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From the Latin by Sir Charles Bowen
From The “Æneid”
ÆNEAS, speaking to Dido, Queen of Carthage
FORWARD we fare, | |
| Called to the palace of Priam by war-shouts rending the air. | |
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| Here of a truth raged battle, as though no combats beside | |
| Reigned elsewhere, no thousands about all Ilion died. | |
| Here we beheld in his fury the war-god; foemen the roof | 5 |
| Scaling, the threshold blocked with a penthouse, javelin-proof. | |
| Ladders rest on the walls, armed warriors climb by the door | |
| Stair upon stair, left hands, to the arrows round them that pour, | |
| Holding a buckler, the battlement ridge in the right held fast. | |
| Trojans in turn wrench loose from the palace turret and tower; | 10 |
| Ready with these, when the end seems visible,—death’s dark hour | |
| Closing around them now,—to defend their lives to the last. | |
| Gilded rafters, the glory of Trojan kings of the past, | |
| Roll on the enemy. Others, with javelins flashing fire, | |
| Form at the inner doors, and around them close in a ring. | 15 |
| Hearts grow bolder within us to succor the palace, to bring | |
| Aid to the soldier, and valor in vanquished hearts to inspire. | |
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| There was a gate with a secret door, that a passage adjoined | |
| Thridding the inner palace—a postern planted behind. | |
| Here Andromache, ill-starred queen, oft entered alone, | 20 |
| Visiting Hector’s parents, when yet they sate on the throne; | |
| Oft to his grandsire with her the boy Astyanax led. | |
| Passing the covered way to the roof I mount overhead, | |
| Where Troy’s children were hurling an idle javelin shower. | |
| From it a turret rose, on the topmost battlement height | 25 |
| Raised to the stars, whence Troy and the Danaan ships and the white | |
| Dorian tents were wont to be seen in a happier hour. | |
| With bright steel we assailed it, and where high flooring of tower | |
| Offered a joint that yielded, we wrenched it loose, and below | |
| Sent it a-drifting. It fell with a thunderous crash on the foe, | 30 |
| Carrying ruin afar. But the ranks close round us again, | |
| Stones and the myriad weapons of war unceasingly rain. | |
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| Facing the porch, on the threshold itself, stands Pyrrhus in bright | |
| Triumph, with glittering weapons, a flashing mirror of light. | |
| As to the light some viper, on grasses poisonous fed, | 35 |
| Swollen and buried long by the winter’s frost in his bed, | |
| Shedding his weeds, uprises in shining beauty and strength, | |
| Lifts, new-born, his bosom, and wreathes his slippery length, | |
| High to the sunlight darting a three-forked flickering tongue,— | |
| Periphas huge strides near, and the brave Automedon, long | 40 |
| Charioteer to Achilles, an armor-bearer to-day. | |
| All of the flower of Scyros beside him, warriors young, | |
| Crowd to the palace too, while flames on the battlement play. | |
| Pyrrhus in front of the host, with a two-edged axe in his hand, | |
| Breaches the stubborn doors, from the hinges rends with his brand | 45 |
| Brass-clamped timbers, a panel cleaves, to the heart of the oak | |
| Strikes, and a yawning chasm for the sunlight gapes at his stroke. | |
| Bare to the eye is the palace within: long vistas of hall | |
| Open; the inmost dwelling of Priam is seen of them all: | |
| Bare the inviolate chambers of kings of an earlier day, | 50 |
| And they descry on the threshold the armed men standing at bay. | |
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| Groaning and wild uproar through the inner palace begin; | |
| Women’s wailings are heard from the vaulted cloisters within. | |
| Shrieks to the golden stars are rolled. Scared mothers in fear | |
| Over the vast courts wander, embracing the thresholds dear, | 55 |
| Clasping and kissing the doors. On strides, as his father in might, | |
| Pyrrhus: no gate can stay him, nor guard withstand him to-night; | |
| Portals yield at the thunder of strokes plied ever and aye; | |
| Down from the hinges the gates are flung on their faces to lie. | |
| Entry is broken; the enemy’s hosts stream inwards and kill | 60 |
| All in the van, each space with a countless soldiery fill. | |
| Not so rages the river, that o’er its barriers flows | |
| White with foam, overturning the earth-built mounds that oppose, | |
| When on the fields as a mountain it rolls, by meadow and wold, | |
| Sweeping to ruin the herd and the stall. These eyes did behold | 65 |
| Pyrrhus maddened with slaughter; and marked on the sill of the gate | |
| Both the Atridæ brethren. I saw where Hecuba sate, | |
| Round her a hundred brides of her sons,—saw Priam with blood | |
| Staining the altar-fires he had hallowed himself to his god. | |
| Fifty his bridal chambers within,—each seeming a sweet | 70 |
| Promise of children’s children,—in dust all lie at his feet! | |
| Doors emblazoned with spoils, and with proud barbarian gold, | |
| Lie in the dust! Where flames yield passage, Danaans hold! | |
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