{"id":3666,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3666"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:20","slug":"04-the-book-of-the-assembly-vol-ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters\/04-the-book-of-the-assembly-vol-ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters","title":{"rendered":"-04_The Book Of The Assembly.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nBook Three<\/font><\/i> <\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nTHE BOOK OF THE ASSEMBLY
\n<\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBUT as the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender <\/p>\n

Waited mute for a voice that could lead and a heart to encourage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Up in the silence deep
\n\tLaoco\u00f6n rose up, far-heard,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Heard by the gods in their calm and heard by men in their passion\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Cloud-haired, clad in mystic red, flamboyant, sombre,\n\t<\/p>\n

Priam’s son Laoco\u00f6n, fate-darkened seer of Apollo.\n\t<\/p>\n

As when the soul of the Ocean arises rapt in the dawning\n\t<\/p>\n

And mid the rocks and the foam uplifting the voice of its musings\n\t<\/p>\n

Opens the chant of its turbulent harmonies, so rose the far-borne\n\t<\/p>\n

Voice of Laoco\u00f6n soaring mid columns of Ilion’s glories,\n\t<\/p>\n

Claiming the earth and the heavens for the field of its confident rumour.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Trojans, deny your hearts to the easeful flu tings of Hades!\n\t<\/p>\n

Live, O nation !" he thundered forth and Troy’s hearts and her pillars\n\t<\/p>\n

Sent back their fierce response. Restored to her leonine spirits\n\t<\/p>\n

Ilion rose in her agora filling the heavens with shoutings,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bearing a name to the throne of Zeus in her mortal defiance.\n\t<\/p>\n

As when a sullen calm of the heavens discourages living,\n\t<\/p>\n

Nature and man feel the pain of the lightnings repressed in their bosoms,\n\t<\/p>\n

Dangerous and dull is the air, then suddenly strong from the anguish\n\t<\/p>\n

Zeus of the thunders starts into glories releasing his storm-voice,\n\t<\/p>\n

Earth exults in the kiss of the rain and the life-giving laughters,\n\t<\/p>\n

So from the silence broke forth the thunder of Troya arising ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Fiercely she turned from prudence and wisdom and turned back to
\ngreatness,\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Casting her voice to the heavens from the depths of her fathomless spirit.\n\t<\/p>\n

Raised by those clam ours, triumphant once more in this scene of his
\ngreatness,\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tool of the gods, but he deemed of his strength as a leader in Nature,\n\t<\/p>\n

Took for his own a voice that was given and dreamed that he fashioned\n\t<\/p>\n

Fate that fashions us all, Laoco\u00f6n stood mid the shouting
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-35<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\n\tLeaned on the calm of an ancient pillar. In eyes self-consuming <\/p>\n

\n\tKindled the flame of the prophet that blinds at once and illumines ; <\/p>\n

\n\tQuivering thought-besieged lips and shaken locks of the lion, <\/p>\n

\n\tLifted his gaze the storm-led enthusiast. Then as the shouting <\/p>\n

\n\tTired of itself at last disappeared in the bosom of silence, <\/p>\n

\n\tOnce more he started erect and his voice o’er the hearts of his hearers <\/p>\n

\n\tSwept like Ocean’s impatient cry when it calls from its surges, <\/p>\n

\n\tOcean loud with a thought sublime in its measureless marching. <\/p>\n

\n\tEach man felt his heart like foam in the rushing of waters. <\/p>\n

\n\t"Ilion is vanquished then ! she abases her grandiose spirit <\/p>\n

\n\tMortal found in the end to the gods and the Greeks and Antenor, <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd when a barbarous chieftain’s menace and insolent mercy <\/p>\n

\n\tBring here their pride to insult the columned spirit of Ilus, <\/p>\n

\n\tTrojans have sat and feared ! For a man has arisen and spoken, <\/p>\n

\n\tOne whom the gods in their anger have hired. Since the Argive prevailed not,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tArmed, with his strength and his numbers, in Troya they sought for her
\nslayer,\n<\/p>\n

Gathered their wiles in a voice and they chose a man famous and honoured,\n\t<\/p>\n

Summoned Ate to aid and corrupted the heart of Antenor.\n\t<\/p>\n

Flute of the breath of the Hell-witch, always he scatters among you\n\t<\/p>\n

Doubt, affliction and weakness chilling the hearts of the fighters,\n\t<\/p>\n

Always his voice with its cadenced and subtle possession for evil\n\t<\/p>\n

Breaks the constant will and maims the impulse heroic.\n\t<\/p>\n

Therefore while yet her heroes fight and her arms are unconquered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy in your hearts is defeated ! The souls of your Fathers have heard you\n\t<\/p>\n

Dallying, shame fast, with vileness, lured by the call of dishonour.\n\t<\/p>\n

Such is the power Zeus gave to the winged words of a mortal !\n\t<\/p>\n

Foiled in his will, disowned by the years that stride on for ever,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet in the frenzy cold of his greed and his fallen ambition\n\t<\/p>\n

Doom from heaven he calls down on his countrymen, Trojan abuses\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy, his country, extolling her enemies, blessing her slayers.\n\t<\/p>\n

Such are the gods Antenor has made in his heart’s own image\n\t<\/p>\n

That if one evil man have not way for his greed and his longing\n\t<\/p>\n

Cities are doomed and kings must be slain and a nation must perish !\n\t<\/p>\n

But from the mind of the free and the brave I will answer thy bodings,\n\t<\/p>\n

Gold-hungry raven of Troy who
\n\tcroaks from thy nest at her princes. <\/p>\n

Only one doom irreparable treads down the soul of a nation,\n\t<\/p>\n

Only one downfall endures ; ’tis the ruin of greatness and virtue,\n\t<\/p>\n

Mourning when Freedom departs from the life and the heart of a people,
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-36<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Into her room comes creeping the mind of the slave and it poisons\n\t<\/p>\n

Manhood and joy and the voice to lying is trained and subjection\n\t<\/p>\n

Easy feels to the neck of man who is next to the godheads.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not of the fire am I terrified, not of the sword and its slaying ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Vileness of men appals me, baseness I fear and its voices.\n\t<\/p>\n

What can man suffer direr or worse than enslaved from a victor\n\t<\/p>\n

Boons to accept, to take safety and ease from the foe and the stranger,\n\t<\/p>\n

Fallen from the virtue stern that heaven permits to a mortal?\n\t<\/p>\n

Death is not keener than this nor the slaughter of friends and our dear ones.\n\t<\/p>\n

Out and alas ! earth’s greatest are earth and they fail in the testing,\n\t<\/p>\n

Conquered by sorrow and doubt, fate’s hammerers, fires of her furnace.\n\t<\/p>\n

God in their souls they renounce and submit to their clay and its promptings.\n\t<\/p>\n

Else could the heart of Troya have recoiled from the loom of the shadow\n\t<\/p>\n

