O th'inchaunting words of that base slave,
Made him to thinke Epeus pine-tree Horse
A sacrifize t'appease Minervas wrath:
The rather for that one Laocoon
Breaking a speare upon his hollow breast,
Was with two winged Serpents stung to death.
Whereat agast, we were commanded straight
With reverence to draw it into Troy.
In which unhappie worke was I employd,
These hands did helpe to hale it to the gates,
Through which it could not enter twas so huge.
O had it never entred, Troy had stood.
But Priamus impatient of delay,
Inforst a wide breach in that rampierd wall,
Which thousand battering Rams could never pierce,
And so came in this fatall instrument:
At whose accursed feete as overjoyed,
We banquetted till overcome with wine,
Some surfetted, and others soundly slept.
Which Sinon viewing, causde the Greekish spyes
To hast to Tenedos and tell the Campe:
Then he unlockt the Horse, and suddenly
From out his entrailes, Neoptolemus
Setting his speare upon the ground, leapt forth,
And after him a thousand Grecians more,
In whose sterne faces shin'd the quenchles fire,
That after burnt the pride of Asia.
By this the Campe was come unto the walles,
And through the breach did march into the streetes,
Where meeting with the rest, kill kill they cryed.
Frighted with this confused noyse, I rose,
And looking from a turret, might behold
Yong infants swimming in their parents bloud,
Headles carkasses piled up in heapes,
Virgins halfe dead dragged by their golden haire,
And with maine force flung on a ring of pikes,
Old men with swords thrust through their aged sides,
Kneeling for mercie to a Greekish lad,
Who with steele Pol-axes dasht out their braines.
Then buckled I mine armour, drew my sword,
And thinking to goe downe, came Hectors ghost
With ashie visage, blewish sulphure eyes,
His armes torne from his shoulders, and his breast
Furrowd with wounds, and that which made me weepe,
Thongs at his heeles, by which Achilles horse
Drew him in triumph through the Greekish Campe,
Burst from the earth, crying, Aeneas fiye,
Troy is a fire, the Grecians have the towne.
