{"id":2971,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2971"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:00","slug":"34-two-poems-in-quantitative-hexameters-contd-vol-02-collected-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/02-collected-poems\/34-two-poems-in-quantitative-hexameters-contd-vol-02-collected-poems","title":{"rendered":"-34_Two Poems in Quantitative Hexameters – CONTD.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

 <\/td>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tBOOK VI<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Book of the Chieftains<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThen as from common hills great Pelion rises to heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo from the throng uprearing a brow that no crown could ennoble,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMale and kingly of front like a lion conscious of puissance<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRose a form august, the monarch great Agamemnon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWroth he rose yet throwing a rein on the voice of his passion,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGoverning the beast and the demon within by the god who is mighty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Happy thy life and my fame that thou com’st with the aegis of heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShadowing thy hoary brows, thou herald of pride and of insult.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWell is it too for his days who sent thee that other and nobler<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeaven made my heart than his who insults and a voice of the immortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCries to my soul forbidding its passions. O hardness of virtue,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThus to be seized and controlled as in fetters by Zeus and Athene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFree is the peasant to smite in the pastures the mouth that has wronged him,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChained in his soul is Atrides. Bound by their debt to the fathers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCurbed by the god in them painfully move the lives of the noble,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForced to obey the eye that watches within in their bosoms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEver since Zeus Cronion turned in our will towards the waters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tScourged by the heavens in my dearest, wronged by men and their clamours,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGriefs untold I have borne in Argos and Aulis and Troas,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYoked to this sacred toil of the Greeks for their children and country,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBound by the gods to a task that is heavy, a load that is bitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSeeing the faces of foes in the mask of friends I was silent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHateful I hold him who sworn to a cause that is holy and common<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBroods upon private wrongs or serving his lonely ambition<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStudies to reap his gain from the labour and woe of his fellows.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMire is the man who hears not the gods when they cry to his bosom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGrief and wrath I coerced nor carried my heart to its record<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll that has hurt its chords and wounded the wings of my spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNobler must kings be than natures of earth on whom Zeus lays no burden.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOther is Peleus’ son than the race of his Aeacid fathers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor like his sire of the wise-still heart far-sighted and patient<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBearing the awful rein of the gods, but hastes to his longings,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDire in his wrath and pursued by the band of his giant ambitions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMeasure and virtue forsake him as Ate grows in his bosom.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 420<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nYet not for tyrant wrong nor to serve as a sword for our passions<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tZeus created our strength, but that earth might have help from her children.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot of our moulding its gifts to our soul nor were formed by our labour!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen did we make them, where were they forged, in what workshop or
\nfurnace?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFound in what aeon of Time, that pride should bewilder the mortal?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBowed to our will are the folk and our prowess dreadful and godlike?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShadows are these of the gods which the deep heavens cast on our spirits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTransient, we made not ourselves, but at birth from the first we were fashioned<\/span><\/p>\n

\nValiant or fearful and as was our birth by the gods and their thinkings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFormed, so already enacted and fixed by their wills are our fortunes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhat were the strength of Atrides and what were the craft of Odysseus<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSave for their triumphing gods? They would fail and be helpless as infants.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStronger a woman, wiser a child were favoured by Heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCeased not Sarpedon slain who was son of Zeus and unconquered?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot to Achilles he fell, but Fate and the gods were his slayers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tKings, to the arrogant shaft that was launched, the unbearable insult,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArmoured wisdoms oppose, let not Ate seize on your passions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBe not as common souls, O you who are Greece and her fortunes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor of your spirits of wrath take counsel but of Athene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMerit the burden laid by Zeus, his demand from your natures<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSuffer, O hearts of his seed, O souls who are chosen and mighty,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll forgetting but Greece and her good; resolve what is noble.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nI will not speak nor advise, for ’tis known we are rivals and foemen.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalmed by his words and his will he sat down mighty and kinglike;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut Menelaus arose, the Spartan, the husband of Helen,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAtreus’ younger son from a lesser womb, in his brilliance<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDwarfed by the other’s port, yet tall was he, gracile and splendid,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if a panther might hunt by a lion’s side in the forest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSmiting his thigh with his firm-clenched hand he spoke mid the Argives:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Woe to me, shameless, born to my country a cause of affliction,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSince for my sake all wrongs must be borne and all shames be encountered;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd for my sake you have spun through the years down the grooves of