Cast by Achilles’ spear or shrunk at the sound of his car-wheels ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Now he has graven an oath austere in his spirit un pliant\n\t<\/p>\n

Victor at last to constrain in his stride the walls of Apollo\n\t<\/p>\n

Burning Troy ere he sleeps. ‘Tis the vow of a high-crested nature ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Shall it break ramparted Troy ? Yea, the soul of a man too is mighty\n\t<\/p>\n

More than the stones and the mortar ! Troy had a soul once, O Trojans,\n\t<\/p>\n

Firm as her god-built ramparts. When in the hour of his passion1<\/sup>,\n\t<\/p>\n

When Sarpedon fell and Zeus averted his visage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Xanthus red to the sea ran sobbing with bodies of Trojans,\n\t<\/p>\n

When in the day of the silence of heaven the far-glancing helmet\n\t<\/p>\n

Ceased from the ways of the fight, and panic slew with Achilles\n\t<\/p>\n

Hosts who were left un shepherded pale at the fall of their greatest,\n\t<\/p>\n

Godlike Troy lived on. Do we speak mid a city’s ruins ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Lo ! she confronts her heavens as when Tros and Laomedon ruled her.\n\t<\/p>\n

All now is changed, these mutter and sigh to you, all now is ended ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Strength has renounced you, Fate has finished the thread of her spinning.\n\t<\/p>\n

Hector is dead, he walks in the shadows ; Troilus fights not ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Resting his curls on the asphodel he has forgotten his country ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Strong Sarpedon lies in Bellerophon’s city sleeping :\n\t<\/p>\n

Memnon is slain and the blood of Rhesus has dried on the Troad :\n\t<\/p>\n

All of the giant Asius sums in a handful of ashes.\n\t<\/p>\n

Grievous2<\/sup> are these things ; our hearts still keep all the pain of them
\ntreasured,\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> Alternatives to " in the hour of his passion":
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t   (i) in the hour of his uplifting              (ii) by the Fates (gods) (spears) overtaken <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup> Alternatives : Wretched, Miserable. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-37<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tHard though they grow by use and iron caskets of sorrow. <\/p>\n

\n\tHear yet, O fainters in wisdom snared by your pathos, <\/p>\n

\n\tKnow this iron world we live in where Hell casts its shadow. <\/p>\n

\n\tBlood and grief are the ransom of men for the joys of their transience, <\/p>\n

\n\tFor we are mortals bound in our strength and beset in our labour. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis is our human destiny ; every moment of living <\/p>\n

\n\tToil and loss have gained in the constant siege of our bodies. <\/p>\n

\n\tMen must sow earth with their lives1<\/sup> and their tears that their
\n\tcountry
\nmay prosper ;\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Earth who bore and devours us that life may be born from our remnants\n\t<\/p>\n

Then shall the Sacrifice reap2<\/sup> its fruits when the war-shout is silent,\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor shall the blood be in vain that our mother has felt on her bosom\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor shall the seed of the mighty fail when Death is the sower.\n\t<\/p>\n

Still from the loins of the mother eternal are heroes engendered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Still Deiphobus shouts in the war-front trampling the Argives,\n\t<\/p>\n

Strong Aeneas’ far-borne voice is heard from our ramparts,\n\t<\/p>\n

Paris’ hands are swift and his feet in the chases of Ares.\n\t<\/p>\n

Lo, when deserted we fight3<\/sup> by Asia’s soon-wearied peoples,\n\t<\/p>\n

Men ingrate who enjoyed the protection and loathed the protector,\n\t<\/p>\n

Heaven has sent us replacing a continent Penthesilea !\n\t<\/p>\n

Low has the heart of Achaia sunk since it shook at her war-cry.\n\t<\/p>\n

Ajax has bit at the dust ; it is all he shall have of the Troad ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Tall Meriones lies and measures his portion of booty.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who is the fighter in Ilion thrills not rejoicing to hearken\n\t<\/p>\n

Even her name on unwarlike lips, much more in the mellay\n\t<\/p>\n

Shout of the daughter of battles,
\n\tarmy potent Penthesilea ? <\/p>\n

If there were none but these only, if hosts came not surging behind them,\n\t<\/p>\n

Young men burning-eyed to out dare all the deeds of their elders,\n\t<\/p>\n

Each in his beauty a Troilus, each in his valour a Hector,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet were the measures poised in the equal balance of Ares.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who then compels you, O people unconquered, to sink down abjuring\n\t<\/p>\n

All that was Troy ? For O, if she yield, let her use not for ever\n\t<\/p>\n

One of her titles ! shame not the shade of Teucer and Ilus,\n\t<\/p>\n

Soil not Tros ! Are you awed by the strength of the swift-foot Achilles ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Is it a sweeter lure in the cadenced voice of Antenor ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Or are you weary of Time and the endless roar of the battle ?\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> hearts <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/font><\/sup> gather <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t3<\/font><\/sup> fought <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-38<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Wearier still are the Greeks ! their eyes look out o’er the waters\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor with the flight of their spears is the wing of their hopes towards Troya.\n\t<\/p>\n

Dull are their hearts ; they sink from the war-cry and turn from the
\nspear-stroke\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sullenly dragging backwards, desiring the paths of the Ocean,\n\t<\/p>\n

Dreaming of hearths that are far and the children growing to manhood\n\t<\/p>\n

Who are small infant faces still in the thoughts of their fathers.\n\t<\/p>\n

Therefore these call you to yield lest they wake and behold in the dawn-light\n\t<\/p>\n

All Poseidon whitening lean to the west in his waters\n\t<\/p>\n

Thick with the sails of the Greeks departing beaten to Hellas.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who is it calls ? Antenor the statesman, Antenor the patriot,\n\t<\/p>\n

Thus who loves his country and worships the soil of his fathers !\n\t<\/p>\n

Which of you loves like him Troya ? which of the children of heroes\n\t<\/p>\n

Yearns for the touch of a yoke on his neck and desires the aggressor ?\n\t<\/p>\n

If there be any so made by the gods in the nation of I his,\n\t<\/p>\n

Leaving this city which freemen have founded, freemen have dwelt in,\n\t<\/p>\n

Far on the beach let him make his couch in the tents of Achilles,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not in this mighty Ilion, not with the lioness fighting,\n\t<\/p>\n

Guarding the lair of her young and roaring back at her hunters.\n\t<\/p>\n

We who are souls descended from Ilus and seeds of his making,\n\t<\/p>\n

Other-hearted shall march from our gates to answer Achilles.\n\t<\/p>\n

What ! shall this ancient Ilion welcome the day of the conquered ?\n\t<\/p>\n

She who was head of the world, shall she live in the guard of the Hellene\n\t<\/p>\n

Cherished as slave girls are, who are taken in war, by their captors ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Europe shall walk in our streets with the pride and the gait of the victor ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Greeks shall enter our homes and prey on our mothers and daughters ?\n\t<\/p>\n

