Aeneid, Book Two. The room fell silent, all eyes on Aeneas, who from his high couch now began to speak. My queen, you are asking me to relive unspeakable sorrow, to recall how the Greeks pulled down Troy, that tragic realm with all its riches.
I saw those horrors myself and played no small part in them. What myrmidon or dilopian, what brutal soldier of Ulysses could tell such a tale? and refrain from tears. And now dewy night is rushing from the sky, and the setting stars make sleep seem sweet.
But if you are so passionate to learn of our misfortunes, to hear a brief account of Troy's last struggle, although my mind shudders to remember and recoils in pain, I will begin. Broken by war and rebuffed by the fates for so many years, the Greek warlords built a horse, aided by the divine art of Pallas. A horse the size of a mountain, weaving its ribs out of beams of fur. They pretended it was a votive offering for their safe return home, so the story went. But deep within the horse's cavernous dark they concealed an elite band, all their best, stuffing its huge womb with men at arms.
Within sight of Troy lies a famous island, Tenedos, prosperous while Priam's kingdom stood, now just a bay with poor anchorage for ships. The Greeks sailed there and hid on the desolate shore. They were gone, we thought, sailed off to Mycenae, and so all of Troy shook off its long sorrow.
The gates were opened. It was a joy to visit the Doric camp, the abandoned beachhead, the deserted sites. Here the Dilopians pitched their tents. Here fierce Achilles.
Here lay the ships. Here were the battle lines. Some of us gaped at the Virgin Minerva's fatal gift, amazed at the massive horse. the motis wanted it dragged inside the walls and installed in the citadel treason perhaps or troy's doom was already in motion but caphus and other wiser heads urged us to either pitch this insidious greek gift into the sea or burn it on the spot or else pierce and probe the belly's hidden hollows the crowd took sides uncertain what to do and now laocoon comes running down from the citadel.
At the head of a great throng and in his burning haste, he cries from afar, Are you out of your minds, you poor fools? Are you so easily convinced that the enemy has sailed away? Do you honestly think that any gift from the Greeks comes without treachery?
What is Ulysses known for? Either this lumber is hiding Achaeans inside, or it has been built as an engine of war to attack our walls to spy on our homes and come down on the city from above or some other evil lurks inside do not trust the horse trojans whatever it is i fear the greeks even when they bring gifts with that he hurled his spear with enormous force into the vaulting belly of the beast the shaft stood quivering and the hollow insides reverberated with a cavernous moan if we had not been on the god's wrong side if we had been thinking right laocoon would have driven us to hack our way into the greek lair and troy would still stand and you high rock of priam would remain but at that moment a band of dardan shepherds came up with loud shouts dragging to the king a prisoner with his hands bound behind his back this man had deliberately gotten himself captured with one purpose in mind to open troy to the greeks ready to either work his deceits or face certain death The Trojan youths streamed in from all sides to see the captive and jeer at him. Hear now the treachery of the Greeks, and from one offense learn all their evil.
The man stood in full sight of the crowd, dismayed, unarmed, and glancing around at the ranks of men. He cried out, Ah, what land, what sea can receive me now? What will be my final wretched fate? I have no place among the Greeks, and the Trojans are clamoring for my blood. at this our mood changed and we prodded him to tell us what he meant who were his people and what was he counting on to save him now that he was our prisoner finally he stopped trembling and began to speak come what may king i will tell you all and not deny first that i am a danaan fortune may have damned sinon to misery but she will not make him a liar as well you may have heard the name palamedes belus's glorious son whom the greeks condemned to death under false charges because he opposed the war He was innocent.
Now they mourn him, now that he is dead. He was my kinsman and my father. A poor man sent me here in his company when I was just a boy.
While Palamedes was still in good standing, still thrived in council, I too had somewhat of a name, some honor, but when, through the malice of cunning Ulysses, everyone knows this, he passed from this world, I was a ruined man, and dragged on my life in darkness and grief, eating my heart out over the fate of my innocent friend. Nor was I silent, but I raved that if I ever had the chance, ever returned as victor to Argos, I would have my vengeance. My words aroused resentment, and my life was now infected.
