"Relate at large, my god-like guest," she said, "The Grecian stratagems, the town betray'd: The fatal issue of so long a war.
Your flight, your wand'rings, and your woes declare:
For, since on ev'ry sea, on ev'ry coast,
Your men have been distress'd, your navy toss'd,
Sev'n times the sun has either tropic view'd,
The winter banish'd, and the spring renew'd."
Eneas relates how the city of Troy was taken, after a ten year's siege, by the treachery of Sinon, and the stratagem of a wooden horse. He declares the fixed resolution he had taken not to survive the ruin of his country, and the various adventures he met with in defence of it. At last, having been before advised by Hector's ghost, and now by the appearance of his mother Venus, he is prevailed upon to leave the town, and settle his household gods in another country. In order to this, he carries off his father on his shoulders, and leads his little son by the hand, his wife following him behind. When he comes to the place appointed for the general rendezvous, he finds a great confluence of people, but misses his wife, whose ghost afterwards appears to him, and tells him the land which was designed for him.
ALL were attentive to the godlike man,
When from his lofty couch he thus began:
"Great queen, what you command me to relate,
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:
An empire from its old foundations rent,
And every wo the Trojans underwent ;
A peopled city made a desert place;
All that I saw, and part of which I was;
Not e'en the hardest of our foes could hear,
Nor stern Ulysses hear, without a tear.
Or to the watry deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.
The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.
Laocoön, follow'd by a num'rous crow'd,
Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud:
"O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns?
What more than madness has possess'd your brains? 55
Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?
And are Ulysses' arts no better known?
This hollow fabric either must enclose,
Within its blind recess, our secret foes;
Or 'tis an engine rais'd above the town.
T'o'erlook the walls, and them to batter down.
Somewhat is sure design'd, by fraud or force-
Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse."
Thus having said, against the steed he threw
His forceful spear, which hissing as it flew,
Pierc❜d through the yielding planks of jointed wood,
And trembling in the hollow belly stood,
The sides transpierc'd, return a rattling sound:
And groans of Greeks inclos'd come issuing through the
And had not heav'n the fall of Troy design'd
Or had not men been fated to be blind,
Enough was said and done, t' inspire a better mind.
Then had our lances pierc'd the treach'rous wood,
And Ilian tow'rs and Priam's empire stood.
Meantime, with shouts, the Trojan shepherds bring 75
A captive Greek in bands, before the king-
Taken, to take-who made himself their prey,
T'impose on their belief, and Troy betray;
Fix'd on his aim, and obstinately bent
To die undaunted, or to circumvent.
About the captive, tides of Trojans flow;
All press to see, and some insult the foe.
Now hear how well the Greeks their wiles disguis'd:
Behold a nation in a man compris'd.
Trembling the miscreant stood: unarni'd and bound, 35 He star'd, and roll'd his haggard eyes around,
Then said, "Alas! what earth remains, what sea
1s open to receive unhappy me?
What fate a wretched fugitive attends,
Scorn'd by my foes, abandon'd by my friends!
He said, and sigh'd, and cast a rueful eye:
Our pity kindles, and our passions die.
We cheer the youth to make his own defence,
And freely tell us what he was, and whence:
What news he could impart, we long to know,
And what to credit from a captive foe.
His fear at length dismiss'd, he said, "Whate'er
My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere:
I neither can, nor dare my birth disclaim;
Greece is my country, Sinon is my name,
Though plung'd by Fortune's pow'r in misery,
'Tis not in Fortune's pow'r to make me lie.
If any chance has hither brought the name
Of Palamedes, not unknown to fame,
Who suffer'd from the malice of the times,
Accus'd and sentenc'd for pretended crimes,
Because the fatal wars he would prevent;
Whose death the wretched Greeks too late lament
Me, then a boy, my father, poor and bare
Of other means, committed to his care,
His kinsman and companion in the war.
While Fortune favour'd, while his arms support
The cause, and rul'd the counsels of the court,
I made some figure there; nor was my name
Obscure, nor I without my share of fame.
But when Ulysses, with fallacious arts,
Had made impressions in the people's hearts,
And forg'd a treason in my patrons name,
(I speak of things too far divulg'd by fame)
My kinsman fell. Then I, without support,
In private mourn'd his loss, and left the court.
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