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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book III Chapter 3: Polymestor and Polydorus | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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For once this Polydorus, with much gold, ill-fated Priam sent by stealth away for nurture with the Thracian king [Note 1], what time Dardania's war looked hopeless, and her towers were ringed about by unrelenting siege. That king, when Ilium's cause was ebbing low, and fortune frowned, gave o'er his plighted faith to Agamemnon's might and victory; he scorned all honor and did murder foul on Polydorus, seizing lawlessly on all the gold. O, whither at thy will, curst greed of gold, may mortal hearts be driven? Soon as my shuddering ceased, I [Note 2] told this tale of prodigies before the people's chiefs, who sat in conclave with my kingly sire [Note 3], and bade them speak their reverend counsel forth. All found one voice; to leave that land of sin, where foul abomination had profaned a stranger's right; and once more to resign our fleet unto the tempest and the wave. But fit and solemn funeral rites were paid to Polydorus. A high mound we reared of heaped-up earth, and to his honored shade built a perpetual altar, sadly dressed in cypress dark and purple pall of woe. Our Ilian women wailed with loosened hair; new milk was sprinkled from a foaming cup, and from the shallow bowl fresh blood out-poured upon the sacred ground. So in its tomb we laid his ghost to rest, and loudly sang, with prayer for peace, the long, the last farewell. Note 1: king = Polymestor |
49-68 Hunc Polydorum auri quondam cum pondere magno infelix Priamus furtim mandarat alendum Threicio regi, cum iam diffideret armis Dardaniae cingique urbem obsidione uideret. ille, ut opes fractae Teucrum et Fortuna recessit, res Agamemnonias uictriciaque arma secutus fas omne abrumpit: Polydorum obtruncat, et auro ui potitur. quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames! postquam pauor ossa reliquit, delectos populi ad proceres primumque parentem monstra deum refero, et quae sit sententia posco. omnibus idem animus, scelerata excedere terra, linqui pollutum hospitium et dare classibus Austros. ergo instauramus Polydoro funus, et ingens aggeritur tumulo tellus; stant Manibus arae caeruleis maestae uittis atraque cupresso, et circum Iliades crinem de more solutae; inferimus tepido spumantia cymbia lacte sanguinis et sacri pateras, animamque sepulcro condimus et magna supremum uoce ciemus. Inde ubi prima fides pelago, placataque uenti |