Ulysses made it his mission to terrorize me with countless new charges, sowing rumors in everyone's ears, searching in his guilt for weapons against me. In the end, he found fortune's tool, Calchas, the soothsayer. But you don't want to hear all this. And why should I stall? If you paint all Greeks with the same stripe, if he's a Cain, is all you need to hear, take your vengeance at once.
This is what the Ithacan would want. and what atreus's sons would pay dearly for now indeed we burned to know more strangers as we were to infamy so great and to greek guile trembling he went on weary with the long war the greeks often wanted to quit troy and sail home if only they had but stormy weather and rough seas would scare them from leaving and when they'd hammered together the maple horse the sky rumbled even more anxious we sent eurypylus to consult the oracle of phoebus apollo And he brought back these dismal words. You placated the winds with a virgin's blood, who come, O Danaeans, to the shores of Troy.
Your return must be won with an Argive life. When the gods'words reached the army's ears, everyone was dazed, and an icy fear seeped into their bones. Which man was doomed? Whom would Apollo claim? The Ithacan dragged Calchas out into the roaring crowd and demanded to know what heaven portended.
many divined that this despicable ploy was aimed at me and saw what was coming five days and five more the seer sat in his hut silent refusing to sentence anyone to death finally forced by the ithacan's cries calchas broke his silence and as agreed doomed me to the altar everyone approved and the ruin each had feared for himself they bore well when it devolved upon one and now the dark day dawned the salted grain the sacral headbands were being prepared for my ritual slaughter when i confess i broke my bonds and snatched myself from death i skulked all night in a muddy swamp hidden in the sedge holding my breath until they sailed now i have no hope of seeing my homeland my sweet children the father i long for and the greeks may make them pay for my escape poor things and by their death expiate my sin and so i pray but whatever powers above still witness truth and by any faith we men still have uncorrupted show mercy to a suffering soul guiltless and wronged we spared him for his tears and pitied him of our own accord priam himself ordered his shackles removed and spoke to him kindly whoever you are take no further thought of the greeks you are one of us now but tell me and speak the whole truth why did they erect this monstrous horse who devised it and to what purpose is it a religious offering or an engine of war thus priam and sinan the consummate liar lifting his unchained hands to the stars eternal fires of heaven i summon you and your inviolable power to witness and you altars and nefarious blades which i escaped and you consecrated fillets which as a victim i wore it is just for me to break the sacred oaths of the greeks just to those men and to lay bare to the sky every secret they would conceal i am bound by no law of my country but you troy stand by your word and keep your faith if what i say proves to be your salvation from the war's beginning pallas athene was the greeks entire hope but when wicked diomedes and ulysses with his criminal mind entered her high temple murdered the guards and stole the fateful palladium daring to handle her virgin fillets with blood-stained fingers then the danaan's fortunes began to falter their strength was broken and the goddess turned her back on them tritonia gave us clear portents of her displeasure as soon as her statue was set up in camp flames glittered from her upturned eyes sweat poured down her limbs and three times she flashed up from the ground miraculous holding her shield and quivering spear Calchas at once began to prophesy, the Greeks must attempt to retreat by sea. Troy cannot be taken by Argive weapons until they seek new omens in Argos, and return the godhead carried away in curved heels over open water. they are sailing over to mycenae now and when they have recruited soldiers and gods they will recross the water all unforeseen so calchas sifted the omens and counselled the greeks to erect this horse in expiation of the palladium's theft and the godhead wronged and he ordered them to build its oaken bulk up to the sky so it could not be brought through the city's gates or walls and there protect the trojan people under the old religion for if you lay violent hands upon this offering to minerva destruction will fall May the gods turn this omen against the Greeks upon Priam's realm, but if your hands bring it into the city, Asia will wage war upon Pelops's walls, and this fate awaits our children's children.