This Antenor desires and this Ucalegon favours.\n\t<\/p>\n

Traitors ! whether ’tis cowardice drives or the sceptic of virtue,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tCold-blooded age, or gold insatiably tempts from its coffers <\/p>\n

Pleading for safety from foreign hands and the sack and the plunder.\n\t<\/p>\n

Leave them, my brothers ! spare the baffled hypocrites ! Failure\n\t<\/p>\n

Sharpest shall torture their hearts when they know that still you are
\nTrojans.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Silence, O reason of man ! for a voice from the gods has been uttered !\n\t<\/p>\n

Dardanus, hearken the sound divine that comes to you mounting\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOut of the solemn ravines from the mystic seat on the tripod ! <\/p>\n

\n\tPhoebus, the master of Truth, has promised the earth to our peoples. <\/p>\n

Children of Zeus, rejoice ! for the Olympian brows have nodded<\/p>\n

\n\tRegal over the world. In earth’s rhythm of shadow and sunlight <\/p>\n

\n\tStorm is the dance of the locks of the God assenting to greatness, <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-39<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Zeus who with secret compulsion orders the ways of our nature ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Veiled in events he lives and working disguised in the mortal\n\t<\/p>\n

Builds our strength by pain, and an empire is born out of ruins.\n\t<\/p>\n

Then if the tempest be loud and the thunderbolt leaping incessant\n\t<\/p>\n

Shatters the roof, if the lintels flame at last and each cornice\n\t<\/p>\n

Shrieks with pain of the blast, if the very pillars totter,\n\t<\/p>\n

Keep yet your faith in Zeus, hold fast to the word of Apollo.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not by a little pain and not by a temperate labour\n\t<\/p>\n

Trained is the nation chosen by Zeus for a dateless dominion.\n\t<\/p>\n

Long must it labour rolled in the wrath1<\/sup> of the fathomless surges,\n\t<\/p>\n

Often neighbour with death and ere Ares grow firm to its banners\n\t<\/p>\n

Feel on the pride of its Capitol tread of the triumphing victor,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hear the barbarian knock at its gates or the neighbouring foeman\n\t<\/p>\n

Glad of the transient smile of his fortune suffer insulting ;\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

They, the nation eternal, brook their taunts who must perish !\n\t<\/p>\n

Heaviest toils they must bear ; they must wrestle with Fate and her Titans,\n\t<\/p>\n

And when some leader returns from the battle sole of his thousands\n\t<\/p>\n

Crushed by the hammers of God, yet never despair of their country.\n\t<\/p>\n

Dread not the ruin, fear not the storm-blast, yield not, O Trojans.\n\t<\/p>\n

Zeus shall rebuild ! Death ends not our days, the fire shall not triumph.\n\t<\/p>\n

Death ? I have faced it. Fire ? I have watched it climb in my vision\n\t<\/p>\n

Over the timeless domes and over the rooftops of Priam,\n\t<\/p>\n

But I have looked beyond and have seen the smile of Apollo.\n\t<\/p>\n

After her glorious centuries, after her world-wide triumphs,\n\t<\/p>\n

If, near her ramparts outnumbered she fights, by the nations forsaken,\n\t<\/p>\n

Lonely again on her hill, by her streams, and her meadows and beaches,\n\t<\/p>\n

Once where she revelled, shake to the tramp of her countless invaders,\n\t<\/p>\n

Testings are these from the god. For Fate severe like a mother\n\t<\/p>\n

Teaches our wills by disaster and strikes down the props that would weaken,\n\t<\/p>\n

Fate and the Thought on high that is wiser than yearnings of mortals.\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy has arisen before, but from ashes, not shame, not surrender !\n\t<\/p>\n

(Souls that are true to themselves are immortal; the soulless for ever\n\t<\/p>\n

Lingers helpless in Hades a shade among shades disappointed.)\n\t<\/p>\n

Now is the god in my bosom mighty compelling me, Trojans,\n\t<\/p>\n

Now I release what my spirit has kept and it saw in its vision;\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor will be silent for gibe of the cynic or sneer of the traitor.\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy shall triumph ! Hear, O ye peoples, the word of Apollo\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Hear it and tremble, O Greece, in thy youth and the dawn of thy future;\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1 <\/sup> foam <\/font>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-40<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Rather forget while thou canst, but the gods in their hour shall remind thee.\n\t<\/p>\n

Tremble, nations of Asia, false to the greatness within you.\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy shall surge back on your realms with the sword and the yoke of the
\nvictor.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Troy shall triumph! Though nations conspire and the gods lead her foemen,\n\t<\/p>\n

Fate that is born of the spirit is greater than they and will shield her.\n\t<\/p>\n

Foemen shall help her with war, her defeats shall be victory’s moulders.\n\t<\/p>\n

Walls that restrain shall be rent; she shall rise out of sessions unsettled,\n\t<\/p>\n

Oceans shall be her walls at the end and the desert her limit;\n\t<\/p>\n

Indus shall send to her envoys; her eyes shall look northward from Thule.\n\t<\/p>\n

She shall enring all the coasts with her strength like the kingly Poseidon,\n\t<\/p>\n

She shall o’ervault all the lands with her rule like the limitless azure."\n\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ceasing from speech Laocoon, girt with the shouts of a nation,\n\t<\/p>\n

Lapsed on his seat like one seized and abandoned and weakened; nor ended\n\t<\/p>\n

Only in iron applause, but throughout with a stormy approval\n\t<\/p>\n

Ares broke from the hearts of his people in ominous thunder.\n\t<\/p>\n

Savage and dire was the sound like a wild beast’s tracked out and hunted,\n\t<\/p>\n

Wounded, yet trusting to tear out the entrails live of its hunters,\n\t<\/p>\n

Savage and cruel and threatening doom to the foe and opponent.\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet when the shouting sank at last, Ucalegon rose up\n\t<\/p>\n

Trembling with age and with wrath and in accents hurried and piping\n\t<\/p>\n

Faltered a senile fierceness forth on the maddened assembly.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Ah, it is even so far that you dare, O you children of Priam,\n\t<\/p>\n

Favourites vile of a people sent mad by the gods, and thou risest,\n\t<\/p>\n

Dark Laocoon, prating of heroes and spurning for cowards,\n\t<\/p>\n

Smiting for traitors the aged and wise who were grey when they spawned thee\n\t<\/p>\n

Imp of destruction, mane of mischief! Ah, spur us with courage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Thou who hast never prevailed against even the feeblest Achaian.\n\t<\/p>\n

