Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams :: :: University of Virginia Library

Œnone had been weeping, but the blast
Bitterly cold had dried her tears, for high
Upon the mountain stood she, where the grass
Was short and dry, and where the fir-tree cones
Roll'd as the whirlwind rusht along the down.
Thence she beheld the walls and temples doom'd
So soon to fall, and view'd her husband's roof,

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(Hers he was once, altho' another's now)
And call'd their Corythos from out the wood.

“Go,” said she, “go, my child! there is at Troy
One who, without thy mother, may love thee.
Thy father lives . . alas! lives unaware
How few before him lie his destined days:
For now from Lemnos Philoctetes comes
And brings with him the deadly shafts bequeath'd
By Hercules, wherewith, the Fates have sung,
Paris must perish and the city fall.
Hated thou wilt not be by her he loves,
Altho' no child she ever bore to him
And thou art mine, if thou canst but delay
The hour foredoom'd: he may remember days
Of other times, and how serene they were,
Days when the poplar on its bark retain'd
Two names inscribed by him, and when invoked
Was Xanthos to bear witness to his vow.
When his lost son hath saved him, and he knows
He may not be ungrateful, but become
The kinder father for unkindness past.”

She mingled kisses with o'erflowing tears,
Embraced him, then consigned him . . not at once . .
To Agelaos: he was oft recall'd,
And urged with admonitions fresh and fresh
To keep as distant as was possible
From wave sail-whitened and insidious shore,
And every spot where Argive rampires rose.

Downward, thro' crags and briars they wend their way.
Fixt to the place, she heard not long the shout
Of Corythos, nor outcry of shrill birds
He pelted, whooping; then she turn'd around
Toward her mountain home, and thus exclaim'd . .

“Mountains and woods, the birthplace of my child,
I see ye yet! he, dearer to my eyes,
Is lost to them! Paris, once gone, return'd
No more to me! alas! nor love remains
Nor pledge of love! not only have I lost
Him who might bring again to me past hours

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By countenance, by mien, by sound of laugh,
By words persuasive, when presaging fear
Darkened my brow, that cause was none for grief,
I have lost here . . how little if success
Follow the loss! . . all solace, all support!
All things beside are just the same around.
Xanthos and Simöis tremble at the touch
Of early morning; then approaches me
Tenedos, one unbroken mass distinct,
And sidelong surges overleap the cliffs.
I am changed nothing; nothing can I change:
Such is the life of Nymphs; it must not cease,
Nor must the comeliness of youth decay.

Wretched! what look I back on? that frail gift
And fugitive, which others grasp, I mourn.

Œnone! O Œnone! beauteous once
He thought thee; he whom thou wilt ever hold
Beauteous and dear, now sees thee like the snow
That lost its colour in a southern gale.

How easy is it to snap off the bud
Of tender life, and sow upon a breast
Laid open ineradicable cares!
How soon droops youth when faith, that propt it, fails!
How often in her anguish would the maid
Recall irrevocable hours, and grieve
Most for the man whose future grief she sees!

Asteropè, my sister! happy thou
In him who loves but one! canst thou believe
That Æsacos and Paris are cognate?
But him the mild Arisbè bore; and him,
Born of a furious River, Hecuba.

I envy not alone the happier wed,
But even the wretched who avoid the light,
The unmarried, too, whose parents turn'd aside
Their nuptial torch, and widows o'er whose beds
Black wreaths are drooping; for the pang that death
Inflicts, time may, tho' time alone, assuage.

Where Nile besprinkles from his lotus-cup
The nuptial floor; where sacred Ganges rolls

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Alike inscrutable his vaster stream,
If Memnon's mother sheds ambrosial tears
Before the sun arises; if, ye maids
Of ocean, in the refuge of your caves
Ye daily hear your Thetis wail her loss,
Shunning wise Glaucos, deaf to Triton's shell,
To Doris, and the Nymphs that wait around;
If maids and matrons wail'd o'er Hector's corse,
Mangled, and stretcht upon a tardy bier,
Hector was still Andromache's, as when
He drave before him the Achaian host,
As when he tost his infant to his crest
And laught that Hector's child could ever fear.

