The commanders sat down, surrounded by a standing crowd of troops. Ajax, lord of the sevenfold shield, rose before them. Impatient with rage as always, he glared toward the Trojan shore and the fleet lined up on the beach, and stretching out his hands he said: "For the love of Jupiter! We're pleading our case here in front of the ships—and my rival is Odysseus! But he had no problem running from Hector's flames, which I faced down and drove away from this very fleet. It's safer, apparently, to fight with clever words than with your fists. But I'm no good at speaking, just as he's no good at action. I'm as strong in savage war and on the battlefield as he is at talking.

"I don't think I need to list my deeds for you, Greeks—you saw them yourselves. Let Odysseus tell his own stories, the ones he does without witnesses, known only to the night! I admit the prize we're seeking is great, but my rival takes away its honor. Ajax shouldn't be proud of winning something, however grand, that Odysseus hoped for. He's already won his reward from this contest—when he's defeated, he'll be known as the man who competed with me.

"Even if my courage were in doubt, I'd still have power through nobility. I'm the son of Telamon, who with mighty Hercules captured Troy's walls and sailed to Colchis in the ship from Pagasae. His father is Aeacus, who dispenses justice among the silent dead, where the heavy stone presses down on Sisyphus, son of Aeolus. Highest Jupiter acknowledges Aeacus as his son and claims him as his own offspring. So Ajax is third from Jupiter. But Greeks, this lineage wouldn't help my case unless I shared it with great Achilles. He was my brother—I'm asking for a brother's arms! Why are you, Odysseus, born of Sisyphus's blood and so much like him in theft and trickery, trying to insert your alien family name among the descendants of Aeacus?

"Should I be denied these arms just because I came to war first, without being forced, while that man seems more deserving because he came last and tried to dodge military service with fake madness—until someone cleverer than him but more useless to himself, Palamedes son of Nauplius, exposed his cowardly pretense and dragged him to the war he was trying to avoid? Should he get the best weapons because he didn't want to take up any? Should I go unhonored and robbed of my cousin's gift because I offered myself for the first dangers?

"I wish his madness had been real, or believed to be real, and this instigator of crimes had never come with us to Troy's citadel! Then you, son of Poeas, wouldn't be abandoned on Lemnos to our shame. They say you're now hiding in forest caves, making the rocks echo with your groans, calling down on Odysseus, son of Laertes, the curses he deserves—curses that, if there are gods, won't be in vain. And now that man, who swore the same oath to fight alongside us—he was one of our leaders!—the man who now wields Hercules's arrows, is broken by disease and hunger, clothes and feeds himself on birds, and spends the arrows meant for Troy's fate on hunting flying prey. Still, at least he's alive, because he didn't go with Odysseus! Poor Palamedes might have preferred to be abandoned too—he'd be alive, or at least he'd have died without being disgraced. That man over there, remembering all too well that Palamedes had exposed his fake madness, made up a charge that he was betraying the Greeks, then 'proved' his false accusation by showing gold he'd already planted himself. So by exile or death he's stripped the Greeks of strength. That's how Odysseus fights—that's what makes him so fearsome!

"Even if his eloquence could outdo faithful Nestor himself, he'll never convince me that deserting Nestor was no crime. When Nestor called to Odysseus for help, slowed by his wounded horse and exhausted by old age, he was betrayed by his comrade. Diomedes knows well that I'm not making this up—he repeatedly called Odysseus by name, shouted at him, and condemned his trembling friend for running away. The gods watch human affairs with just eyes! Look—the man who didn't help needs help himself, and just as he abandoned others, so he deserved to be abandoned. He'd set the rules for himself. He calls to his comrades: I show up and see him trembling, pale with fear, panicking about his coming death. I put my shield's huge mass in front of him, covered him where he lay, and saved his life—hardly anything to brag about when the life was so cowardly. If you insist on continuing this contest, let's go back to that place. Bring back the enemy, your wound, your usual fear, hide behind my shield, and compete with me there! But as soon as I rescued him, this man who couldn't even stand because of his wounds ran away with no wound slowing him down.

"Hector comes, bringing the gods with him into battle, and wherever he charges, not just you, Odysseus, are terrified—brave men too, that's how much terror he brings. But while he was celebrating his bloody slaughter, I knocked him flat from a distance with a massive stone. When he demanded someone to fight him one-on-one, I was the only one who stood up to him. You prayed for my lot to be chosen, Greeks, and your prayers were answered. If you ask how that fight turned out—I wasn't beaten by him. Look, the Trojans bring iron, fire, and Jupiter himself against the Greek fleet. Where's eloquent Odysseus now? I, with my own chest, protected a thousand ships—your hope of return. Give me the armor in exchange for all those ships!

"If I'm allowed to speak the truth, those arms seek more honor for themselves than for me. Our glory is linked together, and it's Ajax who's asking for the arms, not the arms asking for Ajax. Let the man from Ithaca compare this to his exploits: killing Rhesus, cowardly Dolon, capturing Helenus son of Priam along with the stolen Palladium. He did nothing in daylight, nothing without Diomedes. If you're going to give those arms once for such trivial merits, divide them—the larger share should go to Diomedes!

"Besides, why does the Ithacan need these—a man who always works in secret, always unarmed, who relies on tricks to deceive the unwary enemy? The very gleam of the helmet shining with bright gold will give away his hiding places and reveal where he's lurking. That Dulichian head couldn't bear the weight under Achilles's helmet anyway, and Peleus's heavy, massive spear would be a burden to his unwarlike arms. The shield engraved with the image of the vast universe won't suit his timid left hand, made for stealing. Why do you seek this gift, you scoundrel, when it will only weaken you? If the Greek people make the mistake of giving it to you, you'll be stripped of it, not feared by the enemy. And your specialty—fleeing, which is how you alone beat everyone, you coward—will be slowed down when you're dragging such heavy equipment. Plus, that shield of yours, which so rarely sees battle, is still intact. Mine, which has taken a thousand blows defending against weapons, needs a new replacement.

