Early Modern Mythological Texts: Troia Britanica VIII (51-96)
Thomas Heywood. Troia Britanica (1609)
CANTO VIII (51-96)
Back to Stanzas 1-50
Ed. Patricia DORVAL
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’Midst this young city’s heart, a river glides, Bleeding her azure veins through every street, Whose meeting streams a spacious channel guides To the main ocean, where the Trojan fleet In all tempestuous sea storms safely rides; The merchant ferried, for his pleasure, meets His laden lighters, barks and ships of trade, Whom at their rich quays they with cranes unlade. |
The river Simois
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Upon the highest hill, the rest o’erpeering,
The palace royal doth the king erect,
On her wind-moving vanes, Troy’s scutcheon wearing,
Whose shining gilt upon the town reflect;
The marble posts and porphyr columns bearing
Roofs of pure gold from the best mines select;
By good advice they Ilium towers invest,
A citadel to overlook the rest.
The glorious sun, from whose all-seeing eye
Nothing on earth can be concealèd long,
In his diurnal travels through the sky,
Saw never palace built so fair and strong;
The square pyramids appearèd high,
As if they had been reared the clouds among;
The porches, terras, windows, arches, towers,
Resembling one of Jove’s celestial bowers.
More than the rest, his great hall men admire,
Built like th’Olympic palace, where Jove feasts,
Paved with bright stars, like those of heavenly fire,
On which he treads, when he invites his guests;
The roof hung round with angels―a rich choir―
With diamond eyes, red rubies in their breasts,
Holding, like grapes, long branches in their fists,
Of emeralds green and purple amethysts.
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At one end of the hall stands Priam’s throne,
To which by twelve degrees the king ascended,
His chair all gold and set with many a stone,
By curlèd lions and grim bears defended,
Who seemed to fawn on him that sat thereon;
The curious graver all his art extended:
The savage monsters that support his chair,
Even to the life cut and proportioned are.
Next this, from twenty high steps looking down
Towards the screen, aloft enthronèd stands
Jove’s statue, on his head a glorious crown;
An universe and scepter graced both hands;
His length full fifteen foot, his colour brown,
His front majestic, like him that commands;
His state as when with gods he was conversing;
His face so dreadful and his eye so piercing.
By his stone-shining altar rooted, grows
The rich Palladium, the two thrones betwixt,
Whose golden root, enamelled branches strows
Through the vast hall, the leaves with blossoms mixed,
’Mongst which ripe fruits their coloured sides dispose,
As mellowed with the sun, divinely fixed;
A wonder ’twas this arbour to behold,
The fruit and blossoms stones, the branches gold.
Of selfsame metal was his dining board,
Where with his sons and peers oft-times invested,
He eat in state, and sometimes would afford
That stranger peers were at his table feasted.
Instead of plate, they precious liquors poured
Into bright hollowed pearl rarely digested;
Gold was thought base, and therefore for the nones,
They dived for pearl, and pierced the rocks for stones.
With as great state as Trojan Priam could,
I have beheld our sovereign strangers feast,
In bowls as precious, cups as dearly sold,
And high-prized liquors equal with the rest,
When from the Landgrave and the Brunswick bold,
The archduke and the Spaniard, legates pressed,
But chiefly when the royal British James
At Greenwich feasted the great king of Danes.
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No king for wealth was to this king compared; Fortune shower’d all her bounties on his head; No king had bold sons that like Priam’s dared, Or dames with greater beauties garnishèd. Kings and kings’ sons were in their eyes ensnared, Whom their imperious beauties captive led; Prince Hector, more his father’s crown to grace, Adds by his sword Pannonia, Phrygia, Thrace. |
Three kingdoms conquered by Hector |
Full with all plenty, with abundance stored,
Seeing his walls so strong, his town so fair,
Himself by foreign potentates adored,
And his exchequer rich without compare,
Fifty tall sons, the least to use a sword,
And most of them in martial tourneys rare,
His counsel grave, his lords of high degree,
As provident as full of chivalry,
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He therefore now bethinks him of his shame,
Done by the Argives in Alcides’ days,
Therefore against all Greece will war proclaim,
And to their opposition forces raise.