Rather twice hast thou raced in the rout to the ramparts for shelter,\n\t<\/p>\n

Leading the panic, and shrieked as thou ranst to the foemen for mercy\n\t<\/p>\n

Who were a mile behind thee, O matchless and wonderful racer.\n\t<\/p>\n

Safely counsel to others the pride and the firmness of heroes,\n\t<\/p>\n

Thou who wilt not die in the battle ! For even swiftest Achilles\n\t<\/p>\n

Could not o’ertake thee, I ween, nor wind-footed Penthesilea.\n\t<\/p>\n

Mask of a prophet, heart of a coward, tongue of a trickster,\n\t<\/p>\n

Timeless Ilion thou alone ruinest, helped by the Furies.\n\t<\/p>\n

I, Ucalegon, first will rend off the mask from thee, traitor.\n\t<\/p>\n

For I believe thee suborned by the cynic wiles of Odysseus\n\t<\/p>\n

And thou conspirest to seek this Troy with the greed of the Cretan."\n\t<\/p>\n

Hasting un stayed he pursued like a brook that scolds amid pebbles,
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-41<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Voicing angers shrill; for the people astonished were silent;\n\t<\/p>\n

Long he pursued not; a shouting broke from that stupor of fury,\n\t<\/p>\n

Men sprang pale to their feet and hurled out menaces lethal;\n\t<\/p>\n

All that assembly swayed like a forest swept by the storm-wind.\n\t<\/p>\n

Obstinate, straining his age-dimmed eyes, Ucalegon, trembling\n\t<\/p>\n

Worse yet with anger, clamoured feebly back at the people,\n\t<\/p>\n

Whelmed in their roar. Unheard was his voice like a swimmer in surges\n\t<\/p>\n

Lost, yet he spoke. But the anger grew in the throats of the people\n\t<\/p>\n

Lion-voiced, hurting the heart with sound and daunting the nature,\n\t<\/p>\n

Till from some stalwart hand a javelin whistling and vibrant\n\t<\/p>\n

Missing the silvered head of the senator rang disappointed\n\t<\/p>\n

Out on the distant wall of a house by the side of the market.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not even then would the old man hush or yield to the tempest.\n\t<\/p>\n

Wagging his hoary beard and shifting his aged eyeballs,\n\t<\/p>\n

Tossing his hands he stood; but Antenor seized him and Aetor,\n\t<\/p>\n

Dragged him down on his seat though he strove, and chid him and silenced.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Cease, O friend; for the gods have won. It were easier piping\n\t<\/p>\n

High with thy aged treble to alter the rage of the Ocean\n\t<\/p>\n

Than to o’erbear this people stirred by Laocoon. Leave now\n\t<\/p>\n

Effort unhelpful, wrap thy days in a mantle of silence;\n\t<\/p>\n

Give to the gods their will and dry-eyed wait for the ending."\n\t<\/p>\n

So now the old men ceased from their strife with the gods and with Troya;\n\t<\/p>\n

Cowed by the storm of the people’s wrath they desisted from hoping.\n\t<\/p>\n

But though the roar long swelled, like the sea when the winds have subsided,\n\t<\/p>\n

One man yet rose up unafraid and beckoned for silence,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not of the aged, but ripe in his look and ruddy of visage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Stalwart and bluff and short-limbed, Halamus son of Antenor.\n\t<\/p>\n

Forward he stood from the press and the people fell silent and listened,\n\t<\/p>\n

For he was ever first in the mellay and loved by the fighters.\n\t<\/p>\n

He with a smile began: "Come, friends, debate is soon ended\n\t<\/p>\n

If there is right but of lungs and you argue with javelins. Wisdom,\n\t<\/p>\n

Rather pray for her aid in this dangerous hour of your fortunes.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not to scalp Laocoon, too much praising his swiftness,\n\t<\/p>\n

Trojans, I rise; for some are born brave with the spear in the war-car,\n\t<\/p>\n

Others bold with the tongue, nor equal gifts unto all men\n\t<\/p>\n

Zeus has decreed who guides his world in a round that is devious\n\t<\/p>\n

Carried this way and that like a ship that is tossed on the waters.\n\t<\/p>\n

Why should we rail then at one who is lame by the force of Cronion?\n\t<\/p>\n

Not by his will is he lame; he would race, if he could, with the swiftest\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet is the halt man no runner, nor, friends, must you rise up and slay me,
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-42<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

If I should say of this priest, he is neither Sarpedon nor Hector.\n\t<\/p>\n

Then, if my father whom once you honoured, ancient Antenor,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hugs to him Argive gold which I see not, his son, in his mansion,\n\t<\/p>\n

Me too accusest thou, prophet Laocoon? Friends, you have watched me\n\t<\/p>\n

Sometimes fight; did you see with my house’s allies how I gambolled,\n\t<\/p>\n

Changed, when with sportive spear I was tickling the ribs of my Argives,\n\t<\/p>\n

Nudges of friendly counsel inviting to entry in Troya ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Men, these are visions of lackbrains; men, these are myths of the market.\n\t<\/p>\n

Let us have done with them, brothers and friends; hate only the Hellene.\n\t<\/p>\n

Prophet, I bow to the oracles. Wise are the gods in their silence,\n\t<\/p>\n

Wise when they speak; but their speech is other than ours and their wisdom\n\t<\/p>\n

Hard for a mortal mind to hold and not madden or wander;\n\t<\/p>\n

But for myself I see only the truth as a soldier who battles\n\t<\/p>\n

Judging the strength of his foes and the chances of iron encounter.\n\t<\/p>\n

Few are our armies, many the Greeks, and we waste in the combat\n\t<\/p>\n

Bound to our numbers,\u2014they by the ocean hemmed from their kinsmen,\n\t<\/p>\n

We by our fortunes, waves of the gods that are harder to master,\n\t<\/p>\n

They like a rock that is chipped, but we like a mist that disperses.\n\t<\/p>\n

Then if Achilles, bound by an oath, bring peace to us, healing,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bring to us respite, help, though bought at a price, yet full-measured,\n\t<\/p>\n

Strengths of the North at our side and safety assured from the Achaian\n\t<\/p>\n

For he is true though a Greek, will you shun this mighty advantage ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Peace at the least we shall have, though gold we lose and much glory;\n\t<\/p>\n

Peace we will use for our strength to breathe in, our wounds to recover,\n\t<\/p>\n

Teaching Time to prepare for happier wars in the future.\n\t<\/p>\n

Pause ere you fling from you life; you are mortals, not gods in your glory.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not for submission to new ally or to ancient foeman\n\t<\/p>\n

Peace these desire; for who would exchange wide death for subjection ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Who would submit to a yoke ? Or who shall rule Trojans in Troya ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Swords are there still at our sides, there are warriors’ hearts in our bosoms.\n\t<\/p>\n

Peace your senators welcome, not servitude, breathing they ask for.\n\t<\/p>\n

But if for war you pronounce, if a noble death you have chosen,\n\t<\/p>\n

That I approve. What fitter end for this warlike nation,\n\t<\/p>\n

Knowing that empires at last must sink and perish all cities,\n\t<\/p>\n

Than to preserve to the end posterity’s praise and its greatness\n\t<\/p>\n

Ceasing in clang our of arms and a city’s flames for our death-pyre ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Choose then with open eyes what the dread gods offer to Troya.\n\t<\/p>\n

