Then something greater and more terrible befalls
us wretches and stirs our unsuspecting souls.
Laocoön, chosen by lot as priest of Neptune,
was sacrificing a huge bull at the customary altar.
See, a pair of serpents with huge coils, snaking over the sea
from Tenedos through the tranquil deep (I shudder to tell it),
and heading for the shore side by side: their fronts lift high
over the tide, and their blood-red crests top the waves,
the rest of their body slides through the ocean behind,
and their huge backs arch in voluminous folds.
There’s a roar from the foaming sea: now they reach the shore,
and with burning eyes suffused with blood and fire,
lick at their hissing jaws with flickering tongues.
Blanching at the sight we scatter. They move
on a set course towards Laocoön: and first each serpent
entwines the slender bodies of his two sons,
and biting at them, devours their wretched limbs:
then as he comes to their aid, weapons in hand, they seize him too,
and wreathe him in massive coils: now encircling his waist twice,
twice winding their scaly folds around his throat,
their high necks and heads tower above him.
He strains to burst the knots with his hands,
his sacred headband drenched in blood and dark venom,
while he sends terrible shouts up to the heavens,
like the bellowing of a bull that has fled wounded
from the altar, shaking the useless axe from its neck.
But the serpent pair escape, slithering away to the high temple,
and seek the stronghold of fierce Pallas, to hide there
under the goddess’s feet and the circle of her shield.
Then in truth a strange terror steals through each shuddering heart,
and they say that Laocoön has justly suffered for his crime
in wounding the sacred oak-tree1 with his spear
by hurling its wicked shaft into the trunk.
“Pull the statue to her2 house,” they shout,
“and offer prayers to the goddess’s divinity.”
We breached the wall and opened up the defences of the city.
All prepare themselves for the work, and they set up wheels
allowing movement under its feet and stretch hemp ropes
round its neck. That engine of fate mounts our walls
pregnant with armed men. Around it boys and virgin girls
sing sacred songs, and delight in touching their hands to the ropes;
up it glides and rolls threateningly into the midst of the city.
O my country, O Ilium house of the gods, and you,
Trojan walls famous in war! Four times it sticks at the threshold
of the gates, and four times the weapons clash in its belly:
yet we press on regardless, blind with frenzy,
and site the accursed creature on top of our sacred citadel.
Even then Cassandra, who, by the god’s decree, is never
to be believed by Trojans, reveals our future fate with her lips.3
We unfortunate ones, for whom that day is our last,
clothe the gods’ temples, throughout the city, with festive branches.
Meanwhile the heavens turn, and night rushes from the Ocean,
wrapping the earth and sky and the Myrmidons’ tricks
in its vast shadow; through the city the Trojans
fall silent; sleep enfolds their weary limbs.
And now the Greek phalanx of battle-ready ships sailed
from Tenedos, in the benign stillness of the silent moon,
seeking the known shore, when the royal galley raised
a torch, and Sinon, protected by the gods’ unjust doom,
sets free the Greeks imprisoned by planks of pine
in the horse’s belly. Opened, it releases them to the air,
and sliding down a lowered rope, Thessandrus and Sthenelus,
the leaders, and fatal Ulysses, emerge joyfully
from their wooden cave, with Acamas, Thoas,
Peleus’s son Neoptolemus4, the noble Machaon,
Menelaus, and Epeus who himself devised this trick.
They invade the city that’s drowned in sleep and wine,
kill the watchmen, welcome their comrades
at the open gates, and link their clandestine ranks.
It was the hour when first sleep begins for weary mortals,
and steals over them as the sweetest gift of the gods.
See, in dream, before my eyes, Hector seemed to stand there,
saddest of all and pouring out great tears,
torn by the chariot, as once he was, black with bloody dust,
and his swollen feet pierced by the thongs.
Ah, how he looked! How changed he was
from that Hector who returned wearing Achilles’s armour,
or who set Trojan flames to the Greek ships!5 His beard was ragged,
his hair matted with blood, bearing those many wounds he received
dragged around the walls of his city.
And I seemed to weep myself, calling out to him
and speaking to him in words of sorrow:
“Oh light of the Troad6, surest hope of the Trojans,
what has so delayed you? What shore do you come from,
Hector the long-awaited? Weary from the many troubles
of our people and our city I see you, oh, after the death
of so many of your kin! What shameful events have marred
that clear face? And why do I see these wounds?’
He does not reply, nor does he wait on my idle questions,
but dragging heavy sighs from the depths of his heart, he says:
“Ah! Son of the goddess, fly, tear yourself from the flames.
The enemy has taken the walls: Troy falls from her high place.
Enough has been given to Priam and your country: if Pergama7
could be saved by any hand, it would have been saved by this.
Troy entrusts her sacred relics and household gods to you:
take them as friends of your fate, seek mighty walls for them,
those you will found at last when you have wandered the seas.”
So he speaks, and brings the sacred headbands in his hands
from the innermost shrine, potent Vesta, and the undying flame.
