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2009 |
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auroananta@rambler.ru |
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Ilion |
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Book Two. |
2 |
The Book of the Statesman |
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Now from his cycle sleepless and vast round the dance of the earth-globe |
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Gold Hyperion rose in the wake of the dawn like the eyeball |
[1] , , |
Flaming of God revealed by his uplifted luminous eyelid. |
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Troy he beheld and he viewed the transient labour of mortals. |
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All her marble beauty and pomp were laid bare to the heavens. |
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Sunlight streamed into Ilion waking the voice of her gardens, |
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Amorous seized on her ways, lived glad in her plains and her pastures, |
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Kissed her leaves into brightness of green. As a lover the last time |
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Yearns to the beauty desired that again shall not wake to his kisses, |
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So over Ilion doomed leaned the yearning immense of the sunrise. |
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She like a wordless marble memory dreaming for ever |
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Lifted the gaze of her perishable immortality sunwards. |
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All her human past aspired in the clearness eternal, |
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Temples of Phryx and Dardanus touched with the gold of the morning, |
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Columns triumphant of Ilus, domes of their greatness enamoured, |
, [4] , , |
Stones that intended to live; and her citadel climbed up to heaven |
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White like the soul of the Titan Laomedon claiming his kingdoms, |
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Watched with alarm by the gods as he came. Her bosom maternal |
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Thrilled to the steps of her sons and a murmur began in her high-roads. |
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Life renewed its ways which death and sleep cannot alter, |
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Life that pursuing her boundless march to a goal which we know not, |
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Ever her own law obeys, not our hopes, who are slaves of her heart-beats. |
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Then as now men walked in the round which the gods have decreed them |
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Eagerly turning their eyes to the lure and the tool and the labour. |
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Chained is their gaze to the span in front, to the gulfs they are blinded |
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Meant for their steps. The seller opened his shop and the craftsman |
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Bent o'er his instruments handling the work he never would finish, |
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Busy as if their lives were for ever, today in its evening |
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Sure of tomorrow. The hammers clanged and the voice of the markets |
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Only the hopes of the earth, but the hearts of her votaries kneeling |
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Came to her marble shrines and upraised to our helpers eternal |
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Missioned the prayer and the hymn or silent, subtly adoring |
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Ventured upwards in incense. Loud too the clash of the cymbals |
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Filled all the temples of Troy with the cry of our souls to the azure. |
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Prayers breathed in vain and a cry that fell back with Fate for its answer |
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Children laughed in her doorways; joyous they played, by their mothers |
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Smiled on still, but their tender bosoms unknowing awaited |
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Grecian spearpoints sharpened by Fate for their unripe bosoms, |
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Tasks of the slave in Greece. Like bees round their honey-filled dwellings |
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Murmuring swarmed to the well-heads the large-eyed daughters of Troya, |
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Deep-bosomed, limbed like the gods, glad faces of old that were sentient |
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Rapturous flowers of the soul, bright bodies that lived under darkness |
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Heavily1 massed of their locks like day under night made resplendent, |
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Daughters divine of the earth in the ages when heaven was our father. |
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They round Troy's well-heads flowerlike satisfied morn with their beauty |
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Or in the river baring their knees to the embrace of the coolness |
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Dipped their white feet in the clutch of his streams, in the haste of Scamander, |
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Lingering this last time with laughter and talk of the day and the morrow |
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Leaned to the hurrying flood. All his swiftnesses raced down to meet them |
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Crowding his channel with dancing billows and turbulent murmurs. |
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Xanthus primaeval met these waves of our life in its passing |
