Chapter II

Then did all Phrygia’s race combine
Through their devoted gates to bear,
Enclosed in the stupendous pine
The fraud of Greece, that latent snare,
To glut Minerva with Dardanian blood,
To pacify th’ immortal maid,
They the huge mass with ropes conveyed:
Thus the tall bark, into the briny flood
Too ponderous to be borne, is rolled along:
Till they had lodged it in th’ ill-omened fane
Of her to whom we owe our ruined country’s bane.
After their toil and festive song,
The cloud-wrapped evening spread
Her veil o’er each devoted head,
Shrill Phrygian voices did resound,
And Libya’s flutes accompanied the choir,
While nymphs high vaulting from the ground,
Mixed their applauses with the chorded lyre,
And from each hearth the flames with radiance bright,
While heedless warriors slept, dispelled the shades of night.