To Thebes the neighb’ring princes all repair, And with condolence the misfortune share. Each bord’ring state in solemn form address’d, And each, betimes, a friendly grief express’d; Argos, with Sparta’s and Mycenae’s towns, And Calydon, yet free from fierce Diana’s frowns; Corinth for finest brass well famed of old; Orchomenos for men of courage bold; Cleonae lying in the lowly dale; And rich Messene with its fertile vale; Pylos for Nestor’s city after famed; And Troezen, not as yet from Pittheus named; And those fair cities, which are hemm’d around By double seas within the Isthmian ground; And those which farther from the seacoast stand, Lodged in the bosom of the spacious land.

Who can believe it? Athens was the last, Though for politeness famed for ages past: For a strait siege, which then their walls enclosed, Such acts of kind humanity opposed: And thick with ships, from foreign nations bound, Seaward their city lay invested round.