That I should fall, I earned my wage.
Borne thence away, we go
Pelias and Iphitus and I; but Iphitus was spent
By eld, and by Ulysses' hurt half halting Pelias went.
So unto Priam's house we come, called by the clamour there,
Where such a mighty battle was as though none otherwhere
Yet burned: as though none others fell in all the town beside.
There all unbridled Mars we saw, the Danaans driving wide440
Against the house; with shield-roofs' rush the doors thereof beset.
The ladders cling unto the walls, men by the door-posts get
Some foothold up; with shielded left they meet the weapons' rain,
While on the battlements above grip with the right they gain.
The Dardans on the other side pluck roof and pinnacle
From off the house; with such-like shot they now, beholding well
The end anigh, all death at hand, make ready for the play:
And gilded beams, the pomp and joy of fathers passed away.
They roll adown, and other some with naked point and edge
The nether doorways of the place in close arrayment hedge.450
Blazed up our hearts again to aid this palace of a king,
To stead their toil, to vanquished men a little help to bring.
A door there was, a secret pass into the common way
Of all King Priam's houses there, that at the backward lay
As one goes by: in other days, while yet the lordship was,
Hapless Andromache thereby unto the twain would pass
Alone, or leading to the king Astyanax her boy.
And thereby now I gain the tower, whence wretched men of Troy
In helpless wise from out their hands were casting darts aloof.
There was a tower, a sheer hight down, builded from highest roof460
Up toward the stars; whence we were wont on Troy to look adown,
And thence away the Danaan ships, the Achæan tented town.
Against the highest stage hereof the steel about we bear,
Just where the joints do somewhat give: this from its roots we tear,
And heave it up and over wall, whose toppling at the last
Bears crash and ruin, and wide away the Danaans are down cast
Beneath its fall: but more come on: nor drift of stones doth lack,
Nor doth all kind of weapon-shot at any while grow slack.
Lo, Pyrrhus in the very porch forth to the door doth pass
Exulting; bright with glittering points and flashing of the brass;470
—E'en as a snake to daylight come, on evil herbage fed,
Who, swollen, 'neath the chilly soil hath had his winter bed,
And now, his ancient armour doffed, and sleek with youth new found,
With front upreared his slippery back he coileth o'er the ground
Up 'neath the sun; his three-cleft tongue within his mouth gleams clear:—
And with him Periphas the huge, Achilles' charioteer,
Now shield-bearer Automedon and all the Scyrian host
Closed on the walls and on the roof the blazing firebrands tost.
Pyrrhus in forefront of them all catches a mighty bill,
Beats in the hardened door, and tears perforce from hinge and sill480
The brazen leaves; a beam hewn through, wide gaped the oak hard knit
Into a great-mouthed window there, and through the midst of it
May men behold the inner house; the long halls open lie;
Bared is the heart of Priam's home, the place of kings gone by;
And close against the very door all armèd men they see.
That inner house indeed was mazed with wail and misery,
The inmost chambers of the place an echoing hubbub hold
Of women's cries, whose clamour smites the far-off stars of gold,
And through the house so mighty great the fearful mothers stray,
And wind their arms about the doors, and kisses on them lay.490
But Pyrrhus with his father's might comes on; no bolt avails,
No man against the might of him; the door all battered fails,
The door-leaves torn from off of hinge tumble and lie along:
Might maketh road; through passage forced the entering Danaans throng,
And slay the first and fill the place with armour of their ranks.
Nay nought so great is foaming flood that through its bursten banks
Breaks forth, and beateth down the moles that 'gainst its going stand.
And falls a fierce heap on the plain, and over all the land
Drags off the herds and herd-houses.
There saw I Pyrrhus wild
With death of men amidst the door, and either Atreus' child;500
And Hecuba and hundred wives her sons wed saw I there,
And Priam fouling with his blood the very altars fair
Whose fires he hallowed: fifty beds the hope of house to be,
The doorways proud with outland gold and war-got bravery
Sunk into ash; where fire hath failed the Danaans are enow.
Belike what fate on Priam fell thou askest me to show:
For when he saw the city lost, and his own house-door stormed,
And how in bowels of his house the host of foemen swarmed,
The ancient man in vain does on the arms long useless laid
About his quaking back of eld, and girds himself with blade510
Of no avail, and fareth forth amid the press to die.
A very midmost of the courts beneath the naked sky
A mighty altar stood: anear a bay exceeding old,
The altar and the Gods thereof did all in shadow hold;
And round about that altar-stead sat Hecuba the queen,
And many daughters: e'en as doves all huddled up are seen
'Neath the black storm they cling about the dear God's images.
But when in arms of early days King Priam now she sees,
She crieth: 'O unhappy spouse! what evil heart hast thou,
With weapons thus to gird thyself, or whither wilt thou now?520
Today availeth no such help, and no such warder's stay
May better aught; not even were my Hector here today.
But come thou hither unto me; this altar all shall save,
Or we shall die together here!'
Her arms about she gave
And took him, and the elder set adown in holy stead.
But lo! now one of Priam's sons, Polites, having fled
From Pyrrhus' murder through the swords and through the foeman's throng,
Runs wounded through the empty hall from