No More Learning

We tear
ourselves away, I and Iphitus and Pelias, Iphitus now stricken in age,
Pelias halting too under the wound of Ulysses, called forward by the
clamour to Priam's house.

'Here indeed the battle is fiercest, as if all the rest of the fighting
were nowhere, and no slaughter but here throughout the city, so do we
descry the war in full fury, the Grecians rushing on the building, and
their shielded column driving up against the beleaguered threshold.
Ladders cling to the walls; and hard by the doors and planted on the
rungs they hold up their shields in the left hand to ward off our
weapons, and with their right clutch the battlements. The Dardanians
tear down turrets and the covering of the house roof against them; with
these for weapons, since they see the end is come, they prepare to
defend themselves even in death's extremity: and hurl down gilded beams,
the stately decorations of their fathers of old. Others with drawn
swords have beset the doorway below and keep it in crowded column. We
renew our courage, to aid the royal dwelling, to support them with our
succour, and swell the force of the conquered.

'There was a blind doorway giving passage through the range of Priam's
halls by a solitary postern, whereby, while our realm endured, hapless
Andromache would often and often glide unattended to her father-in-law's
house, and carry the boy Astyanax to his grandsire. I issue out on the
sloping height of the ridge, whence wretched Teucrian hands were hurling
their ineffectual weapons. A tower stood on the sheer brink, its roof
ascending high into heaven, whence was wont to be seen all Troy and the
Grecian ships and Achaean camp: attacking it with iron round about,
where the joints of the lofty flooring yielded, we wrench it from its
deep foundations and shake it free; it gives way, and [466-498]suddenly
falls thundering in ruin, crashing wide over the Grecian ranks. But
others swarm up; nor meanwhile do stones nor any sort of missile
slacken. . . . Right before the vestibule and in the front doorway
Pyrrhus moves rejoicingly in the sparkle of arms and gleaming brass:
like as when a snake fed on poisonous herbs, whom chill winter kept hid
and swollen underground, now fresh from his weeds outworn and shining in
youth, wreathes his slippery body into the daylight, his upreared breast
meets the sun, and his triple-cloven tongue flickers in his mouth. With
him huge Periphas, and Automedon the armour-bearer, driver of Achilles'
horses, with him all his Scyrian men climb the roof and hurl flames on
the housetop.
Himself among the foremost he grasps a poleaxe, bursts
through the hard doorway, and wrenches the brazen-plated doors from the
hinge; and now he hath cut out a plank from the solid oak and pierced a
vast gaping hole. The house within is open to sight, and the long halls
lie plain; open to sight are the secret chambers of Priam and the kings
of old, and they see armed men standing in front of the doorway.

'But the inner house is stirred with shrieks and misery and confusion,
and the court echoes deep with women's wailing; the golden stars are
smitten with the din. Affrighted mothers stray about the vast house, and
cling fast to the doors and print them with kisses. With his father's
might Pyrrhus presses on; nor guards nor barriers can hold out. The gate
totters under the hard driven ram, and the doors fall flat, rent from
the hinge. Force makes way; the Greeks burst through the entrance and
pour in, slaughtering the foremost, and filling the space with a wide
stream of soldiers. Not so furiously when a foaming river bursts his
banks and overflows, beating down the opposing dykes with whirling
water, is he borne mounded over the fields, and sweeps herds and
[499-529]pens all about the plains. Myself I saw in the gateway
Neoptolemus mad in slaughter, and the two sons of Atreus, saw Hecuba and
the hundred daughters of her house, and Priam polluting with his blood
the altar fires of his own consecration. The fifty bridal chambers--so
great was the hope of his children's children--their doors magnificent
with spoils of barbaric gold, have sunk in ruin; where the fire fails
the Greeks are in possession.

'Perchance too thou mayest inquire what was Priam's fate. When he saw
the ruin of his captured city, the gates of his house burst open, and
the enemy amid his innermost chambers, the old man idly fastens round
his aged trembling shoulders his long disused armour, girds on the
unavailing sword, and advances on his death among the thronging foe.

'Within the palace and under the bare cope of sky was a massive altar,
and hard on the altar an ancient bay tree leaned clasping the household
gods in its shadow. Here Hecuba and her daughters crowded vainly about
the altar-stones, like doves driven headlong by a black tempest, and
crouched clasping the gods' images. And when she saw Priam her lord with
the armour of youth on him, "What spirit of madness, my poor husband,"
she cries, "hath stirred thee to gird on these weapons? or whither dost
thou run?