Have now so thinn'd our gallant ranks, that all Dejected droop, and murm'ring sigh for home. O must ten years of valour and renown
Be summ'd and finish'd with a base retreat! Must we, who have such dreadful days surviv'd, Leave unfulfill'd the vengeance that we vow'd, And quit this shore, so hallow'd with the tread Of mighty warriors, and the dust of kings?— Methinks I see them, (showing all their scars, And sternly pointing to the towers of Troy), Claim the great sacrifice to sooth their shades. Men. When I survey our few remaining tents, And the embrown'd gaunt soldiers, as they tend Their wounded fellows, while at ebb of day They pensive sit among yon sacred mounds Where silent rest the valiant and the great; Deeply I then that destiny deplore,
Which still entails, from my domestic wrongs, In ev'ry change a heavier woe on Greece.
Low lie her brave and now her fame must fall.
Ulys. It falls when we lose hope. What! while the foes Shrink and enshell themselves within their town,
Shall the magnanimous and choice of Greece, Thus basely here conspire their own disgrace? Let us forego the work of open war, And try awhile the chance of stratagem.- As I one ev'ning in my tent alone, Musing of battles and companions slain, Sat rapt in fancy, and with soften'd heart Unconscious ponder'd o'er the lapse of life, My youth for ever gone-I call'd to mind An ancient metre which my nurse rehears'd, How Troy unconquer'd still should proudly stand, Till pregnant Ida had a steed produced,
Whose midnight stall should be King Priam's tomb:
Which mystic riddle, as the ditty went,
Was deem'd a promise that, while Nature held Her wonted course, the town should never fall. The Gods, who prompt the purposes of men, Did then inspire me with a scheme to work The strange fulfilment of this prophecy.
Aga. O wisest Prince! and yon stupendous horse, So long but deem'd a labor politic,
To keep your men from murmurers apart,
Was that divine suggestion?
Now let the army be embark'd, and sail To where the western capes of Tenedos Conceal the setting sun from Ilion's sight. A hundred men, devoted, chosen vet'rans, With Pyrrhus, placed within the hollow horse, Shall here remain.
And what may then succeed?
The Gods must choose. The task be ours to
The births of fate. Devoted Troy, that oft
Has built her hopes upon our discontents,
Will doubtless pour her liberated throngs, Who, for a trophy of this fatal war,
May draw, deceiv'd, the horse into the town. Aga. Minerva wills it, and we should obey.
SCENE II. A Portico, affording a view of the interior of Troy.
CASSANDRA, HECUBA, and PRIAM.
Cass. Omeus and prodigies frown from the skies,
The winds bode in their whispers, and the earth
Groans heavily beneath the coming fate.
Hec. What moves thee, child, to this tremendous mood? Cass. The Gods, the Gods of Troy. Thou hast been ever
Hec. Wildly sublime in all thy scope of thought Prone to mysterious and prophetic boding.- How many children blest my happy breast, Sweet buds of beauty, that all blossom'd fair, Till stormy war,-a wasteful winter! came, And blasted and destroy'd. Patient, ye Gods! To each succeeding woe I still have bow'd, And thought humility might fate appease; But now, as on this solitary flower, Ye bid your still unsparing wrath descend, More direfully than the rude-plucking war, I feel my sore maternal heart repine.
Cass. O my dear mother, what a hideous scroll The hand of Death displays in yonder sky! Read, Priam, father, all ye Trojans, read, It is the warrant of your dismal doom. Hec. Where, where, Cassandra, where ? Pri.
Hec. Whither so fast? Cass.
To mourn, to weep, to pray. [Exit Cassandra.
Pri. So strange and wonderful! What may she mean? Her frown appall'd me when I would have chid,
And with an energy divinely stern,
She aw'd my spirit and inspir'd alarm.
Hec. We have not, Priam, with becoming dread, Heard the great warning which, for ten dire years, The Gods have published in the threats of Greece. Our warlike sons, the heaven-built towers of Troy,
Are levell❜d low, and we are all defenceless! O must we now, who still have found in life A flowery field, and summer path to walk, Sustain in age, (the sun of fortune set, And all companions far behind us dead,)
The dark mid-winter of adversity.
SCENE III. The Grecian Camp.
The same view as seen in Scene I. beyond the tent of gamemnon. The Grecian Kings, &c. assembled.
Ulys. Like, the poor rustics, when offended Ceres, With storms untimely, interdicts their hopes,
From this long-labor'd field our men retire.
Aga. What means the counter-march? The orders
That every band should, with its several chief,
Defile at leisure t'ward the surfy shore,
And there abide the slacking of the breeze; Which still at noon along the Phrygian coast,
Unfurls the white crest of the summer wave.
Ulys. And so the word was giv'n; but while the troops Stood resting on their spears, a sudden thought, Like inspiration, spread through all the camp,
That each led squadron, ere the embarkation, Should, as the tribute of their last respect, March round the tombs of the immortal slain.
Aga. The Gods bestow'd it, an auspicious omen! Who should have wonder'd had our baffled aims Extinguish'd in them all the pride of war ?
But who, Ulysses, now remains with you?
Ulys. Sinon of Athens, whom you may rememberHe was the latest that petition'd you
To raise the siege. I think you know him, Sir · We all admir'd that happy eloquence
With which, so modestly, he won attention. Aga. Took he occasion in his speech to tell, How that his helmet was a noble Trojan's, Whom he had vanquish'd on the very spot Where Hector slew Patroclus ?
Ulys. He has a genius of surpassing skill, In giving to the fictions of the brain
The form and seeming of realities.
Aga. But how mean you to profit by his art?
Ulys. While 1, advent'rous, masqued in Trojan arms, Mingle unnoticed with the vulgar throng,
He, as a wretch that has been left behind, Will piteous supplicate, and fitly tell, That holy Calchas, by Minerva taught,
Declar'd that never to the shores of Greece
Should those who sought the spoil of Troy return, Till woody Ida had a steed produced, Which ne'er, within the long-defended wall Of Priam's city, should admission gain. "For if e'er stabled there," the augur says, "The fated Greeks, upon the land or sea, "By foes or storms shall perish in exile."
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