The Aeneid Read online

our torments now? An ancient city is falling,

  a power that ruled for ages, now in ruins.

  Everywhere lie the motionless bodies of the dead,

  strewn in her streets, her homes and the gods’ shrines

  we held in awe. And not only Trojans pay the price in blood—

  at times the courage races back in their conquered hearts

  and they cut their enemies down in all their triumph.

  Everywhere, wrenching grief, everywhere, terror

  and a thousand shapes of death.

  “And the first Greek

  to cross our path? Androgeos leading a horde of troops

  and taking us for allies on the march, the fool,

  he even gives us a warm salute and calls out:

  ‘Hurry up, men. Why holding back, why now,

  why drag your heels? Troy’s up in flames,

  the rest are looting, sacking the city heights.

  But you, have you just come from the tall ships?’

  Suddenly, getting no password he can trust,

  he sensed he’d stumbled into enemy ranks!

  Stunned, he recoiled, swallowing back his words

  like a man who threads his way through prickly brambles,

  pressing his full weight on the ground, and blindly treads

  on a lurking snake and back he shrinks in instant fear

  as it rears in anger, puffs its blue-black neck.

  Just so Androgeos, seeing us, cringes with fear,

  recoiling, struggling to flee but we attack,

  flinging a ring of steel around his cohorts—

  panic takes the Greeks unsure of their ground

  and we cut them all to pieces.

  Fortune fills our sails in that first clash

  and Coroebus, flushed, fired with such success,

  exults: ‘Comrades, wherever Fortune points the way,

  wherever the first road to safety leads, let’s soldier on.

  Exchange shields with the Greeks and wear their emblems.

  Call it cunning or courage: who would ask in war?

  Our enemies will arm us to the hilt.’

  “With that he dons

  Androgeos’ crested helmet, his handsome blazoned shield

  and straps a Greek sword to his hip, and comrades,

  spirits rising, take his lead. Rhipeus, Dymas too

  and our corps of young recruits—each fighter

  arms himself in the loot that he just seized

  and on we forge, blending in with the enemy,

  battling time and again under strange gods,

  fighting hand-to-hand in the blind dark

  and many Greeks we send to the King of Death.

  Some scatter back to their ships, making a run

  for shore and safety. Others disgrace themselves,

  so panicked they clamber back inside the monstrous horse,

  burying into the womb they know so well.

  “But, oh

  how wrong to rely on gods dead set against you!

  Watch: the virgin daughter of Priam, Cassandra,

  torn from the sacred depths of Minerva’s shrine,

  dragged by the hair, raising her burning eyes

  to the heavens, just her eyes, so helpless,

  shackles kept her from raising her gentle hands.

  Coroebus could not bear the sight of it—mad with rage

  he flung himself at the Greek lines and met his death.

  Closing ranks we charge after him, into the thick of battle

  and face our first disaster. Down from the temple roof

  come showers of lances hurled by our own comrades there,

  duped by the look of our Greek arms, our Greek crests

  that launched this grisly slaughter. And worse still,

  the Greeks roaring with anger—we had saved Cassandra—

  attack us from all sides! Ajax, fiercest of all and

  Atreus’ two sons and the whole Dolopian army,

  wild as a rampaging whirlwind, gusts clashing,

  the West- and the South- and Eastwind riding high

  on the rushing horses of the Dawn, and the woods howl

  and Nereus, thrashing his savage trident, churns up

  the sea exploding in foam from its rocky depths.

  And those Greeks we had put to rout, our ruse

  in the murky night stampeding them headlong on

  throughout the city—back they come, the first

  to see that our shields and spears are naked lies,

  to mark the words on our lips that jar with theirs.

  In a flash, superior numbers overwhelm us.

  Coroebus is first to go,

  cut down by Peneleus’ right hand he sprawls

  at Minerva’s shrine, the goddess, power of armies.

  Rhipeus falls too, the most righteous man in Troy,

  the most devoted to justice, true, but the gods

  had other plans.

  “Hypanis, Dymas die as well,

  run through by their own men—

  “And you, Panthus,

  not all your piety, all the sacred bands you wore

  as Apollo’s priest could save you as you fell.

  Ashes of Ilium, last flames that engulfed my world—

  I swear by you that in your last hour I never shrank

  from the Greek spears, from any startling hazard of war—

  if Fate had struck me down, my sword-arm earned it all.

  Now we are swept away, Iphitus, Pelias with me,

  one weighed down with age and the other slowed

  by a wound Ulysses gave him—heading straight

  for Priam’s palace, driven there by the outcries.

  “And there, I tell you, a pitched battle flares!

  You’d think no other battles could match its fury,

  nowhere else in the city were people dying so.

  Invincible Mars rears up to meet us face-to-face

  with waves of Greeks assaulting the roofs, we see them

  choking the gateway, under a tortoise-shell of shields,

  and the scaling ladders cling to the steep ramparts—

  just at the gates the raiders scramble up the rungs,

  shields on their left arms thrust out for defense,

  their right hands clutching the gables.

