What
indignity
hath marred thy serene visage?
Virgil - Aeneid
Even then Cassandra opens her lips to the coming
doom, lips at a god's bidding never believed by the Trojans. We, the
wretched people, to whom that day was our last, hang the shrines of the
gods with festal boughs throughout the city. Meanwhile the heavens wheel
on, and night rises from the sea, wrapping in her vast shadow earth and
sky and the wiles of the Myrmidons; about the town the Teucrians are
stretched in silence; slumber laps their tired limbs.
'And now the Argive squadron was sailing in order from Tenedos, and in
the favouring stillness of the quiet moon sought the shores it knew;
when the royal galley ran out a flame, and, protected by the gods'
malign decrees, Sinon stealthily lets loose the imprisoned Grecians from
their barriers of pine; the horse opens and restores them to the air;
and joyfully issuing from the hollow wood, Thessander and Sthenelus the
captains, and terrible Ulysses, [262-295]slide down the dangling rope,
with Acamas and Thoas and Neoptolemus son of Peleus, and Machaon first
of all, and Menelaus, and Epeus himself the artificer of the treachery.
They sweep down the city buried in drunken sleep; the watchmen are cut
down, and at the open gates they welcome all their comrades, and unite
their confederate bands.
'It was the time when by the gift of God rest comes stealing first and
sweetest on unhappy men. In slumber, lo! before mine eyes Hector seemed
to stand by, deep in grief and shedding abundant tears; torn by the
chariot, as once of old, and black with gory dust, his swoln feet
pierced with the thongs. Ah me! in what guise was he! how changed from
the Hector who returns from putting on Achilles' spoils, or launching
the fires of Phrygia on the Grecian ships! with ragged beard and tresses
clotted with blood, and all the many wounds upon him that he received
around his ancestral walls. Myself too weeping I seemed to accost him
ere he spoke, and utter forth mournful accents: "O light of Dardania, O
surest hope of the Trojans, what long delay is this hath held thee? from
what borders comest thou, Hector our desire? with what weary eyes we see
thee, after many deaths of thy kin, after divers woes of people and
city!
What indignity hath marred thy serene visage? or why discern I
these wounds? " He replies naught, nor regards my idle questioning; but
heavily drawing a heart-deep groan, "Ah, fly, goddess-born," he says,
"and rescue thyself from these flames. The foe holds our walls; from her
high ridges Troy is toppling down. Thy country and Priam ask no more. If
Troy towers might be defended by strength of hand, this hand too had
been their defence. Troy commends to thee her holy things and household
gods; take them to accompany thy fate; seek for them a city, which,
after all the seas have known thy wanderings, thou shalt at last
establish in [296-327]might. " So speaks he, and carries forth in his
hands from their inner shrine the chaplets and strength of Vesta, and
the everlasting fire.
'Meanwhile the city is stirred with mingled agony; and more and more,
though my father Anchises' house lay deep withdrawn and screened by
trees, the noises grow clearer and the clash of armour swells. I shake
myself from sleep and mount over the sloping roof, and stand there with
ears attent: even as when flame catches a corn-field while south winds
are furious, or the racing torrent of a mountain stream sweeps the
fields, sweeps the smiling crops and labours of the oxen, and hurls the
forest with it headlong; the shepherd in witless amaze hears the roar
from the cliff-top. Then indeed proof is clear, and the treachery of the
Grecians opens out. Already the house of Deiphobus hath crashed down in
wide ruin amid the overpowering flames; already our neighbour Ucalegon
is ablaze: the broad Sigean bay is lit with the fire. Cries of men and
blare of trumpets rise up. Madly I seize my arms, nor is there so much
purpose in arms; but my spirit is on fire to gather a band for fighting
and charge for the citadel with my comrades. Fury and wrath drive me
headlong, and I think how noble is death in arms.
'And lo!
doom, lips at a god's bidding never believed by the Trojans. We, the
wretched people, to whom that day was our last, hang the shrines of the
gods with festal boughs throughout the city. Meanwhile the heavens wheel
on, and night rises from the sea, wrapping in her vast shadow earth and
sky and the wiles of the Myrmidons; about the town the Teucrians are
stretched in silence; slumber laps their tired limbs.
'And now the Argive squadron was sailing in order from Tenedos, and in
the favouring stillness of the quiet moon sought the shores it knew;
when the royal galley ran out a flame, and, protected by the gods'
malign decrees, Sinon stealthily lets loose the imprisoned Grecians from
their barriers of pine; the horse opens and restores them to the air;
and joyfully issuing from the hollow wood, Thessander and Sthenelus the
captains, and terrible Ulysses, [262-295]slide down the dangling rope,
with Acamas and Thoas and Neoptolemus son of Peleus, and Machaon first
of all, and Menelaus, and Epeus himself the artificer of the treachery.
They sweep down the city buried in drunken sleep; the watchmen are cut
down, and at the open gates they welcome all their comrades, and unite
their confederate bands.
'It was the time when by the gift of God rest comes stealing first and
sweetest on unhappy men. In slumber, lo! before mine eyes Hector seemed
to stand by, deep in grief and shedding abundant tears; torn by the
chariot, as once of old, and black with gory dust, his swoln feet
pierced with the thongs. Ah me! in what guise was he! how changed from
the Hector who returns from putting on Achilles' spoils, or launching
the fires of Phrygia on the Grecian ships! with ragged beard and tresses
clotted with blood, and all the many wounds upon him that he received
around his ancestral walls. Myself too weeping I seemed to accost him
ere he spoke, and utter forth mournful accents: "O light of Dardania, O
surest hope of the Trojans, what long delay is this hath held thee? from
what borders comest thou, Hector our desire? with what weary eyes we see
thee, after many deaths of thy kin, after divers woes of people and
city!
What indignity hath marred thy serene visage? or why discern I
these wounds? " He replies naught, nor regards my idle questioning; but
heavily drawing a heart-deep groan, "Ah, fly, goddess-born," he says,
"and rescue thyself from these flames. The foe holds our walls; from her
high ridges Troy is toppling down. Thy country and Priam ask no more. If
Troy towers might be defended by strength of hand, this hand too had
been their defence. Troy commends to thee her holy things and household
gods; take them to accompany thy fate; seek for them a city, which,
after all the seas have known thy wanderings, thou shalt at last
establish in [296-327]might. " So speaks he, and carries forth in his
hands from their inner shrine the chaplets and strength of Vesta, and
the everlasting fire.
'Meanwhile the city is stirred with mingled agony; and more and more,
though my father Anchises' house lay deep withdrawn and screened by
trees, the noises grow clearer and the clash of armour swells. I shake
myself from sleep and mount over the sloping roof, and stand there with
ears attent: even as when flame catches a corn-field while south winds
are furious, or the racing torrent of a mountain stream sweeps the
fields, sweeps the smiling crops and labours of the oxen, and hurls the
forest with it headlong; the shepherd in witless amaze hears the roar
from the cliff-top. Then indeed proof is clear, and the treachery of the
Grecians opens out. Already the house of Deiphobus hath crashed down in
wide ruin amid the overpowering flames; already our neighbour Ucalegon
is ablaze: the broad Sigean bay is lit with the fire. Cries of men and
blare of trumpets rise up. Madly I seize my arms, nor is there so much
purpose in arms; but my spirit is on fire to gather a band for fighting
and charge for the citadel with my comrades. Fury and wrath drive me
headlong, and I think how noble is death in arms.
'And lo!
