The Aeneid - Virgil (13 ebook reader .TXT) š
- Author: Virgil
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To force the gate; the Scyrian infantry
Rush on in crowds, and the barrād passage free.
Entāring the court, with shouts the skies they rend;
And flaming firebrands to the roofs ascend.
Himself, among the foremost, deals his blows,
And with his ax repeated strokes bestows
On the strong doors; then all their shoulders ply,
Till from the posts the brazen hinges fly.
He hews apace; the double bars at length
Yield to his ax and unresisted strength.
A mighty breach is made: the rooms concealād
Appear, and all the palace is revealād;
The halls of audience, and of public state,
And where the lonely queen in secret sate.
Armād soldiers now by trembling maids are seen,
With not a door, and scarce a space, between.
The house is fillād with loud laments and cries,
And shrieks of women rend the vaulted skies;
The fearful matrons run from place to place,
And kiss the thresholds, and the posts embrace.
The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies,
And all his father sparkles in his eyes;
Nor bars, nor fighting guards, his force sustain:
The bars are broken, and the guards are slain.
In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill;
Those few defendants whom they find, they kill.
Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood
Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood;
Bears down the dams with unresisted sway,
And sweeps the cattle and the cots away.
These eyes beheld him when he marchād between
The brother kings: I saw thā unhappy queen,
The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood,
To stain his hallowād altar with his brood.
The fifty nuptial beds (such hopes had he,
So large a promise, of a progeny),
The posts, of plated gold, and hung with spoils,
Fell the reward of the proud victorās toils.
Whereāer the raging fire had left a space,
The Grecians enter and possess the place.
āPerhaps you may of Priamās fate enquire.
He, when he saw his regal town on fire,
His ruinād palace, and his entāring foes,
On evāry side inevitable woes,
In arms, disusād, invests his limbs, decayād,
Like them, with age; a late and useless aid.
His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain;
Loaded, not armād, he creeps along with pain,
Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain!
Uncoverād but by heavān, there stood in view
An altar; near the hearth a laurel grew,
Dodderād with age, whose boughs encompass round
The household gods, and shade the holy ground.
Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train
Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain.
Drivān like a flock of doves along the sky,
Their images they hug, and to their altars fly.
The Queen, when she beheld her trembling lord,
And hanging by his side a heavy sword,
āWhat rage,ā she cried, āhas seizād my husbandās mind?
What arms are these, and to what use designād?
These times want other aids! Were Hector here,
Evān Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear.
With us, one common shelter thou shalt find,
Or in one common fate with us be joinād.ā
She said, and with a last salute embracād
The poor old man, and by the laurel placād.
Behold! Polites, one of Priamās sons,
Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs.
Throā swords and foes, amazād and hurt, he flies
Throā empty courts and open galleries.
Him Pyrrhus, urging with his lance, pursues,
And often reaches, and his thrusts renews.
The youth, transfixād, with lamentable cries,
Expires before his wretched parentās eyes:
Whom gasping at his feet when Priam saw,
The fear of death gave place to natureās law;
And, shaking more with anger than with age,
āThe gods,ā said he, ārequite thy brutal rage!
As sure they will, barbarian, sure they must,
If there be gods in heavān, and gods be justā ā
Who takāst in wrongs an insolent delight;
With a sonās death tā infect a fatherās sight.
Not he, whom thou and lying fame conspire
To call thee his; not he, thy vaunted sire,
Thus usād my wretched age: the gods he fearād,
The laws of nature and of nations heard.
He cheerād my sorrows, and, for sums of gold,
The bloodless carcass of my Hector sold;
Pitied the woes a parent underwent,
And sent me back in safety from his tent.ā
āThis said, his feeble hand a javelin threw,
Which, fluttāring, seemād to loiter as it flew:
Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,
And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.
āThen Pyrrhus thus: āGo thou from me to fate,
And to my father my foul deeds relate.
Now die!ā With that he draggād the trembling sire,
Sliddāring throā clotterād blood and holy mire,
(The mingled paste his murderād son had made,)
Haulād from beneath the violated shade,
And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid.
His right hand held his bloody falchion bare,
His left he twisted in his hoary hair;
Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found:
The lukewarm blood came rushing throā the wound,
And sanguine streams distainād the sacred ground.
Thus Priam fell, and sharād one common fate
With Troy in ashes, and his ruinād state:
He, who the scepter of all Asia swayād,
Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obeyād.
On the bleak shore now lies thā abandonād king,
A headless carcass, and a nameless thing.
āThen, not before, I felt my curdled blood
Congeal with fear, my hair with horror stood:
My fatherās image fillād my pious mind,
Lest equal years might equal fortune find.
Again I thought on my forsaken wife,
And trembled for my sonās abandonād life.
I lookād about, but found myself alone,
Deserted at my need! My friends were gone.
Some spent with toil, some with despair oppressād,
Leapād headlong from the heights; the flames consumād the rest.
Thus, wandāring in my way, without a guide,
The graceless Helen in the porch I spied
Of Vestaās temple; there she lurkād alone;
Muffled she sate, and, what she could, unknown:
But, by the flames that cast their blaze around,
That common bane of Greece and Troy I found.
For Ilium burnt, she dreads the Trojan sword;
More dreads the vengeance of her injurād lord;
Evān by those gods who refugād her abhorrād.
Trembling with rage, the strumpet I regard,
Resolvād to give her guilt the due reward:
āShall she triumphant sail before the wind,
And leave in flames unhappy Troy behind?
Shall she her kingdom and her friends review,
In state attended with a captive crew,
While unrevengād the good old Priam falls,
And Grecian fires consume the Trojan walls?
For this the Phrygian fields and Xanthian flood
Were swellād with bodies, and were drunk with blood?
āTis true, a soldier can small honour gain,
And boast no conquest, from a woman slain:
Yet shall the fact not pass without
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