[Pyrrhus Leads the Attack.]—(CONINGTON.)

Full in the gate see Pyrrhus blaze,

A meteor, shooting steely rays;

So flames a serpent into light,

On poisonous herbage fed,
Which late in subterranean night

Through winter lay as dead;
Now from its ancient weeds undressed,
Invigorate and young,

Sunward it rears its glittering breast
And darts its three-forked tongue,
There at his side Automedon,
True liegeman both to sire and son,
And giant Periphas, and all

The Scyrian youth assail the wall
And firebrands roofward dart.

[Pyrrhus Batters the Doors Asunder, and the
Greeks Enter, Raging.]—(MORRIS.)

Pyrrhus in forefront of them all catches a mighty bill,
Beats in the hardened door, and tears perforce from
hinge and sill

The brazen leaves; a beam hewn through, wide gaped
the oak hard knit

Into a great-mouthed window there, and through the
midst of it

May men behold the inner house; the long halls open

lie;

Bared is the heart of Priam's home, the place of kings

gone by;

And close against the very door all armèd men they see.

That inner house indeed was mazed with wail and

misery,

The inmost chambers of the place an echoing hubbub

hold

Of women's cries, whose clamor smites the far-off stars

of gold,

And through the house so mighty great the fearful mothers stray,

And wind their arms about the doors, and kisses on them lay.

But Pyrrhus with his father's might comes on; no bolt

avails,

No man against the might of him; the door all battered fails,

The door-leaves torn from off of hinge tumble and lie

along:

Might maketh road; through passage forced the entering Danaans throng,

And slay the first and fill the place with armor of their ranks.

Nay nought so great is foaming flood that through its bursten banks

Breaks forth, and beateth down the moles that 'gainst its going stand,

And falls a fierce heap on the plain, and over all the

land

Drags off the herds and herd-houses.

[The Old King Dons His Armor and Totters to the Defense of Hecuba and Her Women, about the Altar.]—(CONINGTON.)

Perhaps you ask of Priam's fate:

He, when he sees his town o'erthrown,
Greeks bursting through his palace-gate

And thronging chambers once his own,
His ancient armor, long laid by,

Around his palsied shoulders throws,
Girds with a useless sword his thigh,
And totters forth to meet his foes.
Within the mansion's central space,
All bare and open to the day,
There stood an altar in its place,

And, close beside, an aged bay,

That drooping o'er the altar leaned,

And with its shade the home-gods screened.
Here Hecuba and all her train

Were seeking refuge, but in vain,

Huddling like doves, by storms dismayed,

And clinging to the Gods for aid.

But soon as Priam caught her sight,

Thus in his youthful armor dight,

"What madness," cries she, "wretched spouse,

Has placed that helmet on your brows?

Say, whither fare you? times so dire
Bent knees, not lifted arms require;
Could Hector now before us stand,
No help were in my Hector's hand.
Take refuge here, and learn at length
The secret of an old man's strength;
One altar shall protect us all;

Here bide with us, or with us fall.”

She speaks, and guides his trembling feet

To join her in the hallowed seat.

[The Savage Pyrrhus Slaughters King Priam upor

the Altar.]-(DRYDEN.)

Behold Polites, one of Priam's sons,

Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs.

Through swords and foes, amazed and hurt, he flies Through empty courts and open galleries:

Him Pyrrhus, urging with his lance, pursues,
And often reaches, and his thrusts renews.
The youth transfixed, with lamentable cries
Expires before his wretched parents' eyes.
Whom, gasping at his feet, when Priam saw,
The fear of death gave place to Nature's law;
And shaking more with anger than with age,
"The gods," said he, "requite thy brutal rage:
As sure they will, barbarian, sure they must,
If there be gods in heaven, and gods be just:
Who takest in wrongs an insolent delight;
With a son's death to infect a father's sight.
Not he, whom thou and lying fame conspire
To call thee his: not he, thy vaunted sire,
Thus used my wretched age: the gods he feared,
The laws of Nature and of nations heard.

He cheered my sorrows, and for sums of gold
The bloodless carcase of my Hector sold.
Pitied the woes a father underwent,

And sent me back in safety from his tent."

This said, his feeble hand a javelin threw, Which fluttering, seemed to loiter as it flew: Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,

And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.

Then Pyrrhus thus: "Go thou from me to fate,

And to my father my foul deeds relate.

Now die!” With this he dragged the trembling sire, Sliddering through clotted blood and holy mire (The mingled paste his murdered son had made),

Hauled from beneath the violated shade,

And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid.

His right hand held his bloody falchion bare,

His left he twisted in his hoary hair;

Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found:
The lukewarm blood came rushing through the wound,
And sanguine streams distained the sacred ground.

Thus Priam fell, and shared one common fate
With Troy in ashes, and his ruined state:
He who the sceptre of all Asia swayed,
Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obeyed,
On the bleak shore now lies the abandoned king,
A headless carcase and a nameless thing.

[Æneas, Horror Stricken, Abandons the Palace and Flies to Save His Household.]—(CONINGTON.)

O then I felt, as ne'er before,
Chill horror to my bosom's core.
I seemed my aged sire to see,
Beholding Priam, old as he,
Gasp out his life; before my eyes
Forlorn Creusa seemed to rise,
Our palace, sacked and desolate,

And young Iulus, left to fate.

Then, looking round, the place I eyed,
To see who yet were at my side.

Some by the flames were swallowed; some
Had leapt to earth; the end was come.

Down from my perilous height I glide,
Safe sheltered by my heavenly guide,
So thread my way through foes and fire;
The darts give place, the flames retire.

But when I gained Anchises' door
And stood within my home once more,
My sire, whom I had hoped to bear
Safe to the hills with chiefest care,
Refused to lengthen out his span
And live on earth an exiled man.

*