Book 2
thy love of me? Wilt thou not seek to know
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where bides Anchises, thy abandoned sire,
now weak with age? or if Creusa lives
and young Ascanius, who are ringed about
with ranks of Grecian foes, and long ere this—
save that my love can shield them and defend—
had fallen on flame or fed some hungry sword?
Not Helen's hated beauty works thee woe;
nor Paris, oft-accused. The cruelty
of gods, of gods unaided, overwhelms
thy country's power, and from its Iofty height
casts Ilium down. Behold, I take away
the barrier-cloud that dims thy mortal eye,
with murk and mist o'er-veiling. Fear not thou
to heed thy mother's word, nor let thy heart
refuse obedience to her counsel given.
'Mid yonder trembling ruins, where thou see'st
stone torn from stone, with dust and smoke uprolling,
't is Neptune strikes the wall; his trident vast
makes her foundation tremble, and unseats
the city from her throne. Fierce Juno leads
resistless onset at the Scaean gate,
and summons from the ships the league of powers,
wearing her wrathful sword. On yonder height
behold Tritonia in the citadel
clothed with the lightning and her Gorgon-shield!
Unto the Greeks great Jove himself renews
their courage and their power; 't is he thrusts on
the gods themselves against the Trojan arms.
Fly, O my son! The war's wild work give o'er!
I will be always nigh and set thee safe
upon thy father's threshold.” Having said,
she fled upon the viewless night away.
Then loomed o'er Troy the apparition vast
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of her dread foes divine; I seemed to see
all Ilium sink in fire, and sacred Troy,
of Neptune's building, utterly o'erthrown.
So some huge ash-tree on the mountain's brow
(when rival woodmen, heaving stroke on stroke
of two-edged axes, haste to cast her down)
