“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 lawless hunger, with their cubs left at home waiting their return with parched jaws, among javelins, among foemen, on we go with no uncertain fate before us, keeping our way through the heart of the town, while night flaps over us its dark, overshadowing wings. Who could unfold in 5 speech the carnage, the horrors of that night, or make his tears keep pace with our suffering? It is an ancient city, falling from the height where she queened it many a year; and heaps of unresisting bodies are lying confusedly in the streets, in the houses, on the hallowed steps of temples. 10 Nor is it on Teucer’s sons alone that bloody vengeance lights. There are times when even the vanquished feel courage rushing back to their hearts, and the conquering Danaans fall. Everywhere is relentless agony; everywhere terror, and the vision of death in many a manifestation. 15