And so, through Sinon's treacherous art, his story was believed, and we were taken with cunning, captured with forced tears, we whom neither great Diomedes nor Achilles of Larissa could subdue, nor ten years of war, nor a thousand ships. What happened next was more horrible still, and threw us into deepening chaos. Laocoon, serving by Lot as Neptune's priest, was sacrificing a great bull at the god's altar when we saw, coming from Tenedos, over the calm water, a pair of serpents.
I shudder to recall them. Making for shore, trailing huge coils, they sheared through the sea, and their bloody crests arched over the waves, as they writhed and twisted in the seething surf. They were almost ashore.
Their eyes were shot with blood and fire, and their tongues hissed and flickered in their open mouths. We scattered, pale with fear, as the sea snakes glided through the sand, straight for Laocoon. First, They entwined the priest's two sons in great looping spirals, and then they sank their fangs into the boy's wretched bodies and began to feed. Then they seized Laocoon as he ran to their aid, weapon in hand, and lashed their scaly bodies twice around his waist and twice around his neck.
Their heads reared high as the priest struggled to wrench himself free from the knotted coils. His headbands were soaked with venom and gore, cries reached up to the stars wounded by an ill-aimed blow a bull will bellow as it flees the altar and shakes the axe from his neck so too lay but the twin serpent slithered off to the high temple of pallas and took refuge at the grim goddess's feet vanished behind the disc of her shield and in human terror coiled through our hearts shuddering with horror everyone said laocoon had received the punishment he deserved for wounding the sacred wood of the horse with his accursed spear all proclaimed the horse should be drawn to minerva's temple and her godhead appeased we breached the walls everyone girding themselves for the work and set wheels beneath the feet of the horse a noose was made taut around its neck and the fateful contraption inched up the battlements pregnant with arms boys and unwed girls circled round it singing hymns and touching the rope with glee on it moved gliding like a threat into the city o my country o ilium home of the gods o walls of troy famed in war four times at the very threshold of the gate the horse halted and four times weapons clattered in its belly yet we pressed on mindlessly blind with passion and installed the ill-starred monster on our high holy rock even then cassandra opened her lips against the coming doom lips cursed by a god never to be believed by the teucrians and we pitiful trojans on our last day wreathed the shrines of the gods with flowers the sky turned and night swept up from ocean enfolding in its great shadow earth and heaven and the myrmidons treachery the trojans spread out along the wall where dead silent now. Slumber, entwining their weary limbs, and the Argive fleet started to sail from Tenedos through the silent, complicit moonlight. Making for the shore they knew all too well. The flagship raised a beacon, and at this signal, Sinon, cloaked by the gods'unjust decrees, stealthily unlocked the pine trapdoor, and the horse released from its open womb the enclosed Danaans.
glad to push themselves out of the hollow oak into the cool night air the sandras and sthenelius and grim ulysses sliding down the rope acamas and thoas achilles son neoptolemus great machan menelaus and epios himself the fabricator of the insidious force they fanned out through a city drowned in sleep still the guards throats opened all the gates and joined as planned the invading greeks at that late hour when sleep begins to drift upon fretful humanity as grace from the gods hector appeared to me in my dreams pitiful spirit weeping black with blood and dust from the ruts of Achilles'chariot, thongs piercing his swollen ankles. Ah, how he looked, how different from that Hector who returned to Troy wearing Achilles'armor, the Hector who threw fire on the Danaean ships. His beard was matted, his hair clotted with gore, and he bore all the wounds he had received fighting before the country's walls. In my dream, I blurted out to him these tearful words. light of dardania troy's finest hope what has delayed you from what shores have you come to answer our prayers we have suffered many losses since you left us hector yet we have labored on and now we see you at the end of our strength why has your face been defiled and what are these wounds i see my empty questions meant nothing to him with a heavy sigh from deep within he said run Child of the goddess, save yourself from these flames.
The enemy holds these walls. Great Troy is falling. Enough has been given to Priam and his country.
