But once they reached the springs for the fourth time, then Father Zeus held out his sacred golden scales: in them he placed two fates of death that lays men low— one for Achilles, one for Hector breaker of horses— and gripping the beam mid-haft the Father raised it high and down went Hector's day of doom, dragging him down to the strong House of Death—and god Apollo left him. Athena rushed to Achilles, her bright eyes gleaming, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, winging orders now: "At last our hopes run high, my brilliant Achilles— Father Zeus must love you— we'll sweep great glory back to Achaea's fleet, we'll kill this Hector, mad as he is for battle!
No way for him to escape us now, no longer— not even if Phoebus the distant deadly Archer goes through torments, pleading for Hector's life, groveling over and over before our storming Father Zeus. But you, you hold your ground and catch your breath, while I run Hector down and persuade the man to fight you face-to-face.
And Athena left him there, caught up with Hector at once, and taking the build and vibrant voice of Deiphobus stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, winging orders: "Dear brother, how brutally swift Achilles hunts you— coursing you round the city of Priam in all his lethal speed! Come, let us stand our ground together—beat him back.
Now I'm determined to praise you all the more, you who dared—seeing me in these straits— to venture out from the walls, all for my sake, while the others stay inside and cling to safety.
The goddess answered quickly, her eyes blazing, "True, dear brother—how your father and mother both implored me, time and again, clutching my knees, and the comrades round me begging me to stay! Such was the fear that broke them, man for man, but the heart within me broke with grief for you. Now headlong on and fight! No letup, no lance spared! So now, now we'll see if Achilles kills us both and hauls our bloody armor back to the beaked ships or he goes down in pain beneath your spear.
Athena luring him on with all her immortal cunning— and now, at last, as the two came closing for the kill it was tall Hector, helmet flashing, who led off: "No more running from you in fear, Achilles! Not as before. Three times I fled around the great city of Priam—I lacked courage then to stand your onslaught. Now my spirit stirs me to meet you face-to-face. Now kill or be killed! Come, we'll swear to the gods, the highest witnesses— the gods will oversee our binding pacts.
I swear I will never mutilate you—merciless as you are— if Zeus allows me to last it out and tear your life away. But once I've stripped your glorious armor, Achilles, I will give your body back to your loyal comrades. Swear you'll do the same. You unforgivable, you. There are no binding oaths between men and lions— wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds— they are all bent on hating each other to the death.
So with you and me. No love between us. No truce till one or the other falls and gluts with blood Ares who hacks at men behind his rawhide shield. Come, call up whatever courage you can muster. Life or death—now prove yourself a spearman, a daring man of war! No more escape for you— Athena will kill you with my spear in just a moment. Now you'll pay at a stroke for all my comrades' grief, all you killed in the fury of your spear! He sounded out a challenge to Peleus' princely son: "You missed, look—the great godlike Achilles!
So you knew nothing at all from Zeus about my death— and yet how sure you were! All bluff, cunning with words, that's all you are—trying to make me fear you, lose my nerve, forget my fighting strength.
Well, you'll never plant your lance in my back as I flee you in fear—plunge it through my chest as I come charging in, if a god gives you the chance! But now it's for you to dodge my brazen spear— I wish you'd bury it in your body to the hilt.
How much lighter the war would be for Trojans then if you, their greatest scourge, were dead and gone! Shaft poised, he hurled and his spear's long shadow flew and it struck Achilles' shield—a dead-center hit— but off and away it glanced and Hector seethed, his hurtling spear, his whole arm's power poured in a wasted shot. He stood there, cast down. So Hector shouted out to Deiphobus bearing his white shield—with a ringing shout he called for a heavy lance— but the man was nowhere near him, vanished— yes and Hector knew the truth in his heart and the fighter cried aloud, "My time has come!
At last the gods have called me down to death. I thought he was at my side, the hero Deiphobus— he's safe inside the walls, Athena's tricked me blind. And now death, grim death is looming up beside me, no longer far away. No way to escape it now. This, this was their pleasure after all, sealed long ago— Zeus and the son of Zeus, the distant deadly Archer— though often before now they rushed to my defense.
So now I meet my doom. Well let me die— but not without struggle, not without glory, no, in some great clash of arms that even men to come will hear of down the years! So Hector swooped now, swinging his whetted sword and Achilles charged too, bursting with rage, barbaric, guarding his chest with the well-wrought blazoned shield, head tossing his gleaming helmet, four horns strong and the golden plumes shook that the god of fire drove in bristling thick along its ridge.
