The death of Hector was also lamented by Helen, and her
lamentation is thus spoken of by COLERIDGE: "I have always
thought the following speech, in which Helen laments Hector, and
hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as
almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking
instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which
so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest."
Helen's Lamentation.
"Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had joined
The mildest manners with the bravest mind,
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore;
(Oh, had I perished ere that form divine
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)
Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind:
When others cursed the authoress of their woe,
Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow:
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister, with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents softened all my pain.
For thee I mourn; and mourn myself in thee,
The wretched source of all this misery.
The fate I caused forever I bemoan;
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!
Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam!
In Troy deserted, as abhorred at home!"
--POPE'S Trans.
THE FATE OF TROY.
Homer's Iliad ends with the burial of Hector, and gives no
account of the result of the war and the fate of the chief actors
in the conflict. But in VIRGIL'S Æne'id, which gives an account
of the escape of Æne'as, from the flames of Troy, and of his
wanderings until he reaches the shores of Italy, the way in which
Troy is taken, soon after the death of Hector, is told by Æneas
to Dido, the Queen of Carthage. By the advice of Ulysses a huge
wooden horse was constructed in the Greek camp, in which he and
other Grecian warriors concealed themselves, while the remainder
burned their tents and sailed away to the island of Ten'edos,
behind which they secreted their vessels. Æneas begins his account
as follows:
"By destiny compelled, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva's aid a fabric reared
Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared.
The sides were planked with pine: they feigned it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide;
With inward arms the dire machine they load,
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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