If Pergamum's height could be defended by a hero's hand, its defense would have been this hand of mine. Troy commends to you the gods of the city. Accept them as companions of your destiny and seek for them the great walls you will found. after you have wandered across the sea he spoke and brought out from the sanctuary great vesta her chaplets and her eternal fire by now the lamentation in the city had grown to such proportions that it reached my father anchises house secluded though it was among the pines the sickening sound of battle startled me from sleep and i climbed to the roof and stood at the very top upright and listening it was as if the south wind were fanning fire through the fields, or a mountain torrent had leveled the farmlands and swept away the oxen's tillage, flattening the hedgerows, and I was a shepherd listening in the dark from some towering rock.
Then the truth was revealed. The Danaeans'treachery lay open before me. Diophobus's great house was collapsing in flames, as was Eucaligon's next door. The Sagaean straits burned with the inferno's reflecting light. men's shouts rose with the shrill sound of horns out of my mind i took up arms no battle plan but my soul burned to gather a war party and storm the citadel rage and fury sent my mind reeling and my only thought was how glorious it is to die in combat at that moment panthus priest of apollo ran up to my door dragging his grandson away from greek swords the sacred images of our vanquished gods clutched in his arms where is the fighting thickest panthus what position should we try to hold my words were scarcely out when he answered groaning troy's last day and final hour have come we are trojans no more ilium is no more the great glory of the teucrians is gone jupiter in his rage has given all to Argos, and Greeks are lords or burning city.
High stands the horse, pouring forth armed men, and Sinon, insolent in victory, sets fires everywhere. Thousands of troops, as many as ever, came from Mycenae, are at the wide open gates. Others patrol the streets.
A line of unsheathed glistening steel stands ready for slaughter. Our night guard is barely resisting and fighting blind. panthus words and will of the gods drove me through the inferno of battle wherever the grim fury called wherever the roars and shouts rose to the sky falling in with me in the moonlight were rapias and epitus one of troy's best hippanus and damas and a little throng now and young corbus son of migdon he had come to troy in those last days madly in love with cassandra and brought aid to priam A sturdy son-in-law, poor boy if only he had listened to the warnings of his raving bride.
When I saw them close ranks, eager for battle, I began. Brave hearts, brave in vain, if you are committed to follow me to the end, you see how we stand. All the gods who sustained this realm are gone, leaving altar and shrine.
You are fighting to save a city in flames. All that is left for us is to rush onto swords and die. The only chance for the conquered is to hope for none.
This added fury to the young men's courage, like Wolves in a black mist, blind with hunger, their whelps waiting with dry throats. We passed through the enemy's swords to certain death, and held our course to the city's center. Ebony night swirled around us.
Who could tell that night's carnage, or match it with tears? The ancient city fell, that had for many years been queen. Corpses lay piled everywhere.
In the streets, the houses, the hallowed thresholds of the temples, and it was not only Trojans who paid in blood. At times, the vanquished felt their valor pulse through their hearts, and the conquering Greeks fell. Raw fear was everywhere.
Grief was everywhere. Everywhere, the many masks of death. androgyos offered himself to us first heading up a large company of greeks he mistook us for an allied band and called on the double men what took you so long we're burning and looting pergamum here and you're just arriving from the ships he realized at once from our tentative reply that we were the enemy he froze choked on his own words and then tried to backpedal like a man who has stopped on a snake hidden in briers and in sudden terror cringes when it rears and puffs out its purple hood androgyos was shaking and backing away when we charged and hedged them in unfamiliar with the terrain they panicked and we cut them down fortune smiling on our first effort flushed with success corbus cried let's follow fortune's lead and exchange our armor for danaan gear who cares if this is deceit or valor the enemy will supply us with weapons with that he put on androgyos plumed helmet hefted his emblazoned shield and hung an argive sword by his side so too ripias demas and my other boys their spirits high as they armed themselves in new-won spoils we moved out mingling with the greeks and with gods not ours in the blind night we engaged in many skirmishes and sent many a greek into the jaws of orcus some scattered to the safety of the shore and the ships others like terrified children climbed back up into the belly of the horse never rely on the gods for anything against their will the next thing we saw was cassandra priam's daughter being dragged hair streaming from the shrine of minerva's temple lifting to heaven her burning eyes her eyes only for her tender hands were bound corbus could not endure this he threw himself into the midst of the band determined to die we closed ranks and charged but were overwhelmed first our countrymen targeted our uniforms the misleading crests on our greek helmets picking us off from the roof a piteous slaughter then the greeks themselves grunting with anger at the attempted rescue of cassandra came at us from all sides ajax most viciously then the two sons of atreus and ulysses men it was like a hurricane when winds clash from every direction winds west and south and the east proud with its colts of dawn the forests grown and near us foams with rage as he stirs with his trident the lowest depths The men we had routed with our stratagem in the dim of night rematerialized, the first to recognize our mendacious lying shields and discordant accents. We were outnumbered. Corbus fell first, killed by Penelaeus at the war goddess's altar.
