auty cursed this overthrow ne'er wrought.
Nor guilty Paris; nay, the Gods, the Gods who pity nought,
Have overturned your lordship fair, and laid your Troy alow.
Behold! I draw aside the cloud that all abroad doth flow,
Dulling the eyes of mortal men, and darkening dewily
The world about. And look to it no more afeard to be
Of what I bid, nor evermore thy mother's word disown.
There where thou seest the great walls cleft, and stone torn off from stone,
And seest the waves of smoke go by with mingled dust-cloud rolled,--
There Neptune shakes the walls and stirs the foundings from their hold
With mighty trident, tumbling down the city from its base. 611
There by the Scaean gates again hath bitter Juno place
The first of all, and wild and mad, herself begirt with steel,
Calls up her fellows from the ships.
Look back! Tritonian Pallas broods o'er topmost burg on high,
All flashing bright with Gorgon grim from out her stormy sky;
The very Father hearteneth on, and stays with happy might
The Danaans, crying on the Gods against the Dardan fight.
Snatch flight, O son, whiles yet thou may'st, and let thy toil be o'er,
I by thy side will bring thee safe unto thy father's door.' 620

She spake, and hid herself away where thickest darkness poured.
Then dreadful images show forth, great Godheads are abroad,
The very haters of our Troy.
And then indeed before mine eyes all Ilium sank in flame,
And overturned was Neptune's Troy from its foundations deep.
E'en as betideth with an ash upon the mountain steep,
Round which sore smitten by the steel the acre-biders throng,
And strive in speeding of the axe: and there it threateneth long,
And, shaken, trembleth nodding still with heavy head of leaf;
Till overcome by many hurts it groans its latest grief, 630
And torn from out the ridgy hill, drags all its ruin alow.

I get me down, and, Goddess-led, speed on 'twixt fire and foe,
And point and edge give place to me, before me sinks the flame;
But when unto my father's door and ancient house I came,
And I was fain of all things first my father forth to bear
Unto the mountain-tops, and first I sought to find him there,
Still he gainsayed to spin out life now Troy was lost and dead,
Or suffer exile: 'Ye whose blood is hale with youth,' he said,
'Ye other ones,