Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| All fell silent and held their faces intent upon him. Then from his high couch father Aeneas began:
3| "Unspeakable, my queen, is the grief you bid me renew: how the Greeks tore down the wealth of Troy and its kingdom, now a thing for weeping — the most pitiful sights I saw myself, events in which I played a great part. Which of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, which soldier of hard Ulysses, could hold back his tears while telling such things? And already the dewy night is rushing down from the sky, and the setting stars urge sleep. But if you have such a longing to learn of our misfortunes and to hear briefly of the final agony of Troy, though my mind shudders to remember and has recoiled in grief, I will begin. Broken by war and thrust back by the Fates, with so many years now slipping by, the leaders of the Greeks build a horse the size of a mountain by the divine art of Pallas, and weave its ribs with planks of cut fir. They pretend it is a vow for their safe return; that is the story that spreads. Into it they secretly shut picked men chosen by lot, hiding them in its dark flank, and they fill the huge caverns deep inside its belly with armed soldiers. Within sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island well known to fame, rich in wealth while Priam's kingdom stood, now only a bay and an unsafe anchorage for ships.
24| There they sailed and hid on the empty shore; we thought they had left and were running before the wind to Mycenae. So all the land of Troy shook off its long grief. The gates are thrown open; it is a joy to go out and see the Greek camp, the deserted places and the abandoned shore. Here the Dolopian band camped, here savage Achilles pitched his tent; here was the place for the ships, here they used to fight in battle line. Some stand amazed at the deadly gift to the virgin Minerva and marvel at the horse's bulk. Thymoetes is the first to urge that it be brought inside the walls and placed on the citadel — whether by treachery or because the fate of Troy was already tending that way. But Capys, and those whose minds held better judgment, tell us either to hurl the Greeks' trap, this suspect gift, into the sea, or to set fire beneath it and burn it, or else to bore into the hollow belly and probe its hiding places. The wavering crowd is split into opposing camps.
40| Then, first of all, with a great crowd following him, Laocoön runs blazing down from the top of the citadel and shouts from far off: 'Wretched citizens, what is this madness? Do you believe the enemy has sailed away? Or do you think any gift of the Greeks is free of tricks? Is this how you know Ulysses? Either Achaeans are shut up hiding in this wood, or this machine has been built against our walls, to spy on our homes and descend upon the city from above, or some other deceit lies hidden in it. Trojans, put no faith in the horse. Whatever this thing may be, I fear Greeks even when they come with gifts.' With these words he hurled a huge spear with all his strength into the beast's side and its belly curved with joints. It stuck there quivering; the womb was jolted, and the hollow caverns boomed and gave out a groan. And if the gods' decree, if our own minds had not been set against us, he would have driven us to tear open the Greek hiding place with steel, and Troy would be standing now, and you, high citadel of Priam, would still remain.
57| Meanwhile, look: Trojan shepherds were dragging to the king, with loud shouting, a young man with his hands bound behind his back. He had deliberately put himself, a stranger, in the way of those coming, to bring about this very thing and open Troy to the Greeks — confident in his nerve and ready for either outcome, to work his tricks or to meet certain death. From all sides the young Trojans pour around him, eager to see him, and vie in mocking the captive. Listen now to how the Greeks lay their snares, and from a single crime learn what they all are. For when he stood in full view, distraught and unarmed, and looked around at the Phrygian ranks, he cried: 'Alas, what land, what seas can take me in now? What is left at last for wretched me, who have no place anywhere among the Greeks, while the Trojans themselves, my enemies, demand my punishment in blood?' At that lament our mood changed and all violence was checked. We urge him to tell us what blood he was born from, what news he brings; to say what he is relying on, a captive.
77| "I will tell you everything, king, whatever comes of it," he said, "and truthfully; and I will not deny that I am of Greek stock. That first. And if Fortune has made Sinon wretched, she in her cruelty will not make him false and a liar as well. If by chance the name of Palamedes, son of Belus, and the glory of his famous reputation ever reached your ears in talk: the Greeks sent him to his death on a false charge of treason, on monstrous evidence, though he was innocent, because he opposed the war; now that he is lost to the light they mourn him. My father, who was poor, sent me here to the war from my earliest years as a companion to Palamedes, since I was his close kinsman. While he stood unharmed in his position and had weight in the councils of kings, I too held some name and distinction. After he left this world of the living through the jealousy of crafty Ulysses (I am telling nothing unknown), I dragged out my life in darkness and grief, crushed, and I raged to myself at the fate of my innocent friend. In my madness I did not keep quiet; if chance should ever bring me home as victor to my native Argos, I promised to avenge him, and my words stirred bitter hatred. That was the first stain of my ruin; from then on Ulysses was always frightening me with new accusations, from then on scattering ambiguous rumors among the crowd, and, conscious of his guilt, looking for weapons against me. Nor did he rest until, with Calchas as his instrument— but why do I go over these things again, to no purpose and to no thanks? Why do I delay? If you hold all Greeks as one and the same, and it is enough to hear that I am one, then punish me at once: the man from Ithaca would want that, and the sons of Atreus would pay a great price for it."
