But, lo! with hands fast bound behind, a youth
by clamorous Dardan shepherds haled along,
was brought before our king,—to this sole end
a self-surrendered captive, that he might,
although a nameless stranger, cunningly
deliver to the Greek the gates of Troy.
His firm-set mind flinched not from either goal,—
success in crime, or on swift death to fall.
The thronging Trojan youth made haste his way
from every side, all eager to see close
their captive's face, and clout with emulous scorn.
Hear now what Greek deception is, and learn
from one dark wickedness the whole. For he,
a mark for every eye, defenceless, dazed,
stood staring at our Phrygian hosts, and cried:
“Woe worth the day! What ocean or what shore
will have me now? What desperate path remains
for miserable me? Now have I lost
all foothold with the Greeks, and o'er my head
Troy's furious sons call bloody vengeance down.”
Such groans and anguish turned all rage away
and stayed our lifted hands. We bade him tell
his birth, his errand, and from whence might be
such hope of mercy for a foe in chains.
Then fearing us no more, this speech he dared:
“O King!
I will confess, whate'er befall,
the whole unvarnished truth. I will not hide
my Grecian birth. Yea, thus will I begin.
For Fortune has brought wretched Sinon low;
but never shall her cruelty impair
his honor and his truth. Perchance the name
of Palamedes, Belus' glorious son,
has come by rumor to your listening ears;
whom by false witness and conspiracy,
because his counsel was not for this war,
the Greeks condemned, though guiltless, to his death,
and now make much lament for him they slew.
I, his companion, of his kith and kin,
sent hither by my humble sire's command,
followed his arms and fortunes from my youth.
Long as his throne endured, and while he throve
in conclave with his kingly peers, we twain
some name and lustre bore; but afterward,
because that cheat Ulysses envied him
(Ye know the deed), he from this world withdrew,
and I in gloom and tribulation sore
lived miserably on, lamenting loud
my lost friend's blameless fall. A fool was I
that kept not these lips closed; but I had vowed
that if a conqueror home to Greece I came,
I would avenge.
Such words moved wrath, and were
the first shock of my ruin; from that hour,
Ulysses whispered slander and alarm;
breathed doubt and malice into all men's ears,
and darkly plotted how to strike his blow.
Nor rest had he, till Calchas, as his tool,-
but why unfold this useless, cruel story?
Why make delay? Ye count all sons of Greece
arrayed as one; and to have heard thus far
suffices you. Take now your ripe revenge!
Ulysses smiles and Atreus' royal sons
with liberal price your deed of blood repay.”
We ply him then with passionate appeal
and question all his cause: of guilt so dire
or such Greek guile we harbored not the thought.
So on he prates, with well-feigned grief and fear,
and from his lying heart thus told his tale:
“Full oft the Greeks had fain achieved their flight,
and raised the Trojan siege, and sailed away
war-wearied quite. O, would it had been so!
Full oft the wintry tumult of the seas
did wall them round, and many a swollen storm
their embarcation stayed. But chiefly when,
all fitly built of beams of maple fair,
this horse stood forth,— what thunders filled the skies!
With anxious fears we sent Eurypylus
to ask Apollo's word; and from the shrine
he brings the sorrowful commandment home:
‘By flowing blood and by a virgin slain
the wild winds were appeased, when first ye came,
ye sons of Greece, to Ilium's distant shore.
Through blood ye must return.
Let some Greek life
your expiation be.’ The popular ear
the saying caught, all spirits were dimmed o'er;
cold doubt and horror through each bosom ran,
asking what fate would do, and on what wretch
Apollo's choice would fall. Ulysses, then,
amid the people's tumult and acclaim,
thrust Calchas forth, some prophecy to tell
to all the throng: he asked him o'er and o'er
what Heaven desired. Already not a few
foretold the murderous plot, and silently
watched the dark doom upon my life impend.
Twice five long days the seer his lips did seal,
and hid himself, refusing to bring forth
His word of guile, and name what wretch should die.
At last, reluctant, and all loudly urged
By false Ulysses, he fulfils their plot,
and, lifting up his voice oracular,
points out myself the victim to be slain.
