“O more than man! thy soul the muse inspires,

Or Phœbus animates with all his fires;

For who, by Phœbus uninform’d, could know

The woe of Greece, and sing so well the woe?

Just to the tale, as present at the fray,

Or taught the labours of the dreadful day:

The song recalls past horrors to my eyes,

And bids proud Ilion from her ashes rise.

Once more harmonious strike the sounding string,

The Epaean fabric, framed by Pallas, sing:

How stern Ulysses, furious to destroy,

With latent heroes sack’d imperial Troy.

If faithful thou record the tale of Fame,

The god himself inspires thy breast with flame

And mine shall be the task henceforth to raise

In every land thy monument of praise.”


Full of the god he raised his lofty strain:

How the Greeks rush’d tumultuous to the main;

How blazing tents illumined half the skies,

While from the shores the winged navy flies;

How e’en in Ilion’s walls, in deathful bands,

Came the stern Greeks by Troy’s assisting hands:

All Troy up-heaved the steed; of differing mind,

Various the Trojans counsell’d: part consign’d

The monster to the sword, part sentence gave

To plunge it headlong in the whelming wave;

The unwise award to lodge it in the towers,

An offering sacred to the immortal powers:

The unwise prevail, they lodge it in the walls,

And by the gods’ decree proud Ilion falls:

Destruction enters in the treacherous wood,

And vengeful slaughter, fierce for human blood.


He sung the Greeks stern-issuing from the steed,

How Ilion burns, how all her fathers bleed;

How to thy dome, Deiphobus! ascends

The Spartan king; how Ithacus attends

(Horrid as Mars); and how with dire alarms

He fights—subdues, for Pallas strings his arms


Thus while he sung, Ulysses’ griefs renew,

Tears bathe his cheeks, and tears the ground bedew

As some fond matron views in mortal fight

Her husband falling in his country’s right;

Frantic through clashing swords she runs, she flies,