRobed men’s souls for their heavens and my smoke was a pillar to Nature.
\nThough I have burned in the sight of the sage and the heart of the hero,
\nNow is no nobler hymn for my ear than the clanging of metal,
\nBreath of human greed and the dolorous pant of the engines.
\nStill I repine not, but toil; for to toil was I yoked by my Maker.
\nI am your servant, O Gods, and his of whom you are servants."
\nBut to the Toiler Zeus replied, to the servant of creatures:
\n"What is the thought thou hast uttered betrayed by thy speech, O Hephaestus?
\nTrue is it earth shall grow as a smithy, the smoke of the furnace
\nFill men’s eyes and their souls shall be stunned with the clang of the hammers,
\nYet in the end there is rest on the peak of a labour accomplished.
\nNor shall the might of the thinker be quelled by that iron oppression,
\nNor shall the soul of the warrior despair in the darkness triumphant,
\nFor when the night shall be deepest, dawn shall increase on the mountains
\nAnd in the heart of the worst the best shall be born by my wisdom.
\nPallas thy sister shall guard man’s knowledge fighting the earth-smoke.
\nThou to art mighty to live through the clamour even as Apollo.
\nWork then, endure; expect from the Silence an end and thy wages."
\nSo King Hephaestus arose and passed from the courts of his father;
\nDown upon earth he came with his lame omnipotent motion;
\nAnd with uneven steps absorbed and silent the Master
\nWorked employed mid the wheels of the cars as a smith in his smithy,
\nBut it was death and bale that he forged, not the bronze and the iron.
\nStark, like fire obscured by its smoke, through the spear-casts he laboured
\nHelping Ajax’ war and the Theban and Phocian fighters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 508<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nZeus to his grandiose helper
\nnext, who proved and unmoving,
\nCalm in her greatness waited the mighty command, of her husband:
\n\u201cHera, sister and spouse, what my will is thou knowest, O consort.
\nOne are our blood and our hearts, nor the thought for the words of the speaker
\nWaits, but each other we know and ourselves and the Vast and the heavens,
\nLife and all between and all beyond and the ages.
\nThat which Space not knows nor Time, we have known, O my sister.
\nTherefore our souls are one soul and our minds become mirrors of oneness.
\nGo then and do my will, O thou mighty one, burning down Troya."
\nSilent she rose from the seats of the Blissful, Hera majestic,
\nAnd with her flowing garment and mystical zone through the spaces
\nHaloed came like the moon on an evening of luminous silence
\nDown upon Ida descending, a snow-white swan on the greenness,
\nDown upon Ida the mystic haunted by footsteps immortal
\nEver since out of the Ocean it rose and lived gazing towards heaven.
\nThere on a peak of the mountains alone with the sea and the azure
\nVoiceless and mighty she paused1<\/sup>like a thought on the summits of
\nbeing
\nClasped by all heaven; the winds at play in her gust-scattered raiment
\nSported insulting her gracious strength with their turbulent sweetness,
\nPlayed with their mother and queen; but she stood absorbed and unheeding,
\nMute, with her sandalled foot for a moment thrilling the grasses,
\nDumbly adored by a soul in the mountains, a thought in the rivers,
\nRoared to loud by her lions. The voice of the cataracts falling
\nEntered her soul profound and it heard eternity’s rumour.
\nSilent its gaze immense contained the wheeling of aeons.
\nHuge-winged through Time flew her thought and its grandiose vast revolutions
\nTurned and returned. So musing her timeless creative spirit,
\nMaster of Time its instrument, grieflessly hastening forward
\nParted with greatnesses dead and summoned new strengths from their stables;
\nManed they came to her call and filled with their pacings the future.
\nCalm, with the vision satisfied, thrilled by the grandeurs within her,
\nDown in a billow of whiteness and gold and delicate raiment
\nGliding the daughter of Heaven came to the earth that received her
\nGlad of the tread divine and bright with her more than with sunbeams.
\nKing Agamemnon she found and smiling on Sparta’s levies
\nMixed unseen with the far-glinting spears of the haughty Mycenae.