He summons all his lords, who forthwith came,
To whom assembled thus King Priam says:
“O! Which of all this fair and princely train
Hath not by Greece a friend or kinsman slain?
Show me the man hath not enriched their treasure
With his own substance by his father lost,
Whose wives and daughters have not served their pleasure.
If they be rich, they revel at our cost.
Their barbarous tyrannies exceed all measure;
They spoiled our navy on the salt sea coast,
Beat down our walls; they pillaged all our goods,
And waded knee-deep in our fathers’ bloods.
Amongst unnumbered of your near allies,
My royal father treacherously they slew.
Were not your fathers in the selfsame wise
Butchered and mangled by that murd’rous crew?
I see my words confirmed in your wet eyes―”
Remembrance of these wrongs their moist tears drew.
“Besides they slew my sister in their spleen,
A free-born princess, daughter to a queen.
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Behold my state, survey your private powers:
Is it for Priam’s honour this to bear?
Being your sovereign, my disgrace is yours,
And that which troubles me should touch you near.
We have deferred revenge to these last hours,
Till we had gathered arms, strength, wealth and fear,
And now since heaven supplies our general need,
I ask your counsel: is revenge decreed?”
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So deeply did the king’s words pierce their breasts
That with a general voice, “Revenge!” they cry.
Now every man the invasive Greek detests,
And thinks it long till they can Greece defy.
Soon after this, the king his nobles feasts,
Longing till some advantage they can spy,
To make their war seem just; at length devise
This colour to their hostile enterprise:
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That Priam shall in courteous manner send
To all the Grecian kings, to ask again
His captive sister like a royal friend,
Which if they grant, in friendship to remain.
But if this embassy their ears offend,
And they the fair Hesione detain,
To menace war. Antenor, nobly manned,
At Priam’s urgence takes this task in hand.
In Thessaly, where Peleus that time reigned,
Antenor after some few months arrives,
And of Hesione’s estate complained,
That her return might save ten thousand lives.
But if to bondage she were still constrained,
Her brother, that as yet by fair means strives,
Must in his honour seek by arms to gain her,
Unto their costs that proudly dare detain her.
Peleus, enraged, commands Antenor thence,
Nor will he grace the Trojan with reply,
That dare to him so proud a suit commence.
He therefore makes with speed from Thessaly,
Great Telamonis Ajax to incense,
Who keeps the princess in base slavery.
In Salaminae’s port he anchor casts,
And thence unto Duke Ajax’ pallace hastes.
Mildly of him the ambassador demands
Hesione, or if he keep her still,
With her to enter Hymen’s nuptial bands,
Not as a slave to serve his lustful will.
When Telamon this message understands,
He was in thought the Trojan lord to kill.
So scornfully the duke his message took,
His face looked pale, his head with anger shook.
He tells him he is not allied at all
With twice won Troy, nor any league desires.
The beautious princess to his lot did fall,
Whom he will keep―and maugre all their ires:
For scaling first Troy’s well-defended wall,
She was his trophy’s prize. He that aspires
To take her thence, or once demand her back,
Is but the means their Troy again to sack.
And so commands him thence, who still proceeds
Unto Achaia, where the famous twins,
Castor and Pollux, have advanced their deeds,
And by their valours were both crownèd kings.
Unto their court in haste, Antenor speeds,
And to their ears his embassy begins,
But they with Telamon’s rude scorns reply,
And charge him straight out of their confines hie.
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With like contempt, Duke Nestor sends him back,
So did the two Atrids, so the rest
Of all the Argive kings command him pack
Out of their bounds, as an unwelcome guest,
Since Troy deservedly endured such wrack.
Antenor, answered thus, esteems it best
Back to resail, and to King Priam tell
What in his bootless voyage him befell.
