Certain Books Of Virgil's AEneis: Book II
BOOK II
They whisted all, with fixed face attent,
When Prince AEneas from the royal seat
Thus gan to speak: O Queen, it is thy will
I should renew a woe cannot be told,
How that the Greeks did spoil and overthrow
The Phrygian wealth and wailful realm of Troy;
Those ruthful things that I myself beheld,
And whereof no small part fell to my share;
Which to express, who could refrain from tears?
What Myrmidon? or yet what Dolopes?
What stern Ulysses' waged soldier?
And lo! moist night now from the welkin falls,
And stars declining counsel us to rest.
But since so great is thy delight to hear
Of our mishaps and Troy last decay,
Though to record the same my mind abhors
And plaint eschews, yet thus will I begin.
The Greek chieftains, all irk'd with the war,
Wherein they wasted had so many years,
And oft repuls'd by fatal destiny,
A huge horse made, high raised like a hill,
By the divine science of Minerva,-
Of cloven fir compacted were his ribs,-
For their return a feigned sacrifice,-
The fame whereof so wander'd it at point.
In the dark bulk they clos'd bodies of men,
Chosen by lot, and did enstuff by stealth
The hollow womb with armed soldiers.
There stands in sight an isle hight Tenedon,
Rich and of fame while Priam's kingdom stood,
Now but a bay and road unsure for ship.
Hither them secretly the Greeks withdrew,
Shrouding themselves under the desert shore;
And weening we they had been fled and gone,
And with that wind had fet the land of Greece,
Troy{:e} discharg'd her long continued dole.
The gates cast up, we issued out to play,
The Greekish camp desirous to behold,
The places void and the forsaken coasts.
Here Pyrrhus' band, there fierce Achilles', pight;
Here rode their ships, there did their battles join.
Astonied some the scathful gift beheld,
Behight by vow unto the chaste Minerve,
All wond'ring at the hugeness of the horse.
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poem by Henry Howard
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