What fault ye Gods was mine, unless to love
And be deserted, and to pass my nights
Among the haunts of beasts, where wolves and bears
Break my first slumber, and my last, with howls,
And the winds roar incessant from above?
Perhaps the Gods hereafter may look down
With gentler eyes, nor deem my fault so great.
Howe'er it be, may Corythos be blest
With other days, with better than pursuit
Of stag, or net thrown over birds when driven
By cold and hunger to scant oats unhous'd . .
O may they grant him happier, and forbid
That children suffer when their sires transgress.”

Meanwhile the youth was stopping near the walls,
And stood there wondering that e'en those, so vast,
So lofty, had resisted such a host
Under so many tents on all sides round.
“But where is that old fig-tree? where the scene
Of Hector and Achilles face to face?
Where that of Venus when she drew the cloud
Around my father to preserve his life?”

Such were his questions, seizing the guide's hand,
Hurrying him onward, and entreating him
Forthwith to lead him into Troy itself,
Even into Priam's house. Thus Agelaos
Represses him.

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“Thy mother's sole command
Was Onward! straight to Helena's abode.”

An aged man, who heard the two converse,
Stopt them.

“O Dardan,” cried the impatient boy,
“Say where dwells Helena?”

“With sterner voice
“Go,” said the Dardan, “the destroyer's court
To all is open . . there it lies: pass on.”
The youth threw instantly both arms around
The old man's neck, and, “Blessed,” he exclaim'd,
“Blessed, to whom my mother's injuries
Are hateful! It is virtue so to hate
The wicked Spartan. Here none other house
Than Priam's will I enter, where with his
Abides my father, where Andromachè
Prostrate on earth bemoans her husband slain,
While that bold wanton, fearing neither Pan
Nor Zeus, with busy needle works, I ween,
For other temples golden tapestries,
Or twitches the shrill harp with nail of Sphynx.”

Many, as they were speaking, past them by.
One woman, pausing, askt them if the ships
Could be discern'd from Ida whence they came,
And whether favourable were the winds
For their departure: to the eld she spake,
But gazed upon the youth: he saw her cheeks
Redden and pale; his guide too, not unmoved,
Thought, if in Ilion be such beauty, who
Would turn a glance elsewhere, tho' all the Gods
And all the Goddesses might promise more?
Now saw the youth, nor had he seen till now,
The maidens following her; their vests succinct,
Their hair close-braided; faultless all in form,
All modest in demeanour. Not so fast
The motion of his heart when rusht the boar
Into his toils, and knotty cornel spear
Whiz'd as it struck the bristles, and the tusks
Rattled with gnashing rage thro' boiling blood.

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Whither were going they, she gently askt.
“To where Assaracos and Ilos dwelt,”
Replied the elder, “where dwells Paris now.”
Then she, “The way is safer shown by us,
And sooner will ye find him when he leaves
The citadel. At early dawn he heard
A clamour from the coast; and soon a skiff
Was seen: an old man landed; one alone
Came with him; 'twas Odysseus; more behind.
Soon roam'd the sailors, culling on the coast
Bay and verbena; soon was every prow
Glimmering with these unhoped-for signs of peace.”

Shaking his head, the Idæan answered thus.
“'Twas surely Philoctetes who arrived.
The arms he bears were those of Hercales,
And now the bow of Nessos and the shafts
Infected by the Hydra, come against
The falling city of Laomedon.”

Struck by the words she heard, the more she wisht
To hear, the quicker went she on, and bade
Her damsels hasten too: she did look back,
Yet hasten'd. The Idæan strangers moved
Tardily now thro' crowds who stood before
The house of Hector: there they stood; there came
Widows and maids and matrons, carrying
Honey (the outraged Manes to appease)
And children on their shoulders, who lookt up,
Stretching their eyes, stretching their bodies out
To see their equal-aged Astyanax.
The older and the younger wept alike
At the morn silence: all things were laid waste
Around the roof-tree of their hero's house.