\nThen to the Mighty who tranquil abode and august in his regions
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n1<\/font><\/sup>stood<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 509<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nZeus, while his gaze over many
\nforms and high-seated godheads
\nPassed like a swift-fleeing eagle over the peaks and the glaciers
\nWhen to his eyrie he flies alone through the vastness and silence:
\n"Artemis, child of my loins and you, O legioned immortals,
\nAll you have heard. Descend, O ye gods, to your sovereign stations,
\nLabour rejoicing whose task is joy and your bliss is creation;
\nShrink from no act that Necessity asks from your luminous natures.
\nThee I have given no part in the years that come, O my daughter,
\nHuntress swift of the worlds who with purity all things pursuest.
\nYet not less is thy portion intended than theirs who o’erpass thee:
\nHelped are the souls that wait more than strengths soon fulfilled and exhausted.
\nArcheress, brilliance, wait thine hour from the speed of the ages."
\nSo they departed, Artemis leading lightning-tasselled.
\nAncient Themis remained and awful Dis and Ananke.
\nThen mid these last of the gods who shall stand when all others have perished,
\nZeus to the Silence obscure under iron brows of that goddess, –
\nGriefless, unveiled was her visage, dire and unmoved and eternal:
\n"Thou and I, O Dis, remain and our sister Ananke.
\nThat which the joyous hearts of our children, radiant heaven-moths
\nFlitting mid flowers of sense for the honey of thought, have not captured,
\nThat which Poseidon forgets mid the pomp and the roar of his waters,
\nWe three keep in our hearts. By the Light that I watch for unsleeping,
\nBy thy tremendous consent to the silence and darkness, O Hades,
\nBy her delight renounced and the prayers and the worship of mortals
\nMaking herself as an engine of God without bowels or vision, –
\nYet in that engine are only heart-beats, yet is her riddle
\nOnly Love that is veiled and pity that suffers and slaughters,
\nWe three are free from ourselves, O Dis, and free from each other.
\nDo then, O King of the Night, observe then with Time for thy servant
\nNot my behest, but What she and thou and I are for ever."
\nMute the Darkness sat like a soul unmoved through the aeons,
\nThen came a voice from the silence of Dis, from the night there came wisdom.
\n"Yes, I have chosen and that which I chose I endure, O Cronion, –
\nThough to the courts of the gods I come as a threat and a shadow,
\nEven though none to their counsels call me, none to their pastime,
\nNone companions me willingly; even thy daughter, my consort,
\nTrembling whom once from our sister Demeter I plucked like a blossom1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\nTorn from Sicilian2<\/sup>
\nfields, while Fate reluctant, consenting,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n1<\/font><\/sup>flower
\n2<\/sup>Enna’s
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage – 510<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nBowed her head, lives but by
\nher gasps of the sun and the azure;
\nStretched are her hands to the light and she seeks for the clasp of her mother.
\nI, I am Night and her reign and that of which Night is a symbol.
\nAll to me comes, even thou shalt come to me, brilliant Cronion.
\nAll here exists by me whom all walk fearing and shunning;
\nHe who shuns not, He am I and thou and Ananke.
\nAll things I take to my bosom that Life may be swift in her voyage;
\nFor out of death is Life and not by birth and her motions
\nAnd behind Night is light and not in the sun and his splendours.
\nTroy to the Night I will gather a wreath for my shadows, O grower.\u201d
\nSo in his arrogance dire the vast invincible Death-god
\nTriumphing passed out of heaven with Themis and silent Ananke.
\nZeus alone in the spheres of his bliss, in his kingdom of brilliance
\nSat divine and alarmed; for even the gods in their heavens
\nScarce shall live who have gazed on the unveiled face of Ananke,
\nHeard the accents dire of the Darkness that waits for the ages.
\nAwful and dull grew his eyes and mighty and still grew his members,
\nBack from his nature he drew to the passionless peaks of the spirit,
\nThroned where it dwells for ever uplifted and silent and changeless
\nFar beyond living and death, beyond Nature and ending of Nature.
\nThere for a while he dwelt veiled, protected from Dis and his greatness;
\nThen to the works of the world he returned and the joy of his musings.