Hic aliud maius miseris multoque tremendum
obicitur magis atque improvida pectora turbat. 200
Laocoon, ductus Neptuno sorte sacerdos,
sollemnis taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras.
ecce autem gemini a Tenedo tranquilla per alta
(horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues
incumbunt pelago pariterque ad litora tendunt; 205
pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta iubaeque
sanguineae superant undas, pars cetera pontum
pone legit sinuatque immensa volumine terga.
fit sonitus spumante salo; iamque arva tenebant
ardentisque oculos suffecti sanguine et igni 210
sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora.
diffugimus visu exsangues. illi agmine certo
Laocoonta petunt; et primum parva duorum
corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
implicat et miseros morsu depascitur artus; 215
post ipsum auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem
corripiunt spirisque ligant ingentibus; et iam
bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
terga dati superant capite et cervicibus altis.
ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos 220
perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno,
clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit:
qualis mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim.
at gemini lapsu delubra ad summa dracones 225
effugiunt saevaeque petunt Tritonidis arcem,
sub pedibusque deae clipeique sub orbe teguntur.
tum vero tremefacta novus per pectora cunctis
insinuat pavor, et scelus expendisse merentem
Laocoonta ferunt, sacrum qui cuspide robur 230
laeserit et tergo sceleratam intorserit hastam.
ducendum ad sedes simulacrum orandaque divae
numina conclamant.
dividimus muros et moenia pandimus urbis.
accingunt omnes operi pedibusque rotarum 235
subiciunt lapsus, et stuppea vincula collo
intendunt; scandit fatalis machina muros
feta armis. pueri circum innuptaeque puellae
sacra canunt funemque manu contingere gaudent;
illa subit mediaeque minans inlabitur urbi. 240
o patria, o divum domus Ilium et incluta bello
moenia Dardanidum! quater ipso in limine portae
substitit atque utero sonitum quater arma dedere;
instamus tamen immemores caecique furore
et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce. 245
tunc etiam fatis aperit Cassandra futuris
ora dei iussu non umquam credita Teucris.
nos delubra deum miseri, quibus ultimus esset
ille dies, festa velamus fronde per urbem.
Vertitur interea caelum et ruit Oceano nox 250
involvens umbra magna terramque polumque
Myrmidonumque dolos; fusi per moenia Teucri
conticuere; sopor fessos complectitur artus.
et iam Argiua phalanx instructis navibus ibat
a Tenedo tacitae per amica silentia lunae 255
litora nota petens, flammas cum regia puppis
extulerat, fatisque deum defensus iniquis
inclusos utero Danaos et pinea furtim
laxat claustra Sinon. illos patefactus ad auras
reddit equus laetique cavo se robore promunt 260
Thessandrus Sthenelusque duces et dirus Ulixes,
demissum lapsi per funem, Acamasque Thoasque
Pelidesque Neoptolemus primusque Machaon
et Menelaus et ipse doli fabricator Epeos.
invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam; 265
caeduntur vigiles, portisque patentibus omnis
accipiunt socios atque agmina conscia iungunt.
Tempus erat quo prima quies mortalibus aegris
incipit et dono divum gratissima serpit.
in somnis, ecce, ante oculos maestissimus Hector 270
visus adesse mihi largosque effundere fletus,
raptatus bigis ut quondam, aterque cruento
pulvere perque pedes traiectus lora tumentis.
ei mihi, qualis erat, quantum mutatus ab illo
Hectore qui redit exuvias indutus Achilli 275
vel Danaum Phrygios iaculatus puppibus ignis!
squalentem barbam et concretos sanguine crinis
vulneraque illa gerens, quae circum plurima muros
accepit patrios. ultro flens ipse videbar
compellare virum et maestas expromere voces: 280
'o lux Dardaniae, spes o fidissima Teucrum,
quae tantae tenuere morae? quibus Hector ab oris
exspectate venis? ut te post multa tuorum
funera, post varios hominumque urbisque labores
defessi aspicimus! quae causa indigna serenos 285
foedavit vultus? aut cur haec vulnera cerno?'
ille nihil, nec me quaerentem uana moratur,
sed graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens,
'heu fuge, nate dea, teque his' ait 'eripe flammis.
hostis habet muros; ruit alto a culmine Troia. 290
sat patriae Priamoque datum: si Pergama dextra
defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.
sacra suosque tibi commendat Troia penatis;
hos cape fatorum comites, his moenia quaere
magna pererrato statues quae denique ponto.' 295
sic ait et manibus vittas Vestamque potentem
aeternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem.
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
ie, the horse
Pallas Minerva’s
Cassandra denied the sexual advances of Apollo, god of prophecy; in retaliation, he cursed her to tell prophecies no one would ever believe. All of Troy considered her mad.
Achilles’ son by Deidamia, more often known as Pyrrhus; “Neoptolemus” means “new warrior.”
Both references to the events of the Iliad. In Book 16 after killing Patroclus, who is dressed in Achilles’ armor, Hector takes that armor for himself; in Book 12, Hector attacks the Greek camp and breaks through their defenses to assault their ships.
The land of Troy (modern-day Turkey).
Pergama/Pergamum: the citadel of Troy.