\ndisaster<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBearing the shocks of the Trojans and ravaged by Zeus and by Hector,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSlaughtered by Rhesus and Memnon, Sarpedon and Penthesilea;<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 421<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Or by the Archer pierced, the hostile dreadful Apollo,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvilly end the days of the Greeks remote from their kindred  \u2014
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nSlain on an alien soil by Asian Xanthus and Ida.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDoomed to the pyre we have toiled for a woman ungracious who left us<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPassing serenely my portals to joy in the chambers of Troya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere let it cease, O my brother! how much wilt thou bear for this graceless<\/span><\/p>\n

\nChild of thy sire, cause still of thy griefs and never of blessing?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEasily Zeus afflicts who trouble their hearts for a woman;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut in our ships that sailed close-fraught with this dolorous Ate<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWorse was the bane they bore which King Peleus begot on white Thetis.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEvil ever was sown by the embrace of the gods with a mortal!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlien a portent is born and a breaker of men and their labours,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne who afflicts with his light or his force mortality’s weakness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStripping for falsehoods their verities, shaking the walls they erected.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHostile all things the scourge divine overbears or, if helpful,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNeither without him his fellows can prosper, nor will his spirit<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFit in the frame of things earthly but shatters their rhythm and order<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRending the measures just that the wise have decreed for our growing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo have our mortal plannings broken on this fateful Achilles<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd with our blood and our anguish Heaven has fostered his greatness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt is enough; let the dire gods choose between Greece and their offspring.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as he bids us, aloof let our hosts twixt the ships and the Xanthus<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStand from the shock and the cry where Hellene meets with Eoan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTroy and Phthia locked, Achilles and Penthesilea,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor any more than watchers care who line an arena;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm like the impartial gods, approve the bravest and swiftest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSole let him fight! The fates shall preserve him he vaunts of or gather,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as death shall gather us all for memory’s clusters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll in their day who were great or were little, heroes or cowards.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo shall he slay or be slain, a boon to mankind and his country.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSince if he mow down this flower of bale, this sickle by Hades<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhirled if he break, 
\n\t\t\t\u2014  for the high gods ride on the hiss of his spear-shaft, 
\n\t\t\t\u2014 <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nOurs is the gain who shall break rejoicing through obdurate portals<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPraising Pallas alone and Hera daughter of Heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut if he sink in this last of his fights, as they say it is fated,  \u2014
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNor do I deem that the man has been born in Asia or Hellas<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho in the dreadful field can prevail against Penthesilea,  \u2014
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 422<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nIf to their tents the Myrmidons fleeing cumber the meadows<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSlain by a girl in her speed and leaving the corpse of their leader,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOurs is the gain, we are rid of a shame and a hate and a danger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTrue is it, Troy shall exultant live on in the shadow of Ida,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet shall our hearts be light because earth is void of Achilles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd for the rest of the infinite loss, what we hoped, what we suffered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLet it all go, let the salt floods swallow it, fate and oblivion<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBury it out in the night; let us sail o’er the waves to our country<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLeaving Helen in Troy since the gods are the friends of transgressors.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo Menelaus in anger and grief miscounselled the Argives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGreat Idomeneus next, the haughty king of the Cretans,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRaised his brow of pride in the lofty Argive assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTall like a pine that stands up on the slope of Thessalian mountains<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOverpeering a cascade’s edge and is seen from the valleys,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSuch he seemed to their eyes who remembered Greece and her waters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeard in their souls the torrent’s leap and the wind on the hill-tops.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Oft have I marvelled, O Greeks, to behold in this levy of heroes<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tArmies so many, chieftains so warlike suffer in silence<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPride of a single man when he thunders and lightens in Troas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDoubtless the nations that follow his cry are many and valiant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDoubtless the winds of the north have made him a runner and spearman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShall not then force be the King? is not strength the seal of the Godhead?