105| Then indeed we burn to question him and ask the reasons, knowing nothing of such great crimes or of Greek cunning. He goes on, trembling, speaking from a false heart:
108| "Often the Greeks wanted to leave Troy behind and plan their escape, and to depart, worn out by the long war; if only they had done it! Often a harsh winter storm on the sea shut them in, and the South Wind frightened them as they set out. Above all, when this horse, made of maple beams, was already standing, storm clouds roared across the whole sky. In suspense we send Eurypylus to consult the oracles of Phoebus, and he brings back these grim words from the sanctuary: 'You appeased the winds with blood and the sacrifice of a maiden, Greeks, when you first came to the shores of Ilium; with blood must your return be sought, and you must win favor with a Greek life.' When these words reached the crowd's ears, their minds were stunned and a cold shudder ran through their deepest bones, wondering for whom the Fates were preparing this, whom Apollo demanded. Then the man from Ithaca, in great uproar, drags the seer Calchas into the middle of the crowd and demands to know what the gods' will is. And already many were predicting for me the cruel scheme of that plotter, and in silence they saw what was coming. For ten days Calchas stays silent, and, keeping himself hidden, refuses to name anyone with his voice or to expose anyone to death.
128| "At last, barely, driven by the loud shouts of the man from Ithaca, as they had agreed, he breaks his silence and marks me out for the altar. All assented, and what each had feared for himself they bore, turned into the destruction of one poor wretch. And now the terrible day had come; the rites were made ready for me, the salted meal and the ribbons around my temples. I tore myself from death, I admit, and broke my bonds, and through the night I lay hidden, in darkness, among the sedge of a muddy lake, waiting for them to set sail, if by chance they should. I now have no hope of ever seeing my ancient homeland again, or my sweet children and the father I long for, from whom they will perhaps demand a penalty for my escape, and they will atone for this offense of mine with the deaths of those poor people. So I beg you, by the gods above and by the powers that know the truth, by whatever trust is left anywhere among mortals still unstained: pity such great sufferings, pity a spirit that endures what it does not deserve."
145| At these tears we spare his life and even feel pity for him. Priam himself is the first to order the shackles and tight bonds taken off the man, and he speaks to him with kind words: "Whoever you are, forget from now on the Greeks you have lost (you will be ours), and answer my questions truthfully: why did they set up this huge mass of a horse? Who was behind it? What do they want? What religious purpose, or what engine of war, is it?" He had finished. The other, trained in deceit and Greek craft, lifted his freed hands, released from their chains, to the stars: "You, eternal fires, and your inviolable divine power I call to witness," he said, "you altars and accursed swords that I escaped, and you ribbons of the gods that I wore as a victim: it is right for me to break the sacred bonds that tie me to the Greeks, it is right for me to hate them and bring into the open everything they conceal; I am held by no laws of my country. Only you, Troy, stay true to your promises, and if I tell the truth and repay you richly, keep faith in return for being saved. All the hope of the Greeks, and their confidence in the war they began, always rested on the help of Pallas. But from the moment when the impious son of Tydeus and Ulysses, the inventor of crimes, set about tearing the fateful Palladium out of its holy temple, after cutting down the guards of the high citadel, and seized the sacred image and dared to touch the virgin goddess's ribbons with bloodstained hands, from that moment the hope of the Greeks began to ebb and slide backward, their strength was shattered, and the goddess's mind turned against them.
171| "Nor did Tritonia give these signs with doubtful portents. The statue was barely set down in the camp when blazing flames flashed from its raised eyes, salty sweat ran down its limbs, and three times the goddess herself (marvelous to tell) leapt up from the ground, carrying shield and quivering spear. At once Calchas declares that the seas must be tried in flight, and that Troy cannot be destroyed by Greek weapons unless they seek fresh omens at Argos and bring back the divine power they carried off with them over the sea in their curved ships. And now that they have made for their native Mycenae on the wind, they are preparing arms and gods to accompany them, and when they have crossed the sea again they will be here unexpected; so Calchas interprets the omens. Warned by them, they set up this image in place of the Palladium, in place of the divine power they had wronged, to atone for the terrible sacrilege. Yet Calchas ordered them to raise it to this immense size with interlaced oak timbers and lift it toward the sky, so that it could not be taken in through the gates or drawn within the walls, nor protect the people under the old religion. For if your hand violated the gift to Minerva, then great destruction would fall on Priam's empire and on the Phrygians (may the gods turn that omen on him first!); but if it climbed by your hands into your city, Asia would of her own accord march in great war to the walls of Pelops' land, and that fate awaits our descendants."
195| By such treachery and the craft of perjured Sinon the story was believed, and we were caught by deceit and forced tears, we whom neither Diomedes son of Tydeus nor Achilles of Larisa, nor ten years, nor a thousand ships had conquered.
