profaned the sacred oak and hurled into its body the accursed spear. ‘Draw the image to her house,’ all cry, ‘and supplicate her godhead.’ � We part the walls and lay bare the city’s battlements. All gird themselves for the work; under the feet they place gliding wheels, and about the neck stretch hemp bands. The fateful engine climbs our walls, big with arms. Around it boys and unwedded girls chant holy songs and delight to touch the cable with their hands.

Up it moves, and glides threatening into the city’s midst. O my country! O Ilium, home of gods, and you Dardan battlements, famed in war! Four times at the gates’ very threshold it halted, and four times from its belly the armour clashed; yet we press on, heedless and blind with rage, and set the ill-omened monster on our