  Over against them, Trojans ripping the tiles

  and turrets from all their roofs—the end is near,

  they can see it now, at the brink of death, desperate

  for weapons, some defense, and these, these missiles they send

  reeling down on the Greeks’ heads—the gilded beams,

  the inlaid glory of all our ancient fathers.

  Comrades below, posted in close-packed ranks,

  block the entries, swordpoints drawn and poised.

  My courage renewed, I rush to relieve the palace,

  brace the defenders, bring the defeated strength.

  “There was a secret door, a hidden passage

  linking the wings of Priam’s house—remote,

  far to the rear. Long as our realm still stood,

  Andromache, poor woman, would often go this way,

  unattended, to Hector’s parents, taking the boy

  Astyanax by the hand to see grandfather Priam.

  I slipped through the door, up to the jutting roof

  where the doomed Trojans were hurling futile spears.

  There was a tower soaring high at the peak toward the sky,

  our favorite vantage point for surveying all of Troy

  and the Greek fleet and camp. We attacked that tower

  with iron crowbars, just where the upper-story planks

  showed loosening joints—we rocked it, wrenched it free

  of its deep moorings and all at once we heaved it toppling

  down with a crash, trailing its wake of ruin to grind

  the massed Greeks assaulting left and right. But on

  came Greek res
erves, no letup, the hail of rocks,

  the missiles of every kind would never cease.

  “There at the very edge of the front gates

  springs Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, prancing in arms,

  aflash in his shimmering brazen sheath like a snake

  buried the whole winter long under frozen turf,

  swollen to bursting, fed full on poisonous weeds

  and now it springs into light, sloughing its old skin

  to glisten sleek in its newfound youth, its back slithering,

  coiling, its proud chest rearing high to the sun,

  its triple tongue flickering through its fangs.

  Backing him now comes Periphas, giant fighter,

  Automedon too, Achilles’ henchman, charioteer

  who bore the great man’s armor—backing Pyrrhus,

  the young fighters from Scyros raid the palace,

  hurling firebrands at the roofs. Out in the lead,

  Pyrrhus seizes a double-axe and batters the rocky sill

  and ripping the bronze posts out of their sockets,

  hacking the rugged oaken planks of the doors,

  makes a breach, a gaping maw, and there, exposed,

  the heart of the house, the sweep of the colonnades,

  the palace depths of the old kings and Priam lie exposed

  and they see the armed sentries bracing at the portals.

  “But all in the house is turmoil, misery, groans,

  the echoing chambers ring with cries of women,

  wails of mourning hit the golden stars.

  Mothers scatter in panic down the palace halls

  and embrace the pillars, cling to them, kiss them hard.

  But on he comes, Pyrrhus with all his father’s force,

  no bolts, not even the guards can hold him back—

  under the ram’s repeated blows the doors cave in,

  the doorposts, prised from their sockets, crash flat.

  Force makes a breach and the Greeks come storming through,

  butcher the sentries, flood the entire place with men-at-arms.

  No river so wild, so frothing in spate, bursting its banks

  to overpower the dikes, anything in its way, its cresting

  tides stampeding in fury down on the fields to sweep

  the flocks and stalls across the open plain.

  I saw him myself, Pyrrhus crazed with carnage

  and Atreus’ two sons just at the threshold—

  “I saw

  Hecuba with her hundred daughters and daughters-in-law,

  saw Priam fouling with blood the altar fires

  he himself had blessed.

  “Those fifty bridal-chambers

  filled with the hope of children’s children still to come,

  the pillars proud with trophies, gilded with Eastern gold,

  they all come tumbling down—

  and the Greeks hold what the raging fire spares.

  “Perhaps you wonder how Priam met his end.

  When he saw his city stormed and seized, his gates

  wrenched apart, the enemy camped in his palace depths,

  the old man dons his armor long unused, he clamps it

  round his shoulders shaking with age and, all for nothing,

  straps his useless sword to his hip, then makes

  for the thick of battle, out to meet his death.

  At the heart of the house an ample altar stood,

  naked under the skies,

  an ancient laurel bending over the shrine,

  embracing our household gods within its shade.

  Here, flocking the altar, Hecuba and her daughters

  huddled, blown headlong down like doves by a black storm—

  clutching, all for nothing, the figures of their gods.

  Seeing Priam decked in the arms he’d worn as a young man,

  ‘Are you insane?’ she cries, ‘poor husband, what impels you

  to strap that sword on now? Where are you rushing?

  Too late for such defense, such help. Not even

  my own Hector, if he came to the rescue now . . .

  Come to me, Priam. This altar will shield us all

  or else you’ll die with us.’

  “With those words,

  drawing him toward her there, she made a place

  for the old man beside the holy shrine.

