The Fall of Troy | Page 7

rest,
And all the Trojan soil was crimson-red.
Then first Penthesileia smote and slew
Molion; now Persinous falls,
and now
Eilissus; reeled Antitheus 'neath her spear
The pride of
Lernus quelled she: down she bore
Hippalmus 'neath her horse-hoofs;
Haemon's son
Died; withered stalwart Elasippus' strength.
And
Derinoe laid low Laogonus,
And Clonie Menippus, him who sailed

Long since from Phylace, led by his lord
Protesilaus to the war with
Troy.
Then was Podarces, son of Iphiclus,
Heart-wrung with ruth
and wrath to see him lie
Dead, of all battle-comrades best-beloved.

Swiftly at Clonie he hurled, the maid
Fair as a Goddess: plunged the
unswerving lance
'Twixt hip and hip, and rushed the dark blood forth

After the spear, and all her bowels gushed out.
Then wroth was
Penthesileia; through the brawn
Of his right arm she drave the long
spear's point,
She shore atwain the great blood-brimming veins,

And through the wide gash of the wound the gore
Spirted, a crimson
fountain. With a groan
Backward he sprang, his courage wholly
quelled
By bitter pain; and sorrow and dismay
Thrilled, as he fled,
his men of Phylace.
A short way from the fight he reeled aside,
And
in his friends' arms died in little space.
Then with his lance
Idomeneus thrust out,
And by the right breast stabbed Bremusa.
Stilled
For ever was the beating of her heart.
She fell, as falls a
graceful-shafted pine

Hewn mid the hills by woodmen: heavily,

Sighing through all its boughs, it crashes down.
So with a wailing
shriek she fell, and death
Unstrung her every limb: her breathing soul

Mingled with multitudinous-sighing winds.
Then, as Evandre
through the murderous fray
With Thermodosa rushed, stood

Meriones,
A lion in the path, and slew: his spear
Right to the heart
of one he drave, and one
Stabbed with a lightning sword-thrust 'twixt
the hips:
Leapt through the wounds the life, and fled away.
Oileus'
fiery son smote Derinoe
'Twixt throat and shoulder with his ruthless
spear;
And on Alcibie Tydeus' terrible son
Swooped, and on
Derimacheia: head with neck
Clean from the shoulders of these twain
he shore
With ruin-wreaking brand. Together down
Fell they, as
young calves by the massy axe
Of brawny flesher felled, that,
shearing through
The sinews of the neck, lops life away.
So, by the
hands of Tydeus' son laid low
Upon the Trojan plain, far, far away

From their own highland-home, they fell. Nor these
Alone died; for
the might of Sthenelus
Down on them hurled Cabeirus' corse, who
came
From Sestos, keen to fight the Argive foe,
But never saw his
fatherland again.
Then was the heart of Paris filled with wrath
For a
friend slain. Full upon Sthenelus
Aimed he a shaft death-winged, yet
touched him not,
Despite his thirst for vengeance: otherwhere
The
arrow glanced aside, and carried death
Whither the stern Fates guided
its fierce wing,
And slew Evenor brazen-tasleted,
Who from
Dulichium came to war with Troy.
For his death fury-kindled was the
son
Of haughty Phyleus: as a lion leaps
Upon the flock, so swiftly
rushed he: all
Shrank huddling back before that terrible man.

Itymoneus he slew, and Hippasus' son
Agelaus: from Miletus brought
they war
Against the Danaan men by Nastes led,
The god-like, and
Amphimachus mighty-souled.
On Mycale they dwelt; beside their
home
Rose Latmus' snowy crests, stretched the long glens
Of
Branchus, and Panormus' water-meads.
Maeander's flood
deep-rolling swept thereby,
Which from the Phrygian uplands,
pastured o'er
By myriad flocks, around a thousand forelands
Curls,
swirls, and drives his hurrying ripples on
Down to the vine-clad land
of Carian men
These mid the storm of battle Meges slew,
Nor these
alone, but whomsoe'er his lance
Black-shafted touched, were dead
men; for his breast
The glorious Trito-born with courage thrilled
To
bring to all his foes the day of doom.
And Polypoetes, dear to Ares,

slew
Dresaeus, whom the Nymph Neaera bare
To passing-wise
Theiodamas for these
Spread was the bed of love beside the foot
Of
Sipylus the Mountain, where the Gods
Made Niobe a stony rock,
wherefrom
Tears ever stream: high up, the rugged crag
Bows as
one weeping, weeping, waterfalls
Cry from far-echoing Hermus,
wailing moan
Of sympathy: the sky-encountering crests
Of Sipylus,
where alway floats a mist
Hated of shepherds, echo back the cry.

Weird marvel seems that Rock of Niobe
To men that pass with feet
fear-goaded: there
They see the likeness of a woman bowed,
In
depths of anguish sobbing, and her tears
Drop, as she mourns
grief-stricken, endlessly.
Yea, thou wouldst say that verily so it was,

Viewing it from afar; but when hard by
Thou standest, all the
illusion vanishes;
And lo, a steep-browed rock, a fragment rent

From Sipylus -- yet Niobe is there,
Dreeing her weird, the debt of
wrath divine,
A broken heart in guise of shattered stone.
All through the tangle of that desperate fray
Stalked slaughter and
doom. The incarnate Onset-shout
Raved through the rolling battle; at
her side
Paced Death the ruthless, and the Fearful Faces,
The Fates,
beside them strode, and in red hands
Bare murder and the groans of
dying men.
That day the beating of full many a heart,
Trojan and
Argive, was for ever stilled,
While roared the battle round them,
while the fury
Of Penthesileia fainted not nor failed;
But as amid
long ridges of lone hills
A lioness, stealing down a deep ravine,

Springs on the kine with lightning leap, athirst
For blood wherein her
fierce heart revelleth;
So on the Danaans leapt that warrior-maid.

And they,