Swiftly to folk of Ida. Quick as flame

The rumor ran, ere he the tidings told,

Through wide-wayed Ilium that Hector bold

And his fair bride Andromache, so dear

Already to the town for fame as peer

In beauty of the woman that with hate

They passed upon the street with eyes avert

(The Grecian Helen, whom, as seers assert,

Her name had doomed to be the torch of Troy—

‘Destroyer’), and more dear because the joy