"Finally—why do we need words? Let's be judged by actions! Send the brave man's armor into the thick of the enemy. Then order them retrieved and honor whoever brings them back."

The son of Telamon finished. A murmur from the crowd followed his last words. Then the hero, son of Laertes, stood. He kept his eyes lowered to the ground for a moment, then raised them to the chiefs and opened his mouth with the eloquence they'd been waiting for—and his words had charm to them.

"If my prayers and yours had been answered, Greeks, there'd be no question about who inherits this great contest. You'd have your armor, Achilles, and we'd have you. But since unjust fate has denied him to me and to you"—here he wiped his eyes as if brushing away tears—"who could better succeed great Achilles than the man through whom great Achilles joined the Greeks? Just don't let it help him that he seems slow-witted—because he is—and don't let it hurt me that my intelligence, Greeks, has always helped you. Don't let my eloquence, whatever it is, which has often spoken for you and now speaks for its master, face your resentment. No one should reject their own gifts.

"As for ancestry and forefathers and things we didn't do ourselves, I barely call those ours. But since Ajax mentioned being Jupiter's great-grandson, Jupiter is the founder of my bloodline too, and I'm the same number of generations from him. Laertes is my father, Arcesius was his father, Jupiter was his—and none of them was condemned or exiled. Through my mother, I also have Mercury of Cyllene as a second source of nobility—there's a god on both sides of my family. But I'm not asking for these arms because I'm nobler through my mother's line or because my father is innocent of his brother's blood. Judge the case on merit. Only make sure that Telamon and Peleus being brothers doesn't count as Ajax's merit, and that kinship doesn't matter—let the honor of these spoils be sought through courage! Or if you're looking for the closest relative and first heir, there's Peleus, Achilles's father, and there's Pyrrhus, his son. What claim does Ajax have? Let these arms be taken to Phthia or Scyros! Teucer is just as much Achilles's cousin. Does he ask for them? If he asked, would he get them? So since this is purely a contest of deeds, I've done more than I could easily sum up in words, but I'll go through them in order.

"Achilles's mother Thetis, foreseeing his death, disguised her son in women's clothing and fooled everyone—including Ajax. I placed weapons among the feminine wares, things that would stir a manly spirit. The hero hadn't yet dropped his girl's outfit when, as he gripped the shield and spear, I said: 'Son of a goddess, Troy is destined to fall to you! Why hesitate to overthrow mighty Troy?' I grabbed his hand and sent the brave man to brave deeds. So his achievements are mine. I'm the one who conquered Telephus with the spear, then healed him when he begged as my defeated enemy. Believe me, it's because of me that Thebes fell. Credit me with capturing Lesbos, Tenedos, Chryse, Cilla—Apollo's cities—and Scyros. Imagine my right hand knocked down Lyrnessus's walls to the ground. And to skip the others, I'm the one who gave you the man who could kill savage Hector. Through me, famous Hector lies dead! I ask for the armor that revealed where Achilles was. I gave them when he was alive; now that he's dead, I ask for them back.

"When one man's grief reached all the Greeks and a thousand ships filled Aulis on the Euboean coast, the winds were long awaited and either contrary to our fleet or absent. Harsh oracles ordered Agamemnon to sacrifice his innocent daughter to cruel Diana. The father refused, got angry even at the gods, and though he was a king, he was still a father. I used words to turn his gentle paternal nature toward the public good. I admit—and I hope Agamemnon will forgive me for admitting it—I had a difficult case to argue before a hostile judge. But the public welfare, his brother's cause, and the supreme power of the scepter he'd been given moved him to weigh glory against blood. Then I was sent to the mother, who needed not persuasion but cunning deception. If Ajax, son of Telamon, had gone, our sails would still be waiting for the winds.

"I was also sent as a bold ambassador to the citadels of Troy. I saw and entered the high court of Troy when it was still full of warriors. Undaunted, I argued the case that all of Greece had charged me with. I accused Paris, demanded the return of Helen and the stolen treasure, and moved Priam and Antenor, who was allied with him. But Paris and his brothers and those who'd helped him steal Helen could barely hold back their wicked hands—you know this, Menelaus. That was the first day you and I faced danger together.

"It would take too long to recount everything I've done that was useful, in counsel and in action, throughout the long war. After the first battles, the enemy kept themselves behind the city walls for a long time, and there was no chance for open warfare. We finally fought in the tenth year. What were you doing meanwhile, you who know nothing but battle? What use were you? Because if you ask about my deeds: I set traps for the enemy, I fortify our defenses with trenches, I comfort our allies so they endure the tedium of long war with calm minds, I teach them how we should feed and arm ourselves, I'm sent wherever necessity demands.

"Look—the king, deceived by a false dream sent by Jupiter's command, orders us to abandon our plan for war. He can defend his decision on Jupiter's authority. Why doesn't Ajax stop this? Why doesn't he demand that Troy be destroyed? Why doesn't he fight, since he can? Why doesn't he hold back those who want to leave? Why doesn't he take up arms and give them something the wandering mob can follow? That wouldn't have been too much for someone who only talks big. But what happened—he ran away himself! I saw it, and I was ashamed to see it, when you turned your back and prepared those disgraceful sails. Right away I said: 'What are you doing? What madness drives you, comrades, to abandon Troy when it's captured? What are you bringing home in the tenth year except disgrace?' With these words and others—grief itself had made me eloquent—I brought them back from their fleeing ships. Agamemnon called together the allies, terrified as they were. Even then Ajax, son of Telamon, didn't dare open his mouth. But Thersites dared to attack the kings with words—and he didn't get away with his insolence, thanks to me! I stood up and encouraged the frightened soldiers to face the enemy, and with my voice I restored the courage they'd lost. From that time on, whatever this man seems to have done bravely is mine—I'm the one who brought back the man who was running away.

