Metamorphoses

Ovid

Ovid. Metamorphoses. More, Brookes, translator. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.

“I need not linger over the many things
which by my counsel and my bravery
I have accomplished through this long-drawn war.
“A long time, after the first battle clash,
the foe lay quiet within city walls,
giving no challenge for an open fight—
he stood nine years of siege before we fought
what were you doing all that tedious time,
what use were you, good only in a fight?
If you will make inquiry of my deeds:
I fashioned ambuscades for enemies;
and circled our defenses with a trench;
I cheered allies so they might all endure
with patient minds a long, protracted war;
I showed how our own army might subsist
and how it could be armed; and I was sent
wherever the necessity required.
“Then, at the wish of Jove, our king, deceive
by A false dream, bids us give up the war—
he could excuse his order by the cause.
Let Ajax tell him Troy must be laid low
or let him fight—at least he can do that!
Why does he fail to stop the fugitives?
Why not take arms and tell the wavering crowd
to rally round him? Would that be too much
for one who never speaks except to boast?
But now words fail me: Ajax turns and flees!
I witnessed it and was ashamed to see
you turn disgraced, preparing sails for flight.
With exclamations and without delay,
I said, ‘What are you doing? O my friends,
has madness seized you that you will quit Troy,
which is as good as taken? What can you
bear home, after ten years, but your disgrace?’
“With these commanding words, which grief itself
gave eloquence, I brought resisting Greeks
back from their purposed flight. Atrides called
together his allies, all terror struck.
Even then, Ajax the son of Telamon
dared not vouchsafe one word. But impudent
Thersites hurled vile words against the kings,
and, thanks to me, he did not miss reproof.
I rose and spoke to my disheartened friends,
reviving their lost courage with my words
from that time forth, whatever deeds this man,
my rival, may have done, belong to me.
'Twas I who stayed his flight and brought him back.
“Which of the noble Greeks has given you praise
or sought your company? Yet Diomed
has shared his deeds with me and praises me,
and, while Ulysses is with him, is brave
and confident. 'Tis worthy of regard,
when out of many thousands of the Greeks,
a man becomes the choice of Diomed!
“It was not lot that ordered me to go;
and yet, despising dangers of the night,
despising dangers of the enemy,
I slew one, Dolon, of the Phrygian race,
who dared to do the very things we dared,
but not before I had prevailed on him
to tell me everything, by which I learned
perfidious actions which Troy had designed.
“Of such things now, I had discovered all
that should be found out, and I might have then
returned to enjoy the praise I had deserved.
But not content with that, I sought the tent
of Rhesus, and within his camp I slew
him and his proved attendants. Having thus
gained as a conqueror my own desires,
I drove back in a captured chariot,—
a joyous triumph. Well, deny me, then.
The arms of him whose steeds the enemy
demanded as the price of one night's aid.
Ajax himself has been more generous.
“Why should I name Sarpedon's Lycian troops
among whom I made havoc with my sword?
I left Coeranos dead and streaming blood,
with the sword I killed Alastor, Chromius,
Alcander, Prytanis, Halius, and Noemon,
Thoon and Charops with Chersidamas,
and Ennomus—all driven by cruel fate,
not reckoning humbler men whom I laid low,
battling beneath the shadow of the city walls.
And fellow citizens, I have my wounds
honorable in the front. Do not believe
my word alone. Look for yourselves and see!”
Then with one hand, he drew his robe aside.
“Here is a breast,” he cried, “that bled for you!
But Ajax never shed a drop of blood
to aid his friends, in all these many years,
and has a body free of any wound.
“What does it prove, if he declares that he
fought for our ships against both Troy and Jove?
I grant he did, for it is not my wont
with malice to belittle other's deeds.
But let him not claim for himself alone
an honor in which all may have a share,
let him concede some credit due to you.
Disguised within the fear inspiring arms
of great Achilles, Actor's son drove back
the host of Trojans from our threatened fleet
or ships and Ajax would have burned together.
“Unmindful of the king, the chiefs, and me,
he dreams that he alone dared to engage
in single fight with Hector—he the ninth
to volunteer and chosen just by lot.
