Aeneid

arrayed as one; and to have heard thus far

suffices you. Take now your ripe revenge!

Ulysses smiles and Atreus' royal sons

with liberal price your deed of blood repay.”

We ply him then with passionate appeal

and question all his cause: of guilt so dire

or such Greek guile we harbored not the thought.

So on he prates, with well-feigned grief and fear,

and from his Iying heart thus told his tale:

“Full oft the Greeks had fain achieved their flight,

and raised the Trojan siege, and sailed away

war-wearied quite. O, would it had been so!

Full oft the wintry tumult of the seas

did wall them round, and many a swollen storm

their embarcation stayed. But chiefly when,

all fitly built of beams of maple fair,

this horse stood forth,— what thunders filled the skies!

With anxious fears we sent Eurypylus

to ask Apollo's word; and from the shrine

he brings the sorrowful commandment home:

‘By flowing blood and by a virgin slain

the wild winds were appeased, when first ye came,

ye sons of Greece, to Ilium's distant shore.

Through blood ye must return. Let some Greek life

your expiation be.’ The popular ear

the saying caught, all spirits were dimmed o'er;

cold doubt and horror through each bosom ran,

asking what fate would do, and on what wretch

Apollo's choice would fall. Ulysses, then,

amid the people's tumult and acclaim,

thrust Calchas forth, some prophecy to tell

to all the throng: he asked him o'er and o'er

what Heaven desired. Already not a few

foretold the murderous plot, and silently

watched the dark doom upon my life impend.

Twice five long days the seer his lips did seal,

and hid himself, refusing to bring forth

His word of guile, and name what wretch should die.

At last, reluctant, and all loudly urged

By false Ulysses, he fulfils their plot,

and, lifting up his voice oracular,

points out myself the victim to be slain.

Nor did one voice oppose. The mortal stroke

horribly hanging o'er each coward head

was changed to one man's ruin, and their hearts

endured it well. Soon rose th' accursed morn;

the bloody ritual was ready; salt

was sprinkled on the sacred loaf; my brows

were bound with fillets for the offering.

But I escaped that death—yes! I deny not!

I cast my fetters off, and darkling lay

concealed all night in lake-side sedge and mire,

awaiting their departure, if perchance

they should in truth set sail. But nevermore

shall my dear, native country greet these eyes.

No more my father or my tender babes

shall I behold. Nay, haply their own lives

are forfeit, when my foemen take revenge

for my escape, and slay those helpless ones,

in expiation of my guilty deed.

O, by yon powers in heaven which witness truth,

by aught in this dark world remaining now

of spotless human faith and innocence,

I do implore thee look with pitying eye

on these long sufferings my heart hath borne.

O, pity! I deserve not what I bear.”

Pity and pardon to his tears we gave,

and spared his life. King Priam bade unbind

the fettered hands and loose those heavy chains

that pressed him sore; then with benignant mien

addressed him thus: “ Whate'er thy place or name,

forget the people thou hast Iost, and be

henceforth our countryman. But tell me true!

What means the monstrous fabric of this horse?

Who made it? Why? What offering to Heaven,

or engin'ry of conquest may it be?”

He spake; and in reply, with skilful guile,

Greek that he was! the other lifted up

his hands, now freed and chainless, to the skies:

“O ever-burning and inviolate fires,

witness my word! O altars and sharp steel,

whose curse I fled, O fillets of the gods,

which bound a victim's helpless forehead, hear!

'T is lawful now to break the oath that gave

my troth to Greece. To execrate her kings

is now my solemn duty. Their whole plot

I publish to the world. No fatherland

and no allegiance binds me any more.

O Troy, whom I have saved, I bid thee keep

the pledge of safety by good Priam given,

for my true tale shall my rich ransom be.

The Greeks' one hope, since first they opened war,

was Pallas, grace and power. But from the day

when Diomed, bold scorner of the gods,

and false Ulysses, author of all guile,

rose up and violently bore away

Palladium, her holy shrine, hewed down

the sentinels of her acropolis,

and with polluted, gory hands dared touch

the goddess, virgin fillets, white and pure,—