Withstood their passage home, and chang’d their minds.

Portents and prodigies their souls amaz’d;

But most, when this stupendous pile was rais’d:

Then flaming meteors, hung in air, were seen.

And thunders rattled through a sky serene.

Dismay’d, and fearful of some dire event,

Eurypylus, to’ inquire their fate, was sent.

He from the gods this dreadful answer brought:

‘O Grecians, when the Trojan shores you sought,

Your passage with a virgin’s blood was bought:

So must your safe return be bought again;

And Grecian blood once more atone the main.’

The spreading rumour round the people ran;

All fear’d, and each believ’d himself the man.

Ulysses took the’ advantage of their fright;

Call’d Calchas, and produc’d in open sight,

Then bade him name the wretch, ordain’d by fate

The public victim, to redeem the state.

Already some presag’d the dire event,

And saw what sacrifice Ulysses meant.

For twice five days the good old seer withstood

The’ intended treason, and was dumb to blood,

Till, tir’d with endless clamours and pursuit

Of Ithacus, he stood no longer mute,

But, as it was agreed, pronounc’d that I

Was destin’d by the wrathful gods to die.

All prais’d the sentence, pleas’d the storm should fall

On one alone, whose fury threaten’d all.

The dismal day was come: the priests prepare

Their leaven’d cakes, and fillets for my hair.

I follow’d nature’s laws, and must avow,

I broke my bonds, and fled the fatal blow.

Hid in a weedy lake all night I lay,

Secure of safety when they sail’d away.

But now what further hopes for me remain,

To see my friends or native soil again:

My tender infants, or my careful sire,

Whom they returning will to death require;

Will perpetrate on them their first design,

And take the forfeit of their heads for mine?

Which, O! if pity mortal minds can move,

If there be faith below, or gods above,

If innocence and truth can claim desert,

Ye Trojans, from an injur’d wretch avert.’

False tears true pity move: the king commands

To loose his fetters, and unbind his hands,

Then adds these friendly words: ‘Dismiss thy fears:

Forget the Greeks: be mine as thou wert theirs;

But truly tell, was it for force or guile,

Or some religious end, you rais’d the pile?’

Thus said the king.—He, full of fraudful arts,

This well-invented tale for truth imparts:

‘Ye lamps of heaven! (he said, and lifted high

His hands now free)—thou venerable sky!

Inviolable powers, ador’d with dread!

Ye fatal fillets, that once bound this head!

Ye sacred altars, from whose flames I fled!

Be all of you adjur’d; and grant I may,

Without a crime, the’ ungrateful Greeks betray,

Reveal the secrets of the guilty state,

And justly punish whom I justly hate!