Who fed on poifonous herbs, all winter lay
Under the ground, and now reviews the day
Fresh in his new apparel, proud and young,
Rolls up his back, and brandishes his tongue,
And lifts his fcaly breast against the sun ;
With him his father's fquire, Automedon,
And Peripas who drove his winged steeds,
Enter the court; whom all the youth fucceeds
Of Scyros' ifle, who flaming firebrands flung
Up to the roof; Pyrrhus himself among
The foremost with an axe an entrance hews
Through beams of folid oak, then freely views
The chambers, galleries, and rooms of state,
Where Priam and the ancient monarchs fate.
At the firft gate an armed guard appears;
But th' inner court with horror, noife, and tears,
Confus'dly fill'd, the womens shrieks and cries
The arched vaults re-echo to the skies;

Sad matrons wandering through the spacious rooms
Embrace and kifs the pofts: then Pyrrhus comes
Full of his father, neither men nor walls

His force fuftain, the torn port-cullis falls,

Then from the hinge their strokes the gates divorce,
And where the way they cannot find, they force.
Not with fuch rage a fwelling torrent flows
Above his banks, th' oppofing dams o'erthrows,
Depopulates the fields, the cattle, sheep,
Shepherds and folds, the foaming furges fweep.
And now between two fad extremes I ftood,
Here Pyrrhus and th' Atridæ drunk with blood,

There

There th' hapless queen amongst an hundred dames,
And Priam quenching from his wounds thofe flames
Which his own hands had on the altar laid;
Then they the fecret cabinets invade,

Where ftood the fifty nuptial beds, the hopes
Of that great race; the golden pofts, whofe tops
Old hoftile spoils adorn'd, demolish'd lay,
Or to the foe, or to the fire a prey,

Now Priam's fate perhaps you may enquire :
Seeing his empire loft, his Troy on fire,
And his own palace by the Greeks poffeft,
Arms long difus'd his trembling limbs invest;
Thus on his foes he throws himself alone,
Not for their fate, but to provoke his own:
There stood an altar open to the view
Of heaven, near which an aged laurel grew,
Whofe fhady arms the houfhold gods embrac'd;
Before whose feet the queen herself had caft
With all her daughters, and the Trojan wives,
As doves whom an approaching tempeft drives
And frights into one flock; but having spy'd,
Old Priam clad in youthful arms, she cried,
Alas, my wretched husband, what pretence
To bear thofe arms, and in them what defence?
Such aid fuch times require not, when again
If Hector were alive, he liv'd in vain;

Or as in life we fhall in death be join'd.

Then weeping, with kind force held and embrac'd,
And on the fecret feat the king fhe plac'd.

Juftly on him, who ftruck the facred oak
With his accurfed lance. Then to invoke
The goddess, and let in the fatal horse,
We all confent.

A fpacious breach we make, and Troy's proud wall,
Built by the gods, by her own hands doth fall;
Thus, all their help to their own ruin give,

Some draw with cords, and fome the monster drive
With rolls and levers: thus our works it climbs,
Big with our fate, the youth with songs and rhimes,
Some dance, some hale the rope; at last let down
It enters with a thundering noise the town.
Oh Troy, the feat of gods, in war renown'd!
Three times it struck, as oft the clashing sound
Of arms was heard, yet blinded by the power
Of fate, we place it in the sacred tower.
Caffandra then foretels th' event, but she
Finds no belief (fuch was the gods' decree.)
The altars with fresh flowers we crown, and waste
In feafts that day, which was (alas!) our last.
Now by the revolution of the skies,

Night's fable shadows from the ocean rise,

Which heaven and earth, and the Greek frauds involv'd,

The city in fecure repose diffolv'd,

When from the admiral's high poop appears

A light, by which the Argive squadron fteers
Their filent course to Ilium's well-known shore,
When Sinon (fav'd by the gods' partial power)
Opens the horse, and through the unlockt doors
To the free air the armed freight restores:

Ulyffes,

Ulyffes, Stheneleus, Tifander, flide

Down by a rope, Machaon was their guide;
Atrides, Pyrrhus, Thoas, Athamas,

And Epeus, who the fraud's contriver was:

The gates they seize; the guards, with sleep and wine Opprest, surprize, and then their forces join. 'Twas then, when the first fweets of fleep repair

Our bodies spent with toil, our minds with care; (The gods' beft gift) when, bath'd in tears and blood, Before my face lamenting Hector ftood,

His afpect fuch when, foil'd with bloody duft,
Dragg'd by the cords which through his feet were thrust
By his infulting foe; O how transform'd,

How much unlike that Hector, who return'd
Clad in Achilles' spoils; when he, among

A thousand ships, (like Jove) his lightning flung!
His horrid beard and knotted treffes ftood

Stiff with his gore, and all his wounds ran blood:
Intranc'd I lay, then (weeping) faid, the joy,
The hope and stay of thy declining Troy;
What region held thee, whence, so much defir'd,
Art thou reftor'd to us confum'd and tir'd

With toils and deaths; but what fad cause confounds
Thy once fair looks, or why appear those wounds?
Regardless of my words, he no reply

Returns, but with a dreadful groan doth cry,
Fly from the flame, O goddess-born, our walls
The Greeks poffefs, and Troy confounded falls
From all her glories; if it might have stood
By any power, by this right hand it should.

What

What man could do, by me for Troy was done,
Take here her reliques and her gods, to run
With them thy fate, with them new walls expect,
Which, toft on feas, thou fhalt at last erect :
Then brings old Vesta from her facred quire,
Her holy wreaths, and her eternal fire.
Meanwhile the walls with doubtful cries refound
From far (for fhady coverts did surround

My father's house); approaching still more near
The clash of arms, and voice of men we hear:
Rouz'd from my bed, I fpeedily afcend
The houses tops, and listening there attend.
As flames roll'd by the winds confpiring force,
O'er full-ear'd corn, or torrents raging courfe
Bears down th' oppofing oaks, the fields deftroys,
And mocks the plough-man's toil, th' unlook'd for noise
From neighbouring hills th' amazed shepherd hears;
Such my furprize, and fuch their rage appears.
First fell thy house, Ucalegon, then thine
Deiphobus, Sigæan feas did fhine

Bright with Troy's flames; the trumpets dreadful found

The louder groans of dying men confound;

Give me my arms, I cry'd, resolv'd to throw
Myself 'mong any that oppos'd the foe:
Rage, anger, and despair at once fuggeft,
That of all deaths, to die in arms was beft.
The first I met was Pantheus, Phoebus' priest,
Who 'fcaping with his gods and reliques fled,
And towards the fhore his little grandchild led ;

Pantheus,