Free The Complete Plays by Christopher Marlowe

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:
    â€˜Achilles’ son, remember what I was:
    Father of fifty