d sea-girt Tenedos, and Thracian Samos.
And men that voyaged on the deep sea cried:
"The Argives have achieved their mighty task
After long toil for star-eyed Helen's sake.
All Troy, the once queen-city, burns in fire:
For all their prayers, no God defends them now;
For strong Fate oversees all works of men,
And the renownless and obscure to fame
She raises, and brings low the exalted ones.
Oft out of good is evil brought, and good
From evil, mid the travail and change of life."

So spake they, who from far beheld the glare
Of Troy's great burning. Compassed were her folk
With wailing misery: through her streets the foe
Exulted, as when madding blasts turmoil
The boundless sea, what time the Altar ascends
To heaven's star-pavement, turned to the misty south
Overagainst Arcturus tempest-breathed,
And with its rising leap the wild winds forth,
And ships full many are whelmed 'neath ravening seas;
Wild as those stormy winds Achaea's sons
Ravaged steep Ilium while she burned in flame.
As when a mountain clothed with shaggy woods
Burns swiftly in a fire-blast winged with winds,
And from her tall peaks goeth up a roar,
And all the forest-children this way and that
Rush through the wood, tormented by the flame;
So were the Trojans perishing: there was none
To save, of all the Gods. Round these were staked
The nets of Fate, which no man can escape.

Then were Demophoon and Acamas
By mighty Theseus' mother Aethra met.
Yearning to see them was she guided on
To meet them by some Blessed One, the while
'Wildered from war and fire she fled. They saw
In that red glare a woman royal-tall,
Imperial-moulded, and they weened that this
Was Priam's queen, and with swift eagerness
Laid hands on her, to lead her captive thence
To the Danaans; but piteously she moaned:
"Ah, do not, noble sons of warrior Greeks,
To your ships hale me, as I were a foe!
I am not of Trojan birth: of Danaans came
My princely blood renowned. In Troezen's halls
Pittheus begat me, Aegeus wedded me,
And of my womb sprang Theseus glory-crowned.
For great Zeus' sake, for your dear parents' sake,
I pray you, if the seed of Theseus came
Hither with Atreus' sons, O bring ye me
Unto their yearning eyes. I trow they be
Young men like you. My soul shall be refreshed
If living I behold those chieftains twain."

Hearkening to her they called their sire