Book 2
go crashing down. Men armed with naked swords
402
defend the inner doors in close array.
Thus were our hearts inflamed to stand and strike
453
for the king's house, and to his body-guard
bring succor, and renew their vanquished powers.
A certain gate I knew, a secret way,
which gave free passage between Priam's halls,
and exit rearward; hither, in the days
before our fall, the lone Andromache
was wont with young Astyanax to pass
in quest of Priam and her husband's kin.
This way to climb the palace roof I flew,
where, desperate, the Trojans with vain skill
hurled forth repellent arms. A tower was there,
reared skyward from the roof-top, giving view
of Troy's wide walls and full reconnaissance
of all Achaea's fleets and tented field;
this, with strong steel, our gathered strength assailed,
and as the loosened courses offered us
great threatening fissures, we uprooted it
from its aerial throne and thrust it down.
It fell with instantaneous crash of thunder
along the Danaan host in ruin wide.
But fresh ranks soon arrive; thick showers of stone
rain down, with every missile rage can find.
Now at the threshold of the outer court
469
Pyrrhus triumphant stood, with glittering arms
and helm of burnished brass. He glittered like
some swollen viper, fed on poison-leaves,
whom chilling winter shelters underground,
till, fresh and strong, he sheds his annual scales
and, crawling forth rejuvenate, uncoils
his slimy length; his lifted gorge insults
the sunbeam with three-forked and quivering tongue.
Huge Periphas was there; Automedon,
who drove Achilles' steeds, and bore his arms.
Then Scyros' island-warriors assault
the palaces, and hurl reiterate fire
at wall and tower. Pyrrhus led the van;
seizing an axe he clove the ponderous doors