But yet, O brave chief! What availed the fight?
Hector returned, not injured by a wound.
“Ah, bitter fate, with how much grief I am
compelled to recollect the time, when brave
Achilles, bulwark of the Greeks, was slain.
Nor tears, nor grief, nor fear, could hinder me:
I carried his dead body from the ground,
uplifted on these shoulders, I repeat,
upon these shoulders from that ground
I bore off dead Achilles, and those arms
which now I want to bear away again.
I have the strength to walk beneath their weight,
I have a mind to understand their worth.
Did the hero's mother, goddess of the sea,
win for her son these arms, made by a god,
a work of wondrous art, to have them clothe
a rude soldier, who has no mind at all?
He never could be made to understand
the rich engravings, pictured on the shield—
the ocean, earth, and stars in lofty skies;
the Pleiades, and Hyades, the Bear,
which touches not the ocean, far beyond
the varied planets, and the fire-bright sword
of high Orion. He demands a prize,
which, if he had it, would be lost on him.
“What of his taunting me, because I shrank
from hardships of this war and I was slow
to join the expedition? Does he not see,
that he reviles the great Achilles too?
Was my pretense a crime? then so was his.
Was our delay a fault? mine was the less,
for I came sooner; me a loving wife
detained from war, a loving mother him.
Some hours we gave to them, the rest to you.
Why should I be alarmed, if now I am
unable to defend myself against
this accusation, which is just the same
as you have brought against so great a man?
Yet he was found by the dexterity
of me, Ulysses, and Ulysses was
not found by the dexterity of Ajax.
“It is no wonder that he pours on me
reproaches of his silly tongue, because
he charges you with what is worthy shame.
Am I depraved because this Palamedes has
improperly been charged with crime by me?
Then was it honorable for all of you,
if you condemned him? Only think, that he,
the son of Naplius, made no defence
against the crime, so great, so manifest:
nor did you only hear the charges brought
against him, but you saw the proof yourselves,
and in the gold his villainy was shown.

“Nor am I to be blamed, if Vulcan's isle
of Lemnos has become the residence
of Philoctetes. Greeks, defend yourselves,
for you agreed to it! Yes, I admit
I urged him to withdraw from toils of war
and those of travel and attempt by rest
to ease his cruel pain. He took my advice
and lives! The advice was not alone well meant
(that would have been enough) but it was wise.
Because our prophets have declared, he must
lead us, if we may still maintain our hope
for Troy's destruction—therefore, you must not
intrust that work to me. Much better, send
the son of Telamon. His eloquence
will overcome the hero's rage, most fierce
from his disease and anger: or else his
invention of some wile will skilfully
deliver him to us.—The Simois
will first flow backward, Ida stand without
its foliage, and Achaia promise aid
to Troy itself; ere, lacking aid from me,
the craft of stupid Ajax will avail.
“Though, Philoctetes, you should be enraged
against your friends, against the king and me;
although you curse and everlastingly
devote my head to harm; although you wish,
to ease your anguish, that I may be given
into your power, that you may shed my blood;
and though you wait your turn and chance at me;
still I will undertake the quest and will
try all my skill to bring you back with me.
If my good fortune then will favor me,
I shall obtain your arrows; as I made
the Trojan seer my captive, as I learned
the heavenly oracles and fate of Troy,
and as I brought back through a host of foes
Minerva's image from the citadel.
“And is it possible, Ajax may now
compare himself with me? Truly the Fates
will hold Troy from our capture, if we leave
the statue. Where is valiant Ajax now,
where are the boasts of that tremendous man?
Why are you trembling, while Ulysses dares
to go beyond our guards and brave the night?
In spite of hostile swords, he goes within
not only the strong walls of Troy but even
the citadel, lifts up the goddess from
her shrine, and takes her through the enemy!
If I had not done this, Telamon's son
would bear his shield of seven bull hides in vain.
That night I gained the victory over Troy—
'Twas then I won our war with Pergama,
because I made it possible to win.
“Stop hinting by your look and muttered words
that Diomed was my partner in the deed.
