The Complete Plays (8 page)

I cannot choose but fall upon my knees

And kiss his hand. O, where is Hecuba?

Here she was wont to sit; but,
saving air,

Is nothing here, and what is this but stone?

AENEAS

O, yet this stone doth make Aeneas weep!

And would my prayers, as Pygmalion's did,

Could give it life, that under his conduct

We might sail back to Troy and be revenged

On these hard-hearted Grecians which rejoice

20      That nothing now is left of Priamus!

O, Priamus is left, and this is he!

Come, come aboard, pursue the hateful Greeks!

ACHATES

What means Aeneas?

AENEAS

Achates, though mine eyes say this is stone,

Yet thinks my mind that this is Priamus;

And when my grievèd heart sighs and says no,

Then would it leap out to give Priam life.

O were I not at all, so thou mightst be!

Achates, see, King Priam wags his hand!

30      He is alive, Troy is not overcome!

ACHATES

Thy mind, Aeneas, that would have it so,

Deludes thy eyesight. Priamus is dead.

AENEAS

Ah, Troy is sacked, and Priamus is dead,

And why should poor Aeneas be alive?

ASCANIUS

Sweet father, leave to weep. This is not he,

For, were it Priam, he would smile on me.

ACHATES

Aeneas, see, here come the citizens.

Leave to lament, lest they laugh at our fears.

Enter
CLOANTHUS, SERGESTUS, ILIONEUS
[
and others
].

AENEAS

Lords of this town, or whatsoever style

40      Belongs unto your name,
vouchsafe of ruth

To tell us who inhabits this fair town,

What kind of people and who governs them;

For we are strangers driven on this shore,

And scarcely know within what clime we are.

ILIONEUS

I hear Aeneas' voice but see him not,

For none of these can be our general.

ACHATES

Like Ilioneus speaks this nobleman,

But Ilioneus goes not in such robes.

SERGESTUS

You are Achates, or I deceived.

ACHATES

50       Aeneas, see, Sergestus or his ghost!

ILIONEUS

He
names Aeneas
, let us kiss his feet.

CLOANTHUS

It is our captain! See, Ascanius!

SERGESTUS

Live long Aeneas and Ascanius!

AENEAS

Achates, speak, for I am overjoyed.

ACHATES

O Ilioneus, art thou yet alive?

ILIONEUS

Blest be the time I see Achates' face!

CLOANTHUS

Why turns Aeneas from his trusty friends?

AENEAS

Sergestus, Ilioneus and the rest,

Your sight amazed me. O, what destinies

60      Have brought my sweet companions in such plight?

O tell me, for I long to be resolved!

ILIONEUS

Lovely Aeneas, these are Carthage walls,

And here Queen Dido wears th'imperial crown,

Who for Troy's sake hath entertained us all

And clad us in these wealthy robes we wear.

Oft hath she asked us under whom we served,

And when we told her, she would weep for grief,

Thinking the sea had swallowed up thy ships;

And now she sees thee, how will she rejoice!

SERGESTUS

70     See where her servitors pass through the hall

Bearing a banquet. Dido is not far.

ILIONEUS

Look where she comes. Aeneas, view her well.

AENEAS

Well may I view her, but she sees not me.

Enter
DIDO
[
with
ANNA
and
IARBAS
]
and her train
.

DIDO

What stranger art thou that dost eye me thus?

AENEAS

Sometime I was a Trojan, mighty queen,

But Troy is not. What shall I say I am?

ILIONEUS

Renownèd Dido, 'tis our general,

Warlike Aeneas.

DIDO

Warlike Aeneas, and in these
base robes?

80      Go fetch the garment which Sichaeus ware.

Brave Prince, welcome to Carthage and to me,

Both happy that Aeneas is our guest.

Sit in this chair and banquet with a queen;

Aeneas is Aeneas, were he clad

In weeds as bad as ever Irus ware.

AENEAS

This is no seat for one that's comfortless.

May it please your grace to let Aeneas
wait:

For though my birth be great, my fortune's mean,

Too mean to be companion to a queen.

DIDO

90      Thy fortune may be greater than thy birth.

Sit down, Aeneas, sit in Dido's place,

And if this be thy son, as I suppose,

Here let him sit. Be merry, lovely child.

AENEAS

This place beseems me not. O pardon me!

DIDO

I'll have it so. Aeneas, be content.

ASCANIUS

Madam, you shall be my mother.

DIDO

And so I will, sweet child. [
To
AENEAS
] Be merry, man;

Here's to thy better fortune and good stars.

[
She raises a toast
.]

AENEAS

In all humility I thank
your grace.

DIDO

100    Remember who thou art. Speak like thyself;

Humility belongs to common grooms.

AENEAS

And who so miserable as Aeneas is?

DIDO

Lies it in Dido's hands to make thee blest,

Then be assured thou art not miserable.

AENEAS

O Priamus! O Troy! O Hecuba!

DIDO

May I entreat thee to discourse at large,

And truly too, how Troy was overcome?

For many tales go of that city's fall,

And scarcely do agree upon one point.

110    Some say
Antenor did
betray the town,

Others report 'twas Sinon's perjury;

But all in this, that Troy is overcome,

And Priam dead. Yet how, we hear no news.

AENEAS

A woeful tale bids
Dido to unfold,

Whose memory, like pale death's
stony mace,

Beats forth my senses from this troubled soul,

And makes Aeneas sink at Dido's feet.

DIDO

What, faints Aeneas to remember Troy,

In whose defence he fought so valiantly?