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Even as of old he had played with Troy's ancient fair generations |
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Mingling his deathless voice with the laughter and joy of their ages, |
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Laughter of dawns that are dead and a joy that the earth has rejected. |
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Still his whispering trees remembered their bygone voices. |
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Hast thou forgotten, O river of Troy? Still, still we can hear them |
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Now, if we listen long in our souls, the bygone voices. |
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Earth in her fibres remembers, the breezes are stored with our echoes. |
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Over the stone-hewn steps for their limpid orient waters |
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Joyous they leaned and they knew not yet of the wells of Mycenae, |
[5], |
Drew not yet from Eurotas the jar for an alien master, |
[6] , |
Mixed not Pineus yet with their tears. From the clasp of the current |
[7] . , |
Now in their groups they arose and dispersed through the streets and the byways, |
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Turned from the freedom of earth to the works and the joy of the hearthside, |
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Lightly, they rose and returned through the lanes of the wind-haunted city |
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Swaying with rhythmical steps while the anklets jangled and murmured. |
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Silent temples saw them passing; you too, O houses, |
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Built with such hopes by mortal man for his transient lodging; |
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Fragrant the gardens strewed on dark tresses their white-smiling jasmines |
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Dropped like a silent boon of purity soft from the branches: |
, : |
Flowers by the wayside were budding, cries flew winged round the tree-tops. |
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Bright was the glory of life in Ilion city of Priam. |
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Thrice to the city the doom-blast published its solemn alarum, |
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Blast of the trumpets that call to assembly clamoured through Troya |
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Thrice and were still. From garden and highway, from palace and temple |
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Turned like a steed to the trumpet, rejoicing in war and ambition, |
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Gathered alert to the call the democracy hated of heaven . |
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First in their ranks upbearing their age as Atlas his heavens, |
, , [8] , |
Eagle-crested, with hoary hair like the snow upon Ida, |
(?), , , |
Ilion's senators paced, Antenor and wide-browed Anchises, |
, [9] , |
Athamas famous for ships and the war of the waters, Tryas |
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Still whose name was remembered by Oxus the orient river, |
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Astyoches and Ucalegon, dateless Pallachus, Aetor, |
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Aspetus who of the secrets divine knew all and was silent, |
[16], . |
Ascanus, Iliones, Alcesiphron, Orus, Aretes. |
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Next from the citadel came with the voice of the heralds before him |
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Priam and Priam's sons, Aeneas leonine striding, |
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Followed2 by the heart of a nation adoring her Penthesilea. |
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All that was noble in Troy attended the regal procession |
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Marching in front and behind and the tramp of their feet was a rhythm |
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Tuned to the arrogant fortunes of Ilion ruled by incarnate |
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Demigods, Ilus and Phryx and Dardanus, Tros of the conquests, |
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Tros and far-ruling Laomedon who to his grandiose3 labour |
[22] , , |
Drew down the sons of the skies and was served by the ageless immortals. |
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Into the agora vast and aspirant besieged by its columns |
[23], , |
Bathed and anointed they came like gods in their beauty and grandeur. |
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Last like the roar of the winds came trampling the surge of the people. |
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Clamorous led by a force obscure to its ultimate fatal |
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Session of wrath the violent mighty democracy hastened; |
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Thousands of ardent lives with the heart yet unslain in their bosoms |
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Lifted to heaven the voice of man and his far-spreading rumour. |
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Singing the young men with banners marched in their joyous processions, |
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Trod in martial measure or dancing with lyrical paces |
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Chanted the glory of Troy and the wonderful deeds of their fathers. |
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Into the columned assembly where Ilus had gathered his people, |
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Thousands on thousands the tramp and the murmur poured; in their armoured |
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Glittering tribes they were ranked, an untameable high-hearted nation |
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Waiting the voice of its chiefs. Some gazed on the greatness of Priam |
