LXXIV. "'Go then,' cries Pyrrhus, 'with thy tale of woe
To dead Pelides, and thy plaints outpour.
To him, my father, in the shades below,
These deeds of his degenerate son deplore;
Now die!'—So speaking, to the shrine he tore
The aged Priam, trembling with affright,
And feebly sliding in his son's warm gore.
The left hand twists his hoary locks; the right		658
Deep in his side drives home the falchion, bared and bright.
LXXV. "Such close had Priam's fortunes; so his days
Were finished, such the bitter end he found,
Now doomed by Fate with dying eyes to gaze
On Troy in flames and ruin all around,
And Pergamus laid level with the ground.
Lo, he to whom once Asia bowed the knee,
Proud lord of many peoples, far-renowned,
Now left to welter by the rolling sea,		667
A huge and headless trunk, a nameless corpse is he.

LXXVI. "Grim horror seized me, and aghast I stood.
Uprose the image of my father dear,
As there I see the monarch, bathed in blood,
Like him in prowess and in age his peer.
Uprose [Creusa,] desolate and drear,
[Iulus'] peril, and a plundered home.
I look around for comrades; none are near.
Some o'er the battlements leapt headlong, some		676
Sank fainting in the flames; the final hour was come.

LXXVII. "I stood alone, when lo, in Vesta's fane
I see [Tyndarean Helen,] crouching down.
Bright shone the blaze around me, as in vain
I tracked my comrades through the burning town.
There, mute, and, as the traitress deemed, unknown,
Dreading the Danaan's vengeance, and the sword
Of Trojans, wroth for Pergamus o'erthrown,
Dreading the anger of her injured lord,		685
Sat Troy's and Argos' fiend, twice hateful and abhorred.
LXXVIII. "Then, fired with passion and revenge, I burn
To quit Troy's downfall and exact the fee
Such crimes deserve. Sooth, then, shall she return
To Sparta and Mycenæ, ay, and see
Home, husband, sons and parents, safe and free,
With Ilian wives and Phrygians in her train,
A queen, in pride of triumph? Shall this be,
And Troy have blazed and Priam's self been slain,		694
And Trojan blood so oft have soaked the Dardan plain?
LXXIX. "Not so; though glory wait not on the act;
Though poor the praise, and barren be the gain,
Vengeance on feeble woman to exact,
Yet praised hereafter shall his name remain,
Who purges earth of such a monstrous stain.
Sweet is the passion of vindictive joy,
Sweet is the punishment, where just the pain,
Sweet the fierce ardour of revenge to cloy,		703
And slake with Dardan blood the funeral flames of Troy.

LXXX. "So mused I, blind with anger, when in light
Apparent, never so refulgent seen,
My mother dawned irradiate on the night,
Confessed a Goddess, such her form, and mien
And starry stature of celestial sheen.
With her right hand she grasped me from above,
And thus with roseate lips: 'O son, what mean
These transports? Say, what bitter grief doth move		712
Thy soul to rage untamed? Where vanished is thy love?