The Fall of Troy | Page 4

himself here
speaks with an uncertain voice (cf. "Iliad" xv. 416-17, xxii. 355-60, and
xxi. 277-78). But, in describing the fight for the body of Achilles
("Odyssey" xxiv. 36 sqq.), Homer makes Agamemnon say:
"So we grappled the livelong day, and we had not refrained
us then,
But Zeus sent a hurricane, stilling the storm of the battle
of men."
Now, it is just in describing such natural phenomena, and in blending
them with the turmoil of battle, that Quintus is in his element; yet for
such a scene he substitutes what is, by
comparison, a lame and
impotent conclusion. Of that awful cry that rang over the sea heralding
the coming of Thetis and the Nymphs to the death-rites of her son, and
the panic with which it filled the host, Quintus is silent. Again, Homer
("Odyssey" iv. 274-89) describes how Helen came in the night with
Deiphobus, and stood by the Wooden Horse, and called to each of the
hidden warriors with the voice of his own wife. This thrilling scene

Quintus omits, and substitutes nothing of his own. Later on, he makes
Menelaus slay Deiphobus unresisting, "heavy with wine," whereas
Homer ("Odyssey" viii. 517-20) makes him offer such a magnificent
resistance, that Odysseus and Menelaus together could not kill him
without the help of Athena. In fact, we may say that, though there are
echoes of the "Iliad" all through the poem, yet, wherever Homer has, in
the "Odyssey", given the
outline-sketch of an effective scene, Quintus
has uniformly neglected to develop it, has sometimes substituted
something much weaker -- as though he had not the "Odyssey" before
him!
For this we have no satisfactory explanation to offer. He may have set
his own judgment above Homer -- a most unlikely
hypothesis: he
may have been consistently following, in the framework of his story,
some original now lost to us: there may be more, and longer, lacunae in
the text than any editors have ventured to indicate: but, whatever theory
we adopt, it must be based on mere conjecture.
The Greek text here given is that of Koechly (1850) with many of
Zimmermann's emendations, which are acknowledged in the notes.
Passages enclosed in square brackets are suggestions of Koechly for
supplying the general sense of lacunae. Where he has made no such
suggestion, or none that seemed to the editors to be
adequate, the
lacuna has been indicated by asterisks, though here too a few words
have been added in the translation, sufficient to connect the sense.
0. A.S. Way
BOOK I:
How died for Troy the Queen of the Amazons, Penthesileia.
When godlike Hector by Peleides slain
Passed, and the pyre had
ravined up his flesh,
And earth had veiled his bones, the Trojans then

Tarried in Priam's city, sore afraid
Before the might of stout-heart
Aeacus' son:
As kine they were, that midst the copses shrink
From
faring forth to meet a lion grim,
But in dense thickets terror-huddled
cower;
So in their fortress shivered these to see
That mighty man.

Of those already dead
They thought of all whose lives he reft away

As by Scamander's outfall on he rushed,
And all that in mid-flight to
that high wall
He slew, how he quelled Hector, how he haled
His
corse round Troy; -- yea, and of all beside
Laid low by him since that
first day whereon
O'er restless seas he brought the Trojans doom.

Ay, all these they remembered, while they stayed
Thus in their town,
and o'er them anguished grief
Hovered dark-winged, as though that
very day
All Troy with shrieks were crumbling down in fire.
Then from Thermodon, from broad-sweeping streams,
Came, clothed
upon with beauty of Goddesses,
Penthesileia -- came athirst indeed

For groan-resounding battle, but yet more
Fleeing abhorred reproach
and evil fame,
Lest they of her own folk should rail on her
Because
of her own sister's death, for whom
Ever her sorrows waxed,
Hippolyte,
Whom she had struck dead with her mighty spear,
Not
of her will -- 'twas at a stag she hurled.
So came she to the far-famed
land of Troy.
Yea, and her warrior spirit pricked her on,
Of
murder's dread pollution thus to cleanse
Her soul, and with such
sacrifice to appease
The Awful Ones, the Erinnyes, who in wrath

For her slain sister straightway haunted her
Unseen: for ever round
the sinner's steps
They hover; none may 'scape those Goddesses.

And with her followed twelve beside, each one
A princess, hot for
war and battle grim,
Far-famous each, yet handmaids unto her:

Penthesileia far outshone them all.
As when in the broad sky amidst
the stars
The moon rides over all pre-eminent,
When through the
thunderclouds the cleaving heavens
Open, when sleep the
fury-breathing winds;
So peerless was she mid that charging host.

Clonie was there, Polemusa, Derinoe,
Evandre, and Antandre, and
Bremusa,
Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe,

Alcibie, Derimacheia,
Antibrote,
And Thermodosa glorying with the spear.
All these to
battle fared with warrior-souled
Penthesileia: even as when descends

Dawn from Olympus' crest of adamant,
Dawn, heart-exultant in her
radiant steeds
Amidst the bright-haired Hours; and o'er them all,


How flawless-fair soever these may be,
Her splendour of beauty