Kitap 13
The Trojan matrons, clinging while they could
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to burning temples and ancestral gods,
victorious Greeks drag off as welcome spoil.
Astyanax was hurled down from the very tower
from which he often had looked forth and seen
his father, by his mother pointed out,
when Hector fought for honor and his country's weal.
Now Boreas counsels to depart. The sails,
moved by a prosperous breeze, resound and wave—
the Trojan women cry,—“Farewell to Troy!
Ah, we are hurried off! ” and, falling down,
they kiss the soil, and leave the smoking roofs
of their loved native land. The last to go
on board the fleet was Hecuba, a sight
most pitiful. She was found among the tombs
of her lost sons. While she embraced each urn
and fondly kissed their bones, Ulysses came
with ruthless hands and bore her off, his prize
she in her bosom took away the urn
of Hector only, and upon his grave
she left some white hair taken from her head,
a meager gift, her white hair and her tears.
Across the strait from Troy, there is a land
claimed by Bistonian men, and in that land
was a rich palace, built there by a king
named Polymnestor. To him the Phrygian king
in secret gave his youngest son to rear,
his Polydorus, safe from Troy and war,
a prudent course, if he had not sent gold
arousing greed, incitement to a crime.
Soon, when the fortunes of the Trojans fell,
that wicked king of Thrace took his own sword,
and pierced the throat of his poor foster son
and then, as if the deed could be concealed,
if he removed the body, hurled the boy
from a wild cliff into the waves below.
Until the sea might be more calm, and gales
of wind might be subdued, Atrides moored
his fleet of ships upon the Thracian shore;
there, from wide gaping earth, Achilles rose,
