A general silence fell; and all gave ear,
while, from his lofty station at the feast,
Father Aeneas with these words began :—
A grief unspeakable thy gracious word,
O sovereign lady, bids my heart live o'er:
how Asia's glory and afflicted throne
the Greek flung down; which woeful scene I saw,
and bore great part in each event I tell.
But O! in telling, what Dolopian churl,
or Myrmidon, or gory follower
of grim Ulysses could the tears restrain?
'T is evening; lo! the dews of night begin
to fall from heaven, and yonder sinking stars
invite to slumber. But if thy heart yearn
to hear in brief of all our evil days
and Troy's last throes, although the memory
makes my soul shudder and recoil in pain,
I will essay it. Wearied of the war,
and by ill-fortune crushed, year after year,
the kings of Greece, by Pallas' skill divine,
build a huge horse, a thing of mountain size,
with timbered ribs of fir. They falsely say
it has been vowed to Heaven for safe return,
and spread this lie abroad. Then they conceal
choice bands of warriors in the deep, dark side,
and fill the caverns of that monstrous womb
with arms and soldiery.
In sight of Troy
lies Tenedos, an island widely famed
and opulent, ere Priam's kingdom fell,
but a poor haven now, with anchorage
not half secure; 't was thitherward they sailed,
and lurked unseen by that abandoned shore.
We deemed them launched away and sailing far,
bound homeward for Mycenae. Teucria then
threw off her grief inveterate; all her gates
swung wide; exultant went we forth, and saw
the Dorian camp untenanted, the siege
abandoned, and the shore without a keel.
“Here!” cried we, “the Dolopian pitched; the host
of fierce Achilles here; here lay the fleet;
and here the battling lines to conflict ran.”
Others, all wonder, scan the gift of doom
by virgin Pallas given, and view with awe
that horse which loomed so large. Thymoetes then
bade lead it through the gates, and set on high
within our citadel,—or traitor he,
or tool of fate in Troy's predestined fall.
But Capys, as did all of wiser heart,
bade hurl into the sea the false Greek gift,
or underneath it thrust a kindling flame
or pierce the hollow ambush of its womb
with probing spear. Yet did the multitude
veer round from voice to voice and doubt of all.
Then from the citadel, conspicuous,
Laocoon, with all his following choir,
hurried indignant down; and from afar
thus hailed the people: “O unhappy men!
What madness this? Who deems our foemen fled?
Think ye the gifts of Greece can lack for guile?
Have ye not known Ulysses? The Achaean
hides, caged in yonder beams; or this is reared
for engin'ry on our proud battlements,
to spy upon our roof-tops, or descend
in ruin on the city. 'T is a snare.
Trust not this horse, O Troy, whate'er it bode!
I fear the Greeks, though gift on gift they bear.”
So saying, he whirled with ponderous javelin
a sturdy stroke straight at the rounded side
of the great, jointed beast. A tremor struck
its towering form, and through the cavernous womb
rolled loud, reverberate rumbling, deep and long.
If heaven's decree, if our own wills, that hour,
had not been fixed on woe, his spear had brought
a bloody slaughter on our ambushed foe,
and Troy were standing on the earth this day!
O Priam's towers, ye were unfallen still!
Cite This Text