deny:
This firstly; for if Fate indeed shaped Sinon for all bale
To make him liar and empty fool her worst may not avail. 80
Perchance a rumour of men's talk about your ears hath gone,
Telling of Palamedes' fame and glory that he won,
The son of Belus: traitors' word undid him innocent;
By unjust doom for banning war the way of death he went,
Slain by Pelasgian men, that now his quenched light deplore.
Fellow to him, and nigh akin, I went unto the war,
Sent by my needy father forth, e'en from my earliest years;
Now while he reigned in health, a king fair blooming mid his peers
In council of the kings, I too had share of name and worth.
But after he had gone his way from land of upper earth, 90
Thrust down by sly Ulysses' hate, (I tell all men's belief),
Then beaten down I dragged my life through shadowy ways of grief,
And heavily I took the death of him my sackless friend,
Nor held my peace, O fool! but vowed revenge if time should send
A happy tide; if I should come to Argos any more,
A victor then: so with my words I drew down hatred sore.
This was the first fleck of my ill; Ulysses ever now
Would threaten with some new-found guilt, and mid the folk would sow
Dark sayings, and knowing what was toward, sought weapons new at need;
Nor wearied till with Calchas now to help him to the deed.-- 100
--But why upturn these ugly things, or spin out time for nought?
For if ye deem all Greekish men in one same mould are wrought:
It is enough. Come make an end; Ulysses' hope fulfil!
With great price would the Atridae buy such working of their will.'

Then verily to know the thing and reach it deep we burned,
So little in Pelasgian guile and evil were we learned.
He takes the tale up; fluttering-voiced from lying heart he speaks:

'The longing to be gone from Troy fell oft upon the Greeks,
And oft they fain had turned their backs on war without an end,
(I would they had), and oft as they were e'en at point to wend 110
A tempest would forbid the sea, or southern gale would scare,
And chiefly when with maple-beams this horse that standeth here
They fashioned, mighty din of storm did all the heavens fulfil.
So held aback, Eurypylus we sent to learn the will
Of Phoebus: from the shrine he brought such heavy words as these:
_With blood and wi