The praise he won is his. You, certainly
fought not alone, when you held up your shield
to save the allied fleet: a multitude
was with you, but a single man gave me
his valued help.
“And if he did not know
a fighting man can not gain victory
so surely as the wise man, that the prize
is given to something rarer than a brave right hand,
he would himself be a contender now
for these illustrious arms. Ajax the less
would have come forward too, so would the fierce
Eurypylus, so would Andraemon's son.
Nor would Idomeneus withhold his claim,
nor would his countryman Meriones.
Yes, Menelaus too would seek the prize.
All these brave men, my equals in the field,
have yielded to my wisdom.
“Your right hand
is valuable in war, your temper stands
in need of my direction. You have strength
without intelligence; I look out for
the future. You are able in the fight;
I help our king to find the proper time.
Your body may give service, and my mind
must point the way: and just as much as he
who guides the ship must be superior
to him who rows it; and we all agree
the general is greater than the soldier; so,
do I excel you. In the body lives
an intellect much rarer than a hand,
by that we measure human excellence.
“O chieftains, recompense my vigilance!
For all these years of anxious care, award
this honor to my many services.
Our victory is in sight; I have removed
the opposing fates and, opening wide the way
to capture Pergama, have captured it.
Now by our common hopes, by Troy's high walls
already tottering and about to fall,
and by the gods that I won from the foe,
by what remains for wisdom to devise
or what may call for bold and fearless deeds—
if you think any hope is left for Troy,
remember me! Or, if you do not give
these arms to me, then give them all to her!”
And he pointed to Minerva's fateful head.
The assembled body of the chiefs was moved;
and then, appeared the power of eloquence:
the fluent man received, amid applause,
the arms of the brave man. His rival, who
so often when alone, stood firm against
great Hector and the sword, and flames and Jove,
stood not against a single passion, wrath.
The unconquerable was conquered by his grief.
He drew his sword, and said:—“This is at least
my own; or will Ulysses also claim
this, for himself. I must use this against
myself—the blade which often has been wet,
dripping with blood of Phrygians I have slain,.
Will drip with his own master's:blood,
lest any man but Ajax vanquish Ajax.”
Saying this, he turned toward the vital spot
in his own breast, which never had felt a wound,
the fated sword and plunged it deeply in.
though many sought to aid, no hand had strength
to draw that steel—deep driven. The blood itself
unaided drove it out. The ensanguined earth
sprouted from her green turf that purple flower
which grew of old from Hyacinthine blood.
Its petals now are charged with double freight—
the warrior's name, Apollo's cry of woe.

The conqueror, Ulysses, now set sail,
for Lemnos, country of Hypsipyle,
and for the land of Thoas, famed afar,
those regions infamous in olden days,
where women slew their husbands. So he went
that he might capture and bring back with him
the arrows of brave Hercules. When these
were given back to the Greeks, their lord with them,
a final hand at last prevailed to end
that long fought war. Both Troy and Priam fell,
and Priam's wretched wife lost all she had,
until at last she lost her human form.
Her savage barkings frightened foreign lands,
where the long Hellespont is narrowed down.
Great Troy was burning: while the fire still raged,
Jove's altar drank old Priam's scanty blood.
The priestess of Apollo then, alas!
Was dragged by her long hair, while up towards heaven
she lifted supplicating hands in vain.
The Trojan matrons, clinging while they could
to burning temples and ancestral gods,
victorious Greeks drag off as welcome spoil.
Astyanax was hurled down from the very tower
from which he often had looked forth and seen
his father, by his mother pointed out,
when Hector fought for honor and his country's weal.
Now Boreas counsels to depart. The sails,
moved by a prosperous breeze, resound and wave—
the Trojan women cry,—“Farewell to Troy!
Ah, we are hurried off! ” and, falling down,
they kiss the soil, and leave the smoking roofs
of their loved native land. The last to go
on board the fleet was Hecuba, a sight
most pitiful. She was found among the tombs
of her lost sons. While she embraced each urn
and fondly kissed their bones, Ulysses came
with ruthless hands and bore her off, his prize
she in her bosom took away the urn
of Hector only, and upon his grave
she left some white hair taken from her head,
a meager gift, her white hair and her tears.
