Fresh wonder seized us, and we shook with fear. / All say, that justly had Laocoon died, / and paid fit penalty, whose guilty spear / profaned the steed and pierced the sacred side.

'Tis war thou bringest us," Anchises cries, / strange land! For war the mettled steed they train, / and war these threaten. Yet in time again / these beasts are wont in harness to obey, / and bear the yoke, as guided by the rein. / Peace yet is hopeful."

Nor lacks my sire his presents; for the rest / steeds, guides and arms he finds, and oarsmen of the best.

When lo, before him in the wood appears / his mother, in a virgin's arms arrayed, / in form and habit of a Spartan maid, / or like Harpalyce, the pride of Thrace, / who tires swift steeds, and scours the woodland glade, / and outstrips rapid Hebrus in the race. / So fair the goddess seemed, apparelled for the chase.

Lo, here, first omen offered to our eyes, / four snow-white steeds are grazing on the plain.

An irresistible temptation came to me to imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed.

So sank the furious wave, / when through the clear sky looking o'er the main, / the sea-king lashed his steeds and slacked the favouring rein.

Not far, with tears, the snowy tents he knew / of Rhesus, where Tydides, bathed in blood, / broke in at midnight with his murderous crew, / and drove the hot steeds campward, ere the food / of Trojan plains they browsed, or drank the Xanthian flood.

The king mounted his horse, and, taking his worthless daughter behind him, set off at a gallop, the incoming flood seething and boiling at his steed’s fetlocks.

Whoe'er thou art, henceforward blot from mind / the Greeks, and leave thy miseries behind. / Ours shalt thou be; but mark, and tell me now, / what means this monster, for what use designed? / Some warlike engine? or religious vow? / Who planned the steed, and why? Come, quick, the truth avow."