Metamorphoses

  or when it came, came from an adverse quarter,

  our leader, Agamemnon, was commanded

  by an unyielding oracle to offer

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  his blameless daughter as a sacrifice

  to fierce Diana; this he would not do,

  since, in that king, there was a father, who

  in his great anger cried out against heaven;

  I was the one that, with ingenious speech,

  turned the kind parent into the public man

  (and I confess it here and beg your pardon,

  Agamemnon), although I found it hard

  to plead my case before a biased judge.

  “He was persuaded, for the common good,

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  and by his high command, and by his brother,

  to temper his affection for his daughter

  with a concern for doing the right thing.

  “They sent me also to the mother, who

  would not hear reason, but must be deceived

  by cunning—and if Ajax had been sent,

  those ships would still be waiting for a breeze!

  “As your ambassador to Ilium,

  I went into the Trojans’ Senate House,

  which was still full of heroes in those days,

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  but I, as ordered, pled the cause of Greece;

  I charged Paris with abduction, and demanded

  that they give Helen and the plunder back;

  Priam and Antenor were moved by my speech,

  but Paris, his brothers, and accomplices

  were scarcely kept from laying their indecent

  hands on me—Menelaüs—you know this!

  That was the first day when I shared your dangers.

  “It would take far too long for me to tell

  of all the services that I performed

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  as an advisor and as engineer

  during the course of that long, drawn-out war.

  “After the first engagements, the enemy

  for a long time stayed within their city,

  and so no opportunity for combat

  presented itself; at last, and not before

  the tenth year, did we do battle with our foe:

  and what had you been doing all this time,

  who have no expertise except in battles?

  What use were you?

  “Would you know what I did?

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  I set up ambushes and dug a trench

  around our fortifications; furthermore

  I gave encouragement to our allies,

  so that they could endure the tedium

  of such a long engagement; I advised

  on how to keep us armed and well provisioned,

  and served on other missions as required.

  “But look: deluded by a phantasm

  appearing in his sleep at Jove’s command,

  the king gives orders to give up the war,

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  orders which he defends as being Jove’s:

  so now let Ajax put an end to this,

  let Ajax now insist on Troy’s destruction,

  and fight, since he is such a warrior!

  “Why doesn’t he restrain them, and provide

  a bulwark where the wavering could rally?

  That wouldn’t be too much for such a braggart!

  But he was busy fleeing: ashamed, I saw

  you turn your back and raise disgraceful sails!

  “At once I cried out, ‘Men, what are you doing?

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  What madness now incites you to run off

  just when the city is within our grasp?

  What will we have to show for these ten years,

  what can we carry home except disgrace?’

  “And I said other things like that as well,

  for disappointment gave me eloquence,

  which turned them from the ships and brought them back.

  “Then Agamemnon called for an assembly

  of the Greek alliance, still panic-stricken;

  not even then was Ajax bold enough

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  to make a peep, although Thersites dared

  to mock the kings with insubordination—

  but thanks to me, he didn’t get off lightly!

  I got up and exhorted them once more

  to take the battle to our enemy,

  replacing their lost courage with my speech.

  From then on, whatever acts of bravery

  Ajax may claim in truth belong to me,

  who dragged him back from his intended flight.

  “And lastly, Ajax, who among the Greeks

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  has praise for you and seeks your company?

  But Diomedes has joined his cause with mine

  in all his actions; I have his approval,

  and he can always count on his Ulysses—

  and that is something, to be singled out,

  chosen from all the Greeks by Diomedes!

  “Nor was I picked by lottery to go:

  but careless of the dangers posed by night

  and by our enemy, I took out Dolon,

  who was scouting us, as we were scouting him;

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  but not before I’d gotten him to tell me

  the battle plans of the dishonest Trojans.

  “I understood their strategy completely

  and had no need for more discoveries:

  I could return to certain commendation,

  but not content with that, I made my way

  to the tents of Rhesus; there, in his own camp,

  I slaughtered him and his whole retinue.

  “A victor now, with all I’d prayed for won,

  I proceeded in a captured chariot

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  in imitation of a joyful triumph;

  the enemy insisted on those horses

  as that night’s price; deny the arms to me

  and let Ajax be the more generous!

  “Why should I tell again of how my sword

  brought devastation to the rank and file

  of Sarpedon, the Lycian commander?

  Or how I slew a bloody multitude:

  Coeranos, the son of Iphitus,

  and Alastor and Chromius I killed,

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  and Alcander, and Halius and Noëmon,

  and Chersidamas and Thoön as well,

  and Charopes and Ennomos, pursued

  by Fates implacable, and others who

  were not as famous, but who nonetheless

  my strong right arm left broken on the ground

  beneath the walls of Troy.