199| Here another, greater portent, far more terrible, is thrown in the way of us poor wretches and throws our unsuspecting hearts into confusion. Laocoön, chosen by lot as priest of Neptune, was sacrificing a huge bull at the customary altars. But look — from Tenedos, over the calm deep — I shudder as I tell it — two snakes with immense coils lean on the sea and side by side make for the shore. Their breasts rise among the waves, and their blood-red crests rise high above the water; the rest of them skims the sea behind and winds their huge backs in folds. There is a roar as the salt water foams; and now they were reaching the fields, their blazing eyes shot with blood and fire, licking their hissing mouths with flickering tongues. We scatter, drained of blood at the sight. They go straight for Laocoön in a fixed course. First each snake embraces the small bodies of his two sons, wraps around them, and feeds on their pitiful limbs with its bite; next they seize the father himself as he comes to help with weapons in his hand, and bind him in their giant coils; and now, twice wound around his waist, twice wrapping their scaly backs around his neck, they tower over him with their heads and high necks.
220| He at the same time strains with his hands to wrench the knots apart, his priestly ribbons soaked with gore and black venom, and at the same time raises horrifying cries to the stars: like the bellowing when a wounded bull has fled from the altar and shaken the ill-aimed axe from its neck. But the twin serpents glide away to the high shrine and make for the citadel of cruel Tritonian Minerva, and are covered up under the goddess's feet, below the circle of her shield. Then, in truth, a new terror creeps into all our trembling hearts, and they say Laocoön has paid the penalty he deserved for his crime, for wounding the sacred wood with his spear point and hurling his wicked lance into its flank. They shout that the image must be taken to its home and the goddess' divine power entreated. We breach the walls and lay open the defenses of the city. All set to work; they put sliding rollers under its feet and stretch hempen ropes around its neck. The fatal machine climbs the walls, pregnant with arms. Around it boys and unmarried girls sing hymns and are glad to touch the rope with their hands.
240| It climbs up and, threatening, slides into the middle of the city. O fatherland, O Ilium, house of the gods, and you walls of the Dardans, famous in war! Four times it halted on the very threshold of the gate, and four times the arms clanged in its belly; yet we press on, heedless and blind with frenzy, and set the ill-omened monster in our sacred citadel. Even then Cassandra opens her mouth to tell of the fate to come — a mouth the Trojans, by a god's command, never believed. We, poor wretches, for whom that day was to be the last, deck the shrines of the gods throughout the city with festive leaves.
250| Meanwhile the sky wheels round and night rushes up from Ocean, wrapping earth and heaven and the schemes of the Myrmidons in her great shadow; the Trojans, scattered through the city, fell silent; sleep embraces their weary limbs. And now the Greek battle line was coming in its ships, drawn up in order, from Tenedos, through the friendly silence of the quiet moon, making for the familiar shores, when the royal ship raised its signal flames; and Sinon, protected by the unjust fates of the gods, stealthily unbars the pine panels that shut the Greeks inside the belly. The horse, opened, gives them back to the air, and joyfully the leaders come out of the hollow wood: Thessandrus and Sthenelus, and dread Ulysses, sliding down a lowered rope, and Acamas and Thoas, and Neoptolemus the son of Peleus, and Machaon first among them, and Menelaus, and Epeos himself, the maker of the trick. They fall on the city buried in sleep and wine; the watchmen are cut down, the gates thrown wide, and they welcome all their comrades and join up with the forces that knew the plan.
268| It was the hour when the first rest begins for weary mortals and creeps over them, the sweetest gift of the gods. In my sleep, look, before my eyes Hector seemed to stand beside me, deeply sorrowful and shedding floods of tears, as once when he was dragged behind the chariot, black with bloody dust, his swollen feet pierced by the thongs. Ah me, what a sight he was, how changed from that Hector who came back wearing the spoils of Achilles, or who hurled Phrygian fire at the Greek ships! He wore a filthy beard, his hair matted with blood, and those wounds, so many of them, that he took around his native walls. I seemed to speak to him first, weeping myself, and to utter sorrowful words: "O light of Dardania, most trusted hope of the Trojans, what has held you back so long? From what shores, Hector, do you come, so long awaited? How wearily we look on you, after the deaths of so many of your people, after the many trials of men and city! What cause has disfigured your calm face so unworthily? Or why do I see these wounds?" He answers nothing and does not linger over my empty questions, but drawing a heavy groan from the depths of his chest, he says: "Alas, flee, son of a goddess, and tear yourself from these flames. The enemy holds the walls; Troy is crashing down from her high summit. Enough has been given to your country and to Priam: if Pergama could have been defended by any right hand, it would have been defended by this one. Troy entrusts to you her sacred things and her household gods; take them as companions of your fates, and seek for them the great walls that you will found at last, after wandering over the sea." So he speaks, and with his hands he brings out from the inner shrine the sacred ribbons and mighty Vesta and the undying fire.
