Androgeos, followed by a thronging bandof Greeks, first met us on our desperate way;but heedless, and confounding friend with foe,thus, all unchallenged, hailed us as his own :“Haste, heroes! Are ye laggards at this hour?Others bear off the captives and the spoilof burning Troy. Just from the galleys ye?”He spoke; but straightway, when no safe replyreturned, he knew himself entrapped, and falleninto a foeman's snare; struck dumb was heand stopped both word and motion; as one steps,when blindly treading a thick path of thorns,upon a snake, and sick with fear would fleethat lifted wrath and swollen gorge of green:so trembling did Androgeos backward fall.At them we flew and closed them round with war;and since they could not know the ground, and fear had whelmed them quite, we swiftly laid them low.Thus Fortune on our first achievement smiled;and, flushed with victory, Cormbus cried:“Come, friends, and follow Fortune's finger, whereshe beckons us what path deliverance lies.Change we our shields, and these Greek emblems wear.'Twixt guile and valor who will nicely weigh When foes are met? These dead shall find us arms.”With this, he dons Androgeos' crested helmand beauteous, blazoned shield; and to his sidegirds on a Grecian blade. Young Rhipeus next,with Dymas and the other soldiery,repeat the deed, exulting, and arraytheir valor in fresh trophies from the slain.Now intermingled with our foes we moved,and alien emblems wore; the long, black nightbrought many a grapple, and a host of Greeksdown to the dark we hurled. Some fled away,seeking their safe ships and the friendly shore.Some cowards foul went clambering back againto that vast horse and hid them in its maw.

But woe is me! If gods their help withhold,'t is impious to be brave. That very hourthe fair Cassandra passed us, bound in chains,King Priam's virgin daughter, from the shrineand altars of Minerva; her loose hairhad lost its fillet; her impassioned eyeswere lifted in vain prayer,—her eyes alone!For chains of steel her frail, soft hands confined.Coroebus' eyes this horror not endured,and, sorrow-crazed, he plunged him headlong inthe midmost fray, self-offered to be slain,while in close mass our troop behind him poured.But, at this point, the overwhelming spearsof our own kinsmen rained resistless downfrom a high temple-tower; and carnage wildensued, because of the Greek arms we boreand our false crests. The howling Grecian band,crazed by Cassandra's rescue, charged at usfrom every side; Ajax of savage soul,the sons of Atreus, and that whole wild hordeAchilles from Dolopian deserts drew.'T was like the bursting storm, when gales contend,west wind and South, and jocund wind of mornupon his orient steeds—while forests roar,and foam-flecked Nereus with fierce trident stirsthe dark deep of the sea. All who did hidein shadows of the night, by our assaultsurprised, and driven in tumultuous flight,now start to view. Full well they now can seeour shields and borrowed arms, and clearly noteour speech of alien sound; their multitudeo'erwhelms us utterly. Coroebus firstat mailed Minerva's altar prostrate lay,pierced by Peneleus, blade; then Rhipeus fell;we deemed him of all Trojans the most just, most scrupulously righteous; but the godsgave judgment otherwise. There Dymas died,and Hypanis, by their compatriots slain;nor thee, O Panthus, in that mortal hour,could thy clean hands or Phoebus, priesthood save.O ashes of my country! funeral pyreof all my kin! bear witness that my breastshrank not from any sword the Grecian drew,and that my deeds the night my country died deserved a warrior's death, had Fate ordained.But soon our ranks were broken; at my sidestayed Iphitus and Pelias; one with agewas Iong since wearied, and the other borethe burden of Ulysses' crippling wound.Straightway the roar and tumult summoned usto Priam's palace,where a battle ragedas if save this no conflict else were known,and all Troy's dying brave were mustered there.There we beheld the war-god unconfined;The Greek besiegers to the roof-tops fled;or, with shields tortoise-back, the gates assailed.Ladders were on the walls; and round by round,up the huge bulwark as they fight their way,the shielded left-hand thwarts the falling spears,the right to every vantage closely clings.The Trojans hurl whole towers and roof-tops downupon the mounting foe; for well they seethat the last hour is come, and with what armsthe dying must resist. Rich gilded beams,with many a beauteous blazon of old time,go crashing down. Men armed with naked swordsdefend the inner doors in close array.

