Danaan

"Safe could Antenor pass th' Illyrian shore / through Danaan hosts, and realms Liburnian gain, / and climb Timavus and her springs explore, / where through nine mouths, with roaring surge, the main / bursts from the sounding rocks and deluges the plain."

"Thou, who alone Troy's sorrows deign'st to hear, / and us, the gleanings of the Danaan spear, / poor world-wide wanderers and in desperate case, / has ta'en to share thy city and thy cheer, / meet thanks nor we, nor what of Dardan race / yet roams the earth, can give to recompense thy grace."

"Tell me," she says, "thy wanderings; stranger, come, / thy friends' mishaps and Danaan wiles proclaim; / for seven long summers now have seen thee roam / o'er every land and sea, far from thy native home."

"O queen, a tale too true, / too sad for words, thou biddest me repeat; / how Ilion perished, and the Danaan crew / her power and all her wailful realm o'erthrew: / the woes I saw, thrice piteous to behold, / and largely shared."

"Broken by war, long baffled by the force / of fate, as fortune and their hopes decline, / the Danaan leaders build a monstrous horse, / huge as a hill, by Pallas' craft divine, / and cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine. / They feign it vowed for their return, so goes / the tale."

Meanwhile from neighbouring Tenedos once more, / beneath the tranquil moonbeam's friendly care, / with ordered ships, along the deep sea-floor, / back came the Argive host, and sought the well-known shore. / Forth from the royal galley sprang the flame, / when Sinon, screened by partial Fate, withdrew / the bolts and barriers of the pinewood frame, / and from its inmost caverns, bared to view, / the fatal horse disgorged the Danaan crew.

Then, then I see that Hector's words were right, / and all the Danaan wiles are naked to the light.

Thus we, elate, but not with Heaven our friend, / march on and mingle with the Greeks in fight, / and many a Danaan to the shades we send. / And many a battle in the blinding night / we join with those that meet us.

Witness, ye ashes of our comrades dear, / ye flames of Troy, that in your hour of woe / nor darts I shunned, nor shock of Danaan spear. / If Fate my life had called me to forego, / this hand had earned it, forfeit to the foe.

Down it goes / with sudden crash upon the Danaan train, / dealing wide ruin.