Their whelps at home expect the promised food, And long to temper their dry chaps in blood-- So rushed we forth at once: resolved to die, Resolved, in death, the last extremes to try, We leave the narrow lanes behind, and dare } The unequal combat in the public square: } Night was our friend; our leader was despair. } What tongue can tell the slaughter of that night? What eyes can weep the sorrows and affright? An ancient and imperial city falls; The streets are filled with frequent funerals; Houses and holy temples float in blood, And hostile nations make a common flood. Not only Trojans fall; but, in their turn, The vanquished triumph, and the victors mourn. Ours take new courage from despair and night; Confused the fortune is, confused the fight. All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears; And grisly Death in sundry shapes appears. Androgeos fell among us, with his band, Who thought us Grecians newly come to land. "From whence," said he, "my friends, this long delay? You loiter, while the spoils are borne away: Our ships are laden with the Trojan store; And you, like truants, come too late ashore." He said, but soon corrected his mistake, Found, by the doubtful answers which we make. Amazed, he would have shunned the unequal fight; But we, more numerous, intercept his flight. As when some peasant in a bushy brake, Has with unwary footing pressed a snake; He starts aside, astonished, when he spies } His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes; } So, from our arms, surprised Androgeos flies-- } In vain; for him and his we compass round, } Possessed with fear, unknowing of the ground, } And of their lives an easy conquest found. } Thus Fortune on our first endeavour smiled. Chorœbus then, with youthful hopes beguiled, Swoln with success, and of a daring mind, This new invention fatally designed. "My friends," said he, "since Fortune shows the way, 'Tis fit we should the auspicious guide obey. For what has she these Grecian arms bestowed, But their destruction, and the Trojans' good? Then change we shields, and their devices bear: Let fraud supply the want of force in war. They find us arms." This said, himself he dressed } In dead Androgeos' spoils, his upper vest, } His painted buckler, and his plumy crest. } Thus Ripheus, Dymas, all the Trojan train, Lay down their own attire, and strip the slain. Mixed with the Greeks, we go with ill presage, Flattered with hopes to glut our greedy rage; Unknown, assaulting whom we blindly meet, And strew, with Grecian carcases, the street. Thus while their straggling parties we defeat, Some to the shore and safer ships retreat; And some, oppressed with more ignoble fear,