298| Meanwhile the city is thrown into confusion with grief of every kind, and increasingly, though the house of my father Anchises stood apart, set back and screened by trees, the sounds grow clearer and the terror of weapons bears down. I am shaken from sleep, and climb to the top of the roof and stand there with ears pricked: as when fire falls on a cornfield with the South Winds raging, or a rushing torrent from a mountain stream flattens the fields, flattens the happy crops and the labor of the oxen, and drags forests headlong; the shepherd, not knowing what it is, stands stunned as he hears the sound from the top of a high rock. Then indeed the truth was plain, and the Greeks' treachery lay open. Already the great house of Deiphobus has collapsed in ruin as Vulcan overcomes it; already Ucalegon next door is ablaze; the wide waters of Sigeum glow with the fire. Men's shouts and the blare of trumpets rise. Out of my mind I seize my weapons; there is not much sense in weapons, but my spirit burns to gather a band for fighting and to rush with my comrades to the citadel; fury and anger drive my mind headlong, and the thought comes that it is a fine thing to die in arms.
318| But look, Panthus, escaped from the Greek spears, Panthus son of Othrys, priest of the citadel and of Phoebus, himself drags along the sacred objects, the conquered gods, and his little grandson, and runs wildly toward my doorstep. "What is the state of things, Panthus? What stronghold are we to hold?" I had hardly said this when he answered with a groan: "The last day has come, and the unavoidable hour of Dardania. We Trojans have been, Ilium has been, and the great glory of the Teucrians; savage Jupiter has carried everything over to Argos; the Greeks are masters in a burning city. The towering horse, standing in the middle of the walls, pours out armed men, and Sinon, victorious, stirs up the fires, gloating. Others are at the gates, both sides open, as many thousands as ever came from great Mycenae; others have blocked the narrow streets, setting their weapons across them; a line of steel stands with flashing point drawn, ready for slaughter; scarcely the first guards of the gates try to fight and resist in blind combat." By these words of Othrys' son and by the will of the gods I am swept into flames and into arms, wherever the grim Fury calls, wherever the din and the clamor raised to the sky.
339| Rhipeus joins us as comrades, and Epytus, greatest in arms, caught sight of in the moonlight, and Hypanis and Dymas, and they gather at my side, and Coroebus, young son of Mygdon— in those days he had happened to come to Troy, inflamed with mad love for Cassandra, and as a son-in-law was bringing help to Priam and the Phrygians, unlucky man, who did not listen to the warnings of his frenzied bride! When I saw them massed together and eager for the fight, I began to speak to them further: "Young men, hearts brave to no purpose, if your desire to follow one who dares the utmost is fixed, you see what the state of affairs is: all the gods on whom this empire stood have gone, leaving their shrines and altars; you are rushing to help a burning city. Let us die, and charge into the middle of the fight. The one safety for the defeated is to hope for no safety." So fury was added to the young men's spirits. Then, like ravening wolves in a black mist, whom the cruel rage of hunger has driven out blind and whose cubs left behind wait with dry throats, we go through weapons, through enemies, to certain death, and keep to the path through the middle of the city; black night flies around us with her hollow shadow.
361| Who could tell of the disaster of that night, who could tell of the deaths, or match the sufferings with tears? An ancient city is falling, that ruled for many years; countless lifeless bodies are strewn everywhere through the streets and through the houses and through the sacred thresholds of the gods. Nor are the Trojans alone in paying with their blood; at times courage returns even to the hearts of the defeated, and the Greek victors fall. Everywhere is cruel grief, everywhere terror, and death in countless forms.
370| The first of the Greeks to present himself to us, with a large band following, is Androgeos, who in his ignorance takes us for a friendly column and calls out to us in a friendly way: "Hurry, men! What late laziness holds you back? Others are plundering and carrying off burning Pergama; are you only now coming from the high ships?" He spoke, and at once (for the replies he was given did not sound trustworthy enough) he realized that he had fallen into the midst of enemies. He froze, and stopped his foot, and his voice with it. Like a man who, pressing his way through rough brambles, has trodden on a snake on the ground without seeing it, and suddenly shrinks back in terror from it as it rears up in anger and swells its bluish neck: no differently Androgeos, shaken at the sight, was drawing away. We rush in and surround them with massed arms, and we cut them down all over the place, ignorant of the ground and seized with fear; Fortune smiles on our first effort. And here Coroebus, exulting in our success and in his courage, says: "Comrades, let us follow where Fortune first shows the road to safety, and where she shows herself favorable. Let us exchange shields and fit ourselves with Greek insignia. Deceit or courage, who asks which against an enemy?
391| They themselves will give us arms." With these words he puts on Androgeos' plumed helmet and the handsome emblem of his shield and fits the Argive sword at his side. Rhipeus does the same, Dymas himself does it, and all the young men gladly do it: each arms himself with the fresh spoils. We go on, mingled with the Greeks, with the gods no friends of ours, and fighting many encounters in the blind night we close with them and send many of the Greeks down to Orcus. Some scatter and run to the ships and head for the shelter of the shore; some, in shameful terror, climb once more into the huge horse and hide in its familiar belly.
