who hast made me look face to face on my child's murder, and polluted a
father's countenance with death.
father's countenance with death.
Virgil - Aeneid
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? Not such the succour nor these the defenders the time
requires: no, were mine own Hector now beside us. Retire, I beseech
thee, hither; this altar will protect us all, or thou wilt share our
death. " With these words on her lips she drew the aged man to her, and
set him on the holy seat.
'And lo, escaped from slaughtering Pyrrhus through the weapons of the
enemy, Polites, one of Priam's children, flies wounded down the long
colonnades and circles the empty halls. Pyrrhus pursues him fiercely
with aimed [530-563]wound, just catching at him, and follows hard on
him with his spear. As at last he issued before his parents' eyes and
faces, he fell, and shed his life in a pool of blood. At this Priam,
although even now fast in the toils of death, yet withheld not nor
spared a wrathful cry: "Ah, for thy crime, for this thy hardihood, may
the gods, if there is goodness in heaven to care for aught such, pay
thee in full thy worthy meed, and return thee the reward that is due!
who hast made me look face to face on my child's murder, and polluted a
father's countenance with death. Ah, not such to a foe was the Achilles
whose parentage thou beliest; but he revered a suppliant's right and
trust, restored to the tomb Hector's pallid corpse, and sent me back to
my realm. " Thus the old man spoke, and launched his weak and unwounding
spear, which, recoiling straight from the jarring brass, hung idly from
his shield above the boss. Thereat Pyrrhus: "Thou then shalt tell this,
and go with the message to my sire the son of Peleus: remember to tell
him of my baleful deeds, and the degeneracy of Neoptolemus. Now die. " So
saying, he drew him quivering to the very altar, slipping in the pool of
his child's blood, and wound his left hand in his hair, while in his
right the sword flashed out and plunged to the hilt in his side. This
was the end of Priam's fortunes; thus did allotted fate find him, with
burning Troy and her sunken towers before his eyes, once magnificent
lord over so many peoples and lands of Asia. The great corpse lies along
the shore, a head severed from the shoulders and a body without a name.
'But then an awful terror began to encircle me; I stood in amaze; there
rose before me the likeness of my loved father, as I saw the king, old
as he, sobbing out his life under the ghastly wound; there rose Creusa
forlorn, my plundered house, and little Iulus' peril. I look back
[564-596]and survey what force is around me. All, outwearied, have
given up and leapt headlong to the ground, or flung themselves
wretchedly into the fire:
['Yes, and now I only was left; when I espy the daughter of Tyndarus
close in the courts of Vesta, crouching silently in the fane's recesses;
the bright glow of the fires lights my wandering, as my eyes stray all
about. Fearing the Teucrians' anger for the overthrown towers of Troy,
and the Grecians' vengeance and the wrath of the husband she had
abandoned, she, the common Fury of Troy and her native country, had
hidden herself and cowered unseen by the altars. My spirit kindles to
fire, and rises in wrath to avenge my dying land and take repayment for
her crimes. Shall she verily see Sparta and her native Mycenae
unscathed, and depart a queen and triumphant? Shall she see her spousal
and her home, her parents and children, attended by a crowd of Trojan
women and Phrygians to serve her? and Priam have fallen under the sword?
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? Not such the succour nor these the defenders the time
requires: no, were mine own Hector now beside us. Retire, I beseech
thee, hither; this altar will protect us all, or thou wilt share our
death. " With these words on her lips she drew the aged man to her, and
set him on the holy seat.
'And lo, escaped from slaughtering Pyrrhus through the weapons of the
enemy, Polites, one of Priam's children, flies wounded down the long
colonnades and circles the empty halls. Pyrrhus pursues him fiercely
with aimed [530-563]wound, just catching at him, and follows hard on
him with his spear. As at last he issued before his parents' eyes and
faces, he fell, and shed his life in a pool of blood. At this Priam,
although even now fast in the toils of death, yet withheld not nor
spared a wrathful cry: "Ah, for thy crime, for this thy hardihood, may
the gods, if there is goodness in heaven to care for aught such, pay
thee in full thy worthy meed, and return thee the reward that is due!
who hast made me look face to face on my child's murder, and polluted a
father's countenance with death. Ah, not such to a foe was the Achilles
whose parentage thou beliest; but he revered a suppliant's right and
trust, restored to the tomb Hector's pallid corpse, and sent me back to
my realm. " Thus the old man spoke, and launched his weak and unwounding
spear, which, recoiling straight from the jarring brass, hung idly from
his shield above the boss. Thereat Pyrrhus: "Thou then shalt tell this,
and go with the message to my sire the son of Peleus: remember to tell
him of my baleful deeds, and the degeneracy of Neoptolemus. Now die. " So
saying, he drew him quivering to the very altar, slipping in the pool of
his child's blood, and wound his left hand in his hair, while in his
right the sword flashed out and plunged to the hilt in his side. This
was the end of Priam's fortunes; thus did allotted fate find him, with
burning Troy and her sunken towers before his eyes, once magnificent
lord over so many peoples and lands of Asia. The great corpse lies along
the shore, a head severed from the shoulders and a body without a name.
'But then an awful terror began to encircle me; I stood in amaze; there
rose before me the likeness of my loved father, as I saw the king, old
as he, sobbing out his life under the ghastly wound; there rose Creusa
forlorn, my plundered house, and little Iulus' peril. I look back
[564-596]and survey what force is around me. All, outwearied, have
given up and leapt headlong to the ground, or flung themselves
wretchedly into the fire:
['Yes, and now I only was left; when I espy the daughter of Tyndarus
close in the courts of Vesta, crouching silently in the fane's recesses;
the bright glow of the fires lights my wandering, as my eyes stray all
about. Fearing the Teucrians' anger for the overthrown towers of Troy,
and the Grecians' vengeance and the wrath of the husband she had
abandoned, she, the common Fury of Troy and her native country, had
hidden herself and cowered unseen by the altars. My spirit kindles to
fire, and rises in wrath to avenge my dying land and take repayment for
her crimes. Shall she verily see Sparta and her native Mycenae
unscathed, and depart a queen and triumphant? Shall she see her spousal
and her home, her parents and children, attended by a crowd of Trojan
women and Phrygians to serve her? and Priam have fallen under the sword?