"Finally, which of the Greeks praises you or seeks you out? But Diomedes shares his actions with me, approves of me, and always trusts in Odysseus as his companion. It means something to be chosen as the one man out of thousands of Greeks by Diomedes! The lot didn't order me to go—yet even so, despite the danger of night and the enemy, I killed Dolon, a Trojan who'd dared the same mission we were on. But not before I forced him to reveal everything and learned what treacherous Troy was planning. I'd learned everything and had no reason left to spy, and I could have returned then with the praise I'd been promised. But I wasn't satisfied with that. I attacked Rhesus's tent, killed him and his companions right in their own camp, and then, victorious and with my prayers answered, I rode in on the captured chariot like a happy triumphal procession. The enemy had demanded Rhesus's horses as payment for that night—so deny me the armor and let Ajax be more generous! Why should I mention the ranks of Lycian Sarpedon that I devastated with my sword? I killed Coeranus son of Iphitus, Alastor, Chromius, Alcander, Halius, Noemon, Prytanis, wiped out Thoon and Chersidamas, and Charops and Ennomus driven by harsh fate, and others less famous who fell by my hand beneath the city walls. I have wounds too, citizens, beautiful in their location—don't just trust empty words, look!" Here he pulled aside his garment. "Look, this is a chest that's always been engaged in your affairs! But Ajax, son of Telamon, has spent all these years without shedding a drop of blood for his comrades and has a body without wounds!

"What does it matter, though, if he says he raised arms to protect the Greek fleet against the Trojans and Jupiter? I admit he did—I'm not someone who tries to diminish good deeds maliciously. But he shouldn't claim as his alone what's shared with others, and he should give some honor back to you. Patroclus, protected by Achilles's appearance, drove the Trojans away from the ships that were about to burn and the defender they lacked. He even thinks he alone dared face Hector's weapons, forgetting the king, the commanders, and me. He was the ninth to volunteer and was chosen only by the luck of the lottery. But what was the outcome of your fight, bravest one? Hector walked away without a scratch!

"How painful it is for me to remember that time when Achilles, the wall of the Greeks, fell! Not even tears, grief, or fear stopped me from lifting his body from the ground. On these shoulders—these shoulders, I tell you—I carried the body of Achilles and his armor too, the armor I'm now struggling to carry again. I have the strength for such a heavy burden, and I certainly have a heart that will appreciate your honor. Did his sea-blue mother's ambition for her son come to this—that a crude, mindless soldier would wear the gifts of heaven, the work of such great art? He doesn't even know what's carved on the shield—the Ocean and lands and stars in the high sky, the Pleiades, the Hyades, the Bear that never touches the sea, the different constellations, and shining Orion's sword.

"What about the fact that he accuses me of fleeing the duties of harsh war and joining the effort late, yet doesn't realize he's insulting great-hearted Achilles too? If you call pretense a crime, we both pretended. If delay is a fault, I was quicker to join than he was. A devoted wife kept me, a devoted mother kept Achilles. Our first days were given to them, the rest to you. I'm not afraid of a charge I can't defend, since I share it with such a great man. Still, it was Odysseus's cleverness that caught him, but Ajax's cleverness didn't catch Odysseus.

"Don't be surprised that he pours out stupid abuse against me when he makes accusations against you too that deserve shame. If it was shameful for me to accuse Palamedes with a false charge, was it honorable for you to condemn him? But Palamedes couldn't defend such a great and obvious crime—you didn't just hear the charge, you saw it, and the evidence was revealed by the bribe.

"It's not my fault that Vulcan's island Lemnos holds the son of Poeas—defend your own decision! You all agreed. And I won't deny I advised him to withdraw from the hardships of war and travel and to try to soothe his savage pain with rest. He obeyed—and he's alive! That advice was not only faithful but fortunate—as long as being faithful is enough. But since the prophets demand him for Troy's destruction, don't assign this to me! Ajax, son of Telamon, will go better. He'll soften with eloquence a man raging with disease and anger, or he'll bring him by some clever trick! Sooner will the Simois flow backward, Mount Ida stand leafless, and Greece promise aid to Troy than, when my mind stops caring for your interests, stupid Ajax's cleverness will help the Greeks. However hostile you are to your allies, the king, and me, harsh Philoctetes, however much you curse and endlessly condemn my head and wish you could get your hands on me in your suffering and drink my blood, and just as you've had the chance with me, may I have the chance with you—I'll still approach you and try to bring you back with me. And if Fortune favors me, I'll take possession of your arrows just as I gained the Trojan prophet I captured, just as I revealed the oracles of the gods and Troy's fate, just as I stole Phrygian Minerva's sacred statue from the midst of the enemy. And Ajax compares himself to me? Troy's fate forbade its capture without that statue. Where's brave Ajax now? Where are the great man's huge words? Why are you afraid here? Why does Odysseus dare to go through the guards and trust himself to the night, to pass through fierce swords, not just to enter Troy's walls but even its highest citadel, to snatch the goddess from her temple and carry her off through the enemy? If I hadn't done this, the son of Telamon would have worn those seven bull hides on his left arm in vain. I won the victory for Troy that night. I conquered Troy when I made it possible to conquer.