402| Alas, it is not right for anyone to trust in anything when the gods are unwilling! Look, the maiden daughter of Priam, Cassandra, was being dragged by her loosened hair from the temple and shrine of Minerva, lifting her blazing eyes toward heaven in vain, her eyes, for chains held back her tender hands. Coroebus, his mind maddened, could not bear that sight and threw himself into the midst of the column, ready to die; we all follow and rush on in close order. Here for the first time we are overwhelmed by weapons from our own men on the high roof of the temple, and a most pitiful slaughter begins, caused by the look of our arms and the mistaking of our Greek crests. Then the Greeks, gathering from every side at the cry and in anger at the maiden torn from them, attack: fierce Ajax, both sons of Atreus, and the whole army of the Dolopians; as when once a whirlwind bursts and opposing winds clash together, West Wind and South Wind and East Wind exulting on his dawn horses; the forests shriek, and foaming Nereus rages with his trident and stirs up the waters from the lowest depths. Those too whom we had routed by stealth in the dark night through the shadows and chased through the whole city appear; they are the first to recognize our shields and deceptive weapons, and they mark our voices as out of tune with our faces.
424| At once we are overwhelmed by numbers, and Coroebus is the first to fall, by the hand of Peneleus, at the altar of the warrior goddess; Rhipeus falls too, the one man most just among the Trojans and most observant of what is right (the gods saw it otherwise); Hypanis and Dymas die, struck down by their own comrades; nor did your great devotion, Panthus, as you fell, nor the headband of Apollo, protect you. Ashes of Ilium and last flames of my people, I call you to witness that at your fall I avoided neither weapons nor any chance of battle with the Greeks, and that, if fate had decreed that I should fall, I earned it by my hand. We are torn away from there, Iphitus and Pelias with me (Iphitus already weighed down by age, Pelias slowed by a wound from Ulysses), called at once by the shouting to the palace of Priam. Here we see a huge battle, as if there were no other fighting anywhere and no one were dying in the whole city: so unchecked is Mars, and so many Greeks rushing at the roof, and the threshold besieged with a tortoise formation driven up against it. Ladders cling to the walls, and men climb on the rungs right beside the doorposts, covering themselves with shields held in their left hands against the missiles, while they grasp the battlements with their right.
445| On the other side the Trojans tear down towers and the whole roofs of the houses; with these, since they see the end, they prepare to defend themselves in their last moment of death, and they hurl down the gilded beams, the proud ornaments of their ancestors of old; others, with drawn swords, have blocked the lowest doors and guard them in a dense column. Our spirits were renewed to come to the aid of the king's house, to relieve its men with help, and to add strength to the defeated.
453| There was a threshold, a hidden door, and a passage connecting Priam's buildings with one another, and a postern gate left at the back, by which, while the kingdom still stood, unhappy Andromache used to go, quite often and without attendants, to her husband's parents, and she would lead the boy Astyanax to his grandfather. I make my way up to the top of the roof, from where the wretched Trojans were hurling spears with their hands to no effect. A tower stood on a sheer edge, its roof raised up toward the stars, from which the whole of Troy used to be seen, along with the Greek ships and the Achaean camp. We attacked it all around with iron, where the upper floors gave loose joints, and tore it from its high base and pushed it over; it fell suddenly, dragging ruin with a crash, and came down far and wide on the Greek ranks. But others come up, and meanwhile neither stones nor any kind of missile stops.
469| Right in front of the forecourt, on the very threshold, Pyrrhus leaps about, gleaming with weapons and bronze light: like a snake that has fed on poisonous plants and that cold winter had kept hidden, swollen, underground; now, with its old skin shed, new and bright with youth, it rolls its slippery back, chest raised, rearing up toward the sun, and flickers with its triple tongue in its mouth. With him huge Periphas, and Automedon, driver of Achilles' horses and bearer of his arms, and with him all the young men of Scyros come up to the building and hurl flames at the roof. Pyrrhus himself, among the first, seizes a two-edged axe, breaks through the hard threshold, and tears the bronze-clad doorposts from their hinges; and now, having cut away a beam, he has hollowed out the solid oak and made a huge window with a wide opening. The house within appears, and the long halls lie open; the inner rooms of Priam and the kings of old appear, and they see armed men standing on the very threshold. But the interior of the house is in confusion with groaning and pitiful uproar, and deep inside the hollow rooms echo with women's wailing; the cry strikes the golden stars.
