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Hector's body dragged behind a chariot around Troy.
Franz Matsch. The Triumph of Achilles, c1895.
Achillion Palace, Corfu, Greece.
from
BOOK II of VIRGIL'S AENEID.
[HECTOR WARNS AENEAS TO FLEE TROY]
It was the time when granted from the gods
The first sleep creeps most sweet in weary folk.
Lo! in my dream before mine eyes, methought,
With rueful chere I saw where Hector1 stood,
(Out of whose eyes there gushed streams of tears)
Drawn at a car2 as he of late had been,
Distained with bloody dust, whose feet were bowln3
With the strait cords wherewith they haled him.
Ay me, what one? that Hector how unlike,
Which erst returned clad with Achilles' spoils;
Or when he threw into the Greekish ships
The Trojan flame! so was his beard denied,
His crisped4 locks all clustered with his blood,
With all such wounds, as many he received
About the walls of that his native town.
Whom frankly thus methought I spake unto,
With bitter tears and doleful deadly voice:
'O Troyan light! O only hope of thine!
What lets5 so long thee staid? or from what coasts,
Our most desired Hector, dost thou come?
Whom, after slaughter of thy many friends,
And travail of the people, and thy town,
All-wearied lord! how gladly we behold.
What sorry chance hath stained thy lively face?
Or why see I these wounds, alas! so wide?'
He answered nought, nor in my vain demands
Abode;6 but from the bottom of his breast
Sighing he said: 'Flee, flee, O goddess' son!7
And save thee from the fury of this flame.
Our enemies now are masters of the walls;
And Troye town now falleth from the top.
Sufficeth that is done for Priam's reign.
If force might serve to succour Troye town,
This right hand well might have been her defence.
But Troye now commendeth to thy charge
Her holy reliques, and her privy gods.
Them join to thee, as fellows of thy fate.
Large walls rear thou for them: for so thou shalt,
After time spent in the overwandered flood.'
This said, he brought forth Vesta8 in his hands;
Her fillets eke,9 and everlasting flame.
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[AJ Notes:
1. Son of Priam, Hector was the greatest Trojan warrior, killed in battle by Achilles, hero of the Greeks.
2. Chariot.
3. Swollen. Tyrwhitt, in his edition of Chaucer, says it is the participle of the Saxon verb to bolge, which gives the derivation of bulge.
4. Curled.
5. Obstacles.
6. Dwelt.
7. Aeneas was the son of Venus, Goddess of Love.
8. Roman Goddess of the hearth, whose flame Aeneas took from Troy to Rome.
9. Fillets; headdresses worn by the Vestal virgins. Eke; also.]
Source:
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of. "Second Book of Virgil's Aeneid."
Poetical Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Robert Bell, Ed.
London: John W. Parker & Sons, 1854. 154-155.
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