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All were hushed, fixing their gaze intently upon his lips;
and thus, from the raised couch, father Aeneas began:
"Unspeakable-- O Queen-- is the grief you bid me renew!
How the Greeks destroyed the wealth and woeful realm of Troy...
Sights so insufferable that I myself saw, and wherein I played no small role...
In telling such a tale, Who or what Dolopian Myrmidon or soldier of the stern Ulysses
could refrain from tears?! And already dewy night speeds from the sky and the setting stars counsel sleep...
But, if such is your desire to learn the cause of our agony,
And, in a few words, to hear the labor of Troy's final catastrophe,
although my mind still shudders to recall it, and recoils in pain, Let me begin...
"Broken-by-war, and thwarted by the fates,
the Greek chiefs, now that so many war-torn years were passing,
a horse of mountainous bulk, by Athena's divine art
they build... and they encase its ribs with planks of fir.
They pretend it's an offer for a safe return: this rumor abounds..
But inside it, they stealthily enclose the choicest of their stalwart men,
filling deep-within the massive cavernous belly, impregnating it with armed soldiery.
There lies in-sight Tenedos, an island most well-known in fame,
rich in wealth once, while Priam's kingdom stood,
but now merely a bay— an unsafe anchorage for ships.
There they sail and hide themselves on the barren shore.
We thought they'd gone, bound before the wind for Mycene...
And so all of Troy frees itself from long sorrow;
The gates are torn open, it's a joy to visit the Doric camps,
To see the deserted stations and the forsaken shores.
Here the Dolopian bands encamped, here cruel Achilles;
here there lay the fleet; here they used to meet us in battle.
Some are astonished at maiden Minerva's gift of death,
And they marvel at the massive horse: and firstly Thymoetes
urges it be drawn within our walls and lodged in the citadel...
(Whether by treason or grief, Troy's fate was already tending that way.)
But Capys, and those whose minds were wiser in counsel,
Bid us either hurl-headlong into the sea this guile of the Greeks,
This distrusted gift, or burn it with flames heaped beneath;
Or-else pierce and probe the hollow hiding place of the belly.
Thus, the wavering crowd is torn into opposing sides.
And there before all the factions of the crowd assembled,
Laocoon, with burning voice, proclaimed from the highest altar,
And (he was heard) from far-off:
"O wretched citizens! What insanity compels you all to trust that
our enemies have fled by the winds?? Do you really think
this gift is for the grieving of Greece? Is thus Ulysses known??
Either Achilles' men are hidden here in this thing, enclosed by wood,
Or it was built as a machine to be used against our walls,
Or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from high above!Or-else it hides some other trick;
BUT TRUST IT''S NO HORSE, TROJANS! FOR WHATEVER IT IS, I FEAR THOSE GREEKS, EVEN BEARING GIFTS!"
Having spoken thus, he hurtled his massive spear with extreme force
Directly at the creature's side, and into the ribbed frame of the curved belly he impaled it.
It stood there trembling, having stuck-fast in the frame,
whose hollow interior groaned and rang with empty reverberance.
And then, if the fates of the Gods, and if our own minds had not been ill-guided,
IF he'd had incited us to marr the Greeks' hiding place with steel,
Then Troy would stand yet, and you, high tower of Priam, would remain...
Behold, meanwhile a young lad with hands tied behind his back, whom a band of Trojan shepherds,
shouting loudly, are dragging to The Dardanian king (himself unknowing of the changing of the winds,)
The man, in order to contrive this, and lay-open Troy to the Greeks,
had surrendered himself without a fight, with his faithful mind completely prepared
for either course: to engage in deception, or else meet with certain death.
The Trojan youths run— crowding around from all sides,
In order to see him and compete in mocking the captive.
Hear now of the Greeks' treachery, and learn of all their crimes from
just this one. Since, as he stood, looking troubled, unarmed,
amongst the gazing crowd, and as he cast his eyes around the Phrygian ranks,
"Alas!" he cried, "What lands, what Seas would be able to accept me now,
or what's left for me at the end in my despair?
I, who have no place left among the Greeks, when even
the hostile Trojans themselves demand my punishment with blood?"
At this lament, the mood suddenly changed and all thoughts of violence were checked.
We urged him to tell of what blood he was sprung, and why he suffered,
and what faith could be placed in him as a captive.
Setting aside his heavy fears, at-length, he admits:
"I'll tell you all, O King, all that has happened, I will confess
completely with truth" he said, "nor will I deny that I'm of Argive birth. and this first of all:
Nay- if Fortune has already made Sinon wretched, she'll not also wrongly prove me false and a liar...
Here is my story: If, by some chance any mention of Palamedes' name has reached your ears,
of the son of Belus, and talk of his glorious fame, he whom, on false charges of treason
The Pelasgians, by atrocious perjury, because he opposed the war,
sent innocent to his death, and whom now they mourn, taken from the light:
Well, being his friend and bound by bloodlines to him,
my father, being poor, sent me here to the war when I was young,
and as long as Palamades was safe in power, and prospered
in the kings' council, I too had some name and respect.
