LXVIII. "Feigning mock orgies, round the town she led Troy's dames, with shrieks that rent the midnight air, And, armed with blazing cresset, at their head Bright from the watch-tower made the signal flare, That called the Danaan foemen from their lair. I, sunk in sleep, the fatal couch had pressed, Worn out with watching, and weighed down with care, And, calm and deep, Death's image, gentle Rest Crept o'er the wearied limbs, and stilled the troubled breast. LXIX. "Meanwhile, all arms the traitress, as I slept, Stole from the house, and from beneath my head She took the trusty falchion, that I kept To guard the chamber and the bridal bed. Then, creeping to the door, with stealthy tread, She lifts the latch, and beckons from within To Menelaus; so, forsooth, she fled In hopes a lover's gratitude to win, And from the past wipe out the scandal of old sin. LXX. "O noble wife! But why the tale prolong? Few words were best; my chamber they invade, They and Ulysses, counsellor of wrong. Heaven! be these horrors on the Greeks repaid, If pious lips for just revenge have prayed. But thou, make answer, and in turn explain What brought thee, living, to these realms of shade? By heaven's command, or wandering o'er the main, Com'st thou to view these shores, this sunless, sad domain?" LXXI. So they in converse haply had the day Consumed, when, rosy-charioted, the Morn O'erpassed mid heaven on her ethereal way, And thus the Sibyl doth the Dardan warn: "Night lowers apace; we linger but to mourn. Here part the roads; beyond the walls of Dis _There_ lies for us Elysium; leftward borne Thou comest to Tartarus, in whose drear abyss Poor sinners purge with pains the lives they lived amiss." LXXII. "Spare, priestess," cried Deiphobus, "thy wrath; I will depart, and fill the tale, and hide In darkness. Thou, with happier fates, go forth, Our glory."--Sudden, from the Dardan's side He fled. Back looked AEneas, and espied Broad bastions, girt with triple wall, that frowned Beneath a rock to leftward, and the tide Of torrent Phlegethon, that flamed around, And made the beaten rocks rebellow with the sound. LXXIII. In front, a massive gateway threats the sky, And posts of solid adamant upstay An iron tower, firm-planted to defy All force, divine or human. Night and day, Sleepless Tisiphone defends the way, Girt up with bloody garments. From within Loud groans are heard, and wailings of dismay, The whistling scourge, the fetter's clank and din, Shrieks, as of tortured fiends, and all the sounds of sin.