489| Then frightened mothers wander through the huge halls and cling to the doorposts, embracing them and pressing kisses on them. Pyrrhus presses on with his father's force; neither bars nor the guards themselves can withstand him; the door gives way under the repeated ram, and the doorposts, torn from their hinges, fall forward. Force makes a way; the Greeks break in, kill the first men they meet, and fill the place far and wide with soldiers. Not so violently, when a foaming river has burst its banks and overcome the barriers set against it with its flood, does it rush raging in a heap over the fields and carry flocks along with their pens over all the plains. I saw with my own eyes Neoptolemus raging in the slaughter and the two sons of Atreus on the threshold; I saw Hecuba with her hundred daughters-in-law, and Priam polluting with his blood the fires he himself had consecrated at the altars. Those fifty bridal chambers, so great a hope of descendants, the doorposts proud with barbarian gold and spoils, lay fallen; the Greeks hold what the fire leaves.
506| Perhaps you may also ask what Priam's fate was. When he saw the fall of the captured city, the doorways of his house torn apart, and the enemy in the middle of the inner rooms, the old man put on weapons long disused around his shoulders, which trembled with age, to no purpose, and girded himself with a useless sword, and rushed, ready to die, against the thick ranks of enemies. In the middle of the palace, under the bare vault of the sky, there was a huge altar, and beside it a very old laurel leaning over the altar and embracing the household gods with its shade. Here Hecuba and her daughters sat in vain around the altars, huddled together like doves driven headlong by a black storm, clasping the images of the gods. But when she saw Priam himself in the armor of his youth, she said: "What terrible idea, my poor husband, has driven you to put on these weapons? Or where are you rushing? This hour does not need such help, nor such defenders; not even if my own Hector were here now. Come to this spot at last; this altar will protect us all, or you will die along with us." With these words she drew him to herself and set the old man in the holy place.
526| But look, Polites, one of Priam's sons, having escaped from the slaughter by Pyrrhus, flees through weapons and through enemies along the long colonnades and, wounded, passes through the empty halls. Pyrrhus, burning with hostile intent, pursues him with his spear, now, now holding him with his hand and pressing him with the shaft. When at last he came out before the eyes and faces of his parents, he collapsed and poured out his life with a great flow of blood. At this Priam, although he was already in the grip of death, did not hold back or spare his voice and his anger: "For this crime," he cries out, "for such daring, may the gods, if there is any duty in heaven that cares about such things, repay you with fitting thanks and give you the rewards you deserve, you who made me see my son's death before my eyes and defiled a father's face with death. But that Achilles, from whom you falsely claim to be born, was not like this to Priam his enemy; he respected the rights and trust of a suppliant, gave back the bloodless body of Hector for burial, and sent me back to my kingdom." With these words the old man hurled a feeble spear that struck no blow; it was at once repelled by the ringing bronze and hung uselessly from the top boss of the shield.
547| Pyrrhus said to him: "Then you shall report this and go as messenger to my father, the son of Peleus. Be sure to tell him of my sad deeds and that Neoptolemus is a degenerate. Now die." As he said this he dragged him, trembling and slipping in his son's abundant blood, to the very altar, and twined his left hand into his hair, while his right raised the flashing sword and buried it in his side up to the hilt. This was the end of Priam's fortunes, this the death that fate carried him to, seeing Troy burned and Pergama fallen, he who had once been the proud ruler of Asia, with so many peoples and lands. He lies a huge trunk on the shore, a head wrenched from the shoulders, a corpse without a name.
559| Then for the first time a savage horror surrounded me. I was stunned; the image of my dear father came to me, when I saw the king, of the same age, breathing out his life from a cruel wound; there came to me abandoned Creusa, and the plundered house, and the danger to little Iulus. I look back and survey what force there is around me. All, worn out, had deserted me, and had leapt to the ground or dropped their exhausted bodies into the flames.
567| [And now I was the only one left, when I catch sight of Tyndareus' daughter guarding the threshold of Vesta and hiding silently in a secluded place; the fires give a bright light to me as I wander and cast my eyes everywhere over everything. Dreading the Trojans' hostility over the overthrow of Pergama, the Greeks' punishment, and the anger of the husband she had abandoned, that common curse of Troy and of her own country had hidden herself and sat hated at the altars. Fire blazed up in my heart; anger rose in me to avenge my falling country and exact a criminal's punishment. "So she will see Sparta and her native Mycenae unharmed, and go as a queen in a triumph she has won? She will see her husband and her home, her father and her children, with a crowd of Trojan women and Phrygian attendants? Priam will have died by the sword? Troy will have burned with fire? The Dardan shore will so many times have run with blood? Not so. Although there is no memorable name in punishing a woman, this victory has praise of its own; I will be praised for wiping out a crime and exacting the penalty she deserves, and it will please me to have filled my heart with the fame of vengeance and satisfied the ashes of my people."
