The Aeneid. Публий Марон Вергилий

From several quarters, and enclose the rear.

       They first observe, and to the rest betray,

       Our diff’rent speech; our borrow’d arms survey.

       Oppress’d with odds, we fall; Coroebus first,

       At Pallas’ altar, by Peneleus pierc’d.

       Then Ripheus follow’d, in th’ unequal fight;

       Just of his word, observant of the right:

       Heav’n thought not so. Dymas their fate attends,

       With Hypanis, mistaken by their friends.

       Nor, Pantheus, thee, thy mitre, nor the bands

       Of awful Phoebus, sav’d from impious hands.

       Ye Trojan flames, your testimony bear,

       What I perform’d, and what I suffer’d there;

       No sword avoiding in the fatal strife,

       Expos’d to death, and prodigal of life;

       Witness, ye heavens! I live not by my fault:

       I strove to have deserv’d the death I sought.

       But, when I could not fight, and would have died,

       Borne off to distance by the growing tide,

       Old Iphitus and I were hurried thence,

       With Pelias wounded, and without defence.

       New clamours from th’ invested palace ring:

       We run to die, or disengage the king.

       So hot th’ assault, so high the tumult rose,

       While ours defend, and while the Greeks oppose

       As all the Dardan and Argolic race

       Had been contracted in that narrow space;

       Or as all Ilium else were void of fear,

       And tumult, war, and slaughter, only there.

       Their targets in a tortoise cast, the foes,

       Secure advancing, to the turrets rose:

       Some mount the scaling ladders; some, more bold,

       Swerve upwards, and by posts and pillars hold;

       Their left hand gripes their bucklers in th’ ascent,

       While with their right they seize the battlement.

       From their demolish’d tow’rs the Trojans throw

       Huge heaps of stones, that, falling, crush the foe;

       And heavy beams and rafters from the sides

       (Such arms their last necessity provides)

       And gilded roofs, come tumbling from on high,

       The marks of state and ancient royalty.

       The guards below, fix’d in the pass, attend

       The charge undaunted, and the gate defend.

       Renew’d in courage with recover’d breath,

       A second time we ran to tempt our death,

       To clear the palace from the foe, succeed

       The weary living, and revenge the dead.

      “A postern door, yet unobserv’d and free,

       Join’d by the length of a blind gallery,

       To the king’s closet led: a way well known

       To Hector’s wife, while Priam held the throne,

       Thro’ which she brought Astyanax, unseen,

       To cheer his grandsire and his grandsire’s queen.

       Thro’ this we pass, and mount the tow’r, from whence

       With unavailing arms the Trojans make defence.

       From this the trembling king had oft descried

       The Grecian camp, and saw their navy ride.

       Beams from its lofty height with swords we hew,

       Then, wrenching with our hands, th’ assault renew;

       And, where the rafters on the columns meet,

       We push them headlong with our arms and feet.

       The lightning flies not swifter than the fall,

       Nor thunder louder than the ruin’d wall:

       Down goes the top at once; the Greeks beneath

       Are piecemeal torn, or pounded into death.

       Yet more succeed, and more to death are sent;

       We cease not from above, nor they below relent.

       Before the gate stood Pyrrhus, threat’ning loud,

       With glitt’ring arms conspicuous in the crowd.

       So shines, renew’d in youth, the crested snake,

       Who slept the winter in a thorny brake,

       And, casting off his slough when spring returns,

       Now looks aloft, and with new glory burns;

       Restor’d with poisonous herbs, his ardent sides

       Reflect the sun; and rais’d on spires he rides;

       High o’er the grass, hissing he rolls along,

       And brandishes by fits his forky tongue.

       Proud Periphas, and fierce Automedon,

       His father’s charioteer, together run

       To force the gate; the Scyrian infantry

       Rush on in crowds, and the barr’d passage free.

       Ent’ring 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 conceal’d

       Appear, and all the palace is reveal’d;

       The halls of audience, and of public state,

       And where the lonely queen in secret sate.

       Arm’d soldiers now by trembling maids are seen,

       With not a door, and scarce a space, between.

       The house is fill’d 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 march’d between

       The brother kings: I saw th’ unhappy queen,

       The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood,