Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/76

 *ing distractedly for my door. 'How goes the day, Panthus? What hold have we of the citadel?' The words were scarcely uttered when with a groan he replies, 'It is come, the last day, the inevitable hour—on Dardan land no more Trojans; no more of Ilion, and the great renown    5 of the sons of Teucer; Jove, in his cruelty, has carried all over to Argos; the town is on fire, and the Danaans are its masters. There, planted high in the heart of the city, the horse is pouring out armed men, and Sinon is flinging about fire in the insolence of conquest; some are    10 crowding into the unfolded gates—thousands, many as ever came from huge Mycenæ: some are blocking up the narrow streets, with weapons pointed at all comers; the sharp steel with its gleaming blade stands drawn, ready for slaughter; hardly, even on the threshold, the sentinels    15 of the gates are attempting resistance, in a struggle where the powers of war are blind.'

"At these words of the son of Othrys, and heaven's will thus expressed, I plunge into the fire and the battle, following the war-fiend's yell, the din of strife, and the    20 shout that rose to the sky. There join me Rhipeus and Epytus, bravest in fight, crossing my way in the moonlight, as also Hypanis and Dymas, and form at my side; young Coroebus, too, Mygdon's son; he happened to be just then come to Troy, with a frantic passion for Cassandra,     25 and was bringing a son-in-law's aid to Priam and his Phrygians—poor boy! to have given no heed to the warnings of his heaven-struck bride! Seeing them gathered in a mass and nerved for battle, I begin thereon:—'Young hearts, full of unavailing valour, if your desire     30 is set to follow a desperate man, you see what the plight of our affairs is—gone in a body from shrine and altar are the gods who upheld this our empire—the city you succour is a blazing ruin; choose we then death, and rush we into the thick of the fight. The one safety for vanquished    35 men is to hope for none.' These words stirred their young spirits to madness: then, like ravenous wolves in night's dark cloud, driven abroad by the blind rage of