Virgil - Book 2 - Lines 615-656 lyrics

There- on the citadel Athena flashes Her ruthless Gorgon shield through burning cloud. Our father fills the Greeks with winning courage Himself- he rouses gods against your troops. Stop struggling and lay hold of your escape. I'll take you safely to your household door.' She hid away then in the night's thick mist. Before me stood grim shapes, great deities Hostile to Troy. Truly, I saw the whole of Troy collapsing In flames, and Neptune's city overthrown, Like an ancient mountain ash that several farmers Hack with unresting axes in a contest To tear it loose. It menaces, its leaves Tremble and dip when its high top is shaken. Wounds slowly weaken it. It gives a last groan, Rips loose, drags devastation down the hillside. Some god then led me from the roof, released me From flames and weapons- all of these gave way. When I arrived at my ancestral house, Seeking my father first, and keen to to take him Into the towering hills before the others, He said he could not live past Troy's extinction, Would not bear the exile. "You, with youth unbroken, And hearty blood in staunch and solid bodies, Hurry, escape. If those above had wanted me to live, They would have saved my city. I've survived One captured, fallen Troy - it is enough. Say your farewell: this is my funeral. Some plunderer will show me mercy, ending My life. To lie unburied is a small loss. Uselessly, hated by the gods, I linger Since heaven's father and the king of men Blasted me with his fire and windy thunder." These were his stubborn words. He would not move. In tears we begged him - I, my wife Creusa, My son, and all our house- not to bring down Everything with him, making our fate harder. But he refused, fixed in his plans and place. My wretched urge was war again, and d**h. Nothing in life remained to me but these.