Death of Laocoon

Home Up Minimus 6th The Aeneid Medusa Exam Latin Exam March 4 National Myth Exam Exploratory Latin Exam Ovid's Metamorphoses The Odyssey-Celebration Pledge of Allegiance Mythology PowerPoint Presentation Quia News Stories In Classics All Gladiators Certamen Roman Civilization Latin For Americans Webs Wheelock Websites Fun Latin Stuff Birthday Greetings-Zodiacs Classical Gift Shop Roman/Greek Craft Projects Classical Art All Games Other Things Greek Latin Literature Classical Websites Latin Plants and Flowers Spanish from Latin Julius Caesar Why Take Latin? Latin in Use Today Classical Literacy Exam Maps The Iliad Ohio State Convention Content Area Literacy Prayers in Latin

 

   

 

                               

 

 

 

 

 

Dramatic Interpretation #2: 

 

Speech and Death of Laocoon

(adapted from Kline’s online translation)

 

 

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’ 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.

 

But then something greater and more terrible befell

us wretches, and stirred our unsuspecting souls.

Laocoön, chosen by lot as priest of Neptune,

was sacrificing a huge bull at the customary altar.

Behold!  A pair of serpents appeared, 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 giant serpents 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.