Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PARIS IS DEAD, by QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PARIS IS DEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: She spoke, and sadly from oenone's eyes
Last Line: Wondered to see her fallen on her man.
Alternate Author Name(s): Quintus Of Smyrna; Kointos Smyrnaios
Subject(s): Paris (mythology)


SHE spoke, and sadly from OEnone's eyes
Fell tears. Remembering the young man's doom,
Like wax in fire she faded, secretly,
Awed by her father and trim serving-maids;
Till from broad Ocean over the bright land
Night poured, and brought mankind release from toil.
Then, when her father and his household slept,
Out through the gateway opening on the hall
She broke tempestuously, and swiftly ran.
As goes some heifer of the hills, bull-mad,
Whose heart within her drives her flying hooves
Hotly, and in the strong itch of desire
Fears not the herdsman -- nothing holds her back
If she may see her bull among the brakes --
So ran she swiftly over the long roads
Hoping to climb soon on the dreadful pyre.
No faintness took her knees; ever more lightly
Her feet bore onward; hellish Doom and Love
Urged her; and shaggy beasts whom once she feared
She met in night's encounter unafraid.
Each rock and crag among the brushwood hills
She trod, and all the gullies left behind.
Surely the bright Moon marked her in that hour,
Mindful of pure Endymion, and for pity
Of that sad haste, bending from heaven's top
Illumined with full splendour the long ways.
OEnone crossed to where the other Nymphs
Around the corpse of Paris made lament.
The strong flame wrapped him yet; for shepherds came,
Gathered from many places in the hills,
Who piled great mass of timber, giving tears
And this last office to their lord and friend.
Sadly they mourned around him. But OEnone
Who saw him clearly, wept not in her grief.
With mantle drawn over her lovely face
She leapt upon the pyre; and Nymphs around
Wondered to see her fallen on her man.





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