\nLife and the blaze of the mighty soul that he was of God’s making
\nDawned again in the heavenly eyes and the majestied semblance.
\nComforted heaven he beheld, to the green of the earth was attracted.
\nBut through this Space unreal, but through these worlds that are shadows
\nWent the awful Three. None saw them pass, none felt them.
\nOnly in the heavens was a tread as of death, in the air was a winter,
\nEarth oppressed moaned long like a woman striving with anguish.
\nIda saw them not, but her grim lions cowered in their caverns,
\nCeased for a while on her slopes the eternal laughter of fountains.
\nOver the ancient ramparts of Dardanus’ high-roofed city
\nDarkening her victor domes and her gardens of life and its sweetness
\nSilent they came. Unseen and unheard was the dreadful arrival.
\nTroy and her gods dreamed secure in the moment flattered by sunlight.
\nDim to the citadel high they arrived and their silence invaded
\nPa1las’ marble shrine where stern and white in her beauty,
\nArmed on her pedestal, trampling the prostrate bpage of darkness
\nMighty Athene’s statue guarded imperial Troya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 511<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nDim and vast they entered in.
\nThen through all the great city
\nHuge a rushing sound was heard from her gardens and places
\nAnd in their musings her seers as they strove with night and with error
\nAnd in the fane of Apollo Laocoon tom by his visions
\nHeard aghast the voice of Troy’s deities fleeing from Troya,
\nSaw the flaming lords of her households drive in a death-rout
\nForth from her ancient halls and their noble familiar sessions.
\nGhosts of her splendid centuries wailed on the wings of the doom-blast.
\nMoaning the Dryads fled and his Naiads passed from Scamander
\nLeaving the world to deities dumb of the clod and the earth-smoke,
\nAnd from their tombs and their shrines the shadowy Ancestors faded.
\nFilled was the air with their troops and the sound of a vast lamentation.
\nWailing they went, lamenting mortality’s ages of greatness
\nRuthless Anake’s deeds and the mortal conquests of Hades.
\nThen in the fane Palladian the shuddering priests of Athene
\nEntered the darkened shrine and saw on the suffering marble
\nShattered Athene’s mighty statue prostrate as conquered,
\nBut on its pedestal rose o’er the unhurt image of darkness
\nAwful shapes, a Trinity dim and dire unto mortals.
\nDumb they fell down on the earth and the life-breath was slain in their bosoms
\nAnd in the noon there was night. And Apollo passed out of Troya.<\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage – 512<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n


\n\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\tBOOK NINE*<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\nN<\/font><\/b>or could the Trojan fighters
\nbreak through the walls of their foemen,
\nNor could the mighty Pelides slay in his war-rage the Trojans.
\nEver he fought surrounded or drew back compelled to his legions;
\nFor to each spear of his strength full twenty hissed round his helmet,
\nCried1<\/sup> (rang) on his shield, attempted his cuirass or leaped at his
\ncoursers
\nOr at Automedon ran like living things in their blood-thirst.
\nGalled the deth1ess steeds high-neighing pawed in their anger;
\nWrathful Achilles wheeled and threatened seeking a victim.
\nSo might a fire on the high-piled altar of sacrifice blazing
\nSeek for its tongues an offering fit for the gods, but ’tis answered
\nOnly by spitting rain that a dense cloud sends out of heaven.
\nSibilant hiss the drops on the glowing wood and the altar.
\nChill a darkness o’erhangs and its brief and envious spirits
\nRail at the glorious flame, desiring an end of its brilliance.
\nMeanwhile behind by the ranks of the fighters sheltered from Hades
\nParis loosed his lethal shafts at the head of the Hellene.
\nThen upon Helenus wrath from the gods who are noble descended,
\nSeized on the tongue of the prophet and spoke out2<\/sup>
\ntheir thoughts in his accents,
\nThoughts by men rejected who follow the beast in their reason,
\nOnly advantage seek, and honour and pride are forgotten:
\n"Paris, not thus shalt thou slay Achilles but only thy glory.
\nDost thou not heed that the women should mock in the streets of our city
\nThee and thy bow and thy numbers, hearing the shame of the Trojans?
