LXIV. All throng around, nor rest content to claim
One look, but linger with delight, and fain
Would pace beside, and question why he came.
But when the Greeks and Agamemnon's train
Beheld the hero, and his arms shone plain,
Huge terror shook them, and some turned to fly,
As erst they scattered to their ships; some strain
Their husky voice, and raise a feeble cry.		568
The warshout mocks their throats, the gibbering accents die.
LXV. There, too, he sees great Priam's son, the famed
Deiphobus, in evil plight forlorn;
A mangled shape, his visage marred and maimed.
His ravaged face the ruthless steel had torn,—
Face, nose and ears—and both his hands were shorn.
Him, cowering back, and striving to disown
The shameful tokens of his foemen's scorn,
Scarcely Æneas knew, then, soon as known,		577
Thus, unaccosted, hailed in old, familiar tone:
LXVI. "O brave Deiphobus, great Teucer's seed!
Whose heart had will, whose cruel hand had might
To wreak such punishment? Fame told, indeed,
That, tired with slaughter, thou had'st sunk that night
On heaps of mingled carnage in the fight.
Then on the shore I reared an empty mound,
And called (thy name and armour mark the site)
Thy shade. Thyself, dear comrade, ne'er was found.		586
Vain was my parting wish to lay thee in the ground."
LXVII. "Not thine the fault"; Deiphobus replied,
"Thy debt is rendered; thou hast dealt aright.
Fate, and the baseness of a Spartan bride
Wrought this; behold the tokens of her spite.
Thou know'st—too well must thou recall—that night
Passed in vain pleasure and delusive joy,
What time the fierce Steed, with a bound of might,
Big with armed warriors, eager to destroy,		595
Leaped o'er the wall, and scaled the citadel of Troy.
LXVIII. "Feigning mock orgies, round the town she led
Troy's dames, with shrieks that rent the midnight air,
And, armed with blazing cresset, at their head
Bright from the watch-tower made the signal flare,
That called the Danaan foemen from their lair.
I, sunk in sleep, the fatal couch had pressed,
Worn out with watching, and weighed down with care,
And, calm and deep, Death's image, gentle Rest		604
Crept o'er the wearied limbs, and stilled the troubled breast.
LXIX. "Meanwhile, all arms the traitress, as I slept,
Stole from the house, and from beneath my head
She took the trusty falchion, that I kept
To guard the chamber and the bridal bed.
Then, creeping to the door, with stealthy tread,
She lifts the latch, and beckons from within
To Menelaus; so, forsooth, she fled
In hopes a lover's gratitude to win,		613
And from the past wipe out the scandal of old sin.
LXX. "O noble wife! But why the tale prolong?
Few words were best; my chamber they invade,
They and Ulysses, counsellor of wrong.
Heaven! be these horrors on the Greeks repaid,
If pious lips for just revenge have prayed.
But thou, make answer, and in turn explain
What brought thee, living, to these realms of shade?
By heaven's command, or wandering o'er the main,		622
Com'st thou to view these shores, this sunless, sad domain?"
LXXI. So they in converse haply had the day
Consumed, when, rosy-charioted, the Morn
O'erpassed mid heaven on her ethereal way,
And thus the Sibyl doth the Dardan warn:
"Night lowers apace; we linger but to mourn.
Here part the roads; beyond the walls of Dis
There lies for us Elysium; leftward borne
Thou comest to Tartarus, in whose drear abyss		631
Poor sinners purge with pains the lives they lived amiss."

LXXII. "Spare, priestess," cried Deiphobus, "thy wrath;
I will depart, and fill the tale, and hide
In darkness. Thou, with happier fates, go forth,
Our glory."—Sudden, from the Dardan's side
He fled. Back looked Æneas, and espied
Broad bastions, girt with triple wall, that frowned
Beneath a rock to leftward, and the tide
Of torrent Phlegethon, that flamed around,		640
And made the beaten rocks rebellow with the sound.