th their shields with
their left hands and with their right grasping the roofs. And the men
of Troy, on the other hand, being in the last extremity, tore down the
battlements and the gilded beams wherewith the men of old had adorned
the palace. Then AEneas, knowing of a secret door whereby the unhappy
Andromache in past days had been wont to enter, bringing her son
Astyanax to his grandfather, climbed on to the roof and joined himself
to those that fought therefrom. Now upon this roof there was a tower,
whence all Troy could be seen and the camp of the Greeks and the
ships. This the men of Troy loosened from its foundations with bars of
iron, and thrust it over, so that it fell upon the enemy, slaying many
of them. But not the less did others press forward, casting the while
stones and javelins and all that came to their hands.

Meanwhile others sought to break down the gates of the palace,
Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, being foremost among them, clad in shining
armor of bronze. Like to a serpent was he, which sleeps indeed during
the winter, but in the spring comes forth into the light, full-fed on
evil herbs, and, having cast his skin and renewed his youth, lifts his
head into the light of the sun and hisses with forked tongue. And with
Pyrrhus were tall Periphas, and Automedon, who had been armor-bearer
to his father Achilles, and following them the youth of Scyros, which
was the kingdom of his grandfather Lycomedes. With a great battle-axe
he hewed through the doors, breaking down also the door-posts, though
they were plated with bronze, making, as it were, a great window,
through which a man might see the palace within, the hall of King
Priam and of the kings who had reigned aforetime in Troy. But when
they that were within perceived it, there arose a great cry of women
wailing aloud and clinging to the doors and kissing them. But ever
Pyrrhus pressed on, fierce and strong as ever was his father Achilles,
nor could aught stand against him, either the doors or they that
guarded them. Then, as a river bursts its banks and overflows the
plain, so did the sons of Greece rush into the palace.

But old Priam, when he saw the enemy in his hall, girded on him his
armor, which now by reason of old age he had long laid aside, and took
a spear in his hand and would have gone against the adversary, only
Queen Hecuba called to him from where she sat. For she and her
daughters had fled to the great altar of the household gods and s