Chapter IV: Troy

Whither, O city, are your profits and your gilded shrines,
And your barbecues of great oxen,
And the tall women walking your streets, in gilt clothes,
With their perfumes in little alabaster boxes?
Where is the work of your home-born sculptors?

Time’s tooth is into the lot, and war’s and fate’s too.
Envy has taken your all,
Save your douth and your story.

_Agathas Scholasticus._