vessels felt the breeze
Abaft, and bore the long impatient crowd
To Phrygia's shores. A spot there lies, whose seat
Midst of created space, 'twixt earth, and sea,
And heavenly regions, on the confines rests
Of the three-sever'd world; whence are beheld
All objects and all actions though remote,
And every sound by tending ears is heard.
Here Fame resides; and in the loftiest towers
Her dwelling chuses; and some thousand ways,
And thousand portals to the dwelling makes:
No portal clos'd with gates. By day, by night,
Open they stand; of sounding brass all form'd;
All echoing sound; all back the voice rebound:
And all reit'rate every word they hear.
No rest within, no silence there is found,
Yet clamor is not, but a murmur low;
Such as the billows wont to make when heard
From far, or such as distant thunder sends,
When Jove the dark clouds rends and drives aloof.
Crowds fill the halls: the trifling vulgar come
And issue forth. Ten thousand rumors vague
With truth commingled to and fro are heard.
Words in confusion fly. Amid the throng
These preach their words to vacant air, and those
To others tales narrate; the measure still
Of every fiction in narration grows;
And every author adds to what he hears.
Here lives credulity; and here abides
Rash error; transports vain; astonied fear;
Sedition sudden; and, uncertain whence,
Dark whisperings. Fame herself sits high aloft,
And views what deeds in heaven, and earth, and sea
Are done, and searches all creation round.
The news she spreads, that now the Grecian barks
Approach with valiant force; nor did the foe
Unlook'd-for threat the realm. All Troy impedes
Their landing, and the shores defends. Thou first,
Protesilaues! by great Hector's spear
Unluckily wast slain. The war begun,
Their valiant souls, ere yet they Hector knew,
Dear cost the Greeks. Nor small the blood which flow'd
From Phrygia's sons, by Grecia's valor spill'd.

Now blush'd Sigaeum's shores with spouting blood,
Where Cygnus, Neptune's offspring, gave to death
Whole crowds. Achilles in his chariot stood,
And with his forceful Pelian spear o'erthrew
Thick ranks of Trojans; and as through the fights
Cygnus or Hector to engage he sought,
Cygnus he met: delay'd was Hector's fate
To the tenth year. Then to his white-neck'd steeds,
Press'd by the yoke, with cheering shouts he spoke;
And full against th