Aeneid

Huge Periphas was there; Automedon,

who drove Achilles' steeds, and bore his arms.

Then Scyros' island-warriors assault

the palaces, and hurl reiterate fire

at wall and tower. Pyrrhus led the van;

seizing an axe he clove the ponderous doors

and rent the hinges from their posts of bronze;

he cut the beams, and through the solid mass

burrowed his way, till like a window huge

the breach yawned wide, and opened to his gaze

a vista of long courts and corridors,

the hearth and home of many an ancient king,

and Priam's own; upon its sacred bourne

the sentry, all in arms, kept watch and ward.

Confusion, groans, and piteous turmoil

were in that dwelling; women shrieked and wailed

from many a dark retreat, and their loud cry

rang to the golden stars. Through those vast halls

the panic-stricken mothers wildly roved,

and clung with frantic kisses and embrace

unto the columns cold. Fierce as his sire,

Pyrrhus moves on; nor bar nor sentinel

may stop his way; down tumbles the great door

beneath the battering beam, and with it fall

hinges and framework violently torn.

Force bursts all bars; th' assailing Greeks break in,

do butchery, and with men-at-arms possess

what place they will. Scarce with an equal rage

a foaming river, when its dykes are down,

o'erwhelms its mounded shores, and through the plain

rolls mountain-high, while from the ravaged farms

its fierce flood sweeps along both flock and fold.

My own eyes looked on Neoptolemus

frenzied with slaughter, and both Atreus' sons

upon the threshold frowning; I beheld

her hundred daughters with old Hecuba;

and Priam, whose own bleeding wounds defiled

the altars where himself had blessed the fires;

there fifty nuptial beds gave promise proud

of princely heirs; but all their brightness now,

of broidered cunning and barbaric gold,

lay strewn and trampled on. The Danaan foe

stood victor, where the raging flame had failed.

But would ye haply know what stroke of doom

on Priam fell? Now when his anguish saw

his kingdom lost and fallen, his abode

shattered, and in his very hearth and home

th' exulting foe, the aged King did bind

his rusted armor to his trembling thews,—

all vainly,— and a useless blade of steel

he girded on; then charged, resolved to die

encircled by the foe. Within his walls

there stood, beneath the wide and open sky,

a lofty altar; an old laurel-tree

leaned o'er it, and enclasped in holy shade

the statues of the tutelary powers.

Here Hecuba and all the princesses

took refuge vain within the place of prayer.

Like panic-stricken doves in some dark storm,

close-gathering they sate, and in despair

embraced their graven gods. But when the Queen

saw Priam with his youthful harness on,

“What frenzy, O my wretched lord,” she cried,

“Arrayed thee in such arms? O, whither now?

Not such defences, nor such arm as thine,

the time requires, though thy companion were

our Hector's self. O, yield thee, I implore!

This altar now shall save us one and all,

or we must die together.” With these words

she drew him to her side, and near the shrine

made for her aged spouse a place to cling.

But, lo! just 'scaped of Pyrrhus' murderous hand,

Polites, one of Priam's sons, fled fast

along the corridors, through thronging foes

and a thick rain of spears. Wildly he gazed

across the desolate halls, wounded to death.

Fierce Pyrrhus followed after, pressing hard

with mortal stroke, and now his hand and spear

were close upon:— when the lost youth leaped forth

into his father's sight, and prostrate there

lay dying, while his life-blood ebbed away.

Then Priam, though on all sides death was nigh,

quit not the strife, nor from loud wrath refrained:

“Thy crime and impious outrage, may the gods

(if Heaven to mortals render debt and due)

justly reward and worthy honors pay!

My own son's murder thou hast made me see,

blood and pollution impiously throwing

upon a father's head. Not such was he,

not such, Achilles, thy pretended sire,

when Priam was his foe. With flush of shame

he nobly listened to a suppliant's plea

in honor made. He rendered to the tomb

my Hector's body pale, and me did send

back to my throne a king.” With this proud word

the aged warrior hurled with nerveless arm

his ineffectual spear, which hoarsely rang

rebounding on the brazen shield, and hung

piercing the midmost boss,- but all in vain.

Then Pyrrhus: “Take these tidings, and convey