\nDost thou not fear the gods and their harms? Not so do they combat
\nWho have the awe of their deeds and follow the way of the mighty."
\nParis the Priamid answered his brother: "Helenus, wherefore
\nCare should I have for fame, or the gods and their punishments, heeding
\nBreath of men when they praise or condemn me? Victory I ask for,
\nJoy for my living heart, not a dream and a breath for my ashes.
\nWork I desire and the wish of my heart and the fruit of my labour.
\nNay, let my fame be crushed into mire for the ages to spit at,
\nBut let my country live and her foes be slain on her beaches."
\nSo he spoke and fitted another shaft to the bow-string,
\nAimed and loosed the death at the greatness that heaven protected.<\/p>\n

* No title for this book in the MS<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

1 Rang 2<\/font>
\nfashion \/ framed <\/font> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nPage – 513<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nAlways they fought and were locked in a fierce unyielding combat.
\nBut on the Hellene right stood the brothers stark in their courage
\nWaiting the Eoan horse-hooves that checked at the difficult crossing
\nLate arrived through field and through pasture. Zethus exultant
\nWatched their advent stern and encouraged the legions behind him:
\n"Now is the hour of your highest fame, O ye sons of the Hellenes.
\nThese are the iron squadrons, these are the world-famed fighters.
\nHere is a swifter than Memnon, here is a greater than Hector.
\nWho would fight with the war-wearied Trojans, the Lycian remnants,
\nWhen there are men in the world like these? O Phthians, we conquer
\nAsia’s, best today. And you, O my brothers, with courage
\nReap all the good I have won for our lives this morn from Achilles.
\nGlad let our fame go before us to our mother Arithoa waiting
\nLonely in Phthia desiring death or the eyes of her children.
\nSoon will our sails pursue their herald Fame, with our glory
\nBellying out and the winds. They shall bear o’er the murmurs of Ocean
\nHeaped up Ilion’s wealth and the golden bricks of King Priam
\nAnd for the halls of our fathers a famous and noble adornment
\nBear the beautiful head of the virgin Penthesilea."
\nSo he cried and the Hellenes shouted, a savage rumour,
\nProud of their victories past and incredulous grown of disaster.
\nNow from the Xanthus dripping-wheeled came the Eoan war-cars
\nRolling thunder-voiced with the tramp of the runners behind them,
\nDust like a flag and dire with the battle-cry, full on the Hellenes.
\nThey to the mid-plain arrived where the might of the Hellene brothers
\nWaited their onset1<\/sup>Zethus first with his cry of the cascade
\nHurrying-footed headlong that leaps far down to the valley:
\n"Curb, but curb thy advance, O Amazon Penthesilea!
\nThese are not Gnossus’ ranks and these are not levies from Sparta.
\nHellas’ spears await thee here and the Myrmidon fighters.\u201d
\nHigh like the north-wind racing and whistling over the ice-fields,
\nDeath at its side and snow for its breath in the pitiless winter:2<\/sup>
\n"Who art thou biddest to pause the horse-hooves of Penthesilea,
\nHellene, thou in thy strength who standest forth from thy shielders?
\nTurn yet, save thy life; for I deem that thou art not Acliilles."
\n\u201cZethus the Hellene I am and Cyenus and Pindus, my brothers,
\nStand at my either side, and thou passest not farther Bellona.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/sup>
\ncoming <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00b2Alternative
\nto this line and the preceding:<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n


\nBut like the northwind high and clear answered Penthesilea<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 
\n
\nPage \u2013 514<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nLioness, turn thou back, for
\nthou canst not here be a hunter."
\n"Zethus and Cyenus and Pindus, little you loved then your mother,
\nWho in this field that is wide must needs all three perish together
\nPiled on one altar of death by the spear-shafts of Penthesilea.
\nEmpty for ever your halls shall be, childless the age of your father."
\nHigh she rose to the spear-cast, poised like a thunderbolt lifted,
\nForward swung to the blow and loosed it hissing and ruthless
\nStraight at the Hellene shield, and it tore through the bronze and groaning
\nButted and pushed through the cuirass and split the breast of the hero.