The palace now they reach where Paris dwelt;
They wonder at the wide and lofty dome,
The polisht columns and the brazen forms
Of heroes and of Gods, and marble steps,
And valves resounding at the gates unbarr'd.
They enter them. What ivory! and what gold!
What breathing images depicted there!

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Dædalos had enricht the Cretan king
With divers; and his daughter when she fled
With Theseus, who had slain the Minotaur,
Brought part away within his hollow ship;
And these were Helena's: a scient hand
Drew her, the fairest, foremost into light
Among the girls she danced with, while the Gods
Of heaven and ocean gazed on her alone.
Above them sate the Sire of all, and nigh
She who on Cypros landed from her shell;
Curl'd conchs less bright the round-eyed Tritons blew.

Helena sent for Paris: what had said
The shepherd she related, but one fact
Repressing . . who the mother of the boy,
And whom the boy resembled. Such was once
Paris, the guest of Sparta; but ten years
Had cull'd and carried off the flower of youth.

She thought not in these moments of his flight
Inglorious from the spear of Diomed,
Of nearer peril thought she; he, reclined
Upon his purple couch, her fear controll'd.

“No Philoctetes is arrived, afar
Sits he, alone upon the Lesbian rock,
Heavy with mortal wound; a wing drives off
The beasts from worrying their expected prey,
Often he waves it o'er his weary head
Lest vulture settle on it, often sees
The brazen breast of eagle close above,
Too weak his voice to scare it off, too weak
His groans, tho' louder. Thinkest he who bore
All this from faithless friend, who sits athirst,
Ahungered, on the beach, who bends his ear
Down to the earth and hears the pulse of oars
Fainter and fainter, and the seaman's song
Lively as ever, and while he bemoans
His wasting and immedicable wound . .
What can Lernæan arrow do against us?
Grant, if that far-famed bowman limp across
The heavy sands crisp with Achaian gore,

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Year after year, in flakes not washt away,
Where lies our danger? He but comes to find
Broken the chariot that had drag'd along
Hector, the blackened pyre where Ajax lies,
The corslet of Patroclos. Lo, O Troy!
Those mighty hands that threaten now thy fall!
Now is the time for us to turn our backs,
To leave our heritage, to leave the fane
Of Pallas, fane inviolate till now,
The roofs that Neptune helpt her to erect,
And over which Apollo, shining forth
And shouting and exhorting, bent his bow.
An old man bears an older on his back,
Odysseus Philoctetes. Aye, 'tis time,
My Helena, our footsteps to retrace
Toward Mycænai: let us bear away
Our household Gods, by former wars unmoved . .
Carry thou the Palladion in thy breast
That trembles so with pious fear, and bring
Gifts to Diana on Taÿgetos!
The rampire of the Achaians is o'erthrown;
The Myrmidons are scattered; every tent
Lies open . . that is little . . for, behold!
A lame man wins the race and grasps the prize!
While dark invidious Heré exercised
Her hatred on her judge, and arm'd the son
Of Tydeus, and while Ajax rear'd his shield
Covered with seven bull-hides, and Nereid-born
The proud Æmonian shook Aetion's towers,
Thy fears, even then, I might, in jest, rebuke.
On me no prowess have the Gods bestow'd?
No Venus, no Apollo, favoured me!”

Her failing spirits with derisive glee
And fondness he refresht: her anxious thoughts
Followed, and upon Corythos they dwelt.
Often he met her eyes, nor shun'd they his,
For, royal as she was and born of Zeus,
She was compassionate, and bow'd her head
To share her smiles and griefs with those below.

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All in her sight were level, for she stood
High above all within the seagirt world.
At last she questioned Corythos what brought
His early footsteps thro' such dangerous ways,
And from abode so peaceable and safe.
At once he told her why he came: she held
Her hand to Corythos: he stood ashamed
Not to have hated her: he lookt, he sigh'd,
He hung upon her words . . what gentle words!
How chaste her countenance.

“What open brows
The brave and beauteous ever have!” thought she,
“But even the hardiest, when above their heads
Death is impending, shudder at the sight
Of barrows on the sands and bones exposed
And whitening in the wind, and cypresses
From Ida waiting for dissever'd friends.”