adown,
And shouts from far:
'O wretched men, how hath such madness grown?
Deem ye the foe hath fared away? Deem ye that Danaan gifts
May ever lack due share of guile? Are these Ulysses' shifts?
For either the Achaeans lurk within this fashioned tree,
Or 'tis an engine wrought with craft bane of our walls to be,
To look into our very homes, and scale the town perforce:
Some guile at least therein abides: Teucrians, trust not the horse!
Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.' 49

Thus having said, with valiant might he hurled a huge-wrought spear
Against the belly of the beast swelled out with rib and stave;
It stood a-trembling therewithal; its hollow caverns gave
From womb all shaken with the stroke a mighty sounding groan.
And but for God's heart turned from us, for God's fate fixed and known,
He would have led us on with steel to foul the Argive den,
And thou, O Troy, wert standing now, thou Priam's burg as then!

But lo, where Dardan shepherds lead, with plenteous clamour round,
A young man unto Priam's place with hands behind him bound,
Who privily had thrust himself before their way e'en now
The work to crown, and into Troy an open way to show 60
Unto the Greeks; a steadfast soul, prepared for either end,
Or utterly to work his craft or unto death to bend.
Eager to see him as he went around the Trojans flock
On every side, and each with each contend the man to mock.
Lo now, behold the Danaan guile, and from one wrong they wrought
Learn ye what all are like to be.
For as he stood in sight of all, bewildered, weaponless,
And let his eyes go all around the gazing Phrygian press,
He spake:
'What land shall have me now, what sea my head shall hide?
What then is left of deed to do that yet I must abide? 70
No place I have among the Greeks, and Dardan folk withal
My foemen are, and bloody end, due doom, upon me call.'

And with that wail our hearts were turned, and somewhat backward hung
The press of men: we bade him say from whence his blood was sprung,
And what he did, and if indeed a captive we might trust;
So thus he spake when now all fear from off his heart was thrust:

'Whatso betide, to thee, O King, the matter's verity
Will I lay bare unto the end, nor Argive blood