Hope not now Hector is dead and Sarpedon, Asia inconstant,\n\t<\/p>\n

We but a handful, Troy can prevail over Greece and Achilles.\n\t<\/p>\n

Play not with dreams in this hour, but sternly, like men and not children,
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-43<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Choose with a noble and serious greatness fates fit for Troya.\n\t<\/p>\n

Stark we will fight till buried we fall under Ilion’s ruins,\n\t<\/p>\n

Or, unappeased, we will curb our strength for the hope of the future."\n\t<\/p>\n

Not without praise of his friends and assent of the thought fuller Trojans,\n\t<\/p>\n

Halamus spoke and ceased. But now in the Ilian forum\n\t<\/p>\n

Bright, of the sun-god a ray, and even before he had spoken\n\t<\/p>\n

Sending the joy of his brilliance into the hearts of his hearers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Paris arose. Not applauded his rising, but each man towards him\n\t<\/p>\n

Eagerly turned as if feeling that all before which was spoken\n\t<\/p>\n

Were but a prelude and this was the note he has waited for always.\n\t<\/p>\n

Sweet was his voice like a harp’s, when it chants of war, and its cadence\n\t<\/p>\n

Softened with touches of music thoughts that were hard to be suffered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Sweet like a string that is lightly struck, but it penetrates wholly.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Calm with the greatness you hold from your sires by the right of
\nyour nature\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I too would have you decide before Heaven in the strength of your spirits\n\t<\/p>\n

Not to the past and its memories moored like the thoughts of Antenor\n\t<\/p>\n

Hating the vivid march of the present, nor towards the future\n\t<\/p>\n

Panting through dreams like my brother Laocoon vexed by Apollo.\n\t<\/p>\n

Dead is the past; the void has possessed it; its drama is ended,\n\t<\/p>\n

Finished its music. The future is dim and remote from our knowledge,\n\t<\/p>\n

Silent it lies on the knees of the gods in their1<\/sup> luminous stillness.\n\t<\/p>\n

But to our gaze God’s light is a darkness, His plan is a chaos.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who shall foretell the event of a battle, the fall of a footstep ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Oracles, visions and prophecies voice but the dreams of the mortal,\n\t<\/p>\n

And ’tis our spirit within is the
\n\tPithiness tortured in Delphi. <\/p>\n

Heavenly voices to us are a silence, those colours a whiteness.\n\t<\/p>\n

Neither the thought of the statesman prevails nor the dream of the prophet,\n\t<\/p>\n

Whether one cry ‘Thus devise and thy heart shall be given its wanting’,\n\t<\/p>\n

Vainly the other ‘The heavens have spoken; hear then their message’.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who can point out the way of the gods and the path of their travel,\n\t<\/p>\n

Who shall impose on them bounds and an orbit ? The winds have their
\ntreading,\u2014\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They can be followed and seized, not the gods when they move towards
\ntheir purpose.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They are not bound by our deeds and our thinkings. Sin exalted\n\t<\/p>\n

Seizes secure on the thrones of the world for her glorious portion,\n\t<\/p>\n

Down to the bottomless pit the good man is thrust in his virtue.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/sup> the <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-44<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Leave to the gods their godhead and, mortal, turn to thy labour;\n\t<\/p>\n

Take what thou canst from the hour that is thine and be fearless in spirit;\n\t<\/p>\n

This is the greatness of man and the joy of his stay in the sunlight.\n\t<\/p>\n

Now whether over the waste of Poseidon the ships of the Argives\n\t<\/p>\n

Empty and sad shall return or sacred Ilion perish,\n\t<\/p>\n

Priam be slain and for ever cease this imperial nation,\n\t<\/p>\n

These things the gods are strong to conceal from the
\n\thopping of mortals. <\/p>\n

Neither Antenor knows nor Laocoon. Only of one thing\n\t<\/p>\n

Man can be sure, the will in his heart and his strength in his purpose :\n\t<\/p>\n

This too is Fate and this too the gods, nor the meanest in Heaven.\n\t<\/p>\n

Paris keeps what he seized from Time and Fate while unconquered1<\/sup>\n\t<\/p>\n

Life speeds warm through his veins and his heart is assured of the sunlight.\n\t<\/p>\n

After ’tis cold, none heeds, none hinders. Not for the dead man\n\t<\/p>\n

Earth and her wars and her cares, her joys and her gracious concessions,\n\t<\/p>\n

Whether for ever he sleeps in the chambers of Nature unmindful\n\t<\/p>\n

Or into wideness wakes like a dreamer called from his visions.\n\t<\/p>\n

Ilion in flames I choose, not fallen from the heights of her spirit.\n\t<\/p>\n

Great and free has she lived since they raised her twixt billow and mountain,\n\t<\/p>\n

Great let her end; let her offer her freedom to fire, not the Hellene.\n\t<\/p>\n

She was not founded by mortals; gods erected her ramparts,\n\t<\/p>\n

Lifted her piles to the sky, a seat not for slaves but the mighty.\n\t<\/p>\n

All men marvelled at Troy; by her deeds and her spirit they knew her\n\t<\/p>\n

Even from afar as the lion is known by his roar and his preying.\n\t<\/p>\n

Sole she lived royal and fell, erect in her leonine nature.\n\t<\/p>\n

So, O her children, still let her live un quelled in her purpose\n\t<\/p>\n

Either to stand with her2<\/sup> feet on the world oppressing the nations\n\t<\/p>\n

Or in her3<\/sup> ashes to lie and her4<\/sup> name be forgotten for ever.\n\t<\/p>\n

Justly your voices approve me,
\n\tarm potent children of Ilus; <\/p>\n

Straight from Zeus is our race and the Thunderer lives in our nature.\n\t<\/p>\n

Long I have suffered this5<\/sup> taunt that Paris was Ilion’s ruin\n\t<\/p>\n

Born on a night of the gods and of Ate, clothed in a body.\n\t<\/p>\n

Scornful I strode on my path6<\/sup> secure of the light in my bosom,\n\t<\/p>\n

Turned from the muttering voices of envy, their hates who are fallen,\n\t<\/p>\n

Voices of hate that cling round the wheels of the triumphing victor;\n\t<\/p>\n

Now if I speak, ’tis the strength in me answers, not to belittle,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> Paris the Priamid keeps what he seized from Time and Fate while
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup>,3<\/sup>,4 <\/sup>your <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t5<\/sup> Alternative to "suffered this": brooked their
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t6<\/sup> way <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-45<\/p>\n

\n

\n

That excusing which most I rejoice in and glory for ever,\n\t<\/p>\n

Tyndaris’ rape whom I seized by the will of divine Aphrodite.\n\t<\/p>\n

Mortal this error that Greece would have slumbered apart in her mountains,\n\t<\/p>\n

Sunk, by the trumpets of Fate unaroused and the morning within her,\n\t<\/p>\n

Only were Paris unborn and the world had not gazed upon Helen.\n\t<\/p>\n

Fools, who say that a spark was the cause of this giant destruction !\n\t<\/p>\n

War would have stridden on Troy though Helen were still in her Sparta\n\t<\/p>\n

Tending an Argive loom, not the glorious prize of the Trojans,\n\t<\/p>\n

Greece would have banded her nations though Paris had drunk not Eurotas,\n\t<\/p>\n

