jan weal and realm that all shall rue
'Neath Danaan might; which thing myself unhappy did behold,
Yea, and was no small part thereof. What man might hear it told
Of Dolopes, or Myrmidons, or hard Ulysses' band,
And keep the tears back? Dewy night now falleth from the land
Of heaven, and all the setting stars are bidding us to sleep:
But if to know our evil hap thy longing is so deep, 10
If thou wilt hear a little word of Troy's last agony,
Though memory shuddereth, and my heart shrunk up in grief doth lie,
I will begin.
By battle broke, and thrust aback by Fate
Through all the wearing of the years, the Danaan lords yet wait
And build a horse up mountain-huge by Pallas' art divine,
Fair fashioning the ribs thereof with timbers of the pine,
And feign it vowed for safe return, and let the fame fly forth.
Herein by stealth a sort of men chosen for bodies' worth
Amid its darkness do they shut; the caverns inly lost
Deep in the belly of the thing they fill with armed host. 20

In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island known of all,
And rich in wealth before the realm of Priam had its fall,
Now but a bay and roadstead poor, where scarcely ships may ride.
So thither now they sail away in desert place to hide.
We thought them gone, and that they sought Mycenae on a wind,
Whereat the long-drawn grief of Troy fell off from every mind.

The gates are opened; sweet it is the Dorian camp to see,
The dwellings waste, the shore all void where they were wont to be:
Here dwelt the band of Dolopes, here was Achilles set, 29
And this was where their ships were beached; here edge to edge we met.
Some wonder at unwedded maid Minerva's gift of death,
That baneful mountain of a horse; and first Thymoetes saith
'Twere good in walls to lead the thing, on topmost burg to stand;
Whether such word the fate of Troy or evil treason planned
I know not: Capys and the rest, who better counsel have,
Bid take the fashioned guile of Greeks, the doubtful gift they gave,
To tumble it adown to sea, with piled-up fire to burn,
Or bore the belly of the beast its hidden holes to learn;
So cleft atwain is rede of men abiding there in doubt.

But first before all others now with much folk all about 40
Laocoon the fiery man runs from the burg