Yet could not, by these prodigies, be broke The plotted charm, or stay’d the fatal stroke; Their swords the assassins in the temple draw: Their murdering hands nor gods nor temples awe; This sacred place their bloody weapons stain, And virtue falls, before the altar slain. ’Twas now fair Cypria, with her woes oppress’d, In raging anguish smote her heavenly breast; Wild with distracting fears, the goddess tried Her hero in the ethereal cloud to hide; The cloud, which youthful Paris did conceal, When Menelaus urged the threat’ning steel; The cloud, which once deceived Tydides’ sight, And saved Aeneas in the unequal fight.