“Nor doubt the same success, as when before The Phrygian prophet to these tents I bore, Surprised by night, and forced him to declare In what was placed the fortune of the war, Heaven’s dark decrees, and answers to display, And how to take the town, and where the secret lay: Yet this I compass’d, and from Troy convey’d The fatal image of their guardian maid: That work was mine; for Pallas, though our friend, Yet while she was in Troy, did Troy defend. Now what has Ajax done, or what design’d? A noisy nothing, and an empty wind. If he be what he promises in show, Why was I sent, and why fear’d he to go? Our boasting champion thought the task not light To pass the guards, commit himself to night; Not only through a hostile town to pass, But scale, with steep ascent, the sacred place; With wandering steps to search the citadel, And from the priests their patroness to steal: Then through surrounding foes to force my way, And bear in triumph home the heavenly prey; Which had I not, Ajax in vain had held, Before that monstrous bulk his sevenfold shield.