  “O citizens,

  I have my scars, and they are glorious

  for where I’ve gotten them—but do not trust

  in empty words: look on them for yourselves,”

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  he said, uncovering himself to them.

  “My breast,” he said, “has always been engaged

  in this great cause of yours. But Ajax here

  has paid out nothing for so many years

  in blood shed for his comrades that he’s earned

  a body free of scars!

  “So what if he brings up

  how he defended the whole Grecian fleet

  against the might of Troy and Jove combined?

  I grant it: let him have the credit owed

  his great accomplishment; but he should not

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  take all the glory; some belongs to you,

  for Patroclus, as great Achilles, drove

  the Trojans back and saved the fleet from burning.

  “He even thinks himself the only one

  who dared trade spears with Hector on the field,

  ignoring the king, the rulers, and myself;

  he was but ninth in our chain of command,

  and only won the task by lottery.

  What was the outcome of this fight of yours,
r />   bravest of warriors? Hector withdrew,

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  unblemished even by the slightest scratch!

  “It grieves me to think back to our sorrow

  when Achilles, bulwark of the Greeks, was slain.

  The tears that I shed then did not prevent me

  from lifting him and carrying him off

  upon these shoulders—yes, indeed—I bore

  the body of Achilles on these shoulders,

  and at the same time bore his armor off—

  a deed I am now striving to repeat.

  “I’ve shown the strength to bear so great a weight,

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  and have the spirit to appreciate

  the honor you confer upon the bearer:

  am I to think that this was the ambition

  of his immortal mother for her son,

  that these exquisite gifts, the consummate

  masterworks of the gods’ own armorer,

  were meant to grace a rude and brainless soldier?

  “He has no understanding of the world

  depicted on the shield, its sea and lands

  and stars arranged in patterns high in heaven,

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  the Pleiades, the Hyades, the Bear

  who is exempt from setting in the ocean,

  and opposite, Orion’s gleaming sword:

  he grasps at armor that his mind can’t grasp.

  “Does he not realize that in blaming me

  for hiding from the rigors of the war

  and for arriving after it began,

  he deprecates great-spirited Achilles?

  If pretense is a crime, then we’re both guilty,

  and if delay is culpable, then my

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  offense is lessened: I arrived here first!

  My devoted wife and his devoted mother

  kept us from leaving, but after those first days

  were given them, the rest were given you;

  and though I were unable to refute

  the crimes I’m charged with—well, I could care less,

  since those are faults I share with such a man,

  and by Ulysses’ ingenuity

  was Achilles found; but Ajax looked around

  and nowhere a Ulysses could he see.

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  “Nor should it shock us that his stupid mouth

  should so abuse me, for you also are

  the targets of his indecent reproaches.

  Can it be baseness for me to accuse

  Palamades unjustly, but correct

  for you to find him guilty of the charges?

  Palamades could not defend himself

  against so great a crime; his guilt was proven,

  and you not only heard that guilt proclaimed,

  but saw it in the evidence produced!

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  “Nor is it my fault that Philoctetes

  languishes on Lemnos: you consented;

  defend your action. Yes, I persuaded him

  to go on leave and to absent himself

  from the rigors of the journey to the war,

  and try to ease his awful state with rest.

  He listened to me—and he’s still alive!

  So my advice was not just well intended,

  but in its outcome was successful too,

  though only my intentions really mattered.

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  “And now that our augurs have decided

  that Philoctetes has to be brought here

  before the city can be overcome,

  don’t give this task to me: it would be better

  if Ajax went—for by his eloquence,

  he’ll calm the raging fury of the man,

  and by some cleverness or skillful trick

  will bring our Philoctetes back to us!

  “The Simoïs will start to flow upstream,

  Mount Ida will stand bare of foliage,

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  and Greece send war relief to Troy, before—

  if my mind ever gives up on your cause—

  the wit of Ajax does the Greeks some good!

  “O bitter Philoctetes, it is right

  that you should hate me so ferociously,

  and heap your endless curses on my head,

  and long, in misery, to drink my blood,

  if ever chance should give me up to you,

  doing to me in spades as I did you.

  “Despite your enmity, I would set out

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  and try to bring you back with me to Troy;

  if Fortune favors, I would have your bow,

  just as I had that Trojan seer I captured,

  just as I found the oracles, revealing

  the fate of Troy, just as I carried off

  the image of Minerva from its shrine

  within the city of our enemy—

  does Ajax now compare himself to me?