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis my soul replies, Agamemnon the Atreid only<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChoosing for leader and king I have come to the toil and the warfare.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWisdom and greatness he owns and the wealth and renown of his fathers.’<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut for this whelp of the northlands, nursling of rocks and the sea-cliff<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho with his bleak and rough-hewn Myrmidons hastes to the carnage,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeader of wolves to their prey, not the king of a humanised nation,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot to such head of the cold-drifting mist and the gloom-vigilled Chaos,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCrude to our culture and light and void of our noble fulfilments<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMinos shall bend his knee nor Crete, a barbarian’s vassal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStain her old glories. Oh, but he boasts of a goddess for mother<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBorn in the senseless seas mid the erring wastes of the Ocean,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhite and swift and foam-footed, vast Oceanus’ daughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGods we adore enough in the heavens, and if from us Hades<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClaim one more of this breed, we can bear that excess of his glories,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot upon earth these new-born deities huge-passioned, sateless<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 423<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Who with their mouth as of Orcus and stride of the ruinous Ocean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSole would be seen mid her sons and devour all life’s joy and its greatness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMillions must empty their lives that a man may o’ershadow the nations,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNumberless homes must weep, but his hunger of glory is sated!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTroy shall descend to the shadow; gods and men have condemned her,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWeary, hating her fame. Her dreams, her grandeur, her beauty,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll her greatness and deeds that now end in miserable ashes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCeasing shall fade and be as a tale that was forged by the poets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly a name shall go down from her past and the woe of her ending<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNaked to hatred and rapine and punished with rape and with slaughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNever again must marble pride high-domed on her hill-top<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLook forth dominion and menace over the crested Aegean<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShadowing Achaia. Fire shall abolish the fame of her ramparts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth her foundations forget. Shall she stand affronting the azure?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDire in our path like a lioness once again must we meet her,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeap and roar of her led by the spear of Achilles, not Hector?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAsia by Peleus guided shall stride on us after Antenor?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThough one should plan in the night of his thoughts where no eye can
\npursue him,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInstincts of men discover their foe and like hounds in the darkness<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBay at a danger hid. No silence of servitude trembling<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTrains to bondage sons of the race of whom Aeolus father<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStorm-voiced was and free, nor like other groupings of mortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMoulded we were by Zeus, but supremely were sifted and fashioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOther are Danaus’ sons and other the lofty Achaians:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChainless like Nature’s tribes in their many-voiced colonies founded<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey their god-given impulse shall keep and their natures of freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly themselves shall rule them, only their equal spirits<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBowed to the voice of a law that is just, obeying their leaders,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwed by the gods. So with order and balance and harmony noble<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife shall move golden, free in its steps and just in its measure,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGlad of a manhood complete, by excess and defect untormented.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFreedom is life to the Argive soul, to Aeolia’s peoples.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDulled by a yoke our nations would perish, or live but as shadows,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nChanged into phantoms of men with the name of a Greek for a byword.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot like the East and her sons is our race, they who bow to a mortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGods there may be in this flesh that suffers and dies; Achaia<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 424<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nKnows them not. Need if he feels of a world to endure and adore him,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHearts let him seek that are friends with the dust, overpowered by their
\nheavens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere in these Asian vastnesses, here where the heats and the perfumes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSicken the soul and the sense and a soil of indolent plenty<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBreeds like the corn in its multitudes natures accustomed to thraldom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHere let the northern Achilles seek for his slaves and adorers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot in the sea-ringed isles and not in the mountains Achaian.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTen long years of the shock and the war-cry twixt rampart and ocean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHurting our hearts we have toiled; shall they reap not their ease in the