"Stop pointing at Diomedes with your expression and muttering—he has his share of the credit! You weren't alone either when you held your shield to protect the fleet—you had a crowd with you. I had only one companion. And if he didn't know that a warrior is less important than someone wise, and that prizes aren't owed to the unconquered right hand alone, he'd be asking for these arms himself. So would the more moderate Ajax, fierce Eurypylus, the son of famous Andraemon, Idomeneus, Meriones born in his same homeland, and the brother of great Agamemnon. These men are brave in battle and second to me in warfare, but they yield to my counsel. Your right hand is useful in war, but you have a mind that needs my management. You have strength without intelligence; my concern is for the future. You can fight; Agamemnon chooses the times for fighting with me. You're useful only with your body, I with my mind. By as much as the captain who steers the ship surpasses the rower's duty, by as much as a commander is greater than a soldier, that's how much I surpass you. In our body too, the heart is more important than the hand—all our vital force is there.

"But you, leaders, give rewards to your watchful guardian. For so many years of care, through which I've acted with anxiety, grant this distinction as payment for my merits. My labor is at its end. I've removed the obstructing fates and made it possible for lofty Troy to be captured—by doing so, I've captured it. By our shared hopes and Troy's walls about to fall, by the gods I recently stole from the enemy, by whatever still remains that requires wise action, if something bold and dangerous still needs to be attempted, if you think anything remains of Troy's fate—remember me! Or if you don't give the armor to me, give it to this!" And he showed them the fateful statue of Minerva.

The assembly of leaders was moved, and the power of eloquence became clear. The eloquent man carried off the brave man's armor. He who alone had withstood Hector, who had withstood iron, fire, and Jupiter so many times, couldn't withstand one thing—anger. Grief conquered the unconquerable man. He grabbed his sword and said: "This one's certainly mine! Or does Odysseus claim this too? This is what I must use on myself—the blade that's so often been wet with Trojan blood will now be wet with its master's blood, so that no one can defeat Ajax except Ajax himself." He spoke, and then at last drove the lethal sword into his chest, which had never suffered wounds before, in a place where the blade could penetrate. No hands could pull out the embedded weapon—the blood itself expelled it. The ground, red with blood, gave birth to a purple flower from the green turf, the same flower that had earlier been born from Oebalus's wound. A marking common to both the boy and the man is inscribed on the leaves—for one, the name, for the other, the lament.

---

The victor sailed to the homeland of Hypsipyle and famous Thoas, to the land once notorious for its slaughter of men, to bring back the arrows of Hercules. Once he'd brought them back to the Greeks with their owner, the war finally received its finishing touch.

Troy fell, and Priam with it. After losing everything, Priam's poor wife even lost her human form and terrified foreign skies with strange barking in that narrow place where the long Hellespont closes in.

Troy was burning. The fire hadn't died down yet. Jupiter's altar was still drinking the little blood of old Priam. Cassandra, Apollo's priestess, was being dragged by her hair, stretching her hands toward the sky—hands that would do no good. The Trojan mothers clung to the statues of their ancestral gods and held onto the burning temples as long as they could, until the victorious Greeks dragged them away as prizes they envied. Astyanax was thrown from those towers where he'd so often watched his father fighting to defend him and the kingdom of his ancestors—pointed out to him by his mother.

The North Wind urged departure, and the sails flapped with the favorable breeze. The captain ordered them to use the winds. "Farewell, Troy! We're being carried away!" the Trojan women cried, kissing the ground and leaving behind their homeland's smoking buildings. Last to board the ships—a pitiful sight!—was Hecuba, found among her children's tombs, clutching the burial mounds and giving kisses to their bones. The Dulichian hands of Odysseus dragged her away, but even so she managed to gather up and carry with her in her robes the ashes of Hector. On Hector's tomb she left a poor offering—a lock of white hair from her head, the hair and her tears.

---

Across from where Troy once stood, there's a Thracian land inhabited by Bistonian people. There was the wealthy palace of Polymestor, to whom your father, Polydorus, secretly entrusted you to be raised, removing you from the Trojan war—a wise decision, except that he sent great wealth with you, a temptation for a greedy soul.

When Troy's fortune fell, the wicked king of Thrace grabbed his sword, slit his ward's throat, and—as if the crime could be removed along with the body—threw the lifeless corpse into the waves below the cliff.

Agamemnon had moored his fleet on the Thracian shore while the sea calmed and the wind turned friendlier. Here suddenly, as large as he'd been in life, Achilles burst from the widely split earth, wearing the same threatening expression he'd had when he unjustly attacked Agamemnon with his sword. "Are you leaving without remembering me, Greeks?" he said. "Is gratitude for my courage buried with me? Don't let it be! So that my tomb won't go without honor, let Polyxena be sacrificed to appease Achilles's ghost!" He spoke, and his comrades obeyed the pitiless shade. Polyxena was torn from her mother's arms—almost the only comfort her mother still had. The brave, unfortunate girl, more than a woman in courage, was led to the tomb and became a sacrificial victim at that terrible burial mound.

When she was brought to the cruel altar and realized the savage rites were being prepared for her, when she saw Neoptolemus standing there holding the blade and fixing his eyes on her face, she said: "Use my noble blood—there's no delay. But drive your weapon into my throat or my chest"—and she exposed both throat and chest together. "Surely I, Polyxena, wouldn't want to serve anyone as a slave. You won't appease any god with such a sacrifice! I only wish my death could escape my mother's notice. My mother diminishes my joy in death, though it's not my death but her life that should be dreaded. Just so I can reach the Stygian shades as a free woman—if what I ask is just—stand back and remove your male hands from my virgin body! Whoever he is that you're preparing to appease with my slaughter, he'll find free blood more acceptable. But if my final words move any of you—I'm King Priam's daughter asking, not a captive—give my body back to my mother without payment. Don't let her buy the sad right of burial with gold, but with tears. She used to buy it with gold too, when she could." She finished. The people couldn't hold back the tears she was holding back. Even the priest himself wept and reluctantly thrust the blade into the chest she offered. Her knees gave way and she sank to the ground, but carried an unafraid expression to her final moment. Even as she fell, she was careful to cover the parts that should be covered, preserving the honor of chaste modesty.