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Ancient, remote from their days, the last of the gods who were passing, |
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Left like a soul uncompanioned in worlds where his strength shall not conquer: |
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Sole like a column gigantic alone on a desolate hill-side |
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Aimed their hostile looks where calm though by heaven abandoned, |
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Left to his soul and his lucid mind and its thoughts unavailing, |
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Head of4 the age-chilled few whom the might of their hearts had not blinded, |
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Famous Antenor was seated, the fallen unpopular statesman, |
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Wisest of speakers in Troy but rejected, stoned and dishonoured. |
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Silent, aloof from the people he sat, a heart full of ruins. |
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Low was the rumour that swelled like the hum of the bees in a meadow |
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When with the thirst of the honey they swarm on the thyme and the linden, |
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Hundreds humming and flitting till all that place is a murmur. |
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Then from his seat like a tower arising Priam the monarch |
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Slowly erect in his vast tranquillity silenced the people: |
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Lonely, august he stood like one whom death has forgotten, |
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Reared like a column of might and of silence over the assembly. |
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So Olympus rises alone with his snows into heaven. |
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Crowned were his heights by the locks that slept like the mass of the snow-swathe |
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Clothing his giant shoulders; his eyes of deep meditation, |
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Eyes that beheld now the end and accepted it like the beginning |
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Gazed on the throng of the people as on a pomp that is painted: |
, : |
Slowly he spoke like one who is far from the scenes where he sojourns. |
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Leader of Ilion, hero Deiphobus, thou who hast summoned |
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Troy in her people, arise; say wherefore thou callest us. Evil |
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Speak thou or good, thou canst speak that only: Necessity fashions |
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All that the unseen eye has beheld. Speak then to the Trojans; |
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Say on this dawn of her making what issue of death or of triumph |
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Fate in his suddenness puts to the unseeing, what summons to perish |
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Send5 to this nation men who revolt and gods who are hostile. |
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Rising Deiphobus spoke, in stature less than his father, |
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Less in his build, yet the mightiest man and tallest whom coursers |
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Bore or his feet to the fight since Ajax fell by the Xanthus. |
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People of Ilion, long have you fought with the gods and the Argives |
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Slaying and slain, but the years persist and the struggle is endless. |
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Fainting your helpers cease from the battle, the nations forsake you. |
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Asia weary of strenuous greatness, ease-enamoured |
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Suffers the foot of the Greek to tread on the beaches of Troas. |
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Yet have we striven for Troy and for Asia, men who desert us. |
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Not for ourselves alone have we fought, for our life of a moment! |
, ! |
Once if the Greeks were triumphant, once if their nations were marshalled |
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Under some far-seeing chief, Odysseus, Peleus, Achilles, |
, , [24], |
Not on the banks of Scamander and skirts of the azure Aegean |
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Fainting would cease the audacious emprise, the Titanic endeavour; |
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Tigris would flee from their tread and Indus be drunk by their coursers. |
[25] . |
Now in these days when each sun goes marvelling down that Troy stands yet |
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Suffering, smiting, alive, though doomed to all eyes that behold her, |
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Flinging back Death from her walls and bronze to the shock and the clamour, |
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Driven by a thought that has risen in the dawn from the tents on the beaches |
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Grey Talthybius' chariot waits in the Ilian portals, |
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Far voice of the Hellene demigod challenges timeless Troya. |
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Thus has he said to us: Know you not Doom when she walks in your heavens? |
: , ? |
Feelst thou not then thy set, O sun who illuminedst Nature? |
, , ? |
None can escape the wheel of the gods and its vast revolutions! |
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Fate demands the joy and pride of the earth for the Argive, |
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Asia's wealth for the lust of the young barbarian nations. |
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Sink eclipsed in the circle vast of my radiance; Troya, |