\nvengeance?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTroas is sown with the lives of our friends and with ashes remembered;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShall not Meriones slain be reckoned in blood and in treasure?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCretan Idomeneus girt with the strength of his iron retainers<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSlaying and burning will stride through the city of music and pleasure,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBabes of her blood borne high on the spears at the head of my column,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWives of her princes dragged through her streets in its pomp to their passion,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGold of Troy stream richly past in the gaze of Achilles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen let him threaten my days, then rally the might of his triumphs,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet shall a Cretan spear make search in his heart for his godhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLimbs of this god can be pierced; not alone shall I fleet down to Hades.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAfter him rose from the throng the Locrian, swift-footed Ajax.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Kings of the Greeks, throw a veil on your griefs, lay a curb on your anger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMoved man’s tongue in its wrath looses speech that is hard to be pardoned,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAfterwards stilled we regret, we forgive. If all were resented,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNone could live on this earth that is thick with our stumblings. Always<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis is the burden of man that he acts from his heart and his passions,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStung by the goads of the gods he hews at the ties that are dearest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLust was the guide they sent us, wrath was a whip for his coursers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMadness they made the heart’s comrade, repentance they gave for its
\nscourger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis too our hearts demand that we bear with our friend when he chides us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInsult forgive from the noble embittered soul of Achilles!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen with the scorn and the wrath of a lover our depths are tormented,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho shall forbid the cry and who shall measure the anguish?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSharper the pain that looses the taunt than theirs who endure it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRage has wept in my blood as I lived through the flight o’er the pastures,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 425<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Shame coils a snake in my back when thought whispers of Penthesilea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBright shine his morns if he mows down this hell-bitch armed by the Furies!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut for this shaft of his pity it came from a lesser Pelides,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot from the slayer of Hector, not from the doom of Sarpedon,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMemnon’s mighty o’erthrower, the blood-stained splendid Achilles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese are the Trojan snares and the fateful smile of a woman!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis thing the soul of a man shall not bear that blood of his labour<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVainly has brought him victory leaving life to the hated;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis is a wound to our race that a Greek should whisper of mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho can pardon a foe though a god should descend to persuade him?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJustice is first of the gods, but for Pity ’twas spawned by a mortal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPity that only disturbs God’s measures and false and unrighteous<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHolds man back from the joy he might win and troubles his bosom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTroy has a debt to our hearts; she shall pay it all down to the obol,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBlood of the fall and anguish of flight when the heroes are slaughtered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDays without joy while we labour and see not the eyes of our parents,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nToil of the war-cry, nights that drag past upon alien beaches,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHelen ravished, Paris triumphant, endless the items<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCrowd on a wrath in the memory, kept as in bronze the credit<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStretches out long and blood-stained and savage. Most for the terror<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGraved in the hearts of our fathers that still by our youth is remembered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHellas waiting and crouching, dreading the spear of the Trojan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFlattering, sending gifts and pale in her mortal anguish,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgony long of a race at the mercy of iron invaders,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis she shall pay most, the city of pride, the insolent nation,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPay with her temples charred and her golden mansions in ruins,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPay with the shrieks of her ravished virgins, the groans of the aged<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBurned in their burning homes for our holiday. Music and dancing<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShall be in Troy of another sort than she loved in her greatness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMerry with conquered gold and insulting the world with her flutings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll that she boasted of, statue and picture, all shall be shattered;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of our shame she chiselled them, rich with our blood they were coloured.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis not the gods from Olympus crowding, this not Achilles,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis not your will, O ye Greeks, shall deny to the Locrian Ajax.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven though Pallas divine with her aegis counselling mercy<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCumbered my path, I would push her aside to leap on my victims.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLearn shall all men on that day how a warrior deals with his foemen.