Del ciclo troyano / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

From the Trojan Cycle

Polydorus, last son of Priam, too young for military duty, lived far from the communal homeland in the court of a false king, where he had been relegated by the affectionate zeal of his own.
     He knew nothing of the fateful siege, or its terminus in the night of lamentations, ink in flames, when it fell under the steel of its guest, moved in support of the victor.
     His tomb, shaded by a rugged tuft that emits a compassionate voice, arouses fear in Virgil’s pilgrims.
     The prince was withered by the effect of a monologue full of sighs. He was thinking of Iphigenia, who escaped amid the sacrifice and at the edge of death, sheltered among the Sarmatians, whose indefatigable steeds injure a ground of marmoreal snow. He had encountered the tacit virgin, of reposed countenance and pliant step, in one of the insular sanctuaries, where the neighboring peoples would establish friendships, separated by the personal grievances of their kings. Clytemnestra would animate the passion of the children; but her husband forbade her in the interest of politics and the insinuation of the priests, who were in need of a regal victim.
     Clytemnestra saves her daughter with brave deceit, and mediates revenge for continuous years.
     She awaits in her lioness den during the decennial of the fatal conflict, divided between advantages and setbacks: more than once the regal husband, comfortable and arrogant, despite the weight of splendid weapons, rebukes the hordes of his own people, terrified because a tempestuous thunder crosses the heights, and Hector throws the camp into disorder, redoubling his furious gale attack.
     Clytemnestra arranges the death of the royal consort, in reparation for her ignored will, in compensation for her vile submission, characteristic of captives won by the spear; and the crime takes place the very night of the return and secretly, amid the anguished clamor of the nocturnal birds, of absurd and wavering flight.




La torre de Timón (1925)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }