Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/89

 what sight in all the ruin of the city made my heart bleed more? Ascanius and Anchises my father and the Teucrian household gods I give to my comrades' care, and lodge them in the winding glade. I repair again to the city and don my shining armour. My mind is set to try every     5 hazard again, and retrace my path through the whole of Troy, and expose my life to peril once more. First I repair again to the city walls, and the gate's dark entry by which I had passed out. I track and follow my footsteps back through the night, and traverse the ground     10 with my eye. Everywhere my sense is scared by the horror, scared by the very stillness. Next I betake me home, in the hope, the faint hope that she may have turned her steps thither. The Danaans had broken in and were lodged in every chamber. All is over—the greedy flame     15 is wafted by the wind to the roof, the fire towers triumphant—the glow streams madly heavenwards. I pass on, and look again at Priam's palace and the citadel. There already in the empty cloisters, yes, in Juno's sanctuary, chosen guards, Phœnix and Ulysses the terrible, were     20 watching the spoil. Here are gathered the treasures of Troy torn from blazing shrines, tables of gods, bowls of solid gold, and captive vestments in one great heap. Boys and mothers stand trembling all about in long array.

"Nay, I was emboldened even to fling random cries     25 through the darkness. I filled the streets with shouts, and in my agony called again and again on my Creusa with unavailing iteration. As I was thus making my search and raving unceasingly the whole city through, the hapless shade, the spectre of my own Creusa appeared in my      30 presence—a likeness larger than the life. I was aghast, my hair stood erect, my tongue clove to my mouth, while she began to address me thus, and relieve my trouble with words like these: 'Whence this strange pleasure in indulging frantic grief, my darling husband? It is      35 not without Heaven's will that these things are happening: that you should carry your Creusa with you on your journey is forbidden by fate, forbidden by the mighty ruler