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nPage \u2013 426<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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\nDarting flames from his eyes the barbarian sate, and there rose up<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFrowning Tydeus’ son, the Tirynthian, strong Diomedes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Ajax Oileus, thy words are foam on the lips of a madman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCretan Idomeneus, silence the vaunt that thy strength can fulfil not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStrong art thou, fearless in battle, but not by thy spear-point, O hero,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHector fell, nor Sarpedon, nor Troilus leading the war-cry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese were Achilles’ deeds which a god might have done out of heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHim we upbraid who saved, nor would any now who revile him<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill have a living tongue for ingratitude but for the hero.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMuch to the man forgive who has saved his race and his country:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHim shall the termless centuries praise when we are forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCurb then your speech, crush down in your hearts the grief and the choler;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHas not Atrides curbed who is greatest of all in our nations<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWrath in the heart and the words that are winged for our bale from our
\nbosoms?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor as a load to be borne were these passions given to mortals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHonour Achilles, conquer Troy by his god-given valour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow of our discords and griefs debate not for joy of our foemen!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFirst over Priam’s corpse stand victors in Ilion’s ramparts;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDiscord then let arise or concord solder our nations.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRugged words and few as fit for the soul that he harboured<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGreat Tydides spoke and ceased; and there rose up impatient<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTall from the spears of the north the hero king
\n\t\t\tProtho\u00ebnor,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPrince in Cadmeian Thebes who with Leitus led on his thousands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Loudly thou vauntest thy freedom Ionian Minos recalling,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLord of thy southern isles who gildst with tribute Mycenae.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe have not bowed our neck to Pelops’ line, at Argos’<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIron heel have not crouched, nor clasped like thy time-wearied nations,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPython-befriended, gripped in the coils of an iron protection,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBondage soothed by a name and destruction masked as a helper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe are the young and lofty and free-souled sons of the Northland.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNobly Peleus, the Aeacid, seer of a vaster Achaia,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPride of his strength and his deeds renouncing for joy of that vision,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYielded his hoary right to the sapling stock of Atrides.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNoble, we gave to that nobleness freely our grandiose approval.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot as a foe then, O King, who angered sharpens his arrows,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFits his wrath and hate to the bow and aims at the heart-strings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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\nPage \u2013 427<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But from the Truth that is seated within me compelling my accents,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTaught by my fathers stern not to lie nor to hide what I harbour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTruth the goddess I speak, nor constrain the voice in my bosom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMonarch, I own thee first of the Greeks save in valour and counsel,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrave, but less than Achilles, wise, but not as Odysseus,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFirst still in greatness and calm and majesty. Yet, Agamemnon,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLove of thy house and thy tribe disfigures the king in thy nature;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou thy brother preferrest, thy friends and thy nations unjustly,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven as a common man whose heart is untaught by Athene,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBeastlike favours his brood forgetting the law of the noble.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTherefore Ajax grew wroth and Teucer sailing abandoned<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOver the angry seas this fierce-locked toil of the nations;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTherefore Achilles has turned in his soul and gazed towards the Orient.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet are we fixed in our truth like hills in heaven, Atrides;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGreece and her safety and good our passions strive to remember.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot of this stamp was thy brother’s speech; such words Lacedaemon<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHearing may praise in her kings; we speak not in Thebes what is shameful.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShamefuller thoughts have never escaped from lips that were high-born.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWe will not send forth earth’s greatest to die in a friendless battle,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNor will forsake the daughter of Zeus and white glory of Hellas,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelen the golden-haired Tyndarid, left for the joy of our foemen,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChained to Paris’ delight, earth’s goddess the slave of the Phrygian,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThough Menelaus the Spartan abandon his wife to the Trojans<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd from the field where he lavished the unvalued blood of his people<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFlee to a hearth dishonoured. Not the Atreid’s sullied grandeurs,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGreece to defend we have toiled through the summers and lingering autumns<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBlind with our blood; for our country we bleed repelling her foemen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDear is that loss to our veins and still that expense we would lavish<\/span><\/p>\n

\nClaiming its price from the heavens, though thou sail with thy brother and cohorts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeakling, flee! take thy southern ships, take thy Spartan levies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStill will the Greeks fight on in the Troad helped by thy absence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor though the beaches vast grow empty, the tents can be numbered<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStanding friendless and few on the huge and hostile champaign,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlways a few will be left whom the threatenings of Fate cannot conquer,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlways souls are born whose courage waits not on fortune;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHellas’ heart will be firm confronting the threat of the victor,<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n
