Aeneid – Sack of Troy

(Aeneas is describing to the Carthaginian queen Dido the events that led to Troy's fall)

Within sight of Troy lies a famous island,
Tenedos, prosperous while Priam's kingdom stood,
Now just a bay with poor anchorage for ships.
The Greeks sailed there and hid on the desolate shore;
They were gone, we thought, sailed off to Mycenae.
And so all of Troy shook off its long sorrow.
The gates were opened. It was a joy to visit
The Doric camp, the abandoned beachhead,
The deserted sites. Here the Dolopians
Pitched their tents, here fierce Achilles,
Here lay the ships, here were the battle-lines.
Some of us gaped at the virgin Minerva's
Fatal gift, amazed at the massive Horse.
Thymoetes wanted it dragged inside the walls
And installed in the citadel. Treason perhaps,
Or Troy's doom was already in motion.
But Capys, and other wiser heads, urged us
To either pitch this insidious Greek gift
Into the sea, or burn it on the spot, or else
Pierce and probe the belly's hidden hollows.
The crowd took sides, uncertain what to do.

And now Laocoon comes running down
From the citadel at the head of a great throng
And in his burning haste he cries from afar:

'Are you out of your minds, you poor fools?
Are you so easily convinced that the enemy
Has sailed away? Do you honestly think
That any Greek gift comes without treachery?
What is Ulysses known for? Either this lumber
Is hiding Achaeans inside, or it has been built
As an engine of war to attack our walls,
To spy on our homes and come down on the city
From above. Or some other evil lurks inside.
Do not trust the Horse, Trojans! Whatever it is,
I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.”

With that, he hurled his spear with enormous force
Into the vaulting belly of the beast. The shaft
Stood quivering, and the hollow insides
Reverberated with a cavernous moan.
If we had not been on the gods wrong side
If we had been thinking right, Laocoon
Would have driven us to hack our way into
The Greek lair and Troy would till stand,
And you, high rock of Priam, would remain.

But at that moment a band of Dardan shepherds
Came up with loud shouts dragging to the king
A prisoner with his hands bound behind his back.
This man had deliberately gotten himself captured
With one purpose in mind, to open Troy to the Greeks.
Ready to either work his deceits or face certain death.
The Trojan youths streamed in from all sides
To see the captive and jeer at him. Hear now
The treachery of the Greeks and from one offense
Learn all their evil.
 The man stood in full sight
Of the crowd, dismayed unarmed and glancing
Around at the ranks of men he cried out:

“Ah, what land what sea can receive me now,
What will be my final wretched fate?
I have no place among the Greeks
And the Trojans are clamoring for my blood.”

At this our mood changed and we prodded him
To tell us what be meant. Who were his people
And what was he counting on to save him
now that he was our prisoner? Finally
He stopped trembling and began to speak:

Come what may King I will tell you all
And not deny, first that I am a Danaan.
Fortune may have damned Sinon to misery
But she will not make him a liar as well.
You may have heard the name Palamedes
Belus’ glorious son, whom the Greek
Condemned to death, under false charges,
Because he opposed the war. He was innocent.
Now they mourn him, now that he is dead.
He was my kinsman, and my father,
A poor man, sent me here in his company
When I was just a boy. While Palamedes
Was still in good standing, still thrived in council,
I too had somewhat of a name, some honor.
But when through the malice of cunning Ulysses
(Everyone knows this) he passed from this world,
I was a ruined man and dragged on my life
In darkness and grief, eating my heart out
Over the fate of my innocent friend.
Nor was I silent, but I raved
That if I ever had the chance, ever returned
As victor to Argos, I would have my vengeance.
My words aroused resentment, and my life
Was now infected. Ulysses made it his mission
To terrorize me with countless new charges,
Sowing rumors in everyone's ears, searching
In his guilt for weapons against me. In the end
He found Fortune's tool, Calchas the soothsayer-
But you don't want to hear all this. And why
Should I stall? If you paint all Greeks
With the same stripe, if "he's Achaean"
Is all you need to hear, take your vengeance
At once. This is what the Ithacan would want,
And what Atreus' sons would pay dearly for.”

Now indeed we burned to know more,
Strangers as we were to infamy so great
And to Greek guile. Trembling, he went on:
'Weary with the long war, the Greeks
Often wanted to quit Troy and sail home.
If only they had! But stormy weather
And rough seas would scare them from leaving.
And when they'd hammered together
The maple horse, the sky rumbled even more.
Anxious, we sent Eurypylus to consult
The oracle of Phoebus Apollo,
And he brought back these dismal words:

You placated the winds with a virgin's blood
To come, O Danaans, to the shores of Troy.
Your return must be won with an Argive life.

When the god's words reached the army's ears
Everyone was dazed, and an icy fear
Seeped into their bones. Which man was doomed,
Whom would Apollo claim? The Ithacan
Dragged Calchas out into the roaring crowd
And demanded to know what heaven portended.
Many divined that this despicable ploy
Was aimed at me and saw what was coming.
Five days and five more the seer sat in his hut,
Silent, refusing to sentence anyone to death.
Finally, forced by the Ithacan's cries,
Calchas broke his silence and, as agreed,
Doomed me to the altar. Everyone approved,
And the ruin each had feared for himself
They bore well when it devolved upon one.

“And now the dark day dawned. The salted grain,
The sacral headbands were being prepared
For my ritual slaughter, when, I confess,
I broke my bonds and snatched myself from death.
I skulked all night in a muddy swamp,
Hidden in the sedge, holding my breath
Until they sailed. Now I have no hope
Of seeing my homeland, my sweet children,
The father I long for. And the Greeks
May make them pay for my escape, poor things,
And by their death expiate my sin.
And so I pray, by whatever powers above
Still witness Truth, and by any Faith we men
still have uncorrupted, show mercy
to a suffering soul, guiltless and wronged.”