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The king, at this reproach inflamed with rage,
Assembles all his people, sons and peers,
Intending by their aids new war to wage,
To which the youthful gallants wanting years
Freely assent, but those of riper age,
Out of their graver wisdom, not pale fears,
Seek by their counsels Priam to persuade
To reign in peace, and not proud Greece invade.
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Among the rest, great Hector, from whose tongue Did never issue proud discourteous word, Whom Greek nor Trojan can accuse of wrong, Nor they within whose bloods he glazed his sword, Raiseth himself above the populous throng, And thus he says: “Who rather should afford Vengeance on Greece, than I your eldest son, To whom these rough injurious wrongs are done? |
Hector’s oration
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But if we well consider what a foe,
And what great wrath upon our heads we pull,
Not Greece alone, but all that homage owe,
Asia and Afric make their numbers full.
The odds is too unequal, therefore know
I am of thought all wars to disannul.
Troy’s but a city, and though rich and strong,
Yet ’gainst the world opposed, must needs take wrong.
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Why will rich Priam hazard his estate,
Being in peace? What need we covet war?
What can we more desire than fortunate?
So Priam, Troy and all our people are.
Why should we seek t’incur the Argive hate,
Of which remains so incurable a scar?
Wise men in their revenges should foresee
What ends may fall, not what beginnings be.
My grand-sire’s dead, perhaps he did offend,
But howsoever he cannot now survive.
To seek his life we vainly should contend;
Methinks in this against the gods we strive.
What the Greeks marred, the gods themselves amend;
Whence should we then our detriments derive?
Our Troy is since her second fall much fairer,
Her people richer, and her buildings rarer.
Troy lost a king, that loss your Grace supply,
And, though your son, of this I proudly vaunt:
He is in you received with usury;
They pillaged us, and yet we nothing want;
Of all their wounds, we not one scar can spy,
Unless Hesione, our princely aunt,
Whose bondage long since happening, we may guess
The custom and continuance makes seem less.
But howsoever near to me allied,
I do not hold her freedom of that meed,
That for her sake Troy should in blood be dyed,
Priam or any of his issue bleed―
And for this cause do I myself divide
From their rash counsel that revenge decreed,
Knowing all war is doubtful, and foreseeing
Of Troy what it may be, not of Troy’s being.
If any hot blood prouder than the rest
Accuse my words, and think I speak through fear,
I wish that man the boldest Grecian guest
That ever with Alcides anchored here,
That I might print my valour on his crest,
And on his armèd vantbrace prove my spear!”
This said, great Hector congeed to the king,
Then takes his place, when up doth Paris spring,
And to the king his Ida’s dream relates,
And how he judged three beauties for the ball;
How far he Venus ’bove the rest instates,
The fairest Greek unto his lot must fall―
A fit revenge for those whom Priam hates,
For if the king will make him general,
He makes no doubt from Greece a queen to bring,
Shall equalize the sister of the king.
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Now all the people’s voice on his side flows,
In every ear his famous dream is rife,
When, ranked next Paris, Deiphebus grows,
Persuading still to give these discords life,
As one that by presumptions thus much knows:
His voyage can procure no further strife
Than if the promising Fates assist his brother
To prove th’exchange of one queen for another.
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But Helenus, with sacred spells indued, Seeks this preparèd voyage to restrain. He saith the Greeks shall, with their hands imbrued In Troy’s blood royal, conquer once again, Entreating Paris he will not delude Their reverent ears with dreams and visions vain, Assuring him that of this quest shall grow The city’s universal overthrow. |
The prophecy of Helenus
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When youthful Troilus thus: “Whoever heard
A bookish priest persuade to hostile arms?
Let such as are to Fates and saws endeared
Crouch by the fires that smoking altars warms,
And cherish their faint sinews, much affeared,
Dreading their own, not soldiers’ threatened harms.
He that’s a priest, amongst priests let him pray,
We soldiers cry ‘Arm!’ and a glorious day.
What lets the king, my father, but to grant
My brother Paris a right royal fleet,
That in revenge of our surprisèd aunt,
He warlike preys among the Grecians meet?
Shall tim’rous clerks our martial spirits daunt?
