The means to my escape: my bonds I brake,
Fled from my guards, and in a muddy lake
Amongst the sedges all the night lay hid,
Till they their sails had hoist, (if so they did,) 135
And now, alas! no hope remains for me
My home, my father, and my sons, to see,
Whom they, enrag'd, will kill for my offence,
And punish, for my guilt, their innocence.
Those gods who know the truths I now relate, 140
That faith which yet remains inviolate
By mortal men, by these I beg; redress
'My causeless wrongs, and pity such distress.”
And now true pity in exchange he finds
For his false tears, his tongue his hands unbinds. 145
Then spake the king, “Be ours, whoe'er thou art:
Forget the Greeks, But first the truth impart,
Why did they raise, or to what use intend,
This pile? to a warlike or religious end ?”
Skilful in fraud (his native art) his hands
T'ward heav'n he rais'd, deliver'd now from bands.
"Ye pure ethereal flames! ye pow'rs ador`d
By mortal men! ye altars, and the sword
I'scap'd! ye sacred fillets that involv'd
My destin'd head! grant I may stand absolv'd 155
From all their laws and rites renounce all name
Of faith or love, their secret thoughts proclaim,
Only, O Troy! preserve thy faith to me,
If what I shall relate preserveth thee.
From Pallas' favour all our hopes, and all
Counsels and actions took original,
Till Diomed (for such attempts made fit
By dire conjunction with Ulysses' wit)
Assails the sacred tower; the guards they slay,
Defile with bloody hands, and thence convey 165
The fatal image: straight with our success
Our hopes fell back, whilst prodigies express
Her just disdain; her flaming eyes did throw
Flashes of lightning; from each part did flow
A briny sweat; thrice brandishing her spear, 170
Her statue from the ground itself did rear:
Then that we should our sacrilege restore,
And reconvey their gods from Argos' shore,
Calchas persuades till then we urge in vain
The fate of Troy. To measure back the main 175
They all consent, but to return again
When reinforc'd with aids of gods and men.
Thus Calchas; then instead of that, this pile
To Pallas was design'd, to reconcile
Th' offended pow'r, and expiate our guilt;
To this vast height and monstrous stature built,
Lest, thro' your gates receiv'd, it might renew
Your vows to her, and her defence to you.
But if this sacred gift you disesteem,
Then cruel plagues (which Heav'n divert on them!)
Shall fall on Priam's state: but if the horse 186
Your walls ascend, assisted by your force,
A league 'gainst Greece all Asia shall contract,
Our sons then suff'ring what their sires would act.
Thus by his fraud and our own faith o'ercome,
A feigned tear destroys us, against whom
Tydides nor Achilles could prevail,
Nor ten years' conflict, uor a thousand sail.
This seconded by a most sad portent,
Which credit to the first imposture lent,
Laocoon, Neptune's priest, upon the day
Devoted to that god a bull did slay;
When two prodigious serpents were descry'd,
Whose circling strokes the sea's smooth face divide:
Above the deep they raise their scaly crests, 200
And stem the flood with their erected breasts;
Their winding tails advance and steer their course,
And 'gainst the shore the breaking billows force.
Now landing, from their brandish'd tongues there
A direful hiss, and from their eyes a flanie. [came
Amaz'd we fly; directly in a line
Laocoon they pursue, and first entwine
(Each preying upon one) his tender sons;
Then him who armed to their rescue runs,
They seiz'd, and with entangling folds embrac❜d, 210
His neck twice compassing and twice his waist:
Their pois'nous knots he strives to break and tear,
While slime and blood his sacred wreaths besmiear,
Then loudly roars, as when th' enraged bull
From th' altar flies, and from his wounded scull 215
Shakes the huge axe. The conqu`ring serpents fly
To cruel Pallas' altar, and there lie
Under her feet, within her shield's extent:
We, in our fears, conclude this fate was sent
Justly on him who struck the sacred oak
With his accursed lance.
The goddess, and let in the fatal horse,
A spacious breach we make,and Troy's proud wall, Built by the gods, by our own hands doth fail. 225 Thus all their help to their own ruin give,
Some draw with cords, and some the monster drive
With rolls and levers: thus our work it climbs,
Big with our fate; the youth with songs and rhymes,
Some dance, some haul the rope; at last let down,
It enters with a thund'ring noise the town. 231
Oh, Troy! the seat of gods, in war renown'd!
Three times it struck, as oft the clashing sound
Of arms was heard ; yet, blinded by the power
Of late, we place it in the sacred tower.
Cassandra then foretells th' event, but she
Finds no belief (such was the gods' decree.)
The altars with fresh flow'rs we crown, and waste
In feasts that day, which was (alas!) our last.
Now by the revolution of the skies
Night's sable shadows from the ocean rise,
Which heav'n and earth, and the Greek frauds in-
The city in secure repose dissolv'd,
[volv'd, When from the admiral's high poop appears
A light, by which the Argive squadron steers 243
Their silent course to Ilium's well-known shore,
When Sinon (sav'd by the gods' partial power)
Opens the horse, and thro' the unlock'd doors
To the free air the armed freight restores.
Ulysses, Stheneleus, Tisander, slide
Down by a rope, Machaon was their guide;
Atrides, Pyrrhus, Thoas, Athamas,
And Epeus, who the fraud's contriver was: [wine
The gates they seize; the guards, with sleep and
Oppress'd, surprise, and then their forces join. 255
'Twas then, when the first sweets of sleep repair
Our bodies spent with toil, our minds with care,
(The gods' best gift,) when, bath'd in tears and
Before my face lamenting Hector stood, [blood,
His aspect such when, soil'd with bloody dust, 260
Dragg'd by the cords which thro' his feet were
thrust
By his insulting foe: O how transform'd!
How much unlike that Hector who return'd
Clad in Achilles' spoils ! when he among
A thousand ships (like Jove) his lightning flung!
His horrid beard and knotted tresses stood
Stiff with his gore, and all his wounds ran blood.
Entranc'd I lay, then (weeping) said, The joy,
The hope and stay of thy declining Troy! 269
What region held thee? whence, so much desir'd,
Art thou restor❜d to us, consum'd and tir'd
With toils and deaths? But what sad cause con-
Thy once fair locks, or why appear those wounds? Regardless of my words, he no reply
Returns, but with a dreadful groan doth cry, 275
Fly from the flame, O goddess-born! our walls The Greeks possess, and Troy confounded falls 'From all her glories: if it might have stood 'By any pow'r, by this right hand it should.
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