Who, fed on pois'nous herbs, all winter lay
Under the ground, and now reviews the day
Fresh, in his new apparel, proud and young, 460
Rolls up his back, and brandishes his tongue,
And lifts his scaly breast against the sun :
With him his father's squire Automedon,
And Peripas, who drove his winged steeds,
Enter the court; whom all the youth succeeds 465
Of Scyros' isle, who flaming firebrands flung
Up to the roof: Pyrrhus himself among
The foremost with an axe an entrance hews
Thro' beams of solid oak, then freely views
The chambers, galleries, and rooms of state, 470
Where Priam and the ancient monarchs sat.
At the first gate an armed guard appears,
But th' inner court with horror, noise, and tears,
Confus'dly fill'd, the women's shrieks and cries
The arched vaults re-echo to the skies;
Sad matrons wand'ring thro' the spacious rooms,
Embrace and kiss the posts: then Pyrrhus comes;
Full of his father, neither men nor walls
His force sustain: the torn portcullis falls;
Then from the hinge their strokes the gates divorce,
And where the way they cannot find they force. 481
Not with such rage a swelling torrent flows,
Above his banks th' opposing dams o'erthrows,
Depopulates the fields, the cattle, sheep,
Shepherds, and folds, the foaming surges sweep..
And now between two sad extremes I stood, 486
Here Pyrrhus and th' Atridæ drunk with blood,
There th' hapless queen amongst an hundred dames,
And Priam quenching from his wounds those flames
Which his own hands had on the altar laid : 490
Then they the secret cabinets invade
Where stood the fifty nuptial beds, the hopes
Of that great race: the golden posts, whose tops
Old hostile spoils adorn'd, demolish'd lay,
Or to the foe or to the fire a prey.
Now Priam's fate perhaps you may inquire.
Seeing his empire lost, his Troy on fire.
And his own palace by the Greeks possest,
Arms long disus'd his trembling limbs invest;
Thus on his foes he throws himself alone,
Not for their fate but to provoke his own.
There stood an altar open to the view
Of heav'n, near which an aged laurel grew,
Whose shady arms the household gods embrac'd,
Before whose feet the queen herself had cast
With all her daughters, and the Trojan wives,
As doves whom an approaching tempest drives,
And frights into one flock; but having spy'd
Old Priam clad in youthful arms, she cry'd,
"Alas! my wretched husband! what pretence 510 "To bear those arms! and in them what defence? "Such aid such times require not, when again "If Hector were alive he liv'd in vain :
"Or here we shall a sanctuary find,
"Or as in life we shall in death he join'd." 515 Then, weeping, with kind force held and embrac'd, And on the secret seat the king she plac'd. Mean-while Polites, one of Priam's sons, Flying the rage of bloody Pyrrhus, runs Thro foes and swords, and ranges all the court 520 And empty galleries, amaz'd and hurt; Pyrrhus pursues him, now o'ertakes, now kills, And his last blood in Priam's presence spills. The king (tho' him so many deaths inclose) Nor fear, nor grief, but indignation shows : "The gods requite thee: (if within the care "Of those above th' affairs of mortals are) " Whose fury on the son but lost had been, " Had not his parents' eyes his murder seen. "Not that Achilles (whom thou feign'st to be 530 "Thy father) so inhuman was to me;
" He blush'd when I the rights of arms implor'd, "To me my Hector, me to Troy, restor'd." This said, his feeble arm a jav'lin flung, Which on the sounding shield, scarce ent'ring, rung. Then Pyrrhus; "Go a messenger to hell "Of my black deeds, and to my father tell "The acts of his degen'rate race." So thro His son's warm blood the trembling king he drew To th' altar: in his hair one hand he wreaths, 540 His sword the other in his bosom sheaths.
Thus fell the king, who yet surviv'd the state,
With such a signal and peculiar fate,
Under so vasta ruin, not a grave,
Nor in such flames a fun'ral fire to have.
He whom such titles swell'd, such pow'r made
To whom the sceptres of all Asia bow'd;
On the cold earth lies th' unregarded king,
A headless carcass, and a nameless thing!
PASSION OF DIDO FOR ÆNEAS.
HAVING at large declar'd Jove's embassy,
Cyllenius from Æneas straight doth fly;
He, loath to disobey the god's command,
Nor willing to forsake this pleasant land,
Asham'd the kind Eliza to deceive,
But more afraid to take a solemn leave,
He many ways his lab'ring thoughts revolves,
But fear o'ercoming shame, at last resolves,
(Instructed by the god of Thieves *) to steal
Himself away, and his escape conceal..
He calls his captains, bids them rig the fleet,
That at the port they privately should meet,
And some dissembled colour to project,
That Dido should not their design suspect :
But all in vain he did his plot disguise;
No art a watchful lover can surprise.
She the first motion finds: love tho' most sure,
Yet always to itself seems unsecure.
That wicked fame which their first love proclaim'd Foretells the end: the queen, with rageinfiam'd, 20 Thus greets him. "Thou dissembler wouldst thou "Out of my arms by stealth perfidiously? "Could not the and I plighted, nor the love, "Nor thee the fate of dying Dido, move? "And in the depth of winter, in the night, "Dark as thy black designs, to take thy Hight, "To plough the raging seas to coasts unknown, "The kingdom thou pretend'st to not thine own! "Were Troy restor'd, thou shouldst mistrust a wind "False as thy vows, and as thy heart unkind. "Fly'st thou from me? By these dear drops of brine "I thee adjure, by that right hand of thine, "By our espousals, by our marriage-bed, "If all my kindness aught have merited; "If ever I stood fair in thy esteem, "From ruin me and my lost house redeem. "Cannot my pray'rs a free acceptance find? "Nor my tears soften an obdurate mind? "My fame of chastity, by which the skies "I reach'd before, by thee extinguish'd dies. 40
"Into my borders now larbas falls,
"And my revengeful brother scales my walls;
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