#2 Laocoon

Episode #2:  Aeneas Tells the Story of Laocoon

Vergil Aeneid Book 2 (lines 13-56, 199-249)

[summarized in ‘Search for a Homeland’ pp. 8-9]

Part 1 – The Speech of Laocoon

After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the Greeks,

opposed by the Fates, and damaged by the war,

build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas’s divine art,

and weave planks of fir wood over its ribs:

they pretend it’s a votive offering: this rumour spreads.

They secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot,

there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge

cavernous insides with armed warriors.

Tenedos is within sight, an island known to fame,

rich in wealth when Priam’s kingdom remained,

now just a bay and an unsafe anchorage for boats:

they sail there, and hide themselves, on the lonely shore.

We thought they had gone, and were seeking Mycenae

with the wind. So all the Trojan land was free of its long sorrow.

The gates were opened: it was a joy to go and see the Greek camp,

the deserted site and the abandoned shore.

Here the Dolopians stayed, here cruel Achilles,

here lay the fleet, here they used to meet us in battle.

Some were amazed at virgin Minerva’s fatal gift,

and marvel at the horse’s size: and at first Thymoetes,

whether through treachery, or because Troy’s fate was certain,

urged that it be dragged inside the walls and placed on the citadel.

But Capys, and those of wiser judgement, commanded us

to either hurl this deceit of the Greeks, this suspect gift,

into the sea, or set fire to it from beneath,

or pierce its hollow belly, and probe for hiding places.

The crowd, uncertain, was split by opposing opinions.

Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights

of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd with him,

and shouts from far off: ‘O unhappy citizens, what madness?

Do you think the enemy’s sailed away? Or do you think

any Greek gift’s free of treachery? Is that Ulysses’s reputation?

Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the wood,

or it’s been built as a machine to use against our walls,

or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above,

or it hides some other trick: Trojans, don’t trust this horse.

Whatever it is, I’m afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts.’

So saying he hurled his great spear, with extreme force,

at the creature’s side, and into the frame of the curved belly.

The spear stuck quivering, and at the womb’s reverberation

the cavity rang hollow and gave out a groan.

And if the gods’ fate, if our minds, had not been ill-omened,

he’d have incited us to mar the Greeks hiding-place with steel:

Troy would still stand: and you, high tower of Priam would remain.

Part 2 – The Death of Laocoon & his Sons

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-tree with his spear,

by hurling its wicked shaft into the trunk.

‘Pull the Wooden Horse into the city,’ they shout,

‘and offer prayers to Minerva’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.

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.