No, royal father! Know revenge is sweet,
Which since the Fates by visions promise bear,
Not to obey their hests, we cowards were”.
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Troilus prevails, and Hector is persuaded
To shun the imputation of base fear,
With which his courage should be wrong upbraided;
A tim’rous thought came never Hector near.
Since ’tis agreed that Greece must be invaded,
He’ll guard his honour with his sword and spear,
Or if the Greeks will on the Trojans prey,
Through his bold body they shall first make way.
Without his fair applause it had not passed,
So reverent was th’opinion of his brain.
His words were oracles, so sweetly graced
They general murmur in all councils gain.
His free consent they having won at last,
The king appoints them a well-furnished train
With two and twenty ships well rigged and manned,
In any part of Greece freely to land,
Which when the prophetess Cassandra hears,
Indued with divine wisdom, she exclaims.
Her yellow trammels she in fury tears,
And cries aloud: “Poor Troy shall burn in flames.
O had not changeless Fate made deaf their ears,
They had been moved!” Th’unhappy king she blames,
The credulous queen, rash Paris and all Troy,
That give consent their city to destroy.
But as her divinations never failed,
So were they never credited for true,
Till Troy unwares with mischief was assailed,
And then too late their misbelief they rue.
They that now held her mad, ere long bewailed
Their slack distrust, when threatened ills ensue.
But ’twas a fate her saws were still neglected,
And till proved true by process, false, suspected.
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Apollo, in whose sacred gift remains The true presage and ken of future things, Dotes on Cassandra’s beauty, and complains; To her chaste ears he tunes his golden strings; The crafty girl, that in her heart disdains The god, as she had erst despisèd kings, Demands a boon, which Phoebus hath decreed To grant Cassandra, in sure hope to speed. |
Phoebus and Cassandra
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He swears by Styx an oath that cannot change,
That he will grant what she shall next impose him.
She asks to know the skill of secrets strange
And future prophecies. Withal she shows him
Her beauty where his eyes may freely range.
The amorous god of fire securely throws him
In her fair lap, and on her ivory breast
Lays his bright head, so grants her her request.
But when she feels a divine spirit infused
Through all her parts―this Phoebus did inspire―,
She fled his loose embraces, and refused
By any means t’accomplish his desire.
He, mad with anger to be thus abused,
Thus says: “Thou think’st to mock the god of fire:
Thy saws, though sooth, yet shall do no man good,
Not be believed, or else not understood”.
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This was the cause the king remained unmoved,
The queen untouched, with her lamenting cries;
And all those princes that their safeties loved,
Though long forewarned, her counsel yet despise.
Her spells have credit, when th’events are proved,
Till then, though true, they are esteemèd lies.
But leave Cassandra to her ceaseless care,
And Paris to his Trojan fleet prepare,
Who, with his brother Deiphebus, sends
To haste Aeneas to the seas with speed,
Polydamas, Antenor, and such friends
As in this general voyage were agreed.
His soldiers, most Pannonians, he intends
Shall rather see his aunt from Ajax freed,
Or some bright Grecian queen, for her disgrace,
Shall captive live in fair Hesione’s place.
Embarked, and passing diverse seas, at last
In Lacedaemon’s port they safely land,
But what ’twixt Paris and bright Helen passed,
What favours he received from her fair hand,
How the Greek Spartan queen the Trojan graced,
You in the sequel book must understand.
Some small retirement at this time we crave;
What you want here, another place shall have.
[Heywood’s Endnotes to Canto VIII]
Touching the dignity of poets, I refer you to Ovid’s third book,
De Arte Amandi, omitting others, translating him thus:
See, see what alterations rude time brings.
Poets of old were the right hands of kings;
Large were their gifts, supreme was their reward,
Their metered lines with fear and reverence hard.
Honour and state and sacred majesty
Belonged to such as studied poetry:
Ennius by Scipio the great was sought,
And from the mountains in Calabria brought.
Dishonoured now, the ivy garland lies,
The ancient worship unto poets dies.
Yet should we strive our own fames to awake.