Then Rapaeus, of all the Tucreans the most righteous, but the gods saw otherwise, went down. Hippanas and Demas were run through by friends and you panthus neither your piety nor apollo's fillet protected you when you fell o ashes of ilium o last flames of my people be witness that in your fall i shunned neither fight nor chance and had my fate been to die by greek hands i had earned that fate we were torn from there iphitus pelias and myself we three iphitus heavy with years Peleus, slowed by a wound from Ulysses, without pause we were called by the clamor to priam's house here was an enormous battle so intense it was as if there was no fighting anywhere else and men were not dying throughout the city here we saw the war-god unchained greeks scrambled to the roof and the threshold was besieged by a bulge of shields ladders hugged the walls and men inched their way upward on the rungs left hands holding up shields against projectiles right hands clutching posts and battlements above the trojans tore down the towers and all the roof-top to use as missiles they saw the end was near defending themselves to the death rolling down gilded rafters their fathers splendors of old other troops swords drawn massed around the doors blocking the entrances our pulses quickened with new energy to protect the palace and come to the aid of our vanquished men there was a secret entry in the rear a passageway through priam's palace by which andromache poor soul would come unattended to her husband's parents while troy still stood and lead her boy astyanax to see his grandfather i scaled the roof where the two koreans were lobbing their useless missiles to little effect rising to the sky from the roof's sheer edge stood a tower from which all troy could once be seen and in the distance a thousand greek ships and their beach head camp We pried at its upper stories with our swords until the joints gave way, wrenched it loose, and sent it crashing down like rolling thunder onto the ranks of the Greeks. But more Greeks kept coming, and more stones kept falling.
Framed by the portal to the entrance court, Pyrrhus, Neoptolemus, stood in his glory, haloed in bronze. As a snake raised on poison basks in the light after a cold winter has kept him underground, venomous and swollen. now having sloughed his old skin glistening with youth he puffs out his breast and slides his lubricious coils toward the sun flicking his three forked tongue at his side loomed periphas and automedon once achilles charioteer now the armor-bearer of achilles son massed around them were all the tough troops from sciurus hurling torches on to the roof as they closed in on priam's palace led the charge, cleaving through the solid threshold with a battle axe, tearing the brass-bound doors from their hinges, and hatcheting a hole the size of a window in a huge oaken panel, revealing all the house in a grim tableau, open to view, where the long halls laid bare was the inner sanctum of Priam and the kings of old, who now saw armed men standing on their very threshold. a tumultuous roar tore through the house its vaulted halls echoed with women's wails and the din reverberated to the golden stars trembling matrons roamed lost through the rooms clinging to the doors lips pressed against them pyrrhus moved on with all his father's might and nothing could stop him the gate gave way before the battering-ram and the doors wrenched from their sockets fell to the floor the greeks forced their way in butchered the trojans who stood up against them and filled the whole space with their soldiery worse than a river bursting through its banks the water churning in overwhelming fury flooding the fields and sweeping herds and folds over the plain i saw with my own eyes neoptolemus lusting for slaughter and atreus two sons there on threshold i saw hecuba with her hundred daughters and priam polluting with his blood the very altars he had consecrated himself these fifty bed-chambers that promise of offspring the door-posts proud with barbarian gold all lost the greeks held what the fire spared and what you may ask was priam's fate when he saw that this city had fallen his city the doors of his palace shattered and the enemy at his very hearth The old man slung his long-unused armor over his trembling shoulders, strapped on his useless sword, and bound to die, charged to the enemy.