Coast against coast I set not, nor Ilion opposite Argos.\n\t<\/p>\n

Phryx accuse who upreared Troy’s domes by the azure Aegean,\n\t<\/p>\n

Curse Poseidon who fringed with Greece the blue of his Waters :\n\t<\/p>\n

Then was this war first decreed and then Agamemnon was fashioned;\n\t<\/p>\n

Armed he strode forth in the secret Thought that is womb of the future.\n\t<\/p>\n

Fate and Necessity guided these vessels, captained their armies.\n\t<\/p>\n

When they stood mailed at her gates, when they cried in the might of
\ntheir union,\n<\/p>\n

‘Troy, renounce thy alliances, draw back humbly from Hellas’,\n\t<\/p>\n

Should she have hearkened persuading her strength to a shameful compliance,\n\t<\/p>\n

Ilion queen of the world1<\/sup> whose voice was the breath of the storm-gods ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Should she have drawn back her foot as it strode towards the hills of the
\nLatins ?\n<\/p>\n

Thrace left bare to her foes, recoiled from Illyrian conquests ?\n\t<\/p>\n

If all this without battle were possible, people of Priam,\n\t<\/p>\n

Blame then Paris, say then that Helen was cause of the struggle.\n\t<\/p>\n

But I have sullied the hearth and unsealed the gaze of the Furies,\n\t<\/p>\n

Heaven I have armed with my sin, I have trampled the gift and the guest-rule,\n\t<\/p>\n

So was Troy doomed who righteous had triumphed, locked with the Argive.\n\t<\/p>\n

Fools or hypocrites ! Meanest falsehood is this among mortals,\n\t<\/p>\n

Veils of purity weaving, names misplacing ideal\n\t<\/p>\n

When our desires we disguise and paint the lusts of our nature.\n\t<\/p>\n

Men, ye are men in your pride and your strength, be not sophists and
\ntonguesters.\n<\/p>\n

Lie not ! say2<\/sup> not that nations live by righteousness, justice\n\t<\/p>\n

Shields them, gods out of heaven look down3<\/sup> on the crimes of the mighty !\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> ways, world ways
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup> prate <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t3<\/sup> wroth <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-46<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Known have men what screened itself1<\/sup> mouthing these semblances.
\nCrouching\n<\/p>\n

Dire like a beast in the green of the thicket, selfishness silent\n\t<\/p>\n

Crunches the bones of its prey while the priest and the statesman are
\nglozing.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So are the nations soothed and deceived by the clerics of virtue,\n\t<\/p>\n

Taught to reconcile fear of the gods with their lusts and their passions,\n\t<\/p>\n

So with a lie on their lips they march to the rapine and slaughter.\n\t<\/p>\n

Truly the vanquished were guilty ! Else would their cities have perished,\n\t<\/p>\n

Shrieked their ravished virgins, their peasants been hewn in the vineyards ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Truly the victors were tools of the gods and their glorious servants !\n\t<\/p>\n

Else would the war-cars have ground triumphant their bones whom they
\nhated ?\n<\/p>\n

Servants of God are they verily, even as the ape and the tiger.\n\t<\/p>\n

Does not the wild beast too triumph enjoying the flesh of his captives ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Tell us then what was the sin of the antelope, wherefore they doomed her\n\t<\/p>\n

Wroth at her many crimes ? Come, justify God to his creatures !\n\t<\/p>\n

Not to her sins was she offered, not to the Furies or justice,\n\t<\/p>\n

But to the strength of the lion the high gods offered a victim,\n\t<\/p>\n

Force that is God in the lion’s breast with the forest for altar.\n\t<\/p>\n

What, in the cities stormed and sacked by Achilles in Troas\n\t<\/p>\n

Was there no just man slain ? Was Brises then a transgressor ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Hearts that were pierced in his walls were they sinners tracked by the Furies?\n\t<\/p>\n

No, they were pious and just and their altars burned for Apollo,\n\t<\/p>\n

Reverent flamed up to Pallas who slew them aiding the Argives.\n\t<\/p>\n

Or if the crime of Paris they shared and his doom has embraced them,\n\t<\/p>\n

Whom had the island cities offended, stormed by the Locrian,\n\t<\/p>\n

Wave-kissed homes of peace but given to the sack and the spoiler ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Was then King Atreus just and the house accursed of Pelops,\n\t<\/p>\n

Tantalus’ race, whose deeds men shuddering hear and are silent?\n\t<\/p>\n

Look ! they endure, their pillars are firm, they are regnant and triumph.\n\t<\/p>\n

Or are Thyestean banquets sweet to the gods in their savour ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Only a woman’s heart is pursued in their wrath by the Furies !\n\t<\/p>\n

No, when the wrestlers meet and embrace in the mighty arena,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not at their sins and their virtues the high gods look in that trial;\n\t<\/p>\n

Which is the strongest, which is the subtlest, this they consider.\n\t<\/p>\n

Nay, there is none in the world to befriend save ourselves and our courage;\n\t<\/p>\n

Prowess alone in the battle is virtue, skill in the fighting\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> Alternative to "screened itself " : thing lies screened
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-47<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Only helps, the gods aid only the strong and the valiant.\n\t<\/p>\n

Put forth your lives in the blow, you shall beat back the banded aggressors.\n\t<\/p>\n

Neither believe that for justice denied your subjects have left you\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor that for justice trampled Pallas and Hera abandon.\n\t<\/p>\n

Two are the angels of God whom men worship, strength and enjoyment.\n\t<\/p>\n

Into this life which the sunlight bounds and the greenness has cradled,\n\t<\/p>\n

Armed with strength we have come; as our strength is, so is our joyance.\n\t<\/p>\n

What but for joyance is birth and what but for joyance is living?\n\t<\/p>\n

But on this earth that is narrow, this stage that is crowded, increasing\n\t<\/p>\n

One on another we press. There is hunger for lands and for oxen,\n\t<\/p>\n

Horses and armour and gold required1<\/sup>; possession allures us\n\t<\/p>\n

Adding always as field to field some fortunate farmer.\n\t<\/p>\n

Hearts too and minds are our prey ; we seize on men’s souls and their
\nbodies,\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Slaves to our works and desires that our hearts may bask golden in leisure.\n\t<\/p>\n

One on another we prey and one by another are mighty.\n\t<\/p>\n

This is the world and we have not made it ; if it is evil,\n\t<\/p>\n

Blame first the gods ; but for us, we must live by its laws or we perish.\n\t<\/p>\n

Power is divine ; divinest of all is power over mortals.\n\t<\/p>\n

Power then the conqueror seeks and power the imperial nation,\n\t<\/p>\n

Even as luminous, passionless, wonderful, high over all things\n\t<\/p>\n

Sit in their calmness the gods and oppressing our grief-tortured nations\n\t<\/p>\n

