The Iliad Part 67

"How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter'd fate!"

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands; And thus aloud, while all the host attends: "Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!

Since now at length the powerful will of heaven The dire destroyer to our arm has given, Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye powers!

See, if already their deserted towers Are left unmann'd; or if they yet retain The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain.

But what is Troy, or glory what to me?

Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, Divine Patroclus! Death hath seal'd his eyes; Unwept, unhonour'd, uninterr'd he lies!

Can his dear image from my soul depart, Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?

If in the melancholy shades below, The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow, Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay'd, Burn on through death, and animate my shade.

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring The corpse of Hector, and your paeans sing.

Be this the song, slow-moving toward the sh.o.r.e, "Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more."

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred; (Unworthy of himself, and of the dead;) The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound With thongs inserted through the double wound; These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, His graceful head was trail'd along the plain.

Proud on his car the insulting victor stood, And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.

He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies; The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.

Now lost is all that formidable air; The face divine, and long-descending hair, Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand; Deform'd, dishonour'd, in his native land, Given to the rage of an insulting throng, And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along!

The mother first beheld with sad survey; She rent her tresses, venerable grey, And cast, far off, the regal veils away.

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, While the sad father answers groans with groans Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow, And the whole city wears one face of woe: No less than if the rage of hostile fires.

From her foundations curling to her spires, O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.

The wretched monarch of the falling state, Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate.

Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course, While strong affliction gives the feeble force: Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, In all the raging impotence of woe.

At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun, Imploring all, and naming one by one: "Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls; I, only I, will issue from your walls (Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none), And bow before the murderer of my son.

My grief perhaps his pity may engage; Perhaps at least he may respect my age.

He has a father too; a man like me; One, not exempt from age and misery (Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace Begot this pest of me, and all my race).

How many valiant sons, in early bloom, Has that cursed hand send headlong to the tomb!

Thee, Hector! last: thy loss (divinely brave) Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

O had thy gentle spirit pa.s.s'd in peace, The son expiring in the sire's embrace, While both thy parents wept the fatal hour, And, bending o'er thee, mix'd the tender shower!

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, To melt in full satiety of grief!"

Thus wail'd the father, grovelling on the ground, And all the eyes of Ilion stream'd around.

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears: (A mourning princess, and a train in tears;) "Ah why has Heaven prolong'd this hated breath, Patient of horrors, to behold thy death?

O Hector! late thy parents' pride and joy, The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!

To whom her safety and her fame she owed; Her chief, her hero, and almost her G.o.d!

O fatal change! become in one sad day A senseless corse! inanimated clay!"

But not as yet the fatal news had spread To fair Andromache, of Hector dead; As yet no messenger had told his fate, Not e'en his stay without the Scaean gate.

Far in the close recesses of the dome, Pensive she plied the melancholy loom; A growing work employ'd her secret hours, Confusedly gay with intermingled flowers.

Her fair-haired handmaids heat the brazen urn, The bath preparing for her lord's return In vain; alas! her lord returns no more; Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the sh.o.r.e!

Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear, And all her members shake with sudden fear: Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls, And thus, astonish'd, to her maids she calls:

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATH.]

THE BATH.

"Ah follow me! (she cried) what plaintive noise Invades my ear? 'Tis sure my mother's voice.

My faltering knees their trembling frame desert, A pulse unusual flutters at my heart; Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate (Ye G.o.ds avert it!) threats the Trojan state.

Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest!

But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast Confronts Achilles; chased along the plain, Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain!

Safe in the crowd he ever scorn'd to wait, And sought for glory in the jaws of fate: Perhaps that n.o.ble heat has cost his breath, Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death."

She spoke: and furious, with distracted pace, Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, Flies through the dome (the maids her steps pursue), And mounts the walls, and sends around her view.

Too soon her eyes the killing object found, The G.o.dlike Hector dragg'd along the ground.

A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes: She faints, she falls; her breath, her colour flies.

Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, The net that held them, and the wreath that crown'd, The veil and diadem flew far away (The gift of Venus on her bridal day).

Around a train of weeping sisters stands, To raise her sinking with a.s.sistant hands.

Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again She faints, or but recovers to complain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL.]

ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL.

"O wretched husband of a wretched wife!

Born with one fate, to one unhappy life!

For sure one star its baneful beam display'd On Priam's roof, and Hippoplacia's shade.

From different parents, different climes we came.

At different periods, yet our fate the same!

Why was my birth to great Aetion owed, And why was all that tender care bestow'd?

Would I had never been!--O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost!

Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!

And I abandon'd, desolate, alone!

An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains!

No more to smile upon his sire; no friend To help him now! no father to defend!

For should he 'scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come!

Even from his own paternal roof expell'd, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field.

The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father's friends: He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; Amongst the happy, unregarded, he Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father's former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day.

Frugal compa.s.sion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, 'Begone! thy father feasts not here:'

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear.

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears!

Forced by repeated insults to return, And to his widow'd mother vainly mourn: He, who, with tender delicacy bred, With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse's breast, Must--ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,(279) Is now that name no more, unhappy boy!

Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.

But thou, my Hector, liest exposed in air, Far from thy parents' and thy consort's care; Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove.

Now to devouring flames be these a prey, Useless to thee, from this accursed day!

Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, An honour to the living, not the dead!"

So spake the mournful dame: her matrons hear, Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear.

BOOK XXIII.

ARGUMENT.