Thus were our hearts inflamed to stand and strikefor the king's house, and to his body-guardbring succor, and renew their vanquished powers.A certain gate I knew, a secret way,which gave free passage between Priam's halls,and exit rearward; hither, in the daysbefore our fall, the lone Andromachewas wont with young Astyanax to passin quest of Priam and her husband's kin.This way to climb the palace roof I flew,where, desperate, the Trojans with vain skillhurled forth repellent arms. A tower was there,reared skyward from the roof-top, giving viewof Troy's wide walls and full reconnaissanceof all Achaea's fleets and tented field;this, with strong steel, our gathered strength assailed,and as the loosened courses offered usgreat threatening fissures, we uprooted itfrom its aerial throne and thrust it down.It fell with instantaneous crash of thunderalong the Danaan host in ruin wide.But fresh ranks soon arrive; thick showers of stonerain down, with every missile rage can find.

Now at the threshold of the outer court Pyrrhus triumphant stood, with glittering armsand helm of burnished brass. He glittered likesome swollen viper, fed on poison-leaves,whom chilling winter shelters underground,till, fresh and strong, he sheds his annual scalesand, crawling forth rejuvenate, uncoilshis slimy length; his lifted gorge insultsthe sunbeam with three-forked and quivering tongue.Huge Periphas was there; Automedon,who drove Achilles' steeds, and bore his arms.Then Scyros' island-warriors assaultthe palaces, and hurl reiterate fireat wall and tower. Pyrrhus led the van;seizing an axe he clove the ponderous doorsand rent the hinges from their posts of bronze;he cut the beams, and through the solid massburrowed his way, till like a window hugethe breach yawned wide, and opened to his gazea vista of long courts and corridors,the hearth and home of many an ancient king,and Priam's own; upon its sacred bournethe sentry, all in arms, kept watch and ward.Confusion, groans, and piteous turmoilwere in that dwelling; women shrieked and wailedfrom many a dark retreat, and their loud cryrang to the golden stars. Through those vast hallsthe panic-stricken mothers wildly roved,and clung with frantic kisses and embraceunto the columns cold. Fierce as his sire,Pyrrhus moves on; nor bar nor sentinelmay stop his way; down tumbles the great doorbeneath the battering beam, and with it fallhinges and framework violently torn.Force bursts all bars; th' assailing Greeks break in,do butchery, and with men-at-arms possesswhat place they will. Scarce with an equal ragea foaming river, when its dykes are down,o'erwhelms its mounded shores, and through the plainrolls mountain-high, while from the ravaged farmsits fierce flood sweeps along both flock and fold.My own eyes looked on Neoptolemusfrenzied with slaughter, and both Atreus' sonsupon the threshold frowning; I beheldher hundred daughters with old Hecuba;and Priam, whose own bleeding wounds defiledthe altars where himself had blessed the fires;there fifty nuptial beds gave promise proudof princely heirs; but all their brightness now,of broidered cunning and barbaric gold,lay strewn and trampled on. The Danaan foestood victor, where the raging flame had failed.

But would ye haply know what stroke of doomon Priam fell? Now when his anguish sawhis kingdom lost and fallen, his abodeshattered, and in his very hearth and hometh' exulting foe, the aged King did bindhis rusted armor to his trembling thews,—all vainly,— and a useless blade of steelhe girded on; then charged, resolved to dieencircled by the foe. Within his wallsthere stood, beneath the wide and open sky,a lofty altar; an old laurel-treeleaned o'er it, and enclasped in holy shadethe statues of the tutelary powers.Here Hecuba and all the princessestook refuge vain within the place of prayer.Like panic-stricken doves in some dark storm,close-gathering they sate, and in despairembraced their graven gods. But when the Queensaw 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 wereour Hector's self. O, yield thee, I implore!This altar now shall save us one and all,or we must die together.” With these wordsshe drew him to her side, and near the shrinemade for her aged spouse a place to cling.