\nRound in his car he spun, then putting his hands out before him,
\nEven as a diver who leaps from the shed of the bath to the current,
\nLaunched out so headlong, struggled, sideward collapsed, then was quiet,
\nDead on Trojan earth. But dismay and grief on his brothers
\nYet alive now seized, then rage came blinding the eyeballs.
\nBlindly they hurled, yet attained, for Athene guided the spear-shafts;
\nDeath like a forest beast yet played with the might of the virgin.
\nOne on her shield and one on her cuirass rang, but rejected
\nFell back like reeds that are thrown at a boulder by boys on the sea-shore.
\nShe unmoved replied; her shafts in their angry succession
\nHardly endured delay between. Like trees the brothers,
\nFelled, to each side sank prone. So lifeless these strong ones of Hellas
\nLay in their couch of the hostile soil reunited in slumber
\nAs in their childhood they lay in Hellas watched by their mother,
\nThree of them side by side and she dreamed for her darlings their future.
\nBut on the ranks of the Hellenes fear and amazement descended, –
\nMessengers they from Zeus to discourage the pride and the blood-lust.
\nBack many yards their foremost recoiled in a god-given terror,
\nAs from a snake a traveller scorned for a bough by the wayside,
\nBut it arises puffing its hood and hisses its hatred.
\nForward the henchmen ran and plucked back the spears from the corpses;
\nOnward the Eoan thousands rolled o’er the ground that was conquered
\nTrampling the fallen men into earth with the wheels of their war-cars.
\n    But in her speed like the sea or the storm-wind Penthesilea
\nDrove towards the ranks of the foe and her spear-shafts hastened before her,
\nMessengers whistling shrilly to death; she came like a wolf-hound
\nCalled by his master’s voice and silently fell on the quarry.
\nHyrtamus fell, Admetus was wounded, Charmidas slaughtered;
\nCirrhes died, though he faced not the blow while he hastened to shelter.
\nItylus, bright and beautiful, went down to night and to Hades..
\nBack, ever back the Hellenes recoiled from the shock of the Virgin,<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 515<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nSlain by her prowess fierce,
\nalarmed by the might of her helpers.
\nFor at her right Surabdas threatened and iron Surenas,
\nAnd at her left hill-shouldered Pharatus slaughtered the Hellenes.
\nThen in the ranks of the Greeks a shouting arose and the leaders
\nCried to their hosts and recalled their unstained fame and their valour
\nNever so ligitly conquered before in the trial\u00b9<\/font> of Ares,
\nAnd of Achilles they spoke and King Peleus waiting in Phthia.
\nListening for Troy overthrown not his hosts overcome by a woman.
\nAnd from the right and the left came hroes mighty to succour.
\nChiefs of the Dolopes Ar and Aglauron came mid the foremost,
\nHillus fair as a drifting moon but fierce as the winter;
\nPryas came the Thessalian and Sebes whom Pharsalus honoured,
\nVictors in countless fights who had stood against Memnon and Hector.
\nBut though their hands were mighty, though fierce their obdurate natures,
\nMightier strengths they met and a sterner brood of the war-god.
\nLight from the hand of the Virgin the spear ran laughing ‘at Sebes,
\nCrashed through his helmet and left him supine on the papures of Troya;
\nAr to Surabdas fell and the blood-spirting head of Aglauron
\nDropped like a fruit from a branch by its weight to the discus of Sambus;
\nIron Surenas’ mace-head shattered the beauty of Hillus;
\nPryas by Pharatus slain lay still and had rest from the war-cry.
\nBack, ever back reeled the Hellene host with the Virgin pursuing.
\nStorm-shod the Amazon fought and she slew like a god unresisted.
\nNone now dared to confront her burning eyes; the boldest
\nShuddered back from her spear and the cry of her tore at the heart-strings.
\nFear, the daughter of Zeus, had gripped at the hearts of the Hellenes.
\nSo as the heroes yieled before her, Penthesilea
\nLifted with victory cried to her henchman, Aurus of Ellae,
\nWho had the foot of the wind and its breath that scants not for running:
\n"Hasten, hasten, Aurus;. race to the right where unwarring
\nValarus leads his host; bid him close with the strength of the Hellenes.