The Trojan women lifted her up and counted the mourned sons of Priam and how many deaths one house had given. They wept for you, girl, and for you, who were just now a royal wife, called a royal mother, the image of flourishing Asia—now even a bad lottery among the spoils. Odysseus, the victor, wouldn't want to own you, except that you'd given birth to Hector. Hector barely found a master for his mother!

Embracing the lifeless body of such a brave soul, she shed the tears she'd so often given for her country, her children, and her husband. She shed them now for this daughter too. She poured tears into the wounds, covered them with kisses, beat her breast as she always had, and pulling at her white hair caked with blood, she said many things, but including this as she tore at her chest:

"My daughter—for what's left to me?—my final grief, my daughter, you lie here and I see your wound as my wound. Look, so I wouldn't lose any of my children without bloodshed, you too have a wound. But I thought you'd be safe from the sword because you're a woman. You fell to the sword though you're a woman, and the same man who destroyed so many of your brothers destroyed you too—Achilles, the ruin of Troy and the one who left me childless. But after he fell to Paris's arrow and Apollo's, I said, 'Now certainly Achilles isn't to be feared.' Even now I should have feared him. Even the ashes of the buried man rage against our family—even in his tomb we felt him as an enemy. I was fertile for an enemy of Aeacus! Great Troy lies fallen. The public disaster has ended with a grievous outcome, but at least it's ended. For me alone Troy remains. My grief continues its course. Just now I was supreme, powerful with so many sons and daughters-in-law, sons-in-law and a husband—now I'm dragged away as an exile, destitute, torn from my children's tombs, a gift for Penelope. She'll point me out to the mothers of Ithaca as I spin my assigned thread: 'This is Hector's famous mother,' she'll say, 'this is Priam's wife.' After losing so many, you who alone were easing a mother's grief have now appeased a hostile tomb! I've given offerings to an enemy! Why do I persist, made of iron? Why do I delay? Why, old age, are you preserving me? Why, cruel gods, do you keep an old woman alive, unless it's to see new deaths? Who could have thought Priam could be called fortunate after Troy was destroyed? He's fortunate in his death! He doesn't see you killed, my daughter, and left life and kingship together.

"But I suppose, royal virgin, you'll be honored with a funeral and your body will be laid in your ancestral monuments! That's not our house's fortune. Your mother's gifts will be only tears and a handful of foreign sand! I've lost everything. One thing remains, for whose sake I'll endure living a little longer—he was once the dearest child to his mother, now my only one, once the youngest of my male children: Polydorus, given to the Thracian king on these shores. But why do I delay washing these cruel wounds with water and cleaning this face spattered with savage blood?"

She spoke and walked to the shore with an old woman's step, tearing at her white hair. "Give me a jar, Trojan women!" the poor woman said, so she could draw clear water. She saw Polydorus's body thrown up on the shore, huge wounds made by Thracian weapons. The Trojan women cried out. She went mute with grief, and grief itself devoured both her voice and the tears rising inside. Hard as stone, she stood frozen, sometimes staring at the ground in front of her, sometimes raising her grim face to the sky, now looking at her son's face lying there, now at his wounds—especially his wounds—and she armed and equipped herself with rage.

As soon as it blazed up, as if she were still a queen, she determined on vengeance and was entirely consumed with the idea of punishment. Like a lioness robbed of her nursing cub rages and, finding the tracks, follows the enemy she can't see—so Hecuba, after mixing grief with anger, not forgetting her spirit though forgetting her years, went to Polymestor, the architect of the terrible murder, and asked to meet with him. She said she wanted to show him gold she'd hidden, to give to her son.

The Thracian king believed her—accustomed as he was to the love of plunder—and came to the secret place. Then with smooth, cunning words he said: "Stop delaying, Hecuba. Give the gifts to your son! Everything you give, everything you gave before, will be his—I swear by the gods above." She watched him fiercely as he spoke and swore falsely, and swelled with seething rage. Then she grabbed him, called together the crowd of captive mothers, dug her fingers into his treacherous eyes and gouged out his eyeballs—anger made her powerful—and plunged her hands in and, defiled with the guilty blood, scooped out not the eyes (they were gone) but the eye sockets.

The Thracian people, enraged by their tyrant's destruction, began attacking the Trojan woman by throwing stones and javelins. But she went after a thrown rock with a hoarse growl, snapping her teeth at it, and when she opened her mouth ready to speak words, she barked instead. The place still exists and takes its name from the event. For a long time remembering her ancient sorrows, she howled mournfully then too through the Thracian fields. Her fate moved her own Trojans and the enemy Greeks, moved all the gods too—all of them, so much so that even Juno herself, Jupiter's wife and sister, said that Hecuba hadn't deserved that outcome.

---

Aurora had no time to be moved by Troy's disasters and Hecuba's fate, though she'd favored the same side. A more personal grief, a domestic sorrow troubled the goddess—the loss of Memnon. His tawny mother had watched him die on the Trojan fields, killed by Achilles's spear. She'd watched, and that rosy color that makes the early morning blush had grown pale, and the sky hid itself in clouds.