  “Suddenly,

  look, a son of Priam, Polites, just escaped

  from slaughter at Pyrrhus’ hands, comes racing in

  through spears, through enemy fighters, fleeing down

  the long arcades and deserted hallways—badly wounded,

  Pyrrhus hot on his heels, a weapon poised for the kill,

  about to seize him, about to run him through and pressing

  home as Polites reaches his parents and collapses,

  vomiting out his lifeblood before their eyes.

  At that, Priam, trapped in the grip of death,

  not holding back, not checking his words, his rage:

  ‘You!’ he cries, ‘you and your vicious crimes!

  If any power on high recoils at such an outrage,

  let the gods repay you for all your reckless work,

  grant you the thanks, the rich reward you’ve earned.

  You’ve made me see my son’s death with my own eyes,

  defiled a father’s sight with a son’s lifeblood.

  You say you’re Achilles’ son? You lie! Achilles

  never treated his enemy Priam so. No, he honored

  a suppliant’s rights, he blushed to betray my trust,

  he restored my Hector’s bloodless corpse for burial,

  sent me safely home to the land I rule!’

  “With that

  and with all his might the old man flings his spear—

  but too impotent now to pierce, it merely grazes

  Pyrrhus’ brazen shield that blocks its way

  and clings there, dangling limp from the boss,

  all for nothing. Pyrrhus shouts back: ‘Well then,

  down you go, a messenger to my father, Peleus’ son!

  Tell him about my vicious work, how Neoptolemus

  degrades his father’s name—don’t you forget.

  Now—die!’

  “That said, he drags the old man

  straight to the altar, quaking, slithering on through

  slicks of his son’s blood, and twisting Priam’s hair

  in his left hand, his right hand sweeping forth his sword—

  a flash of steel—he buries it hilt-deep in the king’s flank.

  “Such was the fate of Priam, his death, his lot on earth,

  with Troy blazing before his eyes, her ramparts down,

  the monarch who once had ruled in all his glory

  the many lands of Asia, Asia’s many tribes.

  A powerful trunk is lying on the shore.

  The head wrenched from the shoulders.

  A corpse without a name.

  “Then, for the first time

  the full horror came home to me at last. I froze.

  The thought of my own dear father filled my mind

  when I saw the old king gasping out his life

  with that raw wound—both men were the same age—

  and the thought of my Creusa, alone, abandoned,

  our house plundered, our little Iulus’ fate.

  I look back—what forces still stood by me?

  None. Totally spent in war, they’d all deserted,

  down from the roofs they’d flung themselves to earth

  or hurled their broken bodies in the flames.

  [“So,3

  at just that moment I was the one man left

  and then I saw her, clinging to Vesta’s threshold,

  hiding in silence, tucked away—Helen of Argos.

  Glare of the fires lit my view as I looked down,

  scanning the city left and right, and there she was . . .

  terrified of t
he Trojans’ hate, now Troy was overpowered,

  terrified of the Greeks’ revenge, her deserted husband’s rage—

  that universal Fury, a curse to Troy and her native land

  and here she lurked, skulking, a thing of loathing

  cowering at the altar: Helen. Out it flared,

  the fire inside my soul, my rage ablaze to avenge

  our fallen country—pay Helen back, crime for crime.

  “‘So, this woman,’ it struck me now, ‘safe and sound

  she’ll look once more on Sparta, her native Greece?

  She’ll ride like a queen in triumph with her trophies?

  Feast her eyes on her husband, parents, children too?

  Her retinue fawning round her, Phrygian ladies, slaves?

  That—with Priam put to the sword? And Troy up in flames?

  And time and again our Dardan shores have sweated blood?

  Not for all the world. No fame, no memory to be won

  for punishing a woman: such victory reaps no praise

  but to stamp this abomination out as she deserves,

  to punish her now, they’ll sing my praise for that.

  What joy, to glut my heart with the fires of vengeance,

  bring some peace to the ashes of my people!’

  “Whirling words—I was swept away by fury now]

  when all of a sudden there my loving mother stood

  before my eyes, but I had never seen her so clearly,

  her pure radiance shining down upon me through the night,

  the goddess in all her glory, just as the gods behold

  her build, her awesome beauty. Grasping my hand

  she held me back, adding this from her rose-red lips:

  ‘My son, what grief could incite such blazing anger?

  Why such fury? And the love you bore me once,

  where has it all gone? Why don’t you look first

  where you left your father, Anchises, spent with age?

  Do your wife, Creusa, and son Ascanius still survive?

  The Greek battalions are swarming round them all,

  and if my love had never rushed to the rescue,

  flames would have swept them off by now or

  enemy sword-blades would have drained their blood.

  Think: it’s not that beauty, Helen, you should hate,

  not even Paris, the man that you should blame, no,

  it’s the gods, the ruthless gods who are tearing down

  the wealth of Troy, her toppling crown of towers.

  Look around. I’ll sweep it all away, the mist

  so murky, dark, and swirling around you now,

  it clouds your vision, dulls your mortal sight.

  You are my son. Never fear my orders.