Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/92

 spearlike wands. I drew near, and essayed to pull up from the ground the green forest growth, that I might have leafy boughs wherewith to shadow the altar, when I see a portent dreadful and marvellous to tell. For the first tree that I pull up from the soil, severing its roots,     5 from that tree trickle drops of black blood, staining the earth with gore. For me, a freezing shudder palsies my frame, and my chilled blood curdles with affright. Again I go on to pluck the reluctant fibres of a second tree, and thus probe the hidden cause to the bottom; as surely     10 from the bark of that second tree the black blood follows. Much musing in my mind, I began to call on the nymphs of the wood, and Gradivus,[o] our father, patron of the land of Thrace, that they might duly turn the appearance to good, and make the heavy omen light. But when I come     15 to tear up a third spear-shaft with a still greater effort, straining with my knees against the sand which pressed on them—ought I to tell the tale or hold my peace?—a lamentable groan is heard from the bottom of the mound, and the utterance of a human voice reaches my ear: 'Why,     20 Æneas, mangle a wretch like me? Spare me at length in my grave—spare those pious hands the stain of guilt. It was not an alien to you that Troy bore in bearing me—it is no alien's blood that is trickling from the stem. Ah! fly from this land of cruelty, fly from this shore of greed,     25 for I am Polydorus. Here I lie, pierced and buried by a growing crop of spears that has shot into sharp javelins.'

"Then, indeed, terror, blank and irresolute, came over me—I was aghast—my hair stood erect, my tongue clove to my mouth. Yes, this Polydorus had long ago     30 been sent secretly by Priam, unhappy then as ever, with a vast weight of gold, to be brought up by the king of Thrace, when he had already come to despair of the arms of Dardania, and saw the siege folding closer round his city. When the power of the Trojans had been broken,      35 and their star set, the Thracian followed Agamemnon's fortunes, and joined the standard of the conqueror—every tie of duty is snapped—he murders Polydorus, and