It is not for men to trust unwilling gods. Cassandra was being dragged from Pallas’ temple, Her hair loosed to the wind, her eyes turned upward To heaven for mercy; they had bound her hands. Coroebus could not bear that sight; in madness He threw himself upon them, and he died. We followed, all of us, into the thick of it, And were cut down, not only by Greeks; the rooftops, Held by our friends, rained weapons: we were wearing Greek crests and armor, and they did not know us. And the Greeks came on, shouting with anger, burning To foil that rescue; there was Menelaus, And Agamemnon, and the savage Ajax, And a whole army of them. Hurricanes Rage the same way, when winds from different quarters Clash in the sky, and the forest groans, and Neptune Storms underneath the ocean. Those we routed Once in the dark came back again from the byways And alleys of the town; they mark our shields, Our lying weapons, and our foreign voices. Of course we are outnumbered. Peneleus It was, who slew Coroebus, at the altar Sacred to Pallas. Ripheus fell, a man Most just of all the Trojans, most fair-minded. The gods thought otherwise. Hypanis, Dymas, Were slain by their own men, and Panthus’ goodness Was no protection, nor his priestly office. I call to witness Troy, her fires, her ashes, And the last agonies of all our people That in that hour I ran from no encounter With any Greek, and if the fates had been For me to fall in battle, there I earned it. The current swept me off, with two companions, One, Iphitus, too slow with age, the other, Pelias, limping from Ulysses’ wound. The noise kept calling us to Priam’s palace.