Homer an everlasting work did make,
His Iliads called, else who had Homer known?
Had Danae in her tower an old wife grown,
And never unto public view resorted,
How had her beauty been so far reported?
And in another place proceedeth thus:
We in our flowing numbers beauty praise,
And in our poems your deserts can raise.
We first bestowed on Nemesis a name,
Cynthia by our admittance keeps her fame,
Lycoris never hath been known before,
By us she sounds in every foreign shore,
And many proffer me large gifts to know
Who my Corinna is, whom I praise so.
In us there is a power shall never perish,
Us the Pierides and Muses cherish.
A godhead reigns in us, and with the stars
We have traffic and acquaintance, holding wars
With none save barbarism; our sacred spirit
We from the high divinest powers inherit.
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Polydor was son to Priam and Hecuba, who was committed to Polymestor, to be kept in the time of the Trojan wars with a great sum of money.
The description of the Trojans be according to Dares the Trojan, who lived in the wars of Troy, and writ their utter subversion. The Peletronii were the Lapiths, who first found the use of bridles, bits, and snaffles, so called of Peletronium, a town in Thessaly.
Castor and Pollux were two twins, whom Jupiter begot of Leda, kings in Achaia, brothers to Helena. |
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The fortunes of Paris, his casting out to be a shepherd after the ominous dream of his mother, with the vision of the three goddesses in the mount of Ida, are more at large expressed in his epistle to Helena. |
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Cassandra’s prophecies true, and never credited, allude to the prophet Tiresias, a soothsayer of Thebes, who with striking two adders engendering, became forthwith a woman. Seven years after, he likewise finding two serpents, stroke them, and was immediately turned again into a man, and participated both the affection of man and woman. |
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It so fell out that Jupiter and Juno, arguing, fell into great difference, she holding obstinately women less wanton than men, he affirming men less lascivious than women. And who can better moderate this dissension than Tiresias, that had felt the desires of both? To him they appeal. He took Jupiter’s part, and averred women to be most luxurious, at which Juno enraged, strook him with blindness, which because Jupiter could not help―for one god cannot undo what another hath done―, he gave him the gift of prophecy, to which the spiteful goddess added also this that his prophecies―though true―yet they should never be believed. |
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Clazomenii were people of Ionia. Of that country, Artemon was called Clazomenius. It was the name of a physician in Pliny, also a beautiful young man much loved of all women.
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Mideus was called Messenius, of Messe, a town in Peloponnesus.
Of Acrisius we have spoke before, the father of Danae. His brother Proetus sought to dispossess him of his kingdom, and they are said to be the first that used a shield in battle.
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Of the Palladium, what it was, many writers differ. Palladia are all such images as are made without hands, or such as fell from heaven to earth: such was the Palladium of Troy, and light first in the city Pessinus, a mart-town in Phrygia, where Cybel had a temple. Others think it to be given by Jupiter to Ilus, the brother of Ganymede, whose censure we most allow. Though others write this Palladium to be made by Asius―a great philosopher and a mathematician, of whom the third part of the world was called Asia―being modelled with this virtue that the city which enjoyed it should for the time be invincible. The like things was attributed to the shafts of Hercules, given to Philoctetes by dying Hercules in the Mount Oeta, between Thessaly and Macedonia. When the Delphian oracles had signified to the Greeks that Troy could never be surprised without the shafts of Hercules, they sought Philoctetes, and demanding of him those spoils―which he was bound by oath to conceal―being extremely urged, he pointed with his foot to the place where they were buried, which the joyful Greeks enjoying, they received by them victory, and the Trojans the overthrow. |
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The end of the eighth Canto
Back to Canto VIII (1-50)
Notes to Canto VIII
How to cite
Patricia Dorval, ed., 2013. Troia Britanica Canto VIII, 51-96 (1609). In A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology: A Textual Companion, ed. Yves Peyré (2009-).
http://www.shakmyth.org/page/Early+Modern+Mythological+Texts%3A+Troia+Britanica+
VIII+%2851-96%29
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