The Aeneid Read online

  Just that moment the Ithacan haled the prophet,

  Calchas, into our midst—he’d twist it out of him,

  what was the gods’ will? The army rose in uproar.

  Even then our soldiers sensed that I was the one,

  the target of that Ulysses’ vicious schemes—

  they saw it coming, still they held their tongues.

  For ten days the seer, silent, closed off in his tent,

  refused to say a word or betray a man to death.

  But at last, goaded on by Ulysses’ mounting threats

  but in fact conniving in their plot, he breaks his silence

  and dooms me to the altar. And the army gave consent.

  The death that each man dreaded turned to the fate

  of one poor soul: a burden they could bear.

  “‘The day of infamy soon came . . .

  the sacred rites were all performed for the victim,

  the salted meal strewn, the bands tied round my head.

  But I broke free of death, I tell you, burst my shackles,

  yes, and hid all night in the reeds of a marshy lake,

  waiting for them to sail—if only they would sail!

  Well, no hope now of seeing the land where I was born

  or my sweet children, the father I longed for all these years.

  Maybe they’ll wring from them the price for my escape,

  avenge my guilt with my loved ones’ blood, poor things.

  I beg you, king, by the Powers who know the truth,

  by any trust still uncorrupt in the world of men,

  pity a man whose torment knows no bounds.

  Pity me in my pain.

  I know in my soul I don’t deserve to suffer.’

  “He wept and won his life—our pity, too.

  Priam takes command, has him freed from the ropes

  and chains that bind him fast, and hails him warmly:

  ‘Whoever you are, from now on, now you’ve lost the Greeks,

  put them out of your mind and you’ll be one of us.

  But answer my questions. Tell me the whole truth.

  Why did they raise up this giant, monstrous horse?

  Who conceived it? What’s it for? its purpose?

  A gift to the gods? A great engine of battle?’

  “He broke off. Sinon, adept at deceit,

  with all his Greek cunning lifted his hands,

  just freed from their fetters, up to the stars

  and prayed: ‘Bear witness, you eternal fires of the sky

  and you inviolate will of the gods! Bear witness,

  altar and those infernal knives that I escaped

  and the sacred bands I wore myself: the victim.

  It’s right to break my sworn oath to the Greeks,

  it’s right to detest those men and bring to light

  all they’re hiding now. No laws of my native land

  can bind me here. Just keep your promise, Troy,

  and if I can save you, you must save me too—

  if I reveal the truth and pay you back in full.

  “‘All the hopes of the Greeks, their firm faith

  in a war they’d launched themselves

  had always hinged on Pallas Athena’s help.

  But from the moment that godless Diomedes,

  flanked by Ulysses, the mastermind of crime,

  attacked and tore the fateful image of Pallas

  out of her own hallowed shrine, and cut down

  the sentries ringing your city heights and seized

  that holy image and even dared touch the sacred bands

  on the virgin goddess’ head with hands reeking blood—

  from that hour on, the high hopes of the Greeks

  had trickled away like a slow, ebbing tide . . .

  They were broken, beaten men,

  the will of the goddess dead set against them.

  Omens of this she gave in no uncertain terms.

  They’d hardly stood her image up in the Greek camp

  when flickering fire shot from its glaring eyes

  and salt sweat ran glistening down its limbs

  and three times the goddess herself—a marvel—

  blazed forth from the ground, shield clashing, spear brandished.

  The prophet spurs them at once to risk escape by sea:

  “You cannot root out Troy with your Greek spears unless

  you seek new omens in Greece and bring the god back here”—

  the image they’d borne across the sea in their curved ships.

  So now they’ve sailed away on the wind for home shores,

  just to rearm, recruit their gods as allies yet again,

  then measure back their course on the high seas and

  back they’ll come to attack you all off guard.

  “‘So Calchas read the omens. At his command

  they raised this horse, this effigy, all to atone

  for the violated image of Pallas, her wounded pride,

  her power—and expiate the outrage they had done.

  But he made them do the work on a grand scale,

  a tremendous mass of interlocking timbers towering

  toward the sky, so the horse could not be trundled

  through your gates or hauled inside your walls

  or guard your people if they revered it well

  in the old, ancient way. For if your hands

  should violate this great offering to Minerva,

  a total disaster—if only god would turn it

  against the seer himself!—will wheel down

  on Priam’s empire, Troy, and all your futures.

  But if your hands will rear it up, into your city,

  then all Asia in arms can invade Greece, can launch

  an all-out war right up to the walls of Pelops.

  That’s the doom that awaits our sons’ sons.’

  “Trapped by his craft, that cunning liar Sinon,

  we believed his story. His tears, his treachery seized

  the men whom neither Tydeus’ son nor Achilles could defeat,

  nor ten long years of war, nor all the thousand ships.

  “But a new portent strikes our doomed people

  now—a greater omen, far more terrible, fatal,

  shakes our senses, blind to what was coming.