588| Such things I was crying out, and I was carried on with a maddened mind,] when my kind mother appeared to me, never before so clear to my eyes, and shone in pure light through the night, revealed as a goddess, of the kind and size in which she appears to the heavenly gods, and, holding me by the right hand, she restrained me and added these words besides from her rosy lips: "Son, what great pain stirs up this unchecked anger? Why this rage? Or where has your care for us gone? Will you not first look to see where you left your father Anchises, worn out with age, and whether your wife Creusa and the boy Ascanius survive? Greek forces are roaming all around them on every side, and, if my care did not stand in the way, flames would already have carried them off and the enemy's sword would have drunk their blood. It is not the hateful face of the Spartan woman, Tyndareus' daughter, nor Paris who is to blame, but the harshness of the gods, the gods, which overturns this wealth and brings Troy down from her summit. Look (for I will remove every cloud that now hangs over you as you look, dulling your mortal sight and spreading damp darkness around; and you, do not fear any commands of your mother, nor refuse to obey her instructions):
608| here, where you see tumbled masses of stone and rocks torn from rocks, and smoke billowing mixed with dust, Neptune shakes the walls and foundations, driven out by his great trident, and tears the whole city from its base. Here Juno, most savage, holds the Scaean gates in front, and, raging, girt with a sword, calls her allied host from the ships. Now, look back, Tritonian Pallas has settled on the highest citadels, shining out of a storm cloud and the savage Gorgon. The Father himself gives the Greeks courage and favoring strength; he himself stirs up the gods against Dardan arms. Flee, my son, and put an end to your toil; I will never be absent, and I will set you safe on your father's threshold." She had spoken, and hid herself in the thick shadows of the night. Dreadful shapes appear, and the great powers of the gods, hostile to Troy.
624| Then indeed it seemed to me that all Ilium was sinking into the flames and Neptune's Troy was being overturned from its foundations: just as when farmers on the high mountains compete eagerly to uproot an ancient ash tree, cut with iron and with frequent blows of the double axe, and it keeps threatening, trembling in its foliage and nodding with shaken crown, until, gradually overcome by its wounds, it gives one last groan and, torn from the ridge, drags ruin after it. I go down and, with a god leading me, I am set free between flames and enemies: the weapons give way and the flames retreat.
634| And when I had now reached the threshold of my father's house and our ancient home, my father, whom I wished first to carry up into the high mountains and whom I sought first, refuses to prolong his life, or to endure exile, now that Troy is destroyed. "You, whose blood is unimpaired by age," he says, "and whose strength stands firm in its own vigor, you should plan your flight. If the heavenly gods had wanted me to live, they would have kept this home for me. It is enough, and more than enough, that we have seen one destruction and survived a captured city. Say farewell to this body of mine, laid out like this, and go. I will find death by my own hand; the enemy will pity me and seek my spoils. The loss of a tomb is easy. I have long been hated by the gods and useless, delaying my years, ever since the father of the gods and king of men breathed on me with the blasts of his thunderbolt and touched me with its fire."
650| So he went on speaking and stayed rooted in place. We, on the other side, were pouring out tears, my wife Creusa and Ascanius and the whole household, begging that father not want to overturn everything with him and add his weight to the pressing fate. He refuses, and clings to his purpose and to the same home. Again I am borne off to arms, and in my misery I long for death. For what plan or what chance was now offered? "Did you hope, father, that I could move my foot and leave you behind, and did such an abomination fall from your father's lips? If it pleases the gods that nothing be left of so great a city, and this is settled in your mind, and it is your wish to add yourself and your family to doomed Troy, the door is open to that death, and soon Pyrrhus will be here, from the abundant blood of Priam, who kills the son before the father's eyes and the father at the altars. Was this the reason, kind mother, that you snatch me through weapons, through fires, so that in the midst of my home I may see the enemy, and see Ascanius and my father and Creusa beside them slaughtered, one in the blood of the other? Arms, men, bring arms; the last light calls the defeated. Give me back to the Greeks; let me go back to renew the fighting. Never shall we all die today unavenged."
671| Then I gird myself again with the sword and was fitting my left arm into the shield strap, and was heading out of the house. But look, my wife clung to my feet at the threshold and held little Iulus out to his father: "If you go to die, take us too with you into everything; but if from experience you place some hope in the arms you have taken up, protect this house first. To whom is little Iulus left, to whom your father, and I, once called your wife?"
679| Crying such things, she filled the whole house with her groaning, when a sudden portent arises, marvelous to tell. For between the hands and the faces of his grieving parents, look, a light tuft of flame seemed to pour out light from the top of Iulus' head, and a flame, harmless to the touch, licked his soft hair and played around his temples. In our fear we trembled with dread, and shook out the blazing hair and put out the holy fire with water. But my father Anchises joyfully raised his eyes to the stars and stretched his hands to heaven with his voice: "Almighty Jupiter, if you are moved by any prayers, look on us, only this, and if we deserve it by our devotion, then grant help, Father, and confirm these omens."