Across the strait from Troy, there is a land
claimed by Bistonian men, and in that land
was a rich palace, built there by a king
named Polymnestor. To him the Phrygian king
in secret gave his youngest son to rear,
his Polydorus, safe from Troy and war,
a prudent course, if he had not sent gold
arousing greed, incitement to a crime.
Soon, when the fortunes of the Trojans fell,
that wicked king of Thrace took his own sword,
and pierced the throat of his poor foster son
and then, as if the deed could be concealed,
if he removed the body, hurled the boy
from a wild cliff into the waves below.
Until the sea might be more calm, and gales
of wind might be subdued, Atrides moored
his fleet of ships upon the Thracian shore;
there, from wide gaping earth, Achilles rose,
as large as when he lived, with look as fierce,
as when his sword once threatened Agamemnon.
“Forgetting me do you depart, O Greeks?”
He said, “And is your grateful! memory
of all my worth interred with my bones?
Do not do so. And that my sepulchre
may have due worship, let Polyxena
be immolated to appease the ghost:
of dead Achilles.” Fiercely so he spoke.
The old friends of Achilles all obeyed
his unforgiving shade; and instantly
the noble and unhappy virgin—brave,
more like a man than woman—was torn from
her mother's bosom, cherished more by her,
since widowed and alone. And then they led
the virgin as a sacrifice from there
up to the cruel altar. When the maid
observed the savage rites prepared for her,
and when she noticed Neoptolemus
stand by her with his cruel sword in hand,
his fixed eyes on her countenance; she said:—
“Do not delay my generous gift of blood,
with no resistance thrust the ready steel
into my throat or breast!” And then she laid
both throat and bosom bare. “Polyxena
would never wish to live in slavery.
And such rites win no favor from a god.
Only I fondly wish my mother might
not know that I have died. My love of her
takes from my joy in death and gives me fear.
Not my death truly, but her own sad life
should be the most lamented in her tears.
Now let your men stand back, that I may go
with dignity down to the Stygian shades,
and, if my plea is just, let no man's hand
touch my pure virgin body. A nobler gift
to him, whoever he may be, whom you
desire to placate with my death today,
shall be a free maid's blood. But, if my words—
my parting wish, has power to touch your hearts,
(King Priam's daughter, not a captive, pleads)
freely return my body to my mother,
let her not pay with gold for the sad right
to bury me—but only with her tears!
Yes, when she could, she also paid with gold.”
After she said these words, the people could
no more restrain their tears; but no one saw
her shed one tear. Even the priest himself,
reluctantly and weeping, drove the steel
into her proffered breast. On failing knees
she sank down to the earth; but still maintained
a countenance undaunted to the last:
and, even unto death, it was her care
to cover all that ought to be concealed,
and save the value of chaste modesty.
The Trojan matrons took her and recalled,
lamenting, all the sons of Priam dead,
the wealth of blood one house had shed for all.
And they bewailed the chaste Polyxena
and you, her mother, only lately called
a royal mother and a royal wife,—
the soul of Asia's fair prosperity,;
now lowest fallen in all the wreck of Troy.
The conquering Ulysses only claimed
her his because she had brought Hector forth:
and Hector hardly found a master for
his mother. She continued to embrace
the body of a soul so brave, and shed
her tears, as she had shed them often before
for country lost, for sons, for royal mate.
She bathed her daughter's wounds with tears and kissed
them with her lips and once more beat her breast.
Her white hair streamed down in the clotting blood,
she tore her breast, and this and more she said:

“My daughter, what further sorrow can be mine?
My daughter you lie dead, I see your wounds—
they are indeed my own. Lest I should lose
one child of mine without a cruel sword,
you have your wound. I thought, because
you were a woman, you were safe from swords.
But you, a woman, felt the deadly steel.
That same Achilles, who has given to death
so many of your brothers, caused your death,
the bane of Troy and the serpent by my nest!
