LITMIR.BIZ

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postern door, yet unobserv’d and free,

      Join’d by the length of a blind gallery,

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

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

      Thro’ which she brought Astyanax, unseen,

      To cheer his grandsire and his grandsire’s queen.

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

      With unavailing arms the Trojans make defense.

      From this the trembling king had oft descried

      The Grecian camp, and saw their navy ride.

      Beams from its lofty height with swords we hew,

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

      And, where the rafters on the columns meet,

      We push them headlong with our arms and feet.

      The lightning flies not swifter than the fall,

      Nor thunder louder than the ruin’d wall:

      Down goes the top at once; the Greeks beneath

      Are piecemeal torn, or pounded into death.

      Yet more succeed, and more to death are sent;

      We cease not from above, nor they below relent.

      Before the gate stood Pyrrhus, threat’ning loud,

      With glitt’ring arms conspicuous in the crowd.

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

      Who slept the winter in a thorny brake,

      And, casting off his slough when spring returns,

      Now looks aloft, and with new glory burns;

      Restor’d with poisonous herbs, his ardent sides

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

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

      And brandishes by fits his forky tongue.

      Proud Periphas, and fierce Automedon,

      His father’s charioteer, together run

      To force the gate; the Scyrian infantry

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

      Ent’ring the court, with shouts the skies they rend;

      And flaming firebrands to the roofs ascend.

      Himself, among the foremost, deals his blows,

      And with his ax repeated strokes bestows

      On the strong doors; then all their shoulders ply,

      Till from the posts the brazen hinges fly.

      He hews apace; the double bars at length

      Yield to his ax and unresisted strength.

      A mighty breach is made: the rooms conceal’d

      Appear, and all the palace is reveal’d;

      The halls of audience, and of public state,

      And where the lonely queen in secret sate.

      Arm’d soldiers now by trembling maids are seen,

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

      The house is fill’d with loud laments and cries,

      And shrieks of women rend the vaulted skies;

      The fearful matrons run from place to place,

      And kiss the thresholds, and the posts embrace.

      The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies,

      And all his father sparkles in his eyes;

      Nor bars, nor fighting guards, his force sustain:

      The bars are broken, and the guards are slain.

      In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill;

      Those few defendants whom they find, they kill.

      Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood

      Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood;

      Bears down the dams with unresisted sway,

      And sweeps the cattle and the cots away.

      These eyes beheld him when he march’d between

      The brother kings: I saw th’ unhappy queen,

      The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood,

      To stain his hallow’d altar with his brood.

      The fifty nuptial beds (such hopes had he,

      So large a promise, of a progeny),

      The posts, of plated gold, and hung with spoils,

      Fell the reward of the proud victor’s toils.

      Where’er the raging fire had left a space,

      The Grecians enter and possess the place.

      “Perhaps you may of Priam’s fate enquire.

      He, when he saw his regal town on fire,

      His ruin’d palace, and his ent’ring foes,

      On ev’ry side inevitable woes,

      In arms, disus’d, invests his limbs, decay’d,

      Like them, with age; a late and useless aid.

      His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain;

      Loaded, not arm’d, he creeps along with pain,

      Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain!

      Uncover’d but by heav’n, there stood in view

      An altar; near the hearth a laurel grew,

      Dodder’d with age, whose boughs encompass round

      The household gods, and shade the holy ground.

      Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train

      Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain.

      Driv’n like a flock of doves along the sky,

      Their images they hug, and to their altars fly.

      The Queen, when she beheld her trembling lord,

      And hanging by his side a heavy sword,

      ‘What rage,’ she cried, ‘has seiz’d my husband’s mind?

      What arms are these, and to what use design’d?

      These times want other aids! Were Hector here,

      Ev’n Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear.

      With us, one common shelter thou shalt find,

      Or in one common fate with us be join’d.’

      She said, and with a last salute embrac’d

      The poor old man, and by the laurel plac’d.

      Behold! Polites, one of Priam’s sons,

      Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs.

      Thro’ swords and foes, amaz’d and hurt, he flies

      Thro’ empty courts and open galleries.

      Him Pyrrhus, urging with his lance, pursues,

      And often reaches, and his thrusts renews.

      The youth, transfix’d, with lamentable cries,

      Expires before

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