To bring my house due tribute, year by year,Then, never lagging, crossed the Pontus mouth,Marched by long stages through Bithynia southAnd here am come . . . not drunken with the feast,As thou wouldst have me be, not lulled to restIn golden chambers. In this harness hardI have borne my nights of winter storm that starredThe Euxine into ice and scared the strongPaionians. Long I have been, but not too longTo save thee yet. Friend, this is the tenth yearThou labourest on unceasing, with no clearVantage; day creeps by day, and Ares throwsThe same red dice for thee and for thy foes.Now, hear my vow. Before one day’s eclipseI swear to break their wall, to burn their shipsAnd slay their princes. On the second dayI leave this soil and take my homeward way,Thy pains relieved. No Trojan of the landNeed move, nor turn the buckler in his hand.Alone my late-comers will turn the tide