But the mother couldn't bear to watch when his body was placed on the final flames. Just as she was, with her hair unbound, she wasn't ashamed to fall at great Jupiter's knees and add these words to her tears:

"Of all the goddesses the golden sky holds, I'm the least—I have the fewest temples throughout the whole world—yet I come as a goddess. Not so you'll give me shrines and days of sacrifice and altars that will burn with fire. Still, if you'd notice how much this woman provides for you when I guard the borders of night with new light, you'd think rewards should be given. But that's not Aurora's concern now, nor is this the situation for me to ask for the honors I deserve. I come because I've lost my Memnon. He bravely but uselessly carried arms for his uncle and was killed in his early years by fierce Achilles—so you willed it. Give him some honor, I pray, as comfort for his death, highest ruler of the gods, and ease a mother's wounds!"

Jupiter nodded his agreement. Then Memnon's tall pyre collapsed in towering flames and black columns of smoke stained the day, the way fog breathes out from a river and doesn't let the sun penetrate below. Black ash flew up, gathered and compressed into a single mass, took shape and drew heat from the fire—and life from the fire too. Its lightness gave it wings. At first it seemed like a bird, then it was a real bird, and it whirred its wings. Countless sisters did the same, all born from the same origin. Three times they circled the pyre, and three times their unified cry rose into the air. On the fourth circuit they separated into two camps. Then two fierce flocks waged war, venting their rage with beaks and hooked talons, exhausting their wings and opposing chests. They fell as offerings to the ashes of their kinsman buried below, their bodies recalling that they were created from a brave man. The birds' creator gave them their name—from him they're called Memnonides, and when the sun has passed through the twelve signs, they fight again in funeral fashion, destined to die.

So while others thought it pitiful that the daughter of Dymas had barked, Aurora was absorbed in her own grief and even now sheds devoted tears and spreads dew across the whole world.

---

Yet the fates didn't allow hope to be destroyed along with Troy's walls. The hero descended from Venus carried the sacred objects and—another sacred thing—his father on his shoulders, a venerable burden. From all his wealth, devoted Aeneas chose that prize and his son Ascanius. He sailed with his fleet of exiles from Antandros, left behind Thrace's criminal shores and the land flowing with Polydorus's blood, and with favorable winds and tide entered Apollo's city with his companions.

Anius—who ruled the people as king and served Apollo as priest—received him in both temple and home, showed him the city and the famous shrines and the two trees that Latona had clung to when giving birth. After giving incense to the flames, pouring wine onto the incense, and burning the entrails of slaughtered cattle according to custom, they sought the royal halls and, reclining on raised couches, received Ceres's gifts along with flowing wine.

Then devoted Anchises said: "Chosen priest of Apollo, am I wrong, or when I first saw these walls, didn't you have a son and four daughters, as I recall?"

Anius, shaking his head wrapped in white fillets, sadly said: "You're not wrong, greatest hero. You saw me as father of five children, but now—such is the inconstancy of human affairs—you see me almost childless. What help is my absent son to me, who holds the island of Andros, named after him, and rules there as king instead of his father? Apollo gave him the gift of prophecy. But Bacchus gave my daughters gifts even greater than what was asked or believed—everything my daughters touched turned into grain, wine, or Minerva's gray olive oil, and there was rich profit in these things.

"When Agamemnon, Troy's destroyer, learned of this—so you'd know that we too felt some of your storm—he used armed force to drag them unwilling from their father's embrace and ordered them to feed the Greek fleet with their divine gift. They escaped where each could. Two fled to Euboea, and two to their brother's island, Andros. Soldiers came and threatened war if they weren't handed over. Fear conquered brotherly duty and he gave up his sisters to punishment. You could forgive the timid brother—there was no Aeneas here to defend Andros, no Hector through whom you lasted ten years.

"Chains were already being prepared for their captive arms when they raised their arms, still free, to the sky and cried: 'Father Bacchus, bring help!' The giver of the gift brought help—if losing their form in a strange way can be called help. I could never learn how they lost their shape, nor can I tell you now. The sum of the disaster is well known: they took on feathers and became white doves, the birds of your wife."

After filling the feast with such talk and others, they left the table, sought sleep, and rose with the day to visit Apollo's oracle. The god told them to seek their ancient mother and kindred shores. The king accompanied them and gave gifts as they left: a scepter for Anchises, a cloak and quiver for his grandson, a mixing bowl for Aeneas—one that his guest Therses of Ismenus had once brought him from Theban shores. Therses had sent it, but Alcon of Hyle had crafted it and engraved it with a long story.

There was a city, and you could count seven gates. These served as its name and showed which city it was. Before the city were funeral processions, tombs, fires, pyres, mothers with hair unbound and breasts bared, showing their grief. Nymphs too seemed to be weeping and lamenting their dried-up springs. The tree stood bare, stripped of leaves. Goats gnawed on dry rocks. Look—in the middle of Thebes he shows Orion's daughters, one giving her throat an unwomanly wound, the other driving a weapon down through her brave chest, both falling for their people and being carried in beautiful funeral processions through the city and cremated in a crowded place. Then from the virgin ashes came two young men—to keep the race from dying out—whom tradition calls the Coronae, and they led the procession for their mother's ashes.

So far went the ancient bronze with its gleaming figures. The rim of the bowl was rough with engraved acanthus. The Trojans gave back gifts no less valuable: they gave the priest a chest for keeping incense, a libation bowl, and a crown bright with gold and gems.

Then, remembering that the Trojans traced their origin from Teucer's blood, they made for Crete. But they couldn't endure Jupiter's land for long, and after leaving a hundred cities they sought to reach Italian ports. The storm raged and tossed the men about. The treacherous harbors of the Strophades received them, and the bird Aello terrified them.

They'd already sailed past the ports of Dulichium, Ithaca, Same, and the houses of Neritos—the realm of deceitful Odysseus. They saw Ambracia, fought over in the gods' dispute, and the rock that was once a judge turned to stone—now famous for Actian Apollo—and the land of Dodona, vocal with its oak, and the Chaonian Gulf, where the sons of King Molossus escaped wicked flames with wings that lifted them up.

