Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/74

 ship mounts its fire signal, and Sinon, sheltered by heaven's partial decree, stealthily sets at large the Danaans, hid in that treacherous womb, and opens the pine-wood door: they as the horse opens are restored to upper air, and leap forth with joy from the hollow timber, Thessander and     5 Sthenelus leading the way, and the dreaded Ulysses, gliding down the lowered rope, and Achamas and Thoas, and Neoptolemus of Peleus' line, and first Machaon, and Menelaus, and the framer of the cheat himself, Epeus. They rush on the town as it lies drowned in sleep and revelry. 10 The watchers are put to the sword, the gates thrown open, and all are welcoming their comrades, and uniting with the conspiring bands.

"It was just the time when first slumber comes to heal human suffering, stealing on men by heaven's blessing     15 with balmiest influence. Lo! as I slept, before my eyes Hector,[o] in deepest sorrow, seemed to be standing by me, shedding rivers of tears—mangled from dragging at the car, as I remember him of old, and black with gory dust, and with his swollen feet bored by the thong. Ay me!      20 what a sight was there! what a change from that Hector of ours, who comes back to us clad in the spoils of Achilles, or from hurling Phrygian fire on Danaan vessels! with stiffened beard and hair matted with blood, and those wounds fresh about him, which fell on him so thickly      25 round his country's walls. Methought I addressed him first with tears like his own, fetching from my breast the accents of sorrow—'O light of Dardan land, surest hope that Trojans ever had! What delay has kept you so long? From what clime is the Hector of our longings returned      30 to us at last? O the eyes with which, after long months of death among your people, months of manifold suffering to Troy and her sons, spent and weary, we look upon you now! What unworthy cause has marred the clear beauty of those features, or why do I behold these wounds?'    35 He answers nought, and gives no idle heed to my vain inquiries, but with a deep sigh, heaved from the bottom of his heart—'Ah! fly, goddess-born!' cries he, 'and