Aeneid

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!

But, lo! with hands fast bound behind, a youth

by clamorous Dardan shepherds haled along,

was brought before our king,—to this sole end

a self-surrendered captive, that he might,

although a nameless stranger, cunningly

deliver to the Greek the gates of Troy.

His firm-set mind flinched not from either goal,—

success in crime, or on swift death to fall.

The thronging Trojan youth made haste his way

from every side, all eager to see close

their captive's face, and clout with emulous scorn.

Hear now what Greek deception is, and learn

from one dark wickedness the whole. For he,

a mark for every eye, defenceless, dazed,

stood staring at our Phrygian hosts, and cried:

“Woe worth the day! What ocean or what shore

will have me now? What desperate path remains

for miserable me? Now have I lost

all foothold with the Greeks, and o'er my head

Troy's furious sons call bloody vengeance down.”

Such groans and anguish turned all rage away

and stayed our lifted hands. We bade him tell

his birth, his errand, and from whence might be

such hope of mercy for a foe in chains.

Then fearing us no more, this speech he dared:

“O King! I will confess, whate'er befall,

the whole unvarnished truth. I will not hide

my Grecian birth. Yea, thus will I begin.

For Fortune has brought wretched Sinon low;

but never shall her cruelty impair

his honor and his truth. Perchance the name

of Palamedes, Belus' glorious son,

has come by rumor to your listening ears;

whom by false witness and conspiracy,

because his counsel was not for this war,

the Greeks condemned, though guiltless, to his death,

and now make much lament for him they slew.

I, his companion, of his kith and kin,

sent hither by my humble sire's command,

followed his arms and fortunes from my youth.

Long as his throne endured, and while he throve

in conclave with his kingly peers, we twain

some name and lustre bore; but afterward,

because that cheat Ulysses envied him

(Ye know the deed), he from this world withdrew,

and I in gloom and tribulation sore

lived miserably on, lamenting loud

my lost friend's blameless fall. A fool was I

that kept not these lips closed; but I had vowed

that if a conqueror home to Greece I came,

I would avenge. Such words moved wrath, and were

the first shock of my ruin; from that hour,

Ulysses whispered slander and alarm;

breathed doubt and malice into all men's ears,

and darkly plotted how to strike his blow.

Nor rest had he, till Calchas, as his tool,-

but why unfold this useless, cruel story?

Why make delay? Ye count all sons of Greece