Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/76

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52
THE ÆNEID.

Who questions, when with foes we deal,
If craft or courage guides the steel?
Themselves shall give us arms to wield.'
He speaks, and from Androgeos tears
His plumy helm and figured shield,
Girds on an Argive sword, and wears.
And Rhipeus, Dymas, and the rest
Soon in the new-won spoils are dressed.
Mixed with the Greeks, we pass unknown,
'Neath heavenly favours not our own,
Wage many a combat in the gloom,
And many a Greek send down to doom.
Some seek the vessels and the shore:
Some, smit with fear more low,
Climb the huge horse, and hide once more
Within the womb they know.
Alas! a mortal may not lean
On Heaven, when Heaven averts its mien.

Ah see! the Priameian fair,
Cassandra, by her streaming hair
Is dragged from Pallas' shrine,
Her wild eyes raised to Heaven in vain—
Her eyes, alas! for cord and chain
Her tender hands confine.
Corœbus brooked not such a sight,
But plunged infuriate in the fight.
We follow him, as blindly rash,
And, forming, on the spoilers dash:
When from the summit of the fane,
Or ere we deem, a murderous rain
Of Trojan darts our force o'erwhelms,
Misguided by those Argive helms.
Then, groaning deep their prey to lose,
The rallied Danaans round us close: