Aeneid

four times from its vast concave loudly rang.

Yet frantic pressed we on, our hearts all blind,

and in the consecrated citadel

set up the hateful thing. Cassandra then

from heaven-instructed heart our doom foretold;

but doomed to unbelief were Ilium's sons.

Our hapless nation on its dying day

flung free o'er streets and shrines the votive flowers.

The skies rolled on; and o'er the ocean fell

the veil of night, till utmost earth and heaven

and all their Myrmidonian stratagems

were mantled darkly o'er. In silent sleep

the Trojan city lay; dull slumber chained

its weary life. But now the Greek array

of ordered ships moved on from Tenedos,

their only light the silent, favoring moon,

on to the well-known strand. The King displayed

torch from his own ship, and Sinon then,

whom wrathful Heaven defended in that hour,

let the imprisoned band of Greeks go free

from that huge womb of wood; the open horse

restored them to the light; and joyfully

emerging from the darkness, one by one,

princely Thessander, Sthenelus, and dire

Ulysses glided down the swinging cord.

Closely upon them Neoptolemus,

the son of Peleus, came, and Acamas,

King Menelaus, Thoas and Machaon,

and last, Epeus, who the fabric wrought.

Upon the town they fell, for deep in sleep

and drowsed with wine it lay; the sentinels

they slaughtered, and through gates now opened wide

let in their fellows, and arrayed for war

th' auxiliar legions of the dark design.

That hour it was when heaven's first gift of sleep

on weary hearts of men most sweetly steals.

O, then my slumbering senses seemed to see

Hector, with woeful face and streaming eyes;

I seemed to see him from the chariot trailing,

foul with dark dust and gore, his swollen feet

pierced with a cruel thong. Ah me! what change

from glorious Hector when he homeward bore

the spoils of fierce Achilles; or hurled far

that shower of torches on the ships of Greece!

Unkempt his beard, his tresses thick with blood,

and all those wounds in sight which he did take

defending Troy. Then, weeping as I spoke,

I seemed on that heroic shape to call

with mournful utterance: “O star of Troy!

O surest hope and stay of all her sons!

Why tarriest thou so Iong? What region sends

the long-expected Hector home once more?

These weary eyes that look on thee have seen

hosts of thy kindred die, and fateful change

upon thy people and thy city fall.

O, say what dire occasion has defiled

thy tranquil brows? What mean those bleeding wounds?”

Silent he stood, nor anywise would stay

my vain lament; but groaned, and answered thus:

“Haste, goddess-born, and out of yonder flames

achieve thy flight. Our foes have scaled the wall;

exalted Troy is falling. Fatherland

and Priam ask no more. If human arm

could profit Troy, my own had kept her free.

Her Lares and her people to thy hands

Troy here commends. Companions let them be

of all thy fortunes. Let them share thy quest

of that wide realm, which, after wandering far,

thou shalt achieve, at last, beyond the sea.”

He spoke: and from our holy hearth brought forth

the solemn fillet, the ancestral shrines,

and Vesta's ever-bright, inviolate fire.

Now shrieks and loud confusion swept the town;

and though my father's dwelling stood apart

embowered deep in trees, th' increasing din

drew nearer, and the battle-thunder swelled.

I woke on sudden, and up-starting scaled

the roof, the tower, then stood with listening ear:

't was like an harvest burning, when wild winds

uprouse the flames; 't was like a mountain stream

that bursts in flood and ruinously whelms

sweet fields and farms and all the ploughman's toil,

whirling whole groves along; while dumb with fear,

from some far cliff the shepherd hears the sound.

Now their Greek plot was plain, the stratagem

at last laid bare. Deiphobus' great house

sank vanquished in the fire. Ucalegon's

hard by was blazing, while the waters wide

around Sigeum gave an answering glow.

Shrill trumpets rang; Ioud shouting voices roared;

wildly I armed me (when the battle calls,

how dimly reason shines!); I burned to join

the rally of my peers, and to the heights

defensive gather. Frenzy and vast rage

seized on my soul. I only sought what way

with sword in hand some noble death to die.

When Panthus met me, who had scarce escaped

the Grecian spears,—Panthus of Othrys' line,

Apollo's priest within our citadel;

his holy emblems, his defeated gods,