Then cried a scoffing voice an ominous word: "Why doth a raving tongue of evil speech, Daughter of Priam, make thy lips to cry Words empty as wind? No maiden modesty With purity veils thee: thou art compassed round With ruinous madness; therefore all men scorn Thee, babbler! Hence, thine evil bodings speak To the Argives and thyself! For thee doth wait Anguish and shame yet bitterer than befell Presumptuous Laocoon. Shame it were In folly to destroy the Immortals' gift." So scoffed a Trojan: others in like sort Cried shame on her, and said she spake but lies, Saying that ruin and Fate's heavy stroke Were hard at hand. They knew not their own doom, And mocked, and thrust her back from that huge Horse For fain she was to smite its beams apart, Or burn with ravening fire. She snatched a brand Of blazing pine-wood from the hearth and ran In fury: in the other hand she bare A two-edged halberd: on that Horse of Doom She rushed, to cause the Trojans to behold With their own eyes the ambush hidden there. But straightway from her hands they plucked and flung Afar the fire and steel, and careless turned To the feast; for darkened o'er them their last night. Within the horse the Argives joyed to hear The uproar of Troy's feasters setting at naught Cassandra, but they marvelled that she knew So well the Achaeans' purpose and device. As mid the hills a furious pantheress, Which from the steading hounds and shepherd-folk Drive with fierce rush, with savage heart turns back Even in departing, galled albeit by darts: So from the great Horse fled she, anguish-racked For Troy, for all the ruin she foreknew. BOOK XIII How Troy in the night was taken and sacked with fire and slaughter. So feasted they through Troy, and in their midst Loud pealed the flutes and pipes: on every hand Were song and dance, laughter and cries confused Of banqueters beside the meats and wine. They, lifting in their hands the beakers brimmed, Recklessly drank, till heavy of brain they grew, Till rolled their fluctuant eyes. Now and again Some mouth would babble the drunkard's broken words. The household gear, the very roof and walls Seemed as they rocked: all things they looked on seemed Whirled in wild dance. About their eyes a veil Of mist dropped, for the drunkard's sight is dimmed, And the wit dulled, when rise the fumes to the brain: And thus a heavy-headed feaster cried: "For naught the Danaans mustered that great host Hither! Fools, they have wrought not their intent, But with hopes unaccomplished from our town Like silly boys or women have they fled." So cried a Trojan wit-befogged with wine, Fool, nor discerned destruction at the doors.