  Laocoön, the priest of Neptune picked by lot,

  was sacrificing a massive bull at the holy altar

  when—I cringe to recall it now—look there!

  Over the calm deep straits off Tenedos swim

  twin, giant serpents, rearing in coils, breasting

  the sea-swell side by side, plunging toward the shore,

  their heads, their blood-red crests surging over the waves,

  their bodies thrashing, backs rolling in coil on mammoth coil

  and the wake behind them churns in a roar of foaming spray,

  and now, their eyes glittering, shot with blood and fire,

  flickering tongues licking their hissing maws, yes, now

  they’re about to land. We blanch at the sight, we scatter.

  Like troops on attack they’re heading straight for Laocoön—

  first each serpent seizes one of his small young sons,

  constricting, twisting around him, sinks its fangs

  in the tortured limbs, and gorges. Next Laocoön

  rushing quick to the rescue, clutching his sword—

  they trap him, bind him in huge muscular whorls,

  their scaly backs lashing around his midriff twice

  and twice around his throat—their heads, their flaring necks

  mounting over their victim writhing still, his hands

  frantic to wrench apart their knotted trunks,

  his priestly bands splattered in filth, black venom

  and all the while his horrible screaming fills the skies,

  bellowing like some wounded bull struggling to shrug

  loose from his neck an axe that’s st
ruck awry,

  to lumber clear of the altar . . .

  Only the twin snakes escape, sliding off and away

  to the heights of Troy where the ruthless goddess

  holds her shrine, and there at her feet they hide,

  vanishing under Minerva’s great round shield.

  “At once,

  I tell you, a stranger fear runs through the harrowed crowd.

  Laocoön deserved to pay for his outrage, so they say,

  he desecrated the sacred timbers of the horse,

  he hurled his wicked lance at the beast’s back.

  ‘Haul Minerva’s effigy up to her house,’ we shout,

  ‘Offer up our prayers to the power of the goddess!’

  We breach our own ramparts, fling our defenses open,

  all pitch into the work. Smooth running rollers

  we wheel beneath its hoofs, and heavy hempen ropes

  we bind around its neck, and teeming with men-at-arms

  the huge deadly engine climbs our city walls . . .

  And round it boys and unwed girls sing hymns,

  thrilled to lay a hand on the dangling ropes

  as on and on it comes, gliding into the city,

  looming high over the city’s heart.

  “Oh my country!

  Troy, home of the gods! You great walls of the Dardans

  long renowned in war!

  “Four times it lurched to a halt

  at the very brink of the gates—four times the armor

  clashed out from its womb. But we, we forged ahead,

  oblivious, blind, insane, we stationed the monster

  fraught with doom on the hallowed heights of Troy.

  Even now Cassandra revealed the future, opening

  lips the gods had ruled no Trojan would believe.

  And we, poor fools—on this, our last day—we deck

  the shrines of the gods with green holiday garlands

  all throughout the city . . . “But all the while

  the skies keep wheeling on and night comes sweeping in

  from the Ocean Stream, in its mammoth shadow swallowing up

  the earth, and the Pole Star, and the treachery of the Greeks.

  Dead quiet. The Trojans slept on, strewn throughout

  their fortress, weary bodies embraced by slumber.

  But the Greek armada was under way now, crossing

  over from Tenedos, ships in battle formation

  under the moon’s quiet light, their silent ally,

  homing in on the berths they know by heart—

  when the king’s flagship sends up a signal flare,

  the cue for Sinon, saved by the Fates’ unjust decree,

  and stealthily loosing the pine bolts of the horse,

  he unleashes the Greeks shut up inside its womb.

  The horse stands open wide, fighters in high spirits

  pouring out of its timbered cavern into the fresh air:

  the chiefs, Thessandrus, Sthenelus, ruthless Ulysses

  rappeling down a rope they dropped from its side,

  and Acamas, Thoas, Neoptolemus, son of Achilles,

  captain Machaon, Menelaus, Epeus himself,

  the man who built that masterpiece of fraud.

  They steal on a city buried deep in sleep and wine,

  they butcher the guards, fling wide the gates and hug

  their cohorts poised to combine forces. Plot complete.

  “This was the hour when rest, that gift of the gods

  most heaven-sent, first comes to beleaguered mortals,

  creeping over us now . . . when there, look,

  I dreamed I saw Prince Hector before my eyes,

  my comrade haggard with sorrow, streaming tears,

  just as he once was, when dragged behind the chariot,

  black with blood and grime, thongs piercing his swollen feet—

  what a harrowing sight! What a far cry from the old Hector

  home from battle, decked in Achilles’ arms—his trophies—

  or fresh from pitching Trojan fire at the Greek ships.

  His beard matted now, his hair clotted with blood,

  bearing the wounds, so many wounds he suffered

  fighting round his native city’s walls . . .