We spared him for his tears and pitied him
Of our own accord. Priam himself ordered
His shackles removed and spoke to him kindly:

“Whoever you are, take no further thought
Of the Greeks. You are one of us now.
But tell me, and speak the whole truth:
Why did they erect this monstrous horse?
Who devised it, and to what purpose?
Is it a religious offering or an engine of war?”

Thus Priam. And Sinon, the consummate liar,
Lifting his unchained hands to the stars:
“Eternal fires of heaven, I summon you
And your inviolable Power to witness,
And you altars and nefarious blades
Which I escaped, and you consecrated fillets
Which as victim I wore: it is just for me
To break the sacred oaths of the Greeks,
Just to abhor those men, and to lay bare to the sky
Every secret they would conceal. I am bound
By no law of my country. But you, Troy,
Stand by your word and keep your faith,
If what I say proves to be your salvation.
From the war's beginning, Pallas Athena
Was the Greeks' entire hope. But when
Wicked Diomedes and Ulysses,
With his criminal mind, entered
Her high temple, murdered the guards,
And stole the fateful Palladium,
Daring to handle her virgin fillets
With bloodstained fingers-then
The Danaans' fortunes began to falter,
Their strength was broken, and the goddess
Turned her back on them. Tritonia
Gave us clear portents of her displeasure.
As soon as her statue was set up in camp,
Flames glittered from her upturned eyes,
Sweat poured down her limbs, and three times
She flashed up from the ground, miraculous,
Holding her shield and quivering spear.
Calchas at once began to prophesy:

'The Greeks must attempt a retreat by sea.
Troy cannot be taken by Argive weapons
Until they seek new omens in Argos
And return the godhead carried away
In curved keels over open water.’

“They are sailing over to Mycenae now
And when they have recruited soldiers and gods
They will recross the water all unforeseen.
So Calchas sifted the omen and counseled the Greeks
To erect this Horse in expiation
Of the Palladium’s theft and the godhead wronged.
And he ordered them to build its oaken bulk
Up to the sky, so it could not be brought
Through the city's gates or walls and there protect
The Trojan people under the old religion.
For if you lay violent hands
Upon this offering to Minerva,
Destruction will fall- may the gods turn this omen
Against the Greek - upon Priam’s realm.
But if your hands bring it into the city,
Asia will wage war upon Pelops' walls
And this fate awaits our children's children.”

And so through Sinon's treacherous art
His story was believed and we were taken
With cunning captured with forced tears
We whom neither great Diomedes
Nor Achilles of Larissa could subdue
Nor ten year of war, nor a thousand ships.

581-652 – Death of Priam

I saw with my own eyes Neoptolemus, lusting for slaughter,
And Atreus' two sons, there on the threshold.
I saw Hecuba, with her hundred daughters,
And Priam, polluting with his blood
The very altars he had consecrated himself.
Those fifty bedchambers, that promise of offspring,
The doorposts proud with barbarian gold-
All lost. The Greeks held what the fire spared.
And what, you may ask, was Priam's fate?
When he saw that his city had fallen,
The doors of his palace shattered,
And the enemy at his very hearth,
The old man slung his long-unused armor
Over his trembling shoulders, strapped on
His useless sword, and, bound to die,
Charged the enemy.
 In the middle of the palace,
Under heaven's naked wheel, an enormous altar
Lay beneath the branches of an ancient laurel
Whose shade embraced the household gods.
In this sacred place Hecuba and her daughters
Huddled like doves driven by a black storm,
Clutching the gods' images. But when she saw
Priam himself clad in the armor of his youth,

She cried out: 'My poor husband,
What insanity has driven you
To take up these weapons? Where
Are you rushing to? The hour is past
For defense like this, even if my Hector
Were still here. Come to this altar, please.
It will protect us all, or you will die with us.”

Hecuba said these things, took the aged man
In her arms, and placed him on the holy seat.
And now Polites, one of Priam's sons,
Pursued by Pyrrhus, came running
Through the colonnades, wounded.
When he reached the vast atrium
Pyrrhus was breathing down his neck,
And yet he slipped away to face his parents' eyes.

There he fell, Pyrrhus' spear in his back,
And poured out his life in a pool of blood.
Then Priam, in death's grip as he was,
Did not hold back his anger or spare his voice.
“For this heinous crime,” he cried, “this outrage,
May the gods in heaven-if there is in heaven
Any spirit that cares for what is just and good-
May the gods treat you as you deserve
For making me watch my own son's murder
And defiling with death a father's face.
Not so was Achilles, whom you falsely claim
To be your father, in the face of Priam his foe,
But honored a suppliant's rights and trust,
And allowed the bloodless corpse of Hector
Burial, and sent me back to my own realm.”

And the old man threw his feeble spear. Its tip
Clanged against the bronze of Pyrrhus' shield

And dangled uselessly from its boss. And Pyrrhus:
“Then you can take this news to my father,
The son of Peleus. Be sure to tell him
About my sad behavior and how degenerate
His son has become. Now die.” So saying,
He dragged Priam, trembling and slipping
In his son's blood, up to the altar. Winding
His left hand in the old man's hair, with his right
He lifted his flashing sword and buried it
Up to its hilt in his side. So ended Priam,
Such was his fated doom, as Troy burned
Before his eyes and Pergamum fell.
Once the lord of so many peoples,
The sovereign of Asia, he lies now
A huge trunk upon the shore, head severed
From his neck, a corpse without a name.