Our boasting champion thought the task not light
To pass the guards, commit himself to night;
Not only through a hostile town to pass,
But scale, with steep ascent, the sacred place;
With wandering steps to search the citadel,
And from the priests their patroness to steal:
Then through surrounding foes to force my way,
And bear in triumph home the heavenly prey;
Which had I not, Ajax in vain had held,
Before that monstrous bulk his sevenfold shield.
That night to conquer Troy I might be said,
When Troy was liable to conquest made.
“Why point’st thou to my partner of the war?
Tydides had indeed a worthy share
In all my toil and praise; but when thy might
Our ships protected, didst thou singly fight?
All join’d, and thou of many wert but one:
I ask’d no friend, nor had, but him alone:
Who had he not been well assured, that art
And conduct were of war the better part,
And more avail’d than strength, my valiant friend
Had urged a better right than Ajax can pretend:
As good at least Eurypylus may claim,
And the more moderate Ajax of the name:
The Cretan king, and his brave charioteer,
And Menelaus bold with sword and spear:
All these had been my rivals in the shield,
And yet all these to my pretensions yield.
Thy boisterous hands are then of use, when I
With this directing head those hands apply.
Brawn without brain is thine: my prudent care
Foresees, provides, administers the war.
Thy province is to fight; but when shall be
The time to fight, the king consults with me:
No dram of judgment with thy force is join’d:
Thy body is of profit, and my mind.
By how much more the ship her safety owes
To him who steers, than him that only rows;
By how much more the captain merits praise,
Than he who fights, and fighting but obeys;
By so much greater is my worth than thine,
Who canst but execute what I design.
What gain’st thou brutal man, if I confess
Thy strength superior, when thy wit is less?
Mind is the man: I claim my whole desert,
From the mind’s vigour, and the immortal part.
“But you, oh Grecian chiefs, reward my care,
Be grateful to your watchman of the war:
For all my labours in so long a space,
Sure I may plead a title to your grace:
Enter the town; I then unbarr’d the gates,
When I removed their tutelary fates.
By all our common hopes, if hopes they be
Which I have now reduced to certainty;
By falling Troy, by yonder tottering towers,
And by their taken gods, which now are ours;
Or if there yet a farther task remains,
To be perform’d by prudence, or by pains;
If yet some desperate action rests behind,
That asks high conduct, and a dauntless mind;
If aught be wanting to the Trojan doom,
Which none but I can manage and o’ercome,
Award those arms I ask, by your decree:
Or give to this, what you refuse to me.”
He ceased: and ceasing, with respect he bow’d,
And with his hand at once the fatal statue show’d.
Heaven, air, and ocean, rung with loud applause,
And by the general vote he gain’d his cause.
Thus conduct won the prize, when courage fail’d,
And eloquence o’er brutal force prevail’d.
Death of Ajax
Ajax, in despair, puts a period to his existence, and the blood of the hero is changed into a hyacinth.
He who could often, and alone, withstand
The foe, the fire, and Jove’s own partial hand,
Now cannot his unmaster’d grief sustain,
But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain;
Then snatching out his falchion, “Thou,” said he,
“Art mine; Ulysses lays no claim to thee.
Oh often tried, and ever-trusty sword,
Now do thy last kind office to thy lord:
’Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show
None but himself himself could overthrow:”
He said, and with so good a will to die,
Did to his breast the fatal point apply.
It found his heart, a way till then unknown,
Where never weapon enter’d but his own.
No hands could force it thence, so fix’d it stood,
Till out it rush’d, expell’d by streams of spouting blood.
The fruitful blood produced a flower, which grew
On a green stem, and of a purple hue:
Like his, whom unaware Apollo slew:
Inscribed in both, the letters are the same,
But those express the grief, and these the name.
Story of Polyxena and Hecuba
Polyxena, the daughter of Priam, is sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, while her brother Polydore, by his great riches, excites the avarice of Polymestor, king of Thrace, who murders him—The lifeless body of her son is discovered by Hecuba, who contrives to deprive the faithless monarch of his eyes—His subjects pursue her with darts and stones, when she if metamorphosed into a bitch.
The victor with full sails for Lemnos stood,
(Once stain’d by matrons with their husbands’ blood,)
Thence great Alcides’ fatal shafts to bear,
Assign’d to Philoctetes’ secret care.
These with their guardian to the Greeks convey’d,
Their ten years’ toil with wish’d success repaid.
With Troy old Priam falls: his queen survives;
Till all her woes complete, transform’d she grieves
In borrow’d sounds, nor with a human face,
Barking tremendous o’er the plains of Thrace.
Still Ilium’s flames their pointed columns raise,
And the red Hellespont reflects the blaze.
Shed on Jove’s altar are the poor remains
Of blood, which trickled from old Priam’s veins.
Cassandra lifts her hands to heaven in vain,
Dragg’d by her sacred hair; the trembling train
Of matrons to their burning temples fly:
There to their gods for kind protection cry;
And to their statues cling till forced away,
The victor Greeks bear off the invidious prey.
From those high towers Astyanax is thrown,
Whence he was wont with pleasure to look down,
When oft his mother with a fond delight
Pointed to view his fathers rage in fight,
To win renown, and guard his country’s right.
The winds now call to sea; brisk northern gales
Sing in the shrouds, and court the spreading sails.
“Farewell, dear Troy,” the captive matrons cry:
“Yes, we must leave our long-loved native sky.”
Then prostrate on the shore they kiss the sand,
And quit the smoking ruins of the land.
Last Hecuba on board, sad sight! appears;
Found weeping o’er her children’s sepulchres:
Dragg’d by Ulysses from her slaughter’d sons,
While yet she grasp’d their tombs, and kiss’d their mouldering bones.
Yet Hector’s ashes from his urn she bore,
And in her bosom the sad relic wore:
Then scatter’d on his tomb