In the middle of the palace, under heaven's naked wheel, an enormous altar lay beneath the branches of an ancient laurel whose shade embraced the household gods. In this sacred place, Hecuba and her daughters huddled like doves. driven by a black storm clutching the gods images.
But when she saw Priam himself clad in the armor of his youth she cried out, My poor husband, what insanity has driven you to take up these weapons? Where are you rushing to? The house has passed, the hour has passed for defense like this, even if my Hector were still here.
Come to this altar, please, it will protect us all, or you will die with us. Hecuba said these things, took the aged man in her arms, and placed him on the holy seat. And now, Pelites, one of Priam's sons, pursued by Pyrrhus, came running through the colonnades, wounded. When he reached the vast atrium, Pyrrhus was breathing down his neck, and yet he slipped away to face his parents'eyes. There he fell, Pyrrhus's spear in his back, and poured out his life in a pool of blood.
Then Priam, in death's grip as he was, did not hold back his anger or spare his voice for this heinous crime he cried this outrage may the gods in heaven if there is heaven any spirit that cares for what is just and good may the gods treat you as you deserve for making me watch my own son's murder and defiling with death a father's face not so was achilles whom you falsely claimed to be your father in the face of priam his foe but honored a suppliant's rights and trust and allowed the bloodless corpse of hector's burial and sent me back to my own realm and the old man through his feeble spear its tip clanged against the bronze of pyrrhus shield and dangled uselessly from its boss and pyrrhus then you can take this news to my father the son of peleus Be sure to tell him about my sad behavior and how degenerate his son has become. Now die. So saying, he dragged Priam, trembling and slipping in his son's blood, up to the altar. Winding his left hand in the old man's hair, with his right he lifted his flashing sword and buried it up to its hilt in his side.
So ended Priam. such was his fated doom as troy burned before his eyes and pergamum fell once the lord of so many peoples the sovereign of asia he lies now a huge trunk upon the shore head severed from his neck a corpse without a name then an awful sense of dread enveloped me i stood in a daze and there rose before me the image of my dear father the same age as the wounded king whom i was watching gasp out his life Before me rose Creusa, abandoned, the pillaged house and the plight of little Aeolus. I looked around for my troops.
They had all deserted me, too fatigued to fight. They had either jumped to a welcome death or dropped limply into the flames. Now I alone was left when I saw, hiding in the shadows of Vesta's shrine, Helen, daughter of Tyndareus. The bright fires gave me light as I wandered here and there, casting my eyes over everything. Fearing the Trojans'anger for Troy's fall, the vengeance of the Greeks, and the wrath of her deserted husband, Helen, destroyer alike of her own country and ours, this detestable woman, crouched by the altars, my soul flared with a burning desire to avenge Troy and make her pay for her sins.
So, she will look upon Sparta unscathed and enter Mycenae as a triumphant queen? She will get to see her husband and home, her parents and children attended by Trojan women and Phrygian slaves. Was it for this that Priam was slaughtered, Ilium burned, and Arshur soaked with blood?
Never. Although there is no heroic name in killing a woman, no victory, I will be praised for snuffing out evil and meting out justice. And it will be sweet to quench my soul with vengeful fire and satisfy my people's ashes. I was carried away by this frenzy when, shining through the dark, in a halo of light, my mother appeared before my eyes, more clearly than ever before, revealing herself as a radiant goddess, just as the great ones in heaven see her, so beautiful, so tall. She caught me by the hand and, in grace, spoke these words from her pale rose lips.
What anguish is behind this uncontrollable rage? Why so angry, my son? And where has your love for our family gone?
will you not first see where he left your father anchises feeble with age or whether creusa and your child ascanius are still alive they are surrounded by greek soldiers and but for my loving care would have died in the flames by now or the swords of the enemy would have tasted their blood it is not the detestable beauty of tyndarean helen or sinful paris that is to blame no it is the gods the remorseless gods gods who have ruined Troy and burnt the topless towers of Ilium. See for yourself. I will dispel the mist that enshrouds you and dulls your mortal vision.