Bright as that star amid the stars in the night sky, star of the evening, brightest star that rides the heavens, so fire flared from the sharp point of the spear Achilles brandished high in his right hand, bent on Hector's death, scanning his splendid body—where to pierce it best?
The rest of his flesh seemed all encased in armor, burnished, brazen—Achilles' armor that Hector stripped from strong Patroclus when he killed him—true, but one spot lay exposed, where collarbones lift the neckbone off the shoulders, the open throat, where the end of life comes quickest—there as Hector charged in fury brilliant Achilles drove his spear and the point went stabbing clean through the tender neck but the heavy bronze weapon failed to slash the windpipe— Hector could still gasp out some words, some last reply.
Never a fear of me— far from the fighting as I was—you fool! Left behind there, down by the beaked ships his great avenger waited, a greater man by far— that man was I, and I smashed your strength! And you— the dogs and birds will maul you, shame your corpse while Achaeans bury my dear friend in glory!
Struggling for breath, Hector, his helmet flashing, said, "I beg you, beg you by your life, your parents— don't let the dogs devour me by the Argive ships! Wait, take the princely ransom of bronze and gold, the gifts my father and noble mother will give you— but give my body to friends to carry home again, so Trojan men and Trojan women can do me honor with fitting rites of fire once t am dead.
Staring grimly, the proud runner Achilles answered, "Beg no more, you fawning dog—begging me by my parents! Would to god my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw— such agonies you have caused me! No man alive could keep the dog-packs off you, not if they haul in ten, twenty times that ransom and pile it here before me and promise fortunes more— no, not even if Dardan Priam should offer to weigh out your bulk in gold!
Not even then will your noble mother lay you on your deathbed, mourn the son she bore. The dogs and birds will rend you—blood and bone! At the point of death, Hector, his helmet flashing, said, "I know you well—I see my fate before me. Never a chance that I could win you over. Iron inside your chest, that heart of yours. But now beware, or my curse will draw god's wrath upon your head, that day when Paris and lord Apollo— for all your fighting heart—destroy you at the Scaean Gates!
Death cut him short. The end closed in around him. Flying free of his limbs his soul went winging down to the House of Death, wailing his fate, leaving his manhood far behind, his young and supple strength.
But brilliant Achilles taunted Hector's body, dead as he was, "Die, die! For my own death, I'll meet it freely—whenever Zeus and the other deathless gods would like to bring it on! With that he wrenched his bronze spear from the corpse, laid it aside and ripped the bloody armor off the back. And the other sons of Achaea, running up around him, crowded closer, all of them gazing wonder-struck at the build and marvelous, lithe beauty of Hector.
And not a man came forward who did not stab his body, glancing toward a comrade, laughing: "Ah, look here— how much softer he is to handle now, this Hector, than when he gutted our ships with roaring fire! Standing over him, so they'd gloat and stab his body. But once he had stripped the corpse the proud runner Achilles took his stand in the midst of all the Argive troops and urged them on with a flight of winging orders: "Friends—lords of the Argives, O my captains!
Now that the gods have let me kill this man who caused us agonies, loss on crushing loss— more than the rest of all their men combined— come, let us ring their walls in armor, test them, see what recourse the Trojans still may have in mind. Will they abandon the city heights with this man fallen? Or brace for a last, dying stand though Hector's gone? But wait—what am I saying? Why this deep debate? Down by the ships a body lies unwept, unburied— Patroclus.
I will never forget him, not as long as I'm still among the living and my springing knees will lift and drive me on. Though the dead forget their dead in the House of Death, I will remember, even there, my dear companion. Now, come, you sons of Achaea, raise a song of triumph! Down to the ships we march and bear this corpse on high— we have won ourselves great glory.
We have brought magnificent Hector down, that man the Trojans glorified in their city like a god! Piercing the tendons, ankle to heel behind both feet, he knotted straps of rawhide through them both, lashed them to his chariot, left the head to drag and mounting the car, hoisting the famous arms aboard, he whipped his team to a run and breakneck on they flew, holding nothing back. And a thick cloud of dust rose up from the man they dragged, his dark hair swirling round that head so handsome once, all tumbled low in the dust— since Zeus had given him over to his enemies now to be defiled in the land of his own fathers.
So his whole head was dragged down in the dust. And now his mother began to tear her hair. Pitifully his loving father groaned and round the king his people cried with grief and wailing seized the city— for all the world as if all Troy were torched and smoldering down from the looming brows of the citadel to her roots.
Priam's people could hardly hold the old man back, frantic, mad to go rushing out the Dardan Gates. He begged them all, groveling in the filth, crying out to them, calling each man by name, "Let go, my friends!
Much as you care for me, let me hurry out of the city, make my way, all on my own, to Achaea's waiting ships!
