P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid
Theodore C. Williams, Ed.

The skies rolled on; and o'er the ocean fell
the veil of night, till utmost earth and heaven
and all their Myrmidonian stratagems
were mantled darkly o'er. In silent sleep
the Trojan city lay; dull slumber chained
its weary life. But now the Greek array
of ordered ships moved on from Tenedos,
their only light the silent, favoring moon,
on to the well-known strand. The King displayed
torch from his own ship, and Sinon then,
whom wrathful Heaven defended in that hour,
let the imprisoned band of Greeks go free
from that huge womb of wood; the open horse
restored them to the light; and joyfully
emerging from the darkness, one by one,
princely Thessander, Sthenelus, and dire
Ulysses glided down the swinging cord.
Closely upon them Neoptolemus,
the son of Peleus, came, and Acamas,
King Menelaus, Thoas and Machaon,
and last, Epeus, who the fabric wrought.
Upon the town they fell, for deep in sleep
and drowsed with wine it lay; the sentinels
they slaughtered, and through gates now opened wide
let in their fellows, and arrayed for war
th' auxiliar legions of the dark design.