When Paris and when Phoebus with their shafts
had laid him low, ‘Ah, now at least,’ I said,
‘Achilles will no longer cause me dread.’
Yet even then he still was to be feared.
For him I have been fertile! Mighty Troy
now lies in ruin, and the public woe
is ended in one vast calamity.
For me alone the woe of Troy still lives.
“But lately on the pinnacle of fame,
surrounded by my powerful sons-in-law,
daughters, and daughters-in-law, and strong
in my great husband, I am exiled now,
and destitute, and forced from the sad tombs
of those I love, to wretched slavery,
serving Penelope: who showing me
to curious dames of Ithaca, will point
and say, while I am bending to my task,
‘Look at that woman who was widely known,
the mother of great Hector, once the wife
of Priam!’ After so many have been lost,
now you, last comfort of a mother's grief,
must make atonement on the foeman's tomb.
I bore a victim for my enemy.
“Why do I live—an iron witted wretch?
Why do I linger? Why does cruel age
detain me? Why, pernicious deities,
thus hold me to this earth, unless you will
that I may weep at future funerals?
After the fall of Troy, who would suppose
King Priam could be happy? Blest in death,
he has not seen my daughter's dreadful fate.
He lost at once his kingdom and his life.
“Can I imagine you, a royal maid,
will soon be honored with due funeral rites,
and will be buried in our family tomb?
Such fortune comes no more to your sad house.
A drift of foreign sand will be your grave,
the parting gift will be your mother's tears.
We have lost everything! But no, there is
one reason why I should endure a while.
His mother's dearest, now her only child,
once youngest of that company of sons,
my Polydorus lives here on these shores
protected by the friendly Thracian king.
Then why delay to bathe these cruel wounds,
her dear face spattered with the dreadful blood?”
So Hecuba went wailing towards the shore
with aged step and tearing her gray hair.
At last the unhappy mother said, “Give me
an urn; O, Trojan women!” for, she wished
to dip up salt sea water. But just then,
she saw the corpse of her last son, thrown out
upon the shore; her Polydorus, killed,
disfigured with deep wounds of Thracian swords.
The Trojan women cried aloud, and she
was struck dumb with her agony, which quite
consumed both voice and tears within her heart—
rigid and still she seemed as a hard rock.
And now she gazes at the earth in front
now lifts her haggard face up toward the skies,
now scans that body lying stark and dead,
now scans his wounds and most of all the wounds.
She arms herself and draws up all her wrath.
It burned as if she still held regal power
she gave up all life to the single thought
of quick revenge. Just as a lioness
rages when plundered of her suckling cub
and follows on his trail the unseen foe,
so, Hecuba with rage mixed in her grief
forgetful of her years, not her intent,
went hastily to Polymnestor, who
contrived this dreadful murder, and desired
an interview, pretending it was her wish
to show him hidden gold, for her lost son.
The Odrysian king believed it all:
accustomed to the love of gain, he went
with her, in secret, to the spot she chose.
Then craftily he said in his bland way:
“Oh, Hecuba, you need not wait, give now,
munificently to your son—and all
you give, and all that you have given,
by the good gods, I swear, shall be his own.”
She eyed him sternly as he spoke
and swore so falsely.—Then her rage boiled over,
and, seconded by all her captive train,
she flew at him and drove her fingers deep
in his perfidious eyes; and tore them from
his face—and plunged her hands into the raw
and bleeding sockets (passion made her strong),
defiled with his bad blood. How could she tear
his eyes, gone from their seats? She wildly gouged
the sightless sockets of his bleeding face!
The Thracians, angered by such violence done
upon their king, immediately attacked
the Trojan matron with their stones and darts
but she with hoarse growling and snapping jaws
sprang at the stones, and, when she tried to speak,
she barked like a fierce dog. The place still bears
a name suggested by her hideous change.
And she, long mindful! of her old time woe,
ran howling dismally in Thracian fields.
Her sad fate moved the Trojans and the Greeks,
her friends and foes, and all the heavenly gods.
Yes all, for even the sister-wife of Jove
denied that Hecuba deserved such fate.