Yet how, we hear no news.
AENEAS. A woeful tale bids Dido to unfold,
Whose memory, like pale Death's stony mace,
Beats forth my senses from this troubled soul
And makes Aeneas sink at Dido's feet.
DIDO. What, faints Aeneas to remember Troy,
In whose defence he fought so valiantly?
Look up and speak.
AENEAS. Then speak, Aeneas, with Achilles' tongue,
And Dido and you Carthaginian peers
Daily inured to broils and massacres,
Lest you be moved too much with my sad tale.
The Grecian soldiers, tired with ten years' war,
Began to cry, "let us unto our ships,
Troy is invincible. Why stay we here?"
With whose outcries Atrides being appalled,
Summoned the captains to his princely tent,
Who, looking on the scars we Trojans gave,
Seeing the number of their men decreased
And the remainder weak and out of heart,
Gave up their voices to dislodge the camp.
And so in troops all marched to Tenedos,
Where when they came, Ulysses on the sand
Assayed with honey words to turn them back.
And as he spoke to further his intent,
The winds did drive huge billows to the shore,
And heaven was darkened with tempestuous clouds.
Then he alleged the gods would have them stay,
And prophesied Troy should be overcome;
And therewithal he called false Sinon forth,
A man compact of craft and perjury,
Whose ticing tongue was made of Hermes' pipe,
To force an hundred watchful eyes to sleep.
And him, Epeus having made the horse,
With sacrificing wreaths upon his head,
Ulysses sent to our unhappy town,
Who, grovelling in the mire of Xanthus' banks,
His hands bound at his back, and both his eyes
Turned up to heaven, as one resolved to die,
Our Phrygian shepherds haled within the gates
And brought unto the court of Priamus,
To whom he used action so pitiful,
Looks so remorseful, vows so forcible,
As therewithal the old man, overcome,
Kissed him, embraced him, and unloosed his bands.
And then - O Dido, pardon me!
DIDO. Nay, leave not here. Resolve me of the rest.
AENEAS. O, th' enchanting words of that base slave
Made him to think Epeus' pine tree horse
A sacrifice t' appease Minerva's wrath,
The rather, for that one Laocoon,
Breaking a spear upon his hollow breast,
Was with two winged serpents stung to death.
Whereat aghast, we were commanded straight
With reverence to draw it into Troy,
In which unhappy work was I employed.
These hands did help to hale it to the gates,
Through which it could not enter, 'twas so huge.
O, had it never entered, Troy had stood!
But Priamus, impatient of delay,
Enforced a wide breach in that rampired wall,
Which thousand battering rams could never pierce,
And so came in this fatal instrument;
At whose accursed feet, as overjoyed,
We banqueted till, overcome with wine,
Some surfeited and others soundly slept.
Which Sinon viewing, caused the Greekish spies
To haste to Tenedos, and tell the camp.
Then he unlocked the horse, and suddenly
From out his entrails Neoptolemus,
Setting his spear upon the ground, leaped forth,
And after him a thousand Grecians more,
In whose stern faces shined the quenchless fire
That after burnt the pride of Asia.
By this, the camp was come unto the walls,
And through the breach did march into the streets,
Where, meeting with the rest, "kill, kill," they cried.
Frighted with this confused noise, I rose,
And looking from a turret, might behold
Young infants swimming in their parents' blood,
Headless carcasses piled up in heaps,
Virgins half-dead, dragged by their golden hair
And with main force flung on a ring of pikes,
Old men with swords thrust through their aged sides,
Kneeling for mercy to a Greekish lad,
Who with steel poleaxes dashed out their brains.
Then buckled I mine armour, drew my sword,
And thinking to go down, came Hector's ghost,
With ashy visage, bluish sulphur eyes,
His arms torn from his shoulders, and his breast
Furrowed with wounds, and, that which made me weep,
Thongs at his heels, by which Achilles' horse
Drew him in triumph through the Greekish camp,
Burst from the earth, crying "Aeneas, fly!
Troy is afire! The Grecians have the town!"
DIDO.