I must implore that terrible, violent man. Perhaps—who knows? He has a father too, as old as I am—Peleus sired him once, Peleus reared him to be the scourge of Troy but most of all to me-he made my life a hell. So many sons he slaughtered, just coming into bloom. Then his mother who bore him—oh so doomed, she and I could glut ourselves with grief. So the voice of the king rang out in tears, the citizens wailed in answer, and noble Hecuba led the wives of Troy in a throbbing chant of sorrow: "O my child—my desolation!
How can I go on living? What agonies must I suffer now, now you are dead and gone? You were my pride throughout the city night and day— a blessing to us all, the men and women of Troy: throughout the city they saluted you like a god.
You, you were their greatest glory while you lived— now death and fate have seized you, dragged you down! Her voice rang out in tears, but the wife of Hector had not heard a thing. No messenger brought the truth of how her husband made his stand outside the gates.
She was weaving at her loom, deep in the high halls, working flowered braiding into a dark red folding robe. Gurley's church, where Willie recently told his Sunday School teacher he wanted to become a teacher or preacher of the gospel. President Lincoln, his son Robert, and members of the Cabinet sat in a circle, surrounded by a crowd which included representatives from Congress and foreign countries.
The writer Nathaniel Parker Willis recalled the service as "very touching. Gurley's sermon, Dr. John C. Smith of the Fourth Presbyterian Church concluded the service in prayer. Most of the mourners accompanied the body to Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, creating a long procession. Two white horses drew the hearse, while two black horses pulled President Lincoln's carriage down Washington's unpaved streets and up the hill to the cemetery.
He later was transferred to the Carroll family vault on the cemetery's northwest end Lot This vault, purchased by William and Sallie Carroll in , contained the bodies of their three sons. Orville H. Browning, a political friend of the Lincolns from Illinois, inspected the vault the day before the funeral with William Carroll, clerk of the Supreme Court.
Carroll offered this space temporarily to the Lincoln family until they returned to Illinois. After President Lincoln's assassination in April , Willie's coffin was removed and placed on the funeral train. Willie's death left deep marks on the Lincoln family. Elizabeth Keckly said Mary "was an altered woman I sat in the fifth pew behind him every Sunday in Dr. Gurley's church, and I saw him on many occasions, marking the change in him. His bereaved heart seemed afterwards to pour out its fulness on his youngest child.
Between the war and the loss of our darling Willie we have been very miserable. Gurley on February 24, Sad and solemn is the occasion that brings us here to-day. A dark shadow of affliction has suddenly fallen upon this habitation, and upon the hearts of its inmates.
The news thereof has already gone forth to the extremities of the country. The Nation has heard it with deep and tender emotions. The eye of the Nation is moistened with tears, as it turns to-day to the Presidential Mansion; the heart of the Nation sympathizes with its Chief Magistrate, while to the unprecedented weight of civil care which presses upon him is added the burden of this great domestic sorrow; and the prayer of the Nation ascends to Heaven on his behalf, and on the behalf of his weeping family, that God's grace may be sufficient for them, and that in this hour of sore bereavement and trial, they may have the presence and succor of Him, who has said, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
The beloved youth, whose death we now and here lament, was a child of bright intelligence and of peculiar promise. He possessed many excellent qualities of mind and heart, which greatly endeared him, not only to the family circle of which he was a member, but to his youthful companions, and to all his acquaintances and friends.
His mind was active, inquisitive, and conscientious; his disposition was amiable and affectionate; his impulses were kind and generous; and his words and manners were gentle and attractive. It is easy to see how a child, thus endowed, would, in the course of eleven years, entwine himself around the hearts of those who knew him best; nor can we wonder that the grief of his affectionate mother to-day is like that of Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were not.
His sickness was an attack of fever, threatening from the beginning, and painfully productive of mental wandering and delirium. All that the tenderest parental care and watching, and the most assiduous and skilful medical treatment could do, was done; and though at times, even in the latest stages of the disease, his symptoms were regarded as favorable, and inspired a faint and wavering hope that he was not beyond recovery, still the insidious malady, day after day, pursued its course unchecked, and on Thursday last, at the hour of five in the afternoon, the silver cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken, and the emancipated spirit returned to God, who gave it.
That departure was a sore bereavement to parents and brothers; but while they weep, they also rejoice in the confidence that their loss is the unspeakable and eternal gain of the departed; for they believe, as well they may, that he has gone to Him who said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and that now, with kindred spirits, and with a departed brother, whom he never saw on earth, he beholds the glory and sings the praises of the Redeemer.
Blessed be God.
0コメント