Stamp their wills on the world. Nor less in our death-besieged natures\n\t<\/p>\n

Gods are and altitudes. Earth resists, but my soul in me widens\n\t<\/p>\n

Helped by the toil behind and the agelong effort of Nature.\n\t<\/p>\n

Even in the worm is a god and it writhes for a form and an outlet.\n\t<\/p>\n

Workings immortal obscurely struggling, hints of a godhead\n\t<\/p>\n

Labour to form in this clay a divinity. Hera widens,\n\t<\/p>\n

Pallas aspires in me, Phoebus in flames goes battling and singing,\n\t<\/p>\n

Ares and Artemis chase through the fields of my soul in their hunting,\n\t<\/p>\n

Last in some hour of the Fates a Birth stands released and triumphant ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Poured by its deeds over earth it rejoices fulfilled in its splendour.\n\t<\/p>\n

Conscious dimly of births unfinished hid in our being\n\t<\/p>\n

Rest we cannot ; a world cries in us for space and for fullness.\n\t<\/p>\n

Fighting we strive by the spur of the gods who are in us and o’er us,\n\t<\/p>\n

Stamping our image on man and events to be Zeus or be Ares.\n\t<\/p>\n

Love and the need of mastery, joy and the longing for greatness\n\t<\/p>\n

Rage like a fire unquenchable burning the world and creating,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> desired
\n<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-48<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Nor till humanity dies will they sink in the ashes of Nature.\n\t<\/p>\n

All is injustice of love or all is injustice of battle.\n\t<\/p>\n

Man over woman, woman o’er man, over lover and foeman\n\t<\/p>\n

Wrestling we strive to expand in our souls, to be wide, to be joyous.1
\n\t<\/sup><\/p>\n

If thou wouldst only be just, then wherefore at all shouldst thou conquer ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Not to be just, but to rule, though with kindness and high-seated mercy,\n\t<\/p>\n

Taking the world for our own and our will from our slaves and our
\nsubjects,\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Smiting the proud and sparing the suppliant, Trojans, is conquest.\n\t<\/p>\n

Justice was base of thy government ? Vainly, O statesman, thou liest.\n\t<\/p>\n

If thou wert just, thou wouldst free thy slaves and be equal with all men.\n\t<\/p>\n

Such were a dream of some sage at night when he muses in fancy,\n\t<\/p>\n

Imaging freely a flawless world where none were afflicted,\n\t<\/p>\n

No man inferior, all could sublimely equal and brothers\n\t<\/p>\n

Live in a peace divine like the gods in their luminous regions.\n\t<\/p>\n

This, O Antenor, were justice known but in words to us mortals.\n\t<\/p>\n

But for the justice thou vauntest enslaving men to thy purpose,\n\t<\/p>\n

Setting an iron yoke, nor regarding their need and their nature,\n\t<\/p>\n

Then to say T am just ; I slay not save by procedure,\n\t<\/p>\n

Rob not save by law’ is an outrage to Zeus and his creatures.\n\t<\/p>\n

Terms are these feigned by the intellect making a pact with our yearnings,\n\t<\/p>\n

Lures of the sophist within us draping our passions with virtue.\n\t<\/p>\n

When thou art weak, thou art just, when thy subjects are strong and
\nremember.\n<\/p>\n

Therefore, O Trojans, be firm in your will and, though all men abandon,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bow not your heads to reproach nor your hearts to the sin of repentance ;\n\t<\/p>\n

For you have done what the gods desired in your breasts and are blameless.\n\t<\/p>\n

Proudly enjoy the earth that they gave you, enthroning their natures,\n\t<\/p>\n

Fight with the Greeks and the world and trample down the rebellious,\n\t<\/p>\n

What you have lost recover, nor yield to the hurricane passing.\n\t<\/p>\n

You cannot utterly die while the Power lives
\n\tuntried in your bosoms ; <\/p>\n

When ’tis withdrawn, not a moment of life can be added by virtue.\n\t<\/p>\n

Faint not for helpers fled ! Though your yoke had been mild as a father’s\n\t<\/p>\n

They would have gone as swiftly. Strength men desire in their masters ;\n\t<\/p>\n

All men worship success and in failure and weakness abandon.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not for his justice they clung to Teucer, but for their safety,\n\t<\/p>\n

Seeing in Troy a head and by barbarous foemen afflicted.\n\t<\/p>\n

Faint not, O Trojans, cease not from battle, persist in your labour !\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup>  happy <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-49<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Conquer the Greeks, your allies shall be yours and fresh nations your
\nsubjects.\n<\/p>\n

One care only lodge in your hearts, how to fight, how to conquer.\n\t<\/p>\n

Peace has smiled out of Pthia ; a hand comes outstretched from the
\nHellene.\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who would not join with the godlike ? who would not grasp at Achilles ?\n\t<\/p>\n

There is a price for his gifts, it is such as Achilles should ask for,\n\t<\/p>\n

Never this nation concede.1<\/sup> O Antenor’s golden phrases\n\t<\/p>\n

Glorifying rest to the tired and confuting patience and courage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Garbed with a subtlety lax and the hopes that palliate surrender !\n\t<\/p>\n

Charmed men applaud the skilful purpose, the dexterous speaker,\n\t<\/p>\n

This they forget that a Force decides, not the wiles of the statesman.2
\n\t<\/sup>‘<\/p>\n

Now let us yield’, do you say, ‘we will rise when our masters are
\nweakened’ ?\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nay, then our master’s master shall find us an easy possession !\n\t<\/p>\n

Easily nations bow to a yoke when their virtue relaxes ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Hard is the breaking fetters once worn, for the virtue has perished.\n\t<\/p>\n

Hope you when custom has shaped men into the mould of a vileness,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hugging their chains when the weak feel easier trampled than rising\n\t<\/p>\n

Or though they groan, yet have heart nor strength for the anguish of
\neffort,\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then to cast down whom, armed and strong, you prevailed not3<\/sup> opposing?\n\t<\/p>\n

Easy is lapse into uttermost hell, not easy salvation.\n\t<\/p>\n

Or have you dreamed that Achilles will save, this son of the gods and the
\nocean ?\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Naught else can be with the strong and the bold4<\/sup> save foeman or master.\n\t<\/p>\n

Know you so little the mood of the pursuer ? Think you the lion\n\t<\/p>\n

Only will lick his prey, that his jaws will refrain from the banquet ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Rest from thy bodings, Antenor ! Not all the valour of Troya\n\t<\/p>\n

Perished with Hector, nor with Polydamas vision has left her ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy is not eager to slay her soul in a pyre of dishonour.\n\t<\/p>\n