But, lo! just 'scaped of Pyrrhus' murderous hand,Polites, one of Priam's sons, fled fastalong the corridors, through thronging foesand a thick rain of spears. Wildly he gazedacross the desolate halls, wounded to death.Fierce Pyrrhus followed after, pressing hardwith mortal stroke, and now his hand and spearwere close upon:— when the lost youth leaped forthinto his father's sight, and prostrate therelay 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 throwingupon a father's head. Not such was he,not such, Achilles, thy pretended sire,when Priam was his foe. With flush of shamehe nobly listened to a suppliant's pleain honor made. He rendered to the tombmy Hector's body pale, and me did sendback to my throne a king.” With this proud wordthe aged warrior hurled with nerveless armhis ineffectual spear, which hoarsely rangrebounding on the brazen shield, and hungpiercing the midmost boss,- but all in vain.Then Pyrrhus: “Take these tidings, and conveymessage to my father, Peleus' son!tell him my naughty deeds! Be sure and sayhow Neoptolemus hath shamed his sires.Now die!” With this, he trailed before the shrinesthe trembling King, whose feet slipped in the streamof his son's blood. Then Pyrrhus' left hand clutchedthe tresses old and gray; a glittering swordhis right hand lifted high, and buried itfar as the hilt in that defenceless heart.So Priam's story ceased. Such final doomfell on him, while his dying eyes surveyedTroy burning, and her altars overthrown,though once of many an orient land and tribethe boasted lord. In huge dismembermenthis severed trunk lies tombless on the shore,the head from shoulder torn, the corpse unknown.

Then first wild horror on my spirit felland dazed me utterly. A vision roseof my own cherished father, as I sawthe King, his aged peer, sore wounded Iyingin mortal agony; a vision tooof lost Creusa at my ravaged hearth,and young Iulus' peril. Then my eyeslooked round me seeking aid. But all were fled,war-wearied and undone; some earthward leapedfrom battlement or tower; some in despairyielded their suffering bodies to the flame.

I stood there sole surviving; when, behold,to Vesta's altar clinging in dumb fear,hiding and crouching in the hallowed shade,Tyndarus' daughter!— 't was the burning townlighted full well my roving steps and eyes.In fear was she both of some Trojan's ragefor Troy o'erthrown, and of some Greek revenge,or her wronged husband's Iong indignant ire.So hid she at that shrine her hateful brow,being of Greece and Troy, full well she knew,the common curse. Then in my bosom rosea blaze of wrath; methought I should avengemy dying country, and with horrid deedpay crime for crime. “Shall she return unscathedto Sparta, to Mycenae's golden pride,and have a royal triumph? Shall her eyesher sire and sons, her hearth and husband see,while Phrygian captives follow in her train?is Priam murdered? Have the flames swept o'ermy native Troy? and cloth our Dardan strandsweat o'er and o'er with sanguinary dew?O, not thus unavenged! For though there beno glory if I smite a woman's crime,nor conqueror's fame for such a victory won,yet if I blot this monster out, and wringfull punishment from guilt, the time to comewill praise me, and sweet pleasure it will beto glut my soul with vengeance and appeasethe ashes of my kindred.”So I raved,and to such frenzied purpose gave my soul.Then with clear vision (never had I seenher presence so unclouded) I beheld,in golden beams that pierced the midnight gloom,my gracious mother, visibly divine,and with that mien of majesty she wearswhen seen in heaven; she stayed me with her hand,and from her lips of rose this counsel gave:“O son, what sorrow stirs thy boundless rage?what madness this? Or whither vanisheththy love of me? Wilt thou not seek to knowwhere bides Anchises, thy abandoned sire,now weak with age? or if Creusa livesand young Ascanius, who are ringed aboutwith ranks of Grecian foes, and long ere this—save that my love can shield them and defend—had fallen on flame or fed some hungry sword?Not Helen's hated beauty works thee woe;nor Paris, oft-accused. The crueltyof gods, of gods unaided, overwhelmsthy country's power, and from its Iofty heightcasts Ilium down. Behold, I take awaythe barrier-cloud that dims thy mortal eye,with murk and mist o'er-veiling. Fear not thouto heed thy mother's word, nor let thy heartrefuse obedience to her counsel given.'Mid yonder trembling ruins, where thou see'ststone torn from stone, with dust and smoke uprolling,'t is Neptune strikes the wall; his trident vastmakes her foundation tremble, and unseatsthe city from her throne. Fierce Juno leadsresistless onset at the Scaean gate,and summons from the ships the league of powers,wearing her wrathful sword. On yonder heightbehold Tritonia in the citadelclothed with the lightning and her Gorgon-shield!Unto the Greeks great Jove himself renewstheir courage and their power; 't is he thrusts onthe gods themselves against the Trojan arms.Fly, O my son! The war's wild work give o'er!I will be always nigh and set thee safeupon thy father's threshold.” Having said,she fled upon the viewless night away.