692| The old man had hardly said this when it thundered suddenly with a crash on the left, and a star slid from the sky through the shadows, drawing a torch behind it, and ran with great light. We watch it glide over the top of the house roof and hide, bright, in the forest of Ida, marking out the ways; then the furrow gives light along a long track, and all around the places smoke with sulphur. Then indeed my father, won over, lifts himself up to the air and addresses the gods and worships the holy star. "Now, now there is no delay; I follow, and where you lead I am there, gods of my fathers; protect my house, protect my grandson. This omen is yours, and Troy is in your divine care. I yield, and, my son, I do not refuse to go with you as your companion." He had spoken, and now the fire was heard more clearly through the walls, and the flames rolled their heat closer. "Come then, dear father, put yourself on my neck; I will take you on my shoulders, and this burden will not weigh me down; however things fall out, there will be one danger for us both and one safety. Let little Iulus be my companion, and let my wife follow our footsteps at a distance.
712| You, servants, pay attention to what I say. For those leaving the city there is a mound and an old temple of deserted Ceres, and beside it an ancient cypress preserved for many years by our fathers' religious care; we will come to this one place by different routes. You, father, take the sacred objects and the household gods in your hand; it would be a sacrilege for me, who have just come from such a war and from fresh slaughter, to touch them, until I have washed in running water." Having said this, I spread a cloak and the skin of a tawny lion over my broad shoulders and my bent neck, and take up the load; little Iulus links his hand in my right and follows his father with steps not matching mine; my wife comes behind. We move through the shadowy places, and I, whom no weapon thrown at me had moved a moment ago, nor the Greeks massed in a hostile swarm, am now frightened by every breeze, and every sound alarms me, anxious alike for the one beside me and for the load I carry. And now I was drawing near the gates and seemed to have got through the whole way, when suddenly the sound of many feet seemed to come to my ears, and my father, peering through the darkness, cries out: "Son, run, son; they are close.
734| I can see their blazing shields and flashing bronze!" At this point some hostile power — I do not know what — snatched away my confused wits in my panic. For while I was running down trackless ways and leaving the familiar line of the streets, alas — my wife Creusa: whether she was torn from wretched me by fate and halted, or strayed from the road, or sank down exhausted, no one knows; but she was never restored to our sight again. Nor did I look back for her, lost as she was, or turn my thoughts to her, until we reached the mound and the hallowed shrine of ancient Ceres. Here at last, when all were gathered, she alone was missing, and she had slipped away from her companions, her son, and her husband. Whom, out of my mind, did I not blame, of men and gods? What crueler sight did I see in the overthrown city? I entrust Ascanius, my father Anchises, and the Trojan household gods to my companions, and hide them in a winding valley. I myself go back to the city and buckle on my gleaming armor. I am resolved to face every danger again, to go back through all of Troy, and once more to put my life in the way of peril. First I go back to the walls and the dark doorway of the gate by which I had come out, and I retrace my footsteps through the night, scanning them with my eyes.
755| Everywhere dread fills my heart; the very silence terrifies me. Then I go back to the house, in case she had made her way there, just in case: the Greeks had burst in and held the whole building. At once devouring fire rolls on the wind to the top of the roof; the flames tower above, and the blast rages into the sky. I go on and revisit Priam's palace and the citadel. And there in the empty colonnades of Juno's sanctuary, Phoenix and dread Ulysses, the chosen guards, were watching over the plunder. Here the treasure of Troy, snatched from burning shrines on every side — tables of the gods, mixing bowls of solid gold, and captured garments — is piled in a heap. Boys and terrified mothers stand around in a long line. I even dared to hurl my voice into the dark; I filled the streets with shouting, and in grief I called Creusa, again and again, in vain. As I searched and rushed endlessly through the houses of the city, a mournful phantom, the ghost of Creusa herself, appeared before my eyes, an image larger than the one I knew. I froze; my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my throat.
775| Then she spoke to me and took away my cares with these words: "What good does it do to give way so much to frantic grief, my sweet husband? These things do not happen without the will of the gods. It is not permitted for you to take Creusa with you from here as your companion, nor does the ruler of high Olympus allow it. Long exile lies before you, and a vast expanse of sea to plough, and you will come to the land of Hesperia, where the Lydian Tiber flows with gentle current among fields rich in men. There good fortune, a kingdom, and a royal wife are in store for you. Banish your tears for your beloved Creusa. I will not see the proud houses of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, nor become a slave to Greek women — I, a Dardan woman and daughter-in-law of divine Venus. No, the great mother of the gods keeps me on these shores. And now farewell, and keep your love for the son we share." When she had spoken these words, she left me weeping and wanting to say so much, and withdrew into thin air. Three times there I tried to put my arms around her neck; three times the image, grasped in vain, escaped my hands, like the light winds, most like a fleeting dream. So at last, when the night was spent, I go back to my companions.
796| And here, to my astonishment, I find that a huge number of new companions have streamed in, mothers and men, a people assembled for exile, a pitiful crowd. They had come from every side, ready in heart and goods to follow me to whatever lands I might choose to lead them across the sea. And now the Morning Star was climbing above the ridges of highest Ida and bringing on the day; the Greeks held the gates under guard, and no hope of help was offered. I gave way, lifted my father, and made for the mountain.
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