120    Look up and speak.

AENEAS

Then speak, Aeneas, with
Achilles' tongue,

And, Dido, and you Carthaginian peers,

Hear me, but yet with Myrmidons' harsh ears,

Daily inured to broils and massacres,

Lest you be moved too much with my sad tale.

The Grecian soldiers, tired with ten years' war,

Began to cry, ‘Let us unto our ships,

Troy is invincible, why stay we here?'

With whose outcries
Atrides being
appalled,

130    Summoned the captains to his princely tent,

Who, looking on the scars we Trojans gave,

Seeing the number of their men decreased,

And the remainder weak and out of heart,

Gave up their voices to
dislodge the camp,

And so in troops all marched to
Tenedos;

Where when they came, Ulysses on the sand

Assayed with honey words to turn them back;

And as he spoke to further his intent,

The winds did drive huge billows to the shore,

140    And heaven was darkened with tempestuous clouds.

Then he alleged the gods would have them stay,

And prophesied Troy should be overcome;

And therewithal he called false Sinon forth,

A man compact of craft and perjury,

Whose ticing tongue was made of
Hermes' pipe,

To force a hundred watchful eyes to sleep;

And
him, Epeus
having made the horse,

With sacrificing wreaths upon
his head
,

Ulysses sent to our unhappy town,

150    Who, grovelling in the mire of Xanthus' banks,

His hands bound at his back, and both his eyes

Turned up to heaven, as one resolved to die,

Our Phrygian shepherds haled within the gates

And brought unto the court of Priamus,

To whom he used action so pitiful,

Looks so remorseful, vows so forcible,

As therewithal the old man overcome,

Kissed him, embraced him, and unloosed his bands,

And then – O Dido, pardon me!

DIDO

160     Nay, leave not here, resolve me of the rest.

AENEAS

O, th'enchanting words of that base slave

Made him to think Epeus' pine-tree horse

A sacrifice t'appease Minerva's wrath;

The rather, for that one Laocoön,

Breaking a spear upon his hollow breast,

Was with two wingèd serpents stung to death.

Whereat aghast, we were commanded straight

With reverence to draw it into Troy;

In which unhappy work was I employed:

170    These hands did help to hale it to the gates,

Through which it could not enter, 'twas so huge.

O, had it never entered, Troy had stood!

But Priamus, impatient of delay,

Enforced a wide breach in that rampired wall,

Which thousand battering-rams could never pierce,

And so came in this fatal instrument,

At whose accursed feet, as overjoyed,

We banqueted, till, overcome with wine,

Some surfeited, and others soundly slept.

180    Which Sinon viewing, caused the Greekish spies

To haste to Tenedos and tell the camp;

Then he unlocked the horse, and suddenly

From out his entrails Neoptolemus,

Setting his spear upon the ground, leapt forth,

And after him a thousand Grecians more,

In whose stern faces shined the quenchless fire

That after burnt the
pride of Asia.

By this, the
camp was
come unto the walls,

And through the breach did march into the streets,

190    Where, meeting with the rest, ‘Kill, kill!' they cried.

Frighted with this confusèd noise, I rose,

And looking from a turret might behold

Young infants swimming
in their parents' blood,

Headless carcasses pilèd up in heaps,

Virgins half-dead, dragged by their golden hair

And with main force flung on a ring of pikes,

Old men with swords thrust through their agèd sides,

Kneeling for mercy to
a Greekish lad,

Who with steel pole-axes dashed out their brains.

200    Then buckled I mine armour, drew my sword,

And thinking to go down, came Hector's ghost,

With ashy visage, bluish sulphur eyes,

His arms torn from his shoulders, and his breast

Furrowed with wounds, and – that which made me weep –

Thongs at his heels, by which Achilles' horse

Drew him in triumph through the Greekish camp,

Burst from the earth, crying, ‘Aeneas, fly!

Troy is a-fire, the Grecians have the town!'

DIDO

O Hector, who weeps not to hear thy name?

AENEAS

210    Yet flung I forth and, desperate of my life,

Ran in the thickest throngs, and with this sword

Sent many of their savage ghosts to hell.

At last came Pyrrhus, fell and full of ire,

His harness dropping blood, and on his spear

The mangled head of
Priam's youngest son,

And after him his band of Myrmidons,

With
balls of wildfire in
their murdering paws,

Which made the funeral flame that burnt fair Troy;

All which hemmed me about, crying, ‘This is he!'

DIDO

220    Ah, how could poor Aeneas 'scape their hands?

AENEAS

My mother, Venus,
jealous of my
health,

Conveyed me from their
crooked nets
and bands;

So I escaped the furious Pyrrhus' wrath,

Who then ran to the palace of the king,

And at Jove's altar finding Priamus,

About whose withered neck hung Hecuba,

Folding his hand in hers, and jointly both

Beating their breasts and falling on the ground,

He, with his falchion's point raised up at once,

230    And with
Megaera's
eyes, stared in their face,

Threat'ning a thousand deaths at every glance.

To whom the agèd king thus trembling spoke:

‘Achilles' son, remember what I was:

Father of fifty sons, but they are slain,

Lord of my fortune, but my fortune's
turned,

King of this city, but my Troy is fired,

And now am neither father, lord, nor king.

Yet who so wretched but desires to live?

O let me live, great Neoptolemus!'

240    Not moved at all, but smiling at his tears,

This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up,

Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.

DIDO

O end, Aeneas! I can hear no more.

AENEAS