Still she has children left who remember the mood of their mother.\n\t<\/p>\n

Helen none shall take from me living, gold not a drachma\n\t<\/p>\n

Travels from coffers of Priam to Greece. Let another and older\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> endure <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup> After this line come two verses which seem to have been rejected in the manuscript :
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t           O let us give ourselves bound to the swallowing lust of the Ocean !
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t           Surely ’twill bear up our sloth on its crests to a harbour of Triumph !
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t3<\/sup> Alternatives to "prevailed not" : could hold not, were mastered.
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t4<\/font><\/sup> mighty <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-50<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Pay down his wealth if he will and his daughters serve Menelaus.\n\t<\/p>\n

Rather from Ilion I will go forth with my brothers and kinsmen;\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy I will leave and her shame and live with my heart and my honour\n\t<\/p>\n

Refuged with lions in Ida or build in the highlands a city\n\t<\/p>\n

Or in an isle of the seas or by dark-driven Pontic waters.\n\t<\/p>\n

Dear are the halls of our childhood, dear are the fields of our fathers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet to the soul that is free no spot on the earth is an exile.\n\t<\/p>\n

Rather wherever sunlight is bright, flowers bloom and the rivers\n\t<\/p>\n

Flow in their lucid streams to the Ocean, there is our country.\n\t<\/p>\n

So will I live in my soul’s wide freedom, never in Troya\n\t<\/p>\n

Shorn of my will and disgraced in my strength and the mock of my rivals.\n\t<\/p>\n

First had you yielded, shame at least had not stained your surrender.\n\t<\/p>\n

Strength indulges the weak ! But what Hector has fallen refusing,\n\t<\/p>\n

Men! what through ten loud years we denied with the spear for our answer,\n\t<\/p>\n

That what Trojan will ever renounce, though his city should perish ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Once having fought we will fight to the end nor that end shall be evil.\n\t<\/p>\n

Clamour the Argive spears in our walls ? Are the ladders erected ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Far on the plain is their flight, on the farther side of the Xanthus.\n\t<\/p>\n

Where are the deities hostile ? Vainly the eyes of the tremblers\n\t<\/p>\n

See them stalking vast in the ranks of the Greeks and the shoutings\n\t<\/p>\n

Dire of Poseidon they hear and are blind with the aegis of Pallas.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who then sustained so long this Troy, if the gods are against her ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Even the hills could not stand save upheld by their concert immortal.\n\t<\/p>\n

Now not with Tydeus’ son, not now with Odysseus and Ajax\n\t<\/p>\n

Trample the gods in the sound of their chariot-wheels, victory leading:\n\t<\/p>\n

Argos falls red in her heaps to their scythes; they shelter the Trojans;\n\t<\/p>\n

Victory unleashed follows and fawns upon Penthesilea.\n\t<\/p>\n

Ponder no more, O Ilion, city of ancient Priam!\n\t<\/p>\n

Rise, O beloved of the gods, and go forth in thy strength to the battle.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not by the dreams of Laocoon strung to the faith that is febrile,\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor with the
\n\ttrembling vain and the haunted thoughts of Antenor, <\/p>\n

But with a noble and serious strength and an obstinate valour\n\t<\/p>\n

Suffer the shock of your foes, O nation chosen by Heaven ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Proudly determine on victory, live by disaster unshaken.\n\t<\/p>\n

Either Fate receive like men, nay, like gods, nay, like Trojans."\n\t<\/p>\n

So like an army that streams and that marches, speeding and pausing,\n\t<\/p>\n

Drawing in horn and wing or widened for scouting and forage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bridging the floods, avoiding the mountains, threading the valleys,\n\t<\/p>\n

Fast with their flashing panoply clad in gold and in iron\n\t<\/p>\n

Moved the array of his thoughts; and throughout delight and approval
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-51<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Followed their march, in triumph led but like prisoners willing,\n\t<\/p>\n

Glad and unbound to a land they desire. Triumphant he ended,\n\t<\/p>\n

Lord of opinion, though by the aged frowned on and censured,\n\t<\/p>\n

But to this voice of their thoughts the young men vibrated wholly.\n\t<\/p>\n

Loud like a storm on the ocean mounted the roar of the people.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Cease from debate," men cried, "arise, O thou warlike Aeneas !\n\t<\/p>\n

Speak for this nation, launch like a spear at the tents of the Hellene,\n\t<\/p>\n

Ilion’s voice of war!" Then up mid a limitless shouting\n\t<\/p>\n

Stern and armed from his seat like a war-god helmed Aeneas\n\t<\/p>\n

Rose by King Priam approved in this last of Ilion’s sessions,\n\t<\/p>\n

Holding the staff of the senate’s authority. "Silence, O commons,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hear and assent or refuse as your right is, masters of Troya,\n\t<\/p>\n

Ancient and sovereign people, act that your kings have determined\n\t<\/p>\n

Sitting in council high, their reply to the strength of Achilles. ‘<\/p>\n

Son of the
\n\tA acids, vain is thy offer; the pride of thy challenge <\/p>\n

Rather we choose; it is nearer to Dardanus, King of the Hellenes.\n\t<\/p>\n

Neither shall Helen be led back, the Tyndarid, weeping to Argos\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor down the paths of peace revisit her fathers’ Eurotas.\n\t<\/p>\n

Death and the fire may prevail o’er us, never our wills shall surrender\n\t<\/p>\n

Lowering Priam’s heights and darkening Ilion’s splendours.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not of such sires were we born but of kings and of gods, O Larissan.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not with her gold Troy traffics for safety1<\/sup>, but with her spear-points.\n\t<\/p>\n

Stand with thy oath in the war-front, Achilles; call on thy helpers\n\t<\/p>\n

Armed to descend from the calm of Olympian heights to thy succour\n\t<\/p>\n

Hedging thy fame from defeat; for we all desire thee in battle,\n\t<\/p>\n

Mighty to end thee or tame at last by the floods of the Xanthus.’ "\n\t<\/p>\n

So Aeneas resonant spoke, stern, fronted like Ares,\n\t<\/p>\n

And with a voice that conquered the earth and invaded the heavens\n\t<\/p>\n

Loud they approved their doom and fulfilled their impulse immortal.\n\t<\/p>\n

Last Deiphobus rose in their meeting, head of their mellay;\n\t<\/p>\n

"Proudly and well have you answered, O nation beloved of Apollo;\n\t<\/p>\n

Fearless of death they must walk who would live and be mighty for ever.\n\t<\/p>\n

Now, for the sun is hastening up the empyrean azure,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hasten we also. Tasting of food round the call of your captains\n\t<\/p>\n

Meet in your armed companies, chariots and hoplites and archers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Strong be your hearts, let your courage be stern like the sun when it blazes;\n\t<\/p>\n

Fierce will the shock be today ere he sink blood-red in the waters."\n\t<\/p>\n

They with a voice as of Oceans meeting rose from their session,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Filling the streets with her tread Troy strode from her Ilian forum.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> Alternative to "traffics for safety" : seeks out her foemen.
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-52<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Three THE BOOK OF THE ASSEMBLY BUT as the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender Waited mute for a voice that could…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters","wpcat-91-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666","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=3666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}