, , , ; |
Joined to my northern realms deliver the East to the Hellene; |
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Ilion, to Hellas be yoked; wide Asia, fringe thou Peneus. |
; , , , [26]. |
Lay down golden Helen, a sacrifice lovely and priceless |
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Cast by your weakness and fall on immense Necessity's altar; |
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Yield to the grasp of my longing Polyxena, Hecuba's deep-bosomed daughter, |
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Her whom my heart desires. Accept from me6 peace and her healing |
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Joy of mornings secure and death repulsed from your hearthsides. |
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Yield these7 and live, else I leap on you, Fate in front, Hades behind me. |
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Bound to the gods by an oath I return not again from the battle |
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Till from high Ida my shadow extends to the Mede and Euphrates. |
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Let not your victories deceive you, steps that defeat has imagined; |
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Hear not the voice of your heroes; their fame is a trumpet in Hades: |
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Only they conquer while yet my horses champ free in their stables. |
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Earth cannot long resist the man whom Heaven has chosen; |
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Gods with him walk; his chariot is led; his arm is assisted. |
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High rings the Hellene challenge, earth waits for the Ilian answer. |
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Always man's Fate hangs poised on the flitting breath of a moment; |
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Called by some word, by some gesture it leaps, then 'tis graven, 'tis granite. |
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Speak! by what gesture high shall the stern gods recognise Troya? |
! ? |
Sons of the ancients, race of the gods, inviolate city, |
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Firmer my spear shall I grasp or cast from my hand and for ever? |
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Search in your hearts if your fathers still dwell in them, children of Teucer. |
, , [29]. |
So Deiphobus spoke and the nation heard him in silence, |
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Awed by the shadow vast of doom, indignant with Fortune. |
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Calm from his seat Antenor arose as a wrestler arises, |
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Tamer of beasts in the cage of the lions, eyeing the monsters |
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Brilliant, tawny of mane, and he knows if his courage waver, |
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Falter his eye or his nerve be surprised by the gods that are hostile, |
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Death will leap on him there in the crowded helpless arena. |
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Fearless Antenor arose, and a murmur swelled in the meeting |
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Cruel and threatening, hoarse like the voice of the sea upon boulders; |
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Hisses thrilled through the roar and one man cried to another, |
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Lo, he will speak of peace who has swallowed the gold of Achaia! |
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Surely the people of Troy are eunuchs who suffer Antenor |
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Rising unharmed in the agora. Are there not stones in the city? |
. ? |
Surely the steel grows dear in the land when a traitor can flourish. |
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Calm like a god or a summit Antenor stood in the uproar. |
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But as he gazed on his soul came memory dimming the vision; |
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For he beheld his past and the agora crowded and cheering, |
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Passionate, full of delight while Antenor spoke to the people, |
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Troy that he loved and his fatherland proud of her eloquent statesman. |
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Tears to his eyes came thick and he gripped at the staff he was holding. |
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Mounting his eyes met fully the tumult, mournful and thrilling, |
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Conquering men's hearts with a note of doom in its sorrowful sweetness. |
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People of Ilion, blood of my blood, O race of Antenor, |
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Once will I speak though you slay me; for who would shrink from destruction |
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Knowing that soon of his city and nation, his house and his dear ones |
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Slain today may I join the victorious souls of our fathers, |
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Not for the anguish be kept and the irremediable weeping. |
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Loud yet will I speak the word that the gods have breathed in my spirit, |
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Strive this last time to save the death-destined. Who are these clamour |
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Hear him not, the gold of the Greeks bought his words and his throat is accursed? |
, ? |
Troy whom my counsels made great, hast thou heard this roar of their frenzy |
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Tearing thy ancient bosom? Is it thy voice heaven-abandoned, my mother? |
? , ? |
O my country, O my creatress, earth of my longings! |