Nor did one voice oppose. The mortal stroke
horribly hanging o'er each coward head
was changed to one man's ruin, and their hearts
endured it well. Soon rose th' accursed morn;
the bloody ritual was ready; salt
was sprinkled on the sacred loaf; my brows
were bound with fillets for the offering.
But I escaped that death—yes! I deny not!
I cast my fetters off, and darkling lay
concealed all night in lake-side sedge and mire,
awaiting their departure, if perchance
they should in truth set sail.
But nevermore
shall my dear, native country greet these eyes.
No more my father or my tender babes
shall I behold. Nay, haply their own lives
are forfeit, when my foemen take revenge
for my escape, and slay those helpless ones,
in expiation of my guilty deed.
O, by yon powers in heaven which witness truth,
by aught in this dark world remaining now
of spotless human faith and innocence,
I do implore thee look with pitying eye
on these long sufferings my heart hath borne.
O, pity! I deserve not what I bear.”
Pity and pardon to his tears we gave,
and spared his life. King Priam bade unbind
the fettered hands and loose those heavy chains
that pressed him sore; then with benignant mien
addressed him thus: “ Whate'er thy place or name,
forget the people thou hast Iost, and be
henceforth our countryman. But tell me true!
What means the monstrous fabric of this horse?
Who made it? Why? What offering to Heaven,
or engin'ry of conquest may it be?”
He spake; and in reply, with skilful guile,
Greek that he was! the other lifted up
his hands, now freed and chainless, to the skies:
“O ever-burning and inviolate fires,
witness my word! O altars and sharp steel,
whose curse I fled, O fillets of the gods,
which bound a victim's helpless forehead, hear!
'T is lawful now to break the oath that gave
my troth to Greece. To execrate her kings
is now my solemn duty. Their whole plot
I publish to the world.
No fatherland
and no allegiance binds me any more.
O Troy, whom I have saved, I bid thee keep
the pledge of safety by good Priam given,
for my true tale shall my rich ransom be.
The Greeks' one hope, since first they opened war,
was Pallas, grace and power. But from the day
when Diomed, bold scorner of the gods,
and false Ulysses, author of all guile,
rose up and violently bore away
Palladium, her holy shrine, hewed down
the sentinels of her acropolis,
and with polluted, gory hands dared touch
the goddess, virgin fillets, white and pure,—
thenceforth, I say, the courage of the Greeks
ebbed utterly away; their strength was Iost,
and favoring Pallas all her grace withdrew.
No dubious sign she gave. Scarce had they set
her statue in our camp, when glittering flame
flashed from the staring eyes; from all its limbs
salt sweat ran forth; three times (O wondrous tale!)
It gave a sudden skyward leap, and made
prodigious trembling of her lance and shield.
The prophet Calchas bade us straightway take
swift flight across the sea; for fate had willed
the Trojan citadel should never fall
by Grecian arm, till once more they obtain
new oracles at Argos, and restore
that god the round ships hurried o'er the sea.
Now in Mycenae, whither they are fled,
new help of heaven they find, and forge anew
the means of war. Back hither o'er the waves
they suddenly will come. So Calchas gave
the meaning of the god. Warned thus, they reared
in place of Pallas, desecrated shrine
yon image of the horse, to expiate
the woeful sacrilege. Calchas ordained
that they should build a thing of monstrous size
of jointed beams, and rear it heavenward,
so might it never pass your gates, nor come
inside your walls, nor anywise restore
unto the Trojans their lost help divine.
For had your hands Minerva's gift profaned,
a ruin horrible—O, may the gods
bring it on Calchas rather!—would have come
on Priam's throne and all the Phrygian power.
But if your hands should lift the holy thing
to your own citadel, then Asia's host
would hurl aggression upon Pelops' land,
and all that curse on our own nation fall.”
Thus Sinon's guile and practiced perjury
our doubt dispelled. His stratagems and tears
wrought victory where neither Tydeus' son,
nor mountain-bred Achilles could prevail,
nor ten years' war, nor fleets a thousand strong.
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