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BOOK II.
53

Fell Ajax and the Atridan pair
And all Thessalia's host were there:
As when the tempest sounds alarms,
And winds conflicting rush to arms,
Notus and Zephyr join the war,
And Eurus in his orient car:
The lashed woods howl: hoar Nereus raves,
And troubles all his realm of waves.
They too, whom erst in dusk of night
Our cunning practice turned to flight,
Come forth: our lying arms they know,
And in our tones perceive a foe.
At once they crush us, swarm on swarm:
And first beneath Peneleos' arm,
The warlike goddess' shrine before,
Corœbus welters in his gore.
Then Rhipeus dies: no purer son
Troy ever bred, more jealous none
Of sacred right: Heaven's will be done.
Dymas and Hypanis are slain,
By comrades cruelly mista'en;
Nor pious deed, nor Phœbus' wreath,
Could save thee, Panthus, from thy death.
Ye embers of expiring Troy,
Ye funeral flames of all my joy,
Bear witness, in your dying glow,
I shunned nor dart nor fronting foe,
And had it been my fate to bleed,
My hand had earned the doom decreed.
Thence forced, to other scenes we flee,
Pelias and Iphitus with me,
This laden with his years and slow,
That halting from Ulysses' blow:
For hark! the growing tumult calls
For rescue to the palace halls.