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Earth where our fathers lie in their sacred ashes undying, |
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Memoried temples shelter the shrines of our gods and the altars |
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Pure where we worshipped, the beautiful children smile on us passing, |
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Women divine and the men of our nation! O land where our childhood |
! , , |
Played at a mother's feet mid the trees and the hills of our country, |
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Hoping our manhood toiled and our youth had its seekings for godhead; |
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Thou for our age keepst repose mid the love and the honour of kinsmen, |
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Silent our relics shall lie with the city guarding our ashes! |
, ! |
Earth who hast fostered our parents, earth who hast given us8 our offspring, |
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Soil that created our race where fed from the bosom of Nature |
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Happy our children shall dwell9 in the storied homes of their fathers, |
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Souls that our souls have stamped, sweet forms of ourselves when we perish! |
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Once even then have they seen thee in their hearts, or dreamed of thee ever |
, -, |
Who from thy spirit revolt and only thy name make an idol |
, , |
Hating thy faithful sons and the cult of thy ancient ideal! |
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Wake, O my mother divine, remember thy gods and thy wisdom, |
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Silence the tongues that degrade thee, prophets profane of thy godhead. |
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Madmen, to think that a man who has offered his life for his country |
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Served her with words and deeds and adored with victories and triumphs |
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Ever could think of enslaving her breast to the heel of a foeman! |
, ! |
Surely Antenor's halls are empty, he begs from the stranger |
, , |
Leading his sons and his children's sons by the hand in the market, |
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Showing his rags since his need is so bitter of gold from the Argives! |
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You who demand a reply when Laocoon lessens Antenor, |
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Hush then your feeble roar and your ear to the past and the distance |
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Turn. You fields that are famous for ever, reply for me calling, |
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Fields of the mighty mown by my sword's edge, Chersonese conquered, |
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Thrace and her snows where we fought on the frozen streams and were victors |
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Then when they were unborn who are now your delight and your leaders. |
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Answer return, you columns of Ilus, here where my counsels |
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Made Troy mightier guiding her safe through the shocks of her foemen. |
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Gold! I have heaped it up high, I am rich with the spoils of your haters. |
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It was your fathers dead who gave me that wealth as my guerdon, |
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Now my reproach, your fathers who saw not the Greeks round their ramparts: |
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They were not cooped by an upstart race in the walls of Apollo, |
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Saw not Hector slain and Troilus dragged by his coursers. |
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Far10 over wrathful Jaxartes they rode; the shaken Achaian |
[32] , ; |
Prostrate adored their strength who now shouts at your portals and conquers11 |
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Then when Antenor guided Troy, this old man, this traitor, |
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Not Laocoon, nay, not even Paris nor Hector. |
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But I have changed, I have grown a niggard of blood and of treasure, |
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Selfish, chilled as old men seem to the young and the headstrong, |
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Counselling safety and ease, not the ardour of noble decisions. |
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Come to my house and behold, my house that was filled once with voices. |
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Sons whom the high gods envied me crowded the halls that are silent. |
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Where are they now? They are dead, their voices are silent in Hades, |
? , , |
Fallen slaying the foe in a war between sin and the Furies. |
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Silent they went to the battle to die unmourned for their country, |
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Die as they knew in vain. Do I keep now the last ones remaining, |
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Sparing their blood that my house may endure? Is there any in Troya |
, ? |
Speeds to the front of the mellay outstripping the sons of Antenor? |
- , , ? |
Let him arise and speak and proclaim it and bid me be silent. |
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Heavy is this war that you love on my heart and I hold you as madmen |
, , , |
Doomed by the gods, abandoned by Pallas, by Hera afflicted. |
, , . |
Who would not hate to behold his work undone by the foolish? |
, , ? |
Who would not weep if he saw Laocoon ruining Troya, |
, , |
Paris doomed in his beauty, Aeneas slain by his valour? |
, , , ? |
Still you need to be taught that the high gods see and remember, |
, , |
Dream that they care not if justice be done on the earth or oppression! |
, , ! |