\nSoon will they scatter like chaff on the threshing-floor blown to the beaches.
\nBut when he sees their flight by Sumalus shepherded seaward,
\nSwift let him turn like the wind in its paths and follow me, pouring
\nDown, a victorious flood\u00b2<\/font> on the Myrmidon left and
\nAchilles.
\nThen shall no Hellene again dare embark in ships for the Troad.
\nCursed shall its beaches be to their sons and their sons and forever."
\nSo she spoke and Aurus ran by the chariot protected.
\nThen had all Hellas perished indeed on the beaches of Troas,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>onset<\/font><\/span>      
\n\u00b2<\/font>All
\nin a victor flood<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 516<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nBut from the Argive’s right
\nwhere she battled Pallas Athene
\nSaw and was wroth and she missioned her thought to Automedon speeding,
\nSplendid it came and found him out mid the hiss of the spear-shafts
\nGuiding, endangered, Achilles’ steeds in the thick of the battle.
\nShaped like a woman clad in armour and fleeing from battle,
\nHelmed with the Hellene crest it knocked at the gate of his spirit,
\nShaking his hero’s heart with, the vision that came to his eyeballs;
\nSilent he stared aghast and turned his ear to the war-din.
\n"Dost thou not hear to our right, Achilles, these voices of Ares?
\nHigh is the sound of <\/i>Eoan <\/i>battle, a woman’s war-cry
\nRings in my ears, but faint and sparse come the shouts of our nation.
\nFar behind is their call and nearer the ships and the beaches."
\nGreat Pelides heard and groaned in the caves of his spirit:
\n"It is the doom that I feared and the fatal madness of Zethus;
\nSlain are the men of my nations or routed by Penthesilea.
\nDrive, Automedon, drive, lest shame and defeat upon Hellas
\nFasten their seal and her heroes flee from the strength of a woman."
\nAnd to the steeds divine Automedon called and they hearkened,
\nRose as if seeking their old accustomed paths in the heavens;
\nThen through the ranks that parted they galloped as gallops a dust-cloud
\nWhen the cyclone is abroad and the high trees snap by the wayside,
\nAnd from the press of the Hellenes into the plain of the Xanthus
\nThundering, neighing came with, the war-car borne like a dead leaf
\nChased by the blast. Then Athene opened the eyes of Achilles,
\nEyes that in all of us sleep, yet can see the near and the distant,
\nEyes that the gods in their pity have sealed from the giant confusion,
\nSealed from the bale and the grief. He saw like one high on a summit
\nNear him the Eoans holding the plain and out in the distance
\nBreaking the Hellene strengths. Like a dream in the night he regarded
\nHigh-crested Sumalus fight1<\/sup>, Somaranes swift in the onset,
\nBull-shouldered Tauron’s blows and the hero Artavoruxes.
\nBut in the centre fiercest the cry and the death and the fleeing.
\nThere were his chieftains ever reforming vainly resistance, –
\nEven in defeat these were Hellenes and fit to be hosts of Achilles,-
\nBut like a doom on them thundered the war-car of Penthesilea,
\nPharatus smote and Surabdas. and Sambus and iron Surenas,
\nDown the leaders fell and the armies reeled towards the Ocean.
\nWroth he cried to his coursers and fiercely they heard and they hastened;
\nSwift like a wind o’er the grasses galloped the car of Achilles.<\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/sup>war,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 517<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nEchemus followed, Ascanus
\ndrove and Drus and Thretaon:
\nPhoces alone in the dust of the Troad lay there and moved not.
\nYet brought not all of them help to their brothers oppressed in the combat;
\nFor from the forefront forth on the knot of the swift-speeding war-cars
\nHigh an Eoan chariot came drawn fast by its coursers
\nBearing a mighty chieftain, Valarus son of Supaures.
\nFire-footed thundered past him the hooves of the heavenly coursers,
\nNor to his challenging shout nor his spear the warlik Pelides
\nAnswered at all, but made haste like a flood to the throng and the mellay.