\nPage \u2013 428<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nSthenelus war and Tydides, Odysseus and Locrian Ajax,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThebes’ unconquered sons and the hero chiefs of the northland.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStern and persistent as Time or the seas and as deaf to affliction<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe will clash on in the fight unsatisfied, fain of the war-cry,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelped by the gods and our cause through the dawns and the blood-haunted evenings,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRising in armour with morn and outstaying the red of the sunset,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill in her ashes Troy forgets that she lusted for empire<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr in our own the honour and valour of Greece are extinguished.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo Protho\u00ebnor spoke nor pleased with his words Agamemnon;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut to the northern kings they were summer rain on the visage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLast Laertes’ son, the Ithacan, war-wise Odysseus,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRose up wide-acclaimed; like an oak was he stunted in stature,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBroad-shouldered, firm-necked, lone and sufficient, as on some island<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRegnant one peak whose genial streams flow down to the valley,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDusk on its slopes are the olives, the storms butt in vain at its shoulders, 
\n\u2014 <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSuch he stood and pressed the earth with his feet like one vanquished,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStriving, but held to his will. So Atlas might seem were he mortal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAtlas whose vastness free from impatience suffers the heavens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSuffering spares the earth, the thought-haunted motionless Titan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBearer of worlds. In those jarring tribes no man was his hater;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor as the Master of all guides humanity, so this Odysseus<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDealt with men and helped and guided them, careful and selfless,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCrafty, tender and wise,  \u2014  like the Master who bends o’er His creatures,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSuffers their sins and their errors and guides them screening the guidance;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEach through his nature He leads and the world by the lure of His wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Princes of Argolis, chiefs of the Locrians, spears of the northland,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWarriors vowed to a sacred hate and a vengeance that’s holy,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSateless still is that hate, that vengeance cries for its victims,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill is the altar unladen, the priest yet waits with the death-knife.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho while the rites are unfinished, the god unsatisfied, impious<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTurns in his heart to the feuds of his house and his strife with his equals?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNone will approve the evil that fell from the younger Atrides;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut it was anger and sorrow that spoke, it was not Menelaus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho would return from Troy and arrive with his war-wasted legions<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBack to his home in populous city or orcharded island;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere from his ships disembarked look round upon eyes that grow joyless<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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\n
\nPage \u2013 429<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Seeking a father or husband slain, a brother heart-treasured,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMothers in tears for their children, and when he is asked, O our chieftain,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhat dost thou bring back in place of our dead to fill hearts that are empty?’<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho then will say, I bring back my shame and the shame of my nation;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTroy yet stands confronting her skies and Helen in Troya’?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot for such foil will I go back to Ithaca or to Laertes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRather far would I sail in my ships past southern Cythera,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTurning away in silence from waters where on some headland<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGazing south o’er the waves my father waits for my coming,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeaving Sicily’s shores and on through the pillars of Gades.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFar I would sail whence sound of me never should come to Achaia<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut into tossing worlds and weltering reaches of tempest<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDwarfing the swell of the wide-wayed Aegean,  \u2014  Oceans unbounded<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEither by cliff or by sandy margin, only the heavens<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEver receding before my keel as it ploughs on for ever<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFrail and alone in a world of waves. Even there would I venture<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeeking some island unknown, not return with shame to my fathers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWell might they wonder how souls like theirs begot us for their offspring.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFighters war-afflicted, champions banded by heaven,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWounds and defeat you have borne; bear too their errors who lead you.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMortals are kings and have hearts; our leaders too have their passions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen if they err, yet still obey lest anarchy fostered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDiscord and deaf rebellion that speed like a poison through kingdoms,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBreak all this army in pieces while Ate mocking at mortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTrails to a shameful end this lofty essay of the nations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho among men has not thoughts that he holds for the wisest, though