Happy to live, aspire while you violate man and the immortals! |
, ! |
Vainly the sands of Time have been strewn with the ruins of empires, |
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Signs that the gods have left, but in vain. For they look for a nation, |
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One that can conquer itself having conquered the world, but they find none. |
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None has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered. |
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All have grown drunken with force and have gone down to Hell and to Ate. |
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All have been thrust from their heights, say the fools; we shall live and for ever. |
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We are the people at last, the children, the favourites; all things |
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Death receives their hopes and the void their stirrings of action. |
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Eviller fate there is none than life too long among mortals. |
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I have conversed with the great who have gone, I have fought in their war-cars; |
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Tros I have seen, Laomedon's hand has lain12 on my temples. |
[33] , . |
Now I behold Laocoon, now our leader13 is Paris. |
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First when Phryx by the Hellespont reared to the cry of the Ocean |
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Hewing her stones as vast as his thoughts his high-seated fortress, |
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Planned he a lair for a beast of prey, for a pantheress dire-souled |
, , |
Crouched in the hills for her bound or self-gathered against the avenger? |
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Dardanaus shepherded Asia's coasts and her sapphire-girt islands. |
, . |
Mild was his rule like the blessing of rain upon fields in the summer. |
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Gladly the harried coasts reposed confessing the Phrygian, |
, , |
Caria, Lycia's kings and the Paphlagon, strength of the Mysian; |
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Minos' Crete recovered the sceptre of old Rhadamanthus. |
[38]. |
Ilus and Tros had strength in the fight like a far-striding Titan's: |
, : |
Troy triumphant following the urge of their souls to the vastness |
, , , |
[Helmeted, crowned like a queen of the gods with the fates for her coursers]14 |
[ , , ][39], |
Rode through the driving sleet of the spears to Indus and Oxus. |
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Then twice over she conquered the vanquished, with peace as in battle; |
, ; |
There where discord had clashed, sweet Peace sat girded with plenty, |
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There where tyranny counted her blows came the hands of a father. |
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Neither was15 Teucer a soul like your chiefs16 who refounded this nation. |
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Such was the antique and noble tradition of Troy in her founders, |
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Builders of power that endured; but it perishes lost to their offspring, |
; , , |
Trampled, scorned by an arrogant age, by a violent nation. |
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Strong Anchises trod it down trampling victorious onwards, |
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Stern as his sword and hard as the silent bronze of his armour. |
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More than another I praise the man who is mighty and steadfast, |
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Even as Ida the mountain I praise, a refuge for lions; |
, ; |
But in the council I laud him not, he who a god for his kindred |
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Lives for the rest without bowels of pity or fellowship, lone-souled, |
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Scorning the world that he rules, who untamed by the weight of an empire |
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Holds allies as subjects, subjects as slaves and drives to the battle, |
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Careless more of their wills than the coursers yoked to his war-car. |
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Therefore they fought while they feared, but gladly abandon us falling. |
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Yet had they gathered to Teucer in the evil days of our nation. |
, , , |
Where are they now? Do they gather then to the dreaded Anchises? |
? ? |
Or has Aeneas helped with his counsels hateful to wisdom? |
, ? |
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When against subjects murmuring discord and faction appointed |
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Scatter unblest gold, the heart of a people is poisoned, |
, , |
Virtue pursued and baseness triumphs tongued like a harlot, |
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Brother against brother arrayed that the rule may endure of a stranger. |
, . |
Yes, but it lasts! For its hour. The high gods watch in their silence, |
, ! . , |
Mute they endure for a while that the doom may be swifter and greater. |
, . |
Hast thou then lasted, O Troy? Lo, the Greeks at thy gates and Achilles. |
, , ? , . |
Dream, when Virtue departs, that Wisdom will linger, her sister! |
, , , , . |
Wisdom has turned from your hearts; shall Fortune dwell with the foolish? |
; ? |
Fatal oracles came to you great-tongued, vaunting of empires |
, , , , |
Stretched from the risen sun to his rest in the occident waters, |
, , , |
Dreams of a city throned on the hills with her foot on the nations. |
, , . |
Meanwhile the sword was prepared for our breasts and the flame for our housetops. |
. |
Wake, awake, O my people! the fire-brand mounts up your doorsteps; |
, , ! ; |
Gods who deceived to slay, press swords on your children's bosoms. |
, . |
See, O ye blind, ere death in pale countries open your eyelids! |
, , , ! |
Hear, O ye deaf, the sounds in your ears and the voices of evening! |
, , ! |