---

Next they sought the fields of the Phaeacians, rich with fortunate fruit. From there they reached Epirus and Buthrotum, ruled by the Trojan prophet and resembling Troy. Once they'd learned everything about the future—things faithful Helenus, son of Priam, had predicted with trustworthy warning—they entered Sicily. This land juts into the sea with three tongues. Of these, Pachynus faces the rainy south winds, Lilybaeum lies opposite the gentle west winds, and Pelorus looks toward the northern constellations and the north wind, untouched by the sea.

The Trojans approached by this route and with oars and favorable tide reached Zancle's sand at nightfall. Scylla threatens the right side, restless Charybdis the left. Charybdis swallows ships it's snatched and spits them back out. Scylla has a black belly ringed with savage dogs, has a girl's face—and if not everything the prophets left behind was fiction, she was once a girl.

Many suitors pursued her. When she rejected them all, she'd go to the sea nymphs—the nymphs loved her dearly—and tell them about the young men's frustrated loves. While Galatea was combing out her hair for her, the sea nymph spoke these words with a sigh:

"But you, girl—at least the kind of men who pursue you isn't cruel, and you can safely refuse them as you're doing. But I, whose father is Nereus, whom sea-blue Doris bore, who'm protected by a crowd of sisters—I couldn't escape the Cyclops's love except through grief."

And tears choked her voice as she spoke. When the girl had wiped them away with her marble thumb and comforted the goddess, she said: "Tell me, dearest one, and don't hide the cause of your sorrow from me—I'm trustworthy."

The Nereid answered Crataeis's daughter like this:

"Acis was the son of Faunus and the nymph Symaethis—a great joy to his father and mother, but an even greater joy to me, for he'd joined himself to me alone. He was beautiful, and at sixteen years old soft down was just beginning to mark his tender cheeks. I pursued him, and the Cyclops pursued me endlessly. If you asked whether my hatred of the Cyclops or my love for Acis was stronger, I couldn't tell you—they were equal. O Venus, how great is the power of your realm! That savage creature, feared even by the forests themselves, whom no stranger had ever looked at without harm, who scorned great Olympus and the gods—he felt what love was. Caught by powerful desire, he burned, forgetting his flocks and caves. Now, Polyphemus, you care about your appearance, now you want to please. Now you comb your shaggy hair with a rake, now you're happy to cut your bristly beard with a sickle and to look at your savage face in the water and compose your features. Your lust for killing, your wildness, your immense thirst for blood all stopped, and ships came and went safely.

"Meanwhile Telemus, son of Eurymus—whom no bird ever deceived—came to Sicily and reached Etna. He approached terrible Polyphemus and said: 'That single eye you have in the middle of your forehead—Odysseus will take it from you.' The Cyclops laughed and said: 'You're the dumbest of prophets—you're wrong! Another woman has already taken it.' So he scorned the man who was warning him truthfully but in vain. He either paced the shore with huge steps, wearing it down, or tired, he'd go back to his shady cave.

"There's a wedge-shaped hill jutting into the sea with a long, sharp point. Water flows around both its sides. The savage Cyclops climbed up here and sat in the middle. His woolly sheep followed, though no one was leading them. After he set down in front of his feet the pine tree that served as his staff—big enough to be a ship's mast—and picked up his panpipe made of a hundred reeds, all the mountains felt the pastoral music, the waves felt it. I was hiding behind a rock, lying in my Acis's lap, and from far away I caught these words with my ears and fixed what I heard in my mind:

"'Galatea, you're whiter than the snowy privet's leaf, more blooming than meadows, taller than the tall alder, more gleaming than glass, more playful than a tender kid, smoother than shells constantly worn by the sea, more welcome than winter sun or summer shade, more graceful than a deer, more striking than a tall plane tree, brighter than ice, sweeter than ripe grapes, softer than swan feathers and curdled milk—and if you didn't run from me, more beautiful than a well-watered garden.

"'But that same Galatea is also fiercer than untamed heifers, harder than an ancient oak, more deceitful than waves, more flexible than willow branches and white vines, more immovable than these rocks, more violent than a river, prouder than a peacock being praised, sharper than fire, rougher than thorns, crueler than a mother bear with cubs, deafer than the sea, more pitiless than a trampled water snake—and what I'd most like to take from you: not just faster than a deer chased by loud barking, but even faster than winds and the flying breeze. But if you knew me well, you'd regret running away, you'd condemn your own delays and work to keep me.

"'I have caves—part of the mountain—carved from living rock, where summer's heat isn't felt and winter's cold isn't felt. I have apples weighing down the branches, I have grapes like gold on long vines, and purple ones too—I'm saving both kinds for you. You'll gather soft strawberries with your own hands, born in the forest shade, autumn cornels, and plums—not only the ones dark with black juice but also the choice ones that look like fresh wax. If you marry me, you won't lack for chestnuts or arbutus berries. Every tree will serve you.

"'All these flocks are mine. Many more wander in the valleys, many the forest hides, many are stabled in caves. Don't ask me how many I have—counting your livestock is for poor people. Don't just trust my praise of them—you can see for yourself how their udders are so full they can barely walk around them. There are younger offspring—lambs in warm sheepfolds. There are kids the same age in other pens. I always have snow-white milk. Some is kept for drinking, some is thickened into cheese.

"'You won't get only easy, common gifts—does and rabbits and goats, a pair of doves or a nest taken from a treetop. I found twin cubs of a shaggy bear on the mountaintops, so alike you can barely tell them apart. I found them and said: "I'll save these for my mistress."