\nfoolish?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho, though feeble and nought, esteems not his strength o’er his fellow’s?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTherefore the wisest and strongest choose out a king and a leader,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot as a perfect arbiter armed with impossible virtues<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFar o’er our heads and our ken like a god high-judging his creatures,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut as a man among men who is valiant, wise and far-seeing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne of ourselves and the knot of our wills and the sword of our action.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHim they advise and obey and cover his errors with silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNot Agamemnon the Atreid, Greeks, we obey in this mortal;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGreece we obey; for she walks in his gait and commands by his gestures.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEvil he works then who loosens this living knot of Achaia;<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nPage \u2013 430<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

\nFalling apart from his nation who, wed to a solitary virtue,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDeeming he does but right, renounces the yoke of his fellows,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nErrs more than hearts of the mire that in blindness and weakness go stumbling.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMan when he spurns his kind, when he equals himself with the deathless,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven in his virtues sins and, erring, calls up Ate:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor among men we were born, not as wild-beasts sole in a fastness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOft with a name are misled the passionate hearts of the noble;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nChasing highly some image of good they trample its substance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvil is worked, not justice, when into the mould of our thinkings<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGod we would force and enchain to the throb of our hearts the immortals,  \u2014
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJustice and Virtue, her sister, 
\n\t\t\t\u2014  for where is justice mid creatures<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPerfectly? Even the gods are betrayed by our clay to a semblance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvil not good he sows who lifted too high for his fellows,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDreams by his light or his force to compel this deity earth-born,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvil though his wisdom exceeded the gathered light of the millions,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEvil though his single fate were vaster than Troy and Achaia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLess is our gain from gods upon earth than from men in our image;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJust is the slow and common march, not a lonely swiftness<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFar from our human reach that is vowed to impossible strivings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBetter the stumbling leader of men than inimitable paces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf he be Peleus’ son and his name the Phthian Achilles,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWorse is the bane: lo, the Ilian battlefield strewn with his errors!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet, O ye Greeks, if the heart returns that was loved, though it wandered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThough with some pride it return and reproaching the friends that it fled from,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBe not less fond than heart-satisfied parents who yearn o’er that coming,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSmile at its pride and accept the wanderer. Happier music<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNever has beat on my grief-vexed ears than the steps of Achilles<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTurning back to this Greece and the cry of his strength in its rising.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nZeus is awake in this man who his dreadful world-slaying puissance<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGave in an hour of portentous birth to the single Achilles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTaken today are Ilion’s towers, a dead man is Priam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCross not the hero’s will in his hour, Agamemnon Atrides,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCross not the man whom the gods have chosen to work out their purpose<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen when he rises; his hour is his, though thine be all morrows.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFirst in the chambers of Paris’ delight let us stable our horses,
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n
\nPage \u2013 431<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tAfterwards bale that is best shall be done persuading Achilles;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDoubt not the gods’ decisions, awful, immutable, ruthless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFlame shall lick Troy’s towers and the limbs of her old men and infants.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nO not today nor now remember the faults of the hero!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFollow him rather bravely and blindly as children their leader,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGuide your fate through the war-surge loud in the wake of his exploits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRise, O ye kings of the Greeks! leave debate for the voices of battle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPeal forth the war-shout, pour forth the spear-sleet, surge towards Troya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIlion falls today; we shall turn in our ships to our children.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo Odysseus spoke and the Achaians heard him applauding;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEver the pack by the voice of the mighty is seized and attracted!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen from his seat Agamemnon arising his staff to the herald<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGave and around him arose the Kings of the west and its leaders,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLoud their assembly broke with a stern and martial rumour.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\n\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  BOOK VI   The Book of the Chieftains   Then as from common hills great Pelion rises to heaven So from the throng uprearing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-collected-poems","wpcat-57-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","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=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}