Young men who vaunt in your strength! when the voice of this aged Antenor |
, , ! |
Governed your fathers' youth, all the Orient was joined to our banners. |
, . |
Macedon leaned to the East and her princes yearned to the victor, |
, |
Scythians worshipped in Ilion's shrines, the Phoenician trader |
, |
Bartered her tokens, Babylon's wise men paused at our thresholds; |
, ; |
Fair-haired sons of the snows came rapt towards golden Troya |
, , , |
Drawn by the song and the glory. Strymon sang hymns unto Ida, |
. , |
Hoarse Chaleidice, dim Chersonesus married their waters |
|
Under the o'erarching yoke of Troy twixt the term-posts of Ocean. |
. |
Meanwhile far through the world your fortunes led by my counsels |
|
Followed their lure like women snared by a magical tempter: |
, , : |
High was their chant as they paced and it came from continents distant. |
, , . |
Turn now and hear! what voice approaches? what glitter of armies? |
! ? ? |
Loud upon Trojan beaches the tread and the murmur of Hellas! |
! |
Hark! 'tis the Achaian's paean rings o'er the Pergaman waters! |
! ! |
So wake the dreams of Aeneas; reaped is Laocoon's harvest. |
, ; . |
Speakers whose counsels persuaded our strength from the labour before us, |
, , , |
Artisans new of your destiny fashioned this far-spreading downfall, |
- , |
Counsellors blind who scattered your strength to the hooves of the Scythian, |
, , |
Barren victories, trophies of skin-clad Illyrian pastors. |
, [40] . |
Who but the fool and improvident, who but the dreamer and madman |
, |
Leaves for the far and ungrasped earth's close and provident labour? |
? |
Children of earth, our mother gives tokens, she lays down her sign-posts, |
, , , |
Step by step to advance on her bosom, to grow by her seasons, |
, , |
Order our works by her patience and limit our thought by her spaces. |
. |
But you had chiefs who were demigods, souls of an earth-scorning stature, |
-, , , |
Minds that saw vaster than life and strengths that God's hour could not limit! |
, , , ! |
These men seized upon Troy as the tool of their giant visions, |
, |
Dreaming of Africa's suns and bright Hesperian orchards, |
[41], |
Carthage our mart and our feet on the sunset hills of the Latins. |
, [42]. |
Ilion's hinds in the dream ploughed Libya, sowed Italy's cornfields, |
, , |
Troy stretched to Gades; even the gods and the Fates had grown Trojan. |
|
So are the natures of men uplifted by Heaven in its satire. |
, . |
Scorning the bit of the gods, despisers of justice and measure, |
, , |
Zeus is denied and adored some shadow huge of their natures |
- , |
Losing the shape of man in a dream that is splendid and monstrous. |
- , . |
Titans, vaunting they stride and the world resounds with their footsteps; |
, , , ; |
Titans, clanging they fall and the world is full of their ruin. |
, . |
Children, you dreamed with them, heard the roar of the Atlantic breakers |
, , , |
Welcome your keels and the Isles of the Blest grew your wonderful gardens; |
, ; |
Lulled in the dream, you saw not the black-drifting march of the storm-rack, |
, , |
Heard not the galloping wolves of the doom and the howl of their hunger. |
. |
Greece in her peril united her jarring clans; you suffered |
, , ; |
Patient, preparing the north, the wisdom and silence of Peleus, |
, , [45], |
Atreus' craft and the Argives gathered to King Agamemnon. |
[46] . |
But there were prophecies, Pythian oracles, mutterings from Delphi. |
, - . |
How shall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers, |
, , , |
Dreams that walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence? |
, ? |
Touches are these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin. |
, . |
One sole oracle helps, still armoured in courage and prudence |
, , |
Patient and heedful to toil at the work that is near in the daylight. |
, . |
Leave to the night its phantoms, leave to the future its curtain! |
, ! |
Only today Heaven gave to mortal man for his labour. |
. |
If thou hadst bowed not thy mane, O Troy, to the child and the dreamer, |
, , , , |
Hadst thou been faithful to17 Wisdom the counsellor seated and ancient, |
, , |
Then would the hour not have dawned when Paris lingered in Sparta |
, , |
Led by the goddess fatal and beautiful, white Aphrodite. |
, - . |
Man, shun the impulses dire that spring armed from thy nature's abysms! |
, , , , , ! |
Dread the dark rose of the gods, flee the honey that tempts from its petals! |
, , ! |
Therefore the black deed was done and the hearth that welcomed was sullied. |
, . |
Sin-called the Fury uplifted her tresses of gloom o'er the nations |
, |
Maddening the earth with the scream of her blood-thirst, bowelless, stone-eyed, |
, , -, |
Claiming her victims from God and bestriding the hate and the clamour. |
, . |
Yet midst the stroke and the wail when men's eyes were blind with the blood-mist, |
, , |
Still had the high gods mercy remembering18 Teucer and Ilus. |
, . |
Sped by the hand of the Thunderer Discord flaming from Ida |
, [47] |
Glared from the ships in her wrath19 through the camp of the victor Achaians, |
, - |
Love to the discord added her flowerlike lips of Briseis; |
[48]; |
Faltering lids of Polyxena conquered the strength of Pelides. |
[49]. |
Vainly those helpers high20 have opened the gates of salvation! |
! |
Vainly the winds of their mercy have breathed on our fevered existence! |
! |
Man his passion prefers to the voice that guides from the immortals.21 |
. |
These too22 were here whom Hera had chosen to ruin this nation: |
, , , [50]: |
Charioteers cracking the whips of their speed on the paths of destruction, |
, , , |
Demigods they! they have come down from Heaven glad to that labour; |
! , ; |
Filled is23 the world with the fame of their wheels as they race down to Hades. |
, . |
, ! , |
|
Harsh Necessity's dealings, sparing our innocent children, |
, , |
Saving the Trojan women and aged from bonds and the sword-edge! |
! |
These had not sinned whom you slay in your madness! Ruthless, O mortals, |
, , ! , , |
Must you be then to yourselves, when the gods even faltering with pity |
, , |
Turn from the grief that must come and the agony vast and the weeping? |
, , ? |
Say not the road of escape sinks too low for your arrogant treading. |
, . |
Pride is not for our clay; the earth, not heaven was our mother |
- ; , |
And we are even as the ant in our toil and the beast in our dying; |