  I dreamed I addressed him first, in tears myself

  I forced my voice from the depths of all my grief:

  ‘Oh light of the Trojans—last, best hope of Troy!

  What’s held you back so long? How long we’ve waited,

  Hector, for you to come, and now from what far shores?

  How glad we are to see you, we battle-weary men,

  after so many deaths, your people dead and gone,

  after your citizens, your city felt such pain.

  But what outrage has mutilated your face

  so clear and cloudless once? Why these wounds?’

  “Wasting no words, no time on empty questions,

  heaving a deep groan from his heart he calls out:

  ‘Escape, son of the goddess, tear yourself from the flames!

  The enemy holds our walls. Troy is toppling from her heights.

  You have paid your debt to our king and native land.

  If one strong arm could have saved Troy, my arm

  would have saved the city. Now, into your hands

  she entrusts her holy things, her household gods.

  Take them with you as comrades in your fortunes.

  Seek a city for them, once you have roved the seas,

  erect great walls at last to house the gods of Troy!’

  “Urging so, with his own hands he carries Vesta forth

  from her inner shrine, her image clad in ribbons,

  filled with her power, her everlasting fire.

  “But now,

  chaos—the city begins to reel with cries of grief,

  louder, stronger, even though father’s palace

  stood well back, screened off by trees, but still

  the clash of arms rings clearer, horror on the attack.

  I shake off sleep and scrambling up to the pitched roof

  I stand there, ears alert, and I hear a roar like fire

  assaulting a wheatfield, whipped by a Southwind’s fury,

  or mountain torrent in full spate, flattening crops,

  leveling all the happy, thriving labor of oxen,

  dragging whole trees headlong down in its wake—

  and a shepherd perched on a sheer rock outcrop

  hears the roar, lost in amazement, struck dumb.

  No doubting the good faith of the Greeks now,

  their treachery plain as day.

  “Already, there,

  the grand house of Deiphobus stormed by fire,

  crashing in ruins—

  “Already his neighbor Ucalegon

  up in flames—

  “The Sigean straits shimmering back the blaze,

  the shouting of fighters soars, the clashing blare of trumpets.

  Out of my wits, I seize my arms—what reason for arms?

  Just my spirit burning to muster troops for battle,

  rush with comrades up to the city’s heights,

  fury and rage driving me breakneck on

  as it races through my mind

  what a noble thing it is to die in arms!

  “But now, look,

  just slipped out from under the Greek barrage of spears,

  Panthus, Othrys’ son, a priest of Apollo’s shrine

  on the citadel—hands full of the holy things,

  the images of our conquered gods—he’s dragging along

  his little grandson, making a wild dash for our doors.

  ‘Panthus, where’s our stronghold? our last stand?’—

  words still on my lips as he groans in answer:

  ‘The last day has come for the Trojan people,

  no escaping this moment. Troy’s no more.

  Ilium, gone—our awesome Trojan glory.

&n
bsp; Brutal Jupiter hands it all over to Greece,

  Greeks are lording over our city up in flames.

  The horse stands towering high in the heart of Troy,

  disgorging its armed men, with Sinon in his glory,

  gloating over us—Sinon fans the fires.

  The immense double gates are flung wide open,

  Greeks in their thousands mass there, all who ever

  sailed from proud Mycenae. Others have choked

  the cramped streets, weapons brandished now

  in a battle line of naked, glinting steel

  tense for the kill. Only the first guards

  at the gates put up some show of resistance,

  fighting blindly on.’

  “Spurred by Panthus’ words and the gods’ will,

  into the blaze I dive, into the fray, wherever

  the din of combat breaks and war cries fill the sky,

  wherever the battle-fury drives me on and now

  I’m joined by Rhipeus, Epytus mighty in armor,

  rearing up in the moonlight—

  Hypanis comes to my side, and Dymas too,

  flanked by the young Coroebus, Mygdon’s son.

  Late in the day he’d chanced to come to Troy

  incensed with a mad, burning love for Cassandra:

  son-in-law to our king, he would rescue Troy. Poor man,

  if only he’d marked his bride’s inspired ravings!

  “Seeing their close-packed ranks, hot for battle,

  I spur them on their way: ‘Men, brave hearts,

  though bravery cannot save us—if you’re bent on

  following me and risking all to face the worst,

  look around you, see how our chances stand.

  The gods who shored our empire up have left us,

  all have deserted their altars and their shrines.

  You race to defend a city already lost in flames.

  But let us die, go plunging into the thick of battle.

  One hope saves the defeated: they know they can’t be saved!’

  That fired their hearts with the fury of despair.

  “Now

  like a wolfpack out for blood on a foggy night,

  driven blindly on by relentless, rabid hunger,

  leaving cubs behind, waiting, jaws parched—

  so through spears, through enemy ranks we plow

  to certain death, striking into the city’s heart,

  the shielding wings of the darkness beating round us.

  Who has words to capture that night’s disaster,

  tell that slaughter? What tears could match