  “The Fates forbade the city to be captured

  without that image: where was bold Ajax then?

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  Whatever happened to his boastful speech?

  Why was he frightened? How does Ulysses dare

  to venture out beyond the sentry line,

  entrusting his own safety to the night,

  and facing opposition, enters Troy,

  and penetrates its citadel and steals

  the goddess from her altar, and then brings

  the captured image past our enemies?

  “And had I not accomplished all of this,

  the bull-hide shield of seven thicknesses

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  that our Ajax carries on his left arm

  would have been worn in vain, for on that night

  I guaranteed our victory at Troy:

  I overcame Pergama when I made it

  possible to overcome the city!

  “Allow me, Ajax, to express the thought

  your scrunched up face and muttering convey:

  ‘Part of his glory goes to Diomedes!’

  Of course it does: nor were you all alone

  when you braced your shield before the Grecian fleet;

  you had a host beside you: I but one.

  “Unless he knew that fighting has less value

  in warfare than strategic capability,

  and that the prize by right should not be given

  merely to an indomitable arm,

  Diomedes would also rise to claim it,

  and lesser Ajax, and Eurypylus,

  Andraemon’s son, and Idomeneus,

  and his own countryman, Meriones,

  and Agamemnon’s brother, Menelaüs,

  would also seek it; all of them, however,

  though strong of hand, my equals on the field,

  have yielded to my insight and my counsel.

  “Your arm is purposeful in war, but lacks

  the wisdom that my counsel can provide;

  you have meer strength, but not my intellect;

  lacking my foresight, you know only how,

  not when to fight; that is my special skill,

  and the task which our leaders picked me for;

  you represent the body, I the mind,

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  and as an oarsman to an admiral,

  or as a GI to a general,

  so much are you inferior to me,

  because, in our bodies, our hands

  are of far lesser value than our brains:

  in them resides the vigor of our lives.

  “Now you, O leaders, should award the prize

  to your faithful guardian, considering

  the many years which I have loyally spent

  in anxious care for these concerns of ours,

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  as compensation for my services.

  “My labor now is ended: I’ve removed

  the obstacle of the resistant Fates,

  and I have taken lofty Troy for you

  by making possible the city’s capture.

&nbs
p; “Now, by the hopes that we all have in common,

  and by the walls of Troy, fated to topple,

  and by those gods I’ve recently removed

  from our foe, and by whatever else

  is left to do with wisdom and with daring

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  before Troy falls, remember all I’ve done!

  “And if you still won’t give the arms to me

  (he pointed to the image of Minerva)—

  give them to her!”

  The leadership was moved,

  and the outcome showed what eloquence could do:

  the skillful man bore off the hero’s armor,

  while the other one, who had so often stood

  alone against great Hector and endured

  iron and fire and the wrath of Jove,

  discovered a passion he could not withstand:

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  the undefeated man was overcome

  by the anger that he turned against himself.

  He seized his sword and turned to face them all:

  “But surely this, at least, is mine,” he said.

  “Or will Ulysses take this from me too?

  I must employ it now against myself,

  and the blade so often stained with Trojan gore

  must now be steeped in its own master’s blood,

  lest anyone but Ajax conquer Ajax!”

  He, when he finished speaking, drove that sword

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  into his previously unscarred breast,

  up to the hilt—and none was strong enough

  to draw the weapon out, until the force

  of his own blood expelled it, and the earth

  was stained with its color; from patches of green turf

  there sprang a purple flower, which before

  had sprung from the mortal wound of Hyacinthus;

  and on its petals, letters were inscribed,

  appropriate both to the man and boy,

  spelling a hero’s name, a cry of woe.

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  The sorrows of Hecuba

  Ulysses then set sail for the isle of Lemnos

  (the realm of Thoas and Hypsipyle,

  where once a famous massacre took place)

  to carry back the arrows of Hercules;

  and after he had brought them and their master,

  Philoctetes, back to the Greek forces,

  the final blow of that long war was struck.

  Troy was ablaze, the flames not yet subsided;

  Jove’s altar was still drinking the thin blood

  of aged Priam, and Apollo’s priestess,

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  drawn by her hair, raised unavailing hands

  in silent supplication; Trojan women,

  while they still could, embraced the images

  of native gods—until triumphant Greeks

  dragged their appealing plunder from the temples.

  Astyanax was flung off of that tower

  from which his mother would point out to him

  his father on the battlefield, defending

  his reputation and ancestral realm.