Book 2
A general silence fell; and all gave ear,
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while, from his lofty station at the feast,
Father Aeneas with these words began :—
A grief unspeakable thy gracious word,
o sovereign lady, bids my heart live o'er:
how Asia's glory and afflicted throne
the Greek flung down; which woeful scene I saw,
and bore great part in each event I tell.
But O! in telling, what Dolopian churl,
or Myrmidon, or gory follower
of grim Ulysses could the tears restrain?
'T is evening; lo! the dews of night begin
to fall from heaven, and yonder sinking stars
invite to slumber. But if thy heart yearn
to hear in brief of all our evil days
and Troy's last throes, although the memory
makes my soul shudder and recoil in pain,
I will essay it. Wearied of the war,
and by ill-fortune crushed, year after year,
the kings of Greece, by Pallas' skill divine,
build a huge horse, a thing of mountain size,
with timbered ribs of fir. They falsely say
it has been vowed to Heaven for safe return,
and spread this lie abroad. Then they conceal
choice bands of warriors in the deep, dark side,
and fill the caverns of that monstrous womb
with arms and soldiery. In sight of Troy
lies Tenedos, an island widely famed
and opulent, ere Priam's kingdom fell,
but a poor haven now, with anchorage
not half secure; 't was thitherward they sailed,
and lurked unseen by that abandoned shore.
We deemed them launched away and sailing far,
bound homeward for Mycenae. Teucria then
threw off her grief inveterate; all her gates
swung wide; exultant went we forth, and saw
the Dorian camp untenanted, the siege
abandoned, and the shore without a keel.
“Here!” cried we, “the Dolopian pitched; the host
of fierce Achilles here; here lay the fleet;