You might not trust your mothers otherwise and disregard her kind instructions. Here, where you see piles of rubble, stones, wrenched from stones and plumes of smoke and dust is Neptune shaking the walls he has pried up with his great trident and uprooting the city from its foundations over here Juno ferocious in her iron vest first to hold the western gate summons with her usual fury reinforcements from the ships and now look up Tritonian palace is already seated on the highest towers glowing from a thunderhead grim with her gorgon The father himself gives the Greeks courage and strength and incites the gods to oppose the Trojans. Hurry away, my son, and end your struggle.
I will bring you safely to your father's door. And she plunged into night's shadows. Dire faces, numinous divine presences, hostile to Troy, now loomed in the darkness visible. To my eyes, it seemed that all Ilium was sinking in flames and Neptune's Troy was...
being overturned from its base. It was like an ancient mountain ash that woodsmen are straining to fell. Iron axes ring thick and fast on its trunk, hacking it through, and it threatens to fall, nodding from its crest, its foliage trembling, until bit by bit, overcome with wounds, it gives one last groan, and torn from the hillside, comes crashing down. I descended, and guided by a god, somehow got through fire and foe, weapons gave way, the flames receded. When I reached the doors of my father's house, my old home, I sought him first and wanted more than anything to lift him up into the mountains, but he refused to draw out his life and suffer exile with Troy in ashes.
You are young, he cried, and still strong. You must take flight. If the gods wanted to prolong my life, they would have preserved this home of mine.
It is enough and more that I have seen such destruction once before and have survived. one capture of my city say farewell to my body lying just as it is and depart i shall die by my own hand the greeks will pick over my spoils and pity me loss of burial is light despised by heaven and useless i have lived too many years since the lord of gods and men breathed fire of lightning upon me and touched me with fire he kept repeating words such as these and would not move we were all in tears my wife creusa ascanius all our household pleading with my father not to compound our desperate plight and destroy us with him he refused and remained just as he was i reached for my gear wanting only to die what hope was there for deliverance now did you think i could leave without you father how could such a thing come out of your mouth if it pleases the gods that nothing be left of this great city and if you are determined It is your pleasure to throw yourself and all of us into Troy's holocaust. The door to that fate is wide open. Pyrrhus, grind with Priam's gore, will be here soon. Pyrrhus, who mutilates the sun before the father's eyes, butchers the father like a beast at the altar.
Oh, merciful mother, was it for this you saved me from the enemy so I could see the enemy in my own home and Ascanius and my father and Creusa slaughtered? in each other's blood to arms men the last light calls the vanquished take me back to the greeks let me start the battle again never this day shall we all die unavenged once more i strapped on my sword gripped my shield in my left hand and was hurrying out of the door when creusa embraced my feet at the threshold and held up little olus to his father saying if you go to die take us with you to whatever fate but if experience has taught you to rely on your weapons guard first this house to whom do you leave us little olus your father and me once called your wife her voice filled the house with moaning and then without warning a strange portent flickered between the faces and hands of Iolos's anxious parents, a light tongue of flame gleaming above his head, harmless to the touch. It licked his soft locks and grazed his temples. Trembling with fear, we shook the fire from his hair quickly and doused the holy flames with water.
But my father Anchises, enraptured, raised his eyes to the stars above and lifted his hands and his voice to heaven. Almighty Jupiter, if you are moved by any prayers, only look upon us and if our piety by our piety we have earned it. Give us your aid and confirm this omen.
His aged words had just finished when suddenly thunder crashed on our left and a star shot down from the sky, sliding through the dark and trailing a luminous flood of sparks. We watched it glide over the palace roof and bury its splendor in Ida's forest, leaving a shining furrow in its wake. The air reeked with sulfur all round.
Overwhelmed, my father lifted himself up in adoration of the star and spoke to heaven. No more delay. I follow. And where you lead, there I am. Gods of our fathers, save this house.
Save my grandson. Yours is this omen, and your power is Troy. and now, my son, I am ready to go as your companion.