"'Come now, lift your shining head from the blue sea! Come, Galatea, and don't despise my gifts. I know myself for certain—I saw myself recently in clear water, and my appearance pleased me when I looked. See how big I am! Jupiter in the sky—you people always talk about some Jupiter who rules there—isn't bigger than this body. Thick hair hangs over my fierce face and shades my shoulders like a grove. Don't think it's ugly that my body bristles with dense, stiff bristles. A tree without leaves is ugly, a horse is ugly unless a mane covers its neck, feathers cover birds, and wool is sheep's glory. A beard and shaggy bristles are right for a man's body. I have one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it's like a huge shield. What—doesn't the great Sun see all this from the sky? Yet the Sun has only one orb.

"'Besides, my father rules in your sea. I give him to you as father-in-law. Only have mercy and listen to my prayers as a suppliant! I yield only to you—I who scorn Jupiter and the sky and the piercing thunderbolt, Nereid, I fear you. Your anger is fiercer than lightning. I'd bear this contempt more patiently if you ran from everyone. But why, when you've rejected the Cyclops, do you love Acis and prefer Acis's embraces to mine? Still, let him please himself and—though I wish he wouldn't—please you, Galatea! Just give me the chance. He'll learn I have strength to match my huge body! I'll tear out his living guts and scatter his ripped limbs across the fields and through your waves—so he can mix with you that way! I'm burning, and the fire rages more fiercely when I'm wounded, and I seem to carry Etna, transferred with all its force, in my chest—and you, Galatea, aren't moved.'

"After complaining like this in vain—I saw everything—he got up, and like a bull raging when his cow is taken away, unable to stay still, he wandered through the forest and familiar pastures. When the savage creature, not thinking or fearing anything like this, saw me and Acis, he shouted: 'I see you! And I'll make sure this is the last time your love makes you happy!' His voice was as loud as an enraged Cyclops should have—Etna shook with his shout. Terrified, I dove into the nearby sea. The hero from Symaethis had turned his back to flee and cried: 'Help me, Galatea, I beg you! Help me, parents, and let me into your kingdom—I'm about to die!' The Cyclops chased him and threw a piece he'd torn from the mountain. Though only a corner of that rock reached Acis, it buried him completely.

"But we did what the fates alone allowed us to do—we made Acis take on his ancestral powers. Red blood flowed from the mass of rock, and within a short time the redness began to fade and became the color of a river muddied by first rains, then cleared with time. Then the thrown mass split open, and living, tall reeds rose through the cracks. The hollow opening in the rock echoed with leaping waters. Amazingly, suddenly a young man stood waist-deep in the stream, wearing a crown of fresh reeds on his new horns. Except that he was bigger and his whole face was sea-blue, it was Acis—but even so it was still Acis, transformed into a river. And the river kept its ancient name."

Galatea stopped speaking. The gathering broke up, and the Nereids swam away through the calm waves.

---

Scylla returned—she didn't dare trust herself to the open sea—and either wandered naked on the thirsty sand or, when she was tired, found secluded coves in the water and cooled her body enclosed in its pool. Look—Glaucus appeared, a new inhabitant of the deep sea, recently transformed at Euboean Anthedon. He saw the girl and stopped, struck with desire for her, and said whatever he thought might make her stop running. But she fled anyway, and swift with fear reached the top of a mountain sitting near the shore.

There's a huge promontory right on the strait, its long peak gathered into a single point, arched under trees toward the sea. She stopped here, safe in the place, not knowing whether he was a monster or a god, and marveled at his color, his hair covering his shoulders and flowing down his back, and how his body ended in a coiling fish's tail. He sensed this and, leaning on a nearby rock, said:

"I'm not a monster or a savage beast, girl, but a sea god. Neither Proteus nor Triton nor Palaemon, son of Athamas, has greater power over the waters than I do. But I was once mortal, though even then I was committed to the deep seas and worked in them. Sometimes I pulled in nets dragging fish, sometimes I sat on a rock and managed my line with a reed.

"There's a meadow bordering the shore. One side is ringed by water, the other by grass that horned cattle have never hurt with their bite, that peaceful sheep and shaggy goats have never cropped. No busy bee ever took flowers from there, no festive garlands were made for anyone's head, and no scythe-bearing hands ever cut it. I was the first to sit on that turf while I dried my wet nets and laid out in order the fish I'd caught, either those that chance had driven into my nets or those whose own gullibility had driven them onto my hooked lines.

"It sounds like fiction, but what's the point of lying? As soon as my catch touched the grass, it started to move and shift sides and struggle on land as if in water. While I hesitated and watched, amazed, my whole catch fled into the waves, leaving their new master and the shore behind. I was stunned and puzzled for a long time, searching for the cause. Did some god do this, or was it the juice of the grass? 'But what grass has these powers?' I said, and I plucked some of the plants with my hand and chewed what I'd plucked. My throat had barely swallowed the strange juices when suddenly I felt my heart trembling inside and my breast seized by love for a different nature. I couldn't resist long. 'Farewell, land that I must never seek again!' I said, and plunged my body beneath the waves.

"The gods of the sea received me and thought me worthy of joining their company. They asked Oceanus and Tethys to remove whatever mortal qualities I still had. I was purified by them. After a spell to cleanse away sin was spoken nine times, I was told to place my chest under a hundred rivers. Right away streams rushing from different directions poured all their waters over my head. This much I can tell you about what happened, this much I remember. My mind didn't register the rest. When I came to again, I found I was completely different in body from what I'd been just before, and not the same in mind either. It was then I first saw this green beard, this hair that I sweep across the long seas, these huge shoulders and sea-blue arms and legs curving down to end in a fish's fins.

"But what good is this appearance, what good is it to have pleased the sea gods, what good is it to be a god, if you're not moved by these things?"

He was saying this, about to say more, when Scylla left him. He raged, infuriated by the rejection, and sought the marvelous halls of Circe, daughter of the Titan.