; |
Only who cling to the hands of the gods can rise up from the earth-mire. |
, , . |
Children, lie prone to their scourge, that your hearts may revive in their sunshine. |
, (), . |
This is our lot! when the anger of heaven has passed then the mortal |
! , |
Raises his head; soon he heals his heart and forgets he has suffered. |
; , . |
Yet if resurgence from weakness and shame were withheld from the creature, |
|
Every fall without morrow, who then would counsel submission? |
, ? |
But since the height of mortal fortune ascending must stumble, |
, , , |
Fallen, again ascend, since death like birth is our portion, |
, , , - |
Ripening, mowed, to be sown again like corn by the farmer, |
, , , , , |
Let us be patient still with the gods and be clay for their handling. |
. |
, . , , |
|
Death of proud hope I would seal. Not this have I counselled, O nation, |
. , , , |
But to be even as your high-crested forefathers, greatest of mortals. |
, , . |
Troya of old enringed by the hooves of Cimmerian armies |
- [51] , |
Flamed to the heavens from her plains and her smoke-blackened citadel sheltered |
, , , |
Hardly24 the joyless rest of her sons and the wreck of her greatness. |
. |
Courage and wisdom survived in that fall and a stern-eyed prudence |
, , , |
Helped her to live; disguised from her mightiness Troy crouched weeping. |
; , , . |
Teucer descended whose genius worked at this kingdom and nation, |
, , |
Patient, scrupulous, wise, like a craftsman carefully toiling |
, , , , |
Over a helmet or over a breastplate, testing it always, |
, , |
Toiled in the eye of the Masters of all and had heed of its labour. |
. |
So in the end they would not release him like souls that are common; |
; |
They out of Ida sent into Ilion Pallas Athene; |
; |
Secret she came and he went with her into the luminous silence. |
. |
Teucer's children after their sire completed his labour. |
, , . |
Now too, O people, front adversity self-gathered, silent. |
, , , . |
Veil thyself, leonine mighty Ilion, hiding thy greatness! |
, , , ! |
Be as thy father Teucer; be as a cavern for lions; |
; ; |
Be as a Fate that crouches! Wordless and stern for your vengeance |
, ! , , |
Self-gathered work in the night and secrecy shrouding your bosoms. |
, , . |
Let not the dire heavens know of it; let not the foe seize a whisper! |
; ! |
Ripen the hour of your stroke, while your words drip sweeter than honey. |
, , . |
Sure am I, friends, you will turn from death at my voice, you will hear me! |
, , , , , ! |
Some day yet I shall gaze on the ruins of haughty Mycenae. |
, . |
Is this not better than Ilion cast to the sword of her haters, |
, , |
Is this not happier than Troya captured and wretchedly burning, |
, , , |
Time to await in his stride when the southern and northern Achaians |
, , , |
Gazing with dull distaste now over their severing isthmus |
, |
Hate-filled shall move to the shock by the spur of the gods in them driven, |
, , |
Pelops march upon Attica, Thebes descend on the Spartan? |
|
Then shall the hour now kept in heaven for us ripen to dawning, |
, , |
Then shall Victory cry to our banners over the Ocean |
, |
. , |
|
Then shall Troy rise in her strength and stride over Greece up to Gades. |
[55]. |
So Antenor spoke and the mind of the hostile assembly |
|
Moved and swayed with his words like the waters ruled by Poseidon. |
, . |
Even as the billows rebellious lashed by the whips of the tempest |
, , |
Curvet and rear their crests like the hooded wrath of a serpent, |
, , |
Green-eyed under their cowls sublime, unwilling they journey |
, , , |
Foam-bannered, hoarse-voiced, shepherded, forced by the wind, to the margin |
, , , |
Meant for their rest, and can turn not at all, though they rage, on their driver, |
, , , |
Last with a sullen applause and consenting lapse into thunder, |
, |
Where they were led all the while they sink down huge and astonished, |
, , , |
So in their souls that withstood and obeyed and hated the yielding, |
, , |
Lashed by his censure, indignant, the Trojans moved towards his purpose: |
, , : |
Sometimes a roar arose, then only, weakened, rarer, |
, , , |
Angry murmurs swelled between sullen stretches of silence; |
; |
Last, a reluctant applause broke dull from the throats of the commons. |
, , , . |
Silent raged in their hearts Laocoon's following daunted; |
, , [56]; |
Troubled the faction of Paris turned to the face of their leader. |
, . |
He as yet rose not; careless he sat in his beauty and smiling, |
[57] ; , |
Gazing with brilliant eyes at the sculptured pillars of Ilus. |
. |
Doubtful, swayed by Antenor, waited in silence the nation. |
, , . |
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1 Nobly |
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2 Led |
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3 soul's strong |
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4 Leading |
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5 Cry |
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6 I bring to you |
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7 then |
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8 cherished |
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9 reign |
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10 Fast |
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11 gates as your victor |
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12 dwelt |
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13 greatest |
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14 Brackets in the original |
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15 had |
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16 chiefs' |
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17 If thou hadst kept faith with |
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18 recalling |
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19 Hundred-eyed (Hundred-voiced) glared from the ships |
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20 Vainly the gods who pity |
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21 heavens |
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22 They still |
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23 Echoes |
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24 Mutely |
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