LVII. "O'erwhelmed with odds, we perish; first of all,
Struck down by fierce Peneleus by the fane
Of warlike Pallas, doth Coroebus fall.
Next, Rhipeus dies, the justest, but in vain,
The noblest soul of all the Trojan train.
Heaven deemed him otherwise; then Dymas brave
And Hypanis by comrades' hands are slain.
Nor, Panthus, thee thy piety can save,		505
Nor e'en Apollo's wreath preserve thee from the grave.
LVIII. "Witness, ye ashes of our comrades dear,
Ye flames of Troy, that in your hour of woe
Nor darts I shunned, nor shock of Danaan spear.
If Fate my life had called me to forego,
This hand had earned it, forfeit to the foe.
Thence forced away, brave Iphitus, and I,
And Pelias,—Iphitus with age was slow,
And Pelias by Ulysses lamed—we fly		514
Where round the palace rings the war-shout's rallying cry.
LIX. "There raged a fight so fierce, as though no fight
Raged elsewhere, nor the city streamed with gore.
We see the War-God glorying in his might;
Up to the roof we see the Danaans pour;
Their shielded penthouse drives against the door.
Close cling their ladders to the walls; these, fain
To clutch the doorposts, climb from floor to floor,
Their right hands strive the battlements to gain,		523
Their left with lifted shield the arrowy storm sustain.
LX. "There, roof and pinnacle the Dardans tear—
Death standing near—and hurl them on the foe,
Last arms of need, the weapons of despair;
And gilded beams and rafters down they throw,
Ancestral ornaments of days ago.
These, stationed at the gates, with naked glaive,
Shoulder to shoulder, guard the pass below.
Hearts leap afresh the royal halls to save,		532
And cheer our vanquished friends and reinspire the brave.

LXI. "Behind the palace, unobserved and free,
There stood a door, a secret thoroughfare
Through Priam's halls. Here poor [Andromache]
While Priam's kingdom flourished and was fair,
To greet her husband's parents would repair
Alone, or carrying with tendance fain
To Hector's father Hector's son and heir.
By this I reached the roof-top, whence in vain		541
The luckless Teucrians hurled their unavailing rain.
LXII. "Sheer o'er the highest roof-top to the sky,
Skirting the parapet, a watch-tower rose,
Whence camp and fleet and city met the eye.
Here plying levers, where the flooring shows
Weak joists, we heave it over. Down it goes
With sudden crash upon the Danaan train,
Dealing wide ruin. But anon new foes
Come swarming up, while ever and again		550
Fast fall the showers of stones, and thick the javelins rain.

LXIII. "Just on the threshold of the porch, behold
Fierce [Pyrrhus] stands, in glittering brass bedight:
As when a snake, that through the winter's cold
Lay swoln and hidden in the ground from sight,
Gorged with rank herbs, forth issues to the light,
And sleek with shining youth and newly drest,
Wreathing its slippery volumes, towers upright
And, glorying, to the sunbeam rears its breast,		559
And darts a three-forked tongue, and points a flaming crest.
LXIV. "With him, Achilles' charioteer and squire,
Automedon, huge Periphas and all
The Scyrian youth rush up, and flaming fire
Hurl to the roof, and thunder at the wall.
He in the forefront, tallest of the tall,
Poleaxe in hand, unhinging at a stroke
The brazen portals, made the doorway fall,
And wide-mouthed as a window, through the oak,		568
A panelled plank hewn out, a yawning rent he broke.