第71章 BOOK XII(5)

Trojans far off looked on from every side Weeping, all dazed. And, having now fulfilled Upon the Trojans Pallas' awful hest, Those monsters vanished 'neath the earth; and still Stands their memorial, where into the fane They entered of Apollo in Pergamus The hallowed. Therebefore the sons of Troy Gathered, and reared a cenotaph for those Who miserably had perished. Over it Their father from his blind eyes rained the tears:

Over the empty tomb their mother shrieked, Boding the while yet worse things, wailing o'er The ruin wrought by folly of her lord, Dreading the anger of the Blessed Ones.

As when around her void nest in a brake In sorest anguish moans the nightingale Whose fledglings, ere they learned her plaintive song, A hideous serpent's fangs have done to death, And left the mother anguish, endless woe, And bootless crying round her desolate home;

So groaned she for her children's wretched death, So moaned she o'er the void tomb; and her pangs Were sharpened by her lord's plight stricken blind.

While she for children and for husband moaned -- These slain, he of the sun's light portionless -- The Trojans to the Immortals sacrificed, Pouring the wine. Their hearts beat high with hope To escape the weary stress of woeful war.

Howbeit the victims burned not, and the flames Died out, as though 'neath heavy-hissing rain;

And writhed the smoke-wreaths blood-red, and the thighs Quivering from crumbling altars fell to earth.

Drink-offerings turned to blood, Gods' statues wept, And temple-walls dripped gore: along them rolled Echoes of groaning out of depths unseen;

And all the long walls shuddered: from the towers Came quick sharp sounds like cries of men in pain;

And, weirdly shrieking, of themselves slid back The gate-bolts. Screaming "Desolation!" wailed The birds of night. Above that God-built burg A mist palled every star; and yet no cloud Was in the flashing heavens. By Phoebus' fane Withered the bays that erst were lush and green.

Wolves and foul-feeding jackals came and howled Within the gates. Ay, other signs untold Appeared, portending woe to Dardanus' sons And Troy: yet no fear touched the Trojans' hearts Who saw all through the town those portents dire:

Fate crazed them all, that midst their revelling Slain by their foes they might fill up their doom.

One heart was steadfast, and one soul clear-eyed, Cassandra. Never her words were unfulfilled;

Yet was their utter truth, by Fate's decree, Ever as idle wind in the hearers' ears, That no bar to Troy's ruin might be set.

She saw those evil portents all through Troy Conspiring to one end; loud rang her cry, As roars a lioness that mid the brakes A hunter has stabbed or shot, whereat her heart Maddens, and down the long hills rolls her roar, And her might waxes tenfold; so with heart Aflame with prophecy came she forth her bower.

Over her snowy shoulders tossed her hair Streaming far down, and wildly blazed her eyes.

Her neck writhed, like a sapling in the wind Shaken, as moaned and shrieked that noble maid:

"O wretches! into the Land of Darkness now We are passing; for all round us full of fire And blood and dismal moan the city is.

Everywhere portents of calamity Gods show: destruction yawns before your feet.

Fools! ye know not your doom: still ye rejoice With one consent in madness, who to Troy Have brought the Argive Horse where ruin lurks!

Oh, ye believe not me, though ne'er so loud I cry! The Erinyes and the ruthless Fates, For Helen's spousals madly wroth, through Troy Dart on wild wings. And ye, ye are banqueting there In your last feast, on meats befouled with gore, When now your feet are on the Path of Ghosts!"

Then cried a scoffing voice an ominous word:

"Why doth a raving tongue of evil speech, Daughter of Priam, make thy lips to cry Words empty as wind? No maiden modesty With purity veils thee: thou art compassed round With ruinous madness; therefore all men scorn Thee, babbler! Hence, thine evil bodings speak To the Argives and thyself! For thee doth wait Anguish and shame yet bitterer than befell Presumptuous Laocoon. Shame it were In folly to destroy the Immortals' gift."

So scoffed a Trojan: others in like sort Cried shame on her, and said she spake but lies, Saying that ruin and Fate's heavy stroke Were hard at hand. They knew not their own doom, And mocked, and thrust her back from that huge Horse ?

For fain she was to smite its beams apart, Or burn with ravening fire. She snatched a brand Of blazing pine-wood from the hearth and ran In fury: in the other hand she bare A two-edged halberd: on that Horse of Doom She rushed, to cause the Trojans to behold With their own eyes the ambush hidden there.

But straightway from her hands they plucked and flung Afar the fire and steel, and careless turned To the feast; for darkened o'er them their last night.

Within the horse the Argives joyed to hear The uproar of Troy's feasters setting at naught Cassandra, but they marvelled that she knew So well the Achaeans' purpose and device.

As mid the hills a furious pantheress, Which from the steading hounds and shepherd-folk Drive with fierce rush, with savage heart turns back Even in departing, galled albeit by darts:

So from the great Horse fled she, anguish-racked For Troy, for all the ruin she foreknew.