\nBut ‘twixt the chariots behind and their leader the mighty Eoan
\nDrove his dark-maned steeds and stood like a cliff to their onset.
\n"Great is your haste, 0 ye Kings of the Greeks! Abide yet and converse.
\nScatheless your leader has fled from me borne by the hooves of his coursers.
\nYe, abide! For we meet from far lands on this soil of the Trojans.
\nAll of us meet from afar, but not all shall return to their hearth-sides.
\n<\/i>Valarus stays you, 0 Greeks, and this is the point of his greeting."
\nSo as he spoke he launched out his spear as a cloud hurls its storm-flash;
\nNor from that fatal hand parted vainly the pitiless envoy,
\nBut of its blood-thirst had right. Riven through and through with the
\ndeath-stroke
\nDrus fell prone and tore with dying fingers the grasses.
\nSobbing his soul fled out to the night and the chill and the silence.
\nThey like leaves that are suddenly stayed by the fall of a wind-gust
\nCeased from their headlong speed. And Echemus poising his spear-shaft:
\n"Sharp are thy greetings, chieftain Eoan. Message for message
\nEchemus son of A\u00ebtes, one of the mighty in Hellas,
\nThus returns. Let Ares judge ‘twixt the Greek and the Eastern."
\nFast sped the spear but Valarus held forth his shield and rebutted,
\nShouting, the deadly point that could pierce not his iron refusal.
\n"Ecbemus, shrill thy vaunt has reached me, but unfelt is thy spear-point.
\nWeak are men’s arms, it seems, in Hellas; a boy there Ares
\nAims with reeds not spears at pastoral cheeses not iron.
\nJudge now my strength." Two spears from him ran at the hearts of his foemen,
\nCrouching Thretaon heard the keen death over him whistle;
\nAscanus hurt in the shoulder cried out and paused from his war-lust.
\nEchemus hurled now again and hurled with him stalwart Thretaon.
\nStrong Thretaon missed, but Echemus’ point at the helmet
\nBit and fastened as fastens a hound on the ear of the wild boar
\nWroth with the cry and the hunt, that gores the pack and his hunters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 518<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tValarus frowning tugged at the heavy steel; yet his right hand
\n Smote at Echemus. Him he missed but valiant Thretaon
\n Sat back dead in his seat and the chariot wild with its coursers
\n Snorting and galloping bore his corpse o’er the plains to the Hellenes.-..
\n But while yet Valarus strove with the shaft, obscured and encumbered,
\n Ascanus sprang down swift from his car and armed with his sword-point
\n Clove the Eoan’s neck as the lightning springs at an oak-trunk
\n Seized in the stride of the storm and severs that might with its sharpness.
\n Slain the hero fell; his mighty limbs the spirit
\n Mightier released to the gods and it rose to the heavens of the noble.
\n Ascanus gathered the spear-shaft; loud was his shout as exulting
\n Back he leaped to the car triumphant o’er death and its menace:
\n "Lie there, Valarus, King of the East, with imperial Troya.
\n Six rich feet of her soil she gives thee for couch of the nuptials.
\n Rest then! Talk not again on the way with the heroes of Hella’s."
\n So delivered they hastened glad to the ranks of their brothers.
\n After them rolled the Eoan war-cars, Arithon leading
\n Loud with the clamour of hooves and the far-rolling gust of the war-cry;
\n Wroth at their chieftain’s fall they moved to the help of their nation,
\n Now by the unearthly horses neared and the might of Achilles.
\n Then from the Hellenes who heard the noise and cry of their coming
\n Lifted eyes dismayed, but saw the familiar war-car,
\n Saw the heaven-born steeds and the helm unconquered in battle,
\n Cry was of other hopefulness. Loud as the outbursting thunder
\n Rises o’er lower sounds of the storm, o’er the din of the battle
\n Rose the Hellene shout and rose the name of Achilles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n (The rest of Book Nine is
\n\tmissing)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n Page – 519<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

V   ILION An Epic in Quantitative Hexameters BOOK ONE   The Book of the Herald     Dawn in her journey eternal compelling the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-05-collected-poems-volume-05","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}