THE DESCENT FROM THE WOODEN
HORSE
Troy: In the Wooden Horse.
Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes, Ulysses, Nestor, Ajax
Telamon, Teucer, Ajax Oileus, and others.
AJAX to ULYSSES
Now may we speak? are they not gone away?
It must be dead night now. I am nigh dead:
By the Gods their stupid singing of loud hymns
Nigh made me mad, nigh was I screaming out.
TEUCER
And we heard Helen we have fought about
These ten years: sickening for a caged man
To hear her speak and not to see her face—
Gods how I burn with fever!
ULYSSES
Hist, heroes—
No words.
(listening)
[OMITTED]
What is it, Prince of Ithaca?
[One sings from without]
O my merchants, whence come ye
Landing laden from the sea?
ULYSSES
Sinon I hope, but wait what followeth.
[Outside]
O my merchants, whence come ye
Landing laden from the sea?
Behold we come from Sicily,
Corn and wine and oil have we,
Blue cloths and cloths of red
Merry merchants, when you are dead
We shall gain that you have lorn.
Out, merchants from the sea
Your graves are not in Sicily;
The corn for me, the wine for thee,
The blue and the red for our ladies free.
[OMITTED]
There there, 'tis Sinon—give the counter sign—
Three blows on the head, on the breast three.
ULYSSES
(striking with a hammer on the breast of the horse)
These for the fair fame that the Gods give us,
(On the head)
And these that we have gained the thing we sought.
Unbolt, Ajax, be ready with your spears,
(They open the horse)
This dark night seemeth like the bright noon day:
We are alive in Troy. Down, my sweet lords.
AJAX
(leaping down)
First man in Troy. O Jove I give thee thanks!
TEUCER
O the free merry wind and driving rain!
This is like gaining heaven after hell.
PYRRHUS
Ah did you hear them how they praised the Gods
Because the Greeks were gone?—in yonder house
They dream no doubt of walking quietly
In the sweet meads again. Shall we slay them?
I long to begin killing.
[DIOMEDES]
Soft, fair Sir,
We are not yet so many men in Troy
As to do that we will: speak not so loud.
I can tell you now, Ulysses, now we are
Here in the open air and streets of Troy,
That while we squatted in the horse's ribs
More than one time was I well nigh minded
To give a shout and use my spear on you,
So maddened was I with the hope and fear,
And ever wait and wait—but peace, fair Sir,
We are some thirty men amid our foes,
Here must we stay and hold the gate at least;
Sinon is gone to bring the others up.
[AGAMEMNON]
Then shall we finish all our bitter siege,
And this last day of ugly nightmare dreams
That vexed us in the belly of the horse
Shall be a thing to laugh at three hours hence.
The rain falls softly after the bright day
And ever from the sea the southwest wind
Blows over us from Greece where we would be.
Noiseless as this same rain has God set us
Down here in Troy, and as the steady wind
Shall we prevail.
O Trojan folk,
The end of your wrong-doing draweth near:
No crying mercy now the end is come!
Yea, is the end come of our ten years' siege.
We may go home and sit beside our wives,
And by our hearths tell all our deeds of arms:
Yea, if we never do another deed
Worthy of note in all our lives henceforth
We still have won us a right noble name,
And men hereafter may well say of us,
Whate'er the Gods send turn ye not aside,
Thus was it that the Greeks won Troy at last.
MENELAUS
There is a certain one in this doomed town
Who thinks the worst is over, and fears now
Nothing but coming eld and death at last:
I shall be as a ghost to her tonight.
Brother, fear not for me, I must away
To talk with Helen—maybe to unclasp
Her arm from round the neck of Priam's son.
O faithful friends who now so long have fought
For me and my dear right, I pray to Zeus
Your swords be sharp on this wild rainy night!