He spoke, and now the sound of the fire could be heard more clearly, and the inferno rolled its seething heat ever closer. Come, dear father, onto my shoulders now. You will not weigh me down, and come what may, we will face it together, peril or salvation.
Little Iolus will walk beside me, and my wife will walk in my footsteps some distance behind. Now listen to me, all of my household. Just outside the city there is a mound and a temple of Ceres long deserted. Beside these stands an ancient cypress worshipped by many ancestors for many years. There, by our separate ways, we will meet.
Take into your hands, Father, the sacred gods of our country. it would be a sacrilege if i touched them before i washed away the bloody filth of battle in a living river this said i spread upon my shoulders a golden lion's skin and bent to my burden little olus held my hand and kept up although his stride could not match his father's and my wife followed behind we kept to the shadows and i undisturbed before by any number of weapons thrust my way and whole platoons of greeks now was frightened by every breeze and startled by every sound afraid for my companion and my burden we were nearing the gates and it looked like we had made it through when suddenly the sound of marching feet drifted on the wind squinting through the gloom my father cried run for it son they're getting close i can see the bronze glitter of their shields i panicked some malignant spirit robbed me of my wits For while I ran down back alleys leaving the familiar streets, my wife, Priusa, was taken from me by some evil fortune. Had she stopped or got lost and sat down exhausted?
I never saw her again, didn't even look back or think of her behind me until we arrived at the mound by Ciri's ancient temple. When finally we were all gathered there, she alone was missing. No one had seen her. not her husband not her son no one what man or god did i not accuse in my delirium what crueler thing had i seen in our overturned city i entrusted ascanius and caesius and the gods of troy to my companions and hid them in a bend of the valley myself i strapped on my glittering armor and went back to the city hell-bent on running every risk again combing through all of troy and putting my life on the line once more. I started at the walls in the dark gate where I had escaped and retraced my steps through the night, looking everywhere by torchlight.
Everywhere there was fear. The very silence was terrifying. Then I turned homeward in case, just in case, she had gone there.
The Greeks were there in force. and the house consumed with fire fanned by the wind it spiraled up past the eaves and gnawed at the roof blasting the sky with its heat i moved on and saw once more the palace of priam on the citadel there in the empty court of juno's sanctuary stood phoenix a dire ulysses chosen to guard the spoils treasures from every part of troy ripped out of burning temples tables of the gods solid gold bowls and plundered robes all in a heap Boys and trembling matrons stood round in long rows. I even risked casting my voice into the night and filled the streets with shouts, calling, Creusa, over and over again, in my misery, all in vain.
But as I rushed through the empty shells of buildings, frantic to find her, there rose before my eyes the sad ghost of Creusa herself, an image larger than life. I was transfixed. My hair stood on end and my voice choked. Then she spoke to me and calmed my fears. What good does it do my sweet husband to indulge in such mad grief?
These things do not happen without the will of the gods. You may not take your creusa with you. The Lord of Olympus does not allow it. Long exile is yours, plowing a vast stretch of sea.
Then you will come to Asperia, where the Lydian Tiber runs gently through the fertile fields. There, happy times, kinship, and a royal wife shall be yours. Dry your tears for your beloved creusa.
I shall not look upon the proud domains of the Myrmidons or Dilopians, nor go be a slave for Greek matrons. I, a Trojan woman and wife of the son of the goddess Venus, know the great mother keeps me on these shores. Farewell, and keep well your love for our child.
Creusa spoke, and then left me there, weeping with many things yet to say. She vanished into thin air. Three times I tried to put my arms around her. Three times her wraith slipped through my hands, soft as a breeze, like a vanishing dream.
The long night was spent, and at last I went back to rejoin my people. I was surprised by the great number of new arrivals I found. Women and men, youth gathered for exile, a wretched band of refugees who had poured in from all over, prepared to journey across the sea to whatever lands I might lead them.
The brilliant morning star was rising over Ida's ridges, ushering in the day. The Greeks held all the city gates. There was no hope of help.
I yielded and lifted up my father and sought. the mountains.