Recuyell of the Histories of Troy

WHAT did Troy look like?
Nobody knows:
Still by the pasture
Simois flows.

Troy, before fable,
Was actual town:
Still on her rubble
Ida looks down.

Who were her people?
No one is sure:
Yet through the cycles
They shall endure.

Hearts that were dusty
Centuries gone,
Kin by conjecture —
Gnôthi seautón!

Priam was cautious,
Hector was bold,
Men were in love there,
Women grew old.

Purposes covert,
Glamour life lacked,
Show, in the hindsight,
Truer than fact.

Troy, become legend,
Is everyone’s loan,
Funded to satisfy
Debts of our own.

What men made fertile
With anguish and toil,
Proves, for the poet,
Parable soil!