THE TAKING OF ILIOS 



Poseidon. And there the foot soldiers went in front, 

 while the horsemen fell behind, in order that the 

 horses might not rouse the people of Troy by their 

 loud neighing. And those others poured from the 

 carven belly of the horse, armed princes, even as bees 

 from an oak : which when they have laboured within 

 the capacious hive, weaving the sweet honeycomb 

 with cmining art, pour from their vaulted nest to the 

 pasture and vex the passing waj'farers with their 

 stings : even so the Danaans undid the bolts of their 

 secret ambush and leapt upon the Trojans and, while 

 they still slept, shrouded them in evil dreams of 

 brazen death. The earth swam with blood, and a 

 cry unceasing arose from the fleeing Trojans, and 

 sacred Ilios was straitened with falling corpses, while 

 those others with murderous tumult raged this way 

 and that, like mad lions, bridging the streets with 

 new-slain bodies. And the Trojan women heard 

 from their roofs and some, still thirsting for beloved 

 liberty, submitted their necks to their wretched 

 husbands for slaughter : mothers over their dear 

 children, like light swallows, made lament : and 

 many a young bride wept for her young husband 

 quivering in his death struggle and was fain to die 

 herself, and willed not to follow in the chains of 

 captivity, but roused to anger her unwilling slayer 

 and won to share the death-bed that was owing to 

 her spouse. And many who bare within them 

 breathless children whose months were not yet 

 ftilfiUed, shed untimely the travail of the womb and 

 died a chilly death, themselves too, with their 

 children. And Enyo," revelling in the drunkenness 

 of urunixed blood, danced all night throughout the 



• Goddess of War. 



()21 



