A curse they nursed for their own undoing,

A mouth by which their own friends shall perish;

A servant of Até, a priest of Ruin,[n60]

Some god hath taught them to cherish.

STROPHE III.

Thus to Troy came a bride of the Spartan race,

With a beauty as bland as a windless calm,

Prosperity’s gentlest grace;

And mild was love’s blossom that rayed from her eye,

The soft-winged dart that with pleasing pain