But after he, through the spite of seductive Ulysses (scarcely rumor I say!), had passed from this world above,
I was ruined, and spent my life in obscurity and grief, inwardly angry at the unjust fate of my innocent friend.
Maddened, I could not be silent, and I promised, if chance allowed,
if I might ever return to my native Argos as victor,
to avenge him, and with my words I stirred bitter hatred.
The first hint of evil came to me from this, because of it Ulysses was always frightening me with new accusations,
spreading veiled rumors among the people, and guiltily seeking to defend himself.
He would not rest until, with Calchas as his instrument...
but why do I now unfold this unwelcome story? Why delay you?
If you consider all Greeks the same, and that's sufficient for you,
take now your vengeance: Besides, that's what the Ithacan wants, and the sons of Atreus would pay dearly for it"
Then, indeed, we were burning to know, and sought the reason.
We-- ignorant of such wickedness and Pelasgian trickery.
And he-- severely trembling with fictitious feelings, continued:
"Often the Greeks had longed to flee Troy, to relinquish those desired walls and retreat from the wearisome war:
O, if only they had! Often a fierce storm from the sea land-locked them, and the gale terrified them from leaving.
Once, especially then, that horse, made of maple-beams, stood there with storm-clouds thundering throughout the entire sky.
Anxiously, we sent Eurypylus to consult the oracle of Apollo,
and he brought back these sad words from the inner sanctum:
"With blood and a *** sacrifice you calmed the winds, when You, O Greeks, first came to these Trojan shores.
Seek your return in blood, and the well-omened sacrifice of an Argile life."
When his voice reached the ears of the crowd,
their minds were stunned, and an icy shudder coursed down their inner marrows:
Who is ready for this fate? Whom does Apollo choose?
At this uproar the Ithacan thrust the seer, Calchas, into the midst of the crowd; demanding to know what the god's will would be.
And already, many were cruelly predicting that man's false wickedness for me, and silently they saw what was coming.
For ten whole days the seer kept silent, refusing either to reveal the secret by words, or condemn anyone to death.
But eventually, urged-on by the Ithican's loud clamors, he broke into speech, as agreed, and doomed me to the altar.
All deeply acknowledged this: and what each feared for himself— He endured— when directed towards another's destruction.
And now the terrible day had arrived, with sacred rights prepared for me, the salted grain, and headbands around my forehead.
I stole myself—I confess— from death, and I burst my bonds,
and all that night I hid by a muddy lake among the reeds,
until they might set sail... if-- as it so happened-- they had.
But now I've no hope of seeing my dear country again,
nor my sweet children nor the father I long for...
Those that, alas, perhaps they'll seek to punish for my flight,
and avenge my crime through the deaths of more unfortunates!
O, I Pray, by the gods, by divine power that knows the truth,
Or by whatever honor that anywhere remains pure among men, have pity on such troubles, I beg of you:
have pity for the soul that endures such undignified suffering."
By such tears we granted him his life, and also we pitied him.
Priam himself is the first to order that his manacles and tight bonds be removed, and speaks these words of kindness to him:
"Whoever you are, forget those forsaken Greeks, from now on you'll be one of us:
But tell me truthfully what I ask: WHY have they built this huge hulk of a horse?
WHO created it? WHAT do they aim at? WHAT religious object or war machine is it?"
The King spoke. And the other man, schooled in Pelian craft and trickery,
raising his unbound palms towards the stars:
"You, eternal fires, in your invulnerable power, be witness,
he cried, "you altars and impious swords I escaped,
you sacrificial ribbons of the gods that I wore as victim:
with right I break the Greek's solemn oaths,
with right I hate them, and if things are hidden, bring them to light: as I'm bound by no laws of their country.
But you, Troy, maintain your assurances, if I speak truth, if I repay you handsomely: keep intact yourself, keep your promises intact.
All the hopes of the Greeks and all their confidence in undertaking the war had always depended on Athena's aid.
From that moment—when the impious son of Tydeus, and Ulysses (inventor of wickedness,)
had approached the fateful Palladium to *** it from its sacred temple,
Having killed-off the guards there on the citadel's heights,
and dared to seize the holy statue with blood soaked-hands and touch the sacred ribbons of the goddess,
From that moment— all hope receded and ebbed backwards, all hope for the Greeks, broken men, opposed by the mind of the Goddess.
And not with dubious meaning did Athena give sign of this, for scarcely was the statue set up in camp,
when suddenly glittering flames shone from the upturned eyes, a salt sweat ran over its limbs,
and (wonderful to tell) she herself darted from the ground with shield on her arm, and spear quivering.
Calchas immediately proclaimed that the flight by sea must be attempted,
and that Troy cannot be uprooted by Argive weapons,
unless they renew the omens at Argos, and take the goddess home,
whom they have indeed taken by sea in their curved ships.
And now they are heading for their native Mycenae with the wind,
obtaining weapons and the friendship of the gods, re-crossing the sea to arrive unexpectedly.
Thus Calchas reads the omens, Warned by him, they've set up this statue of a horse for the wounded goddess,
instead of the Palladium, to atone severely for their sin.
And Calchas ordered them to raise the huge mass of woven timbers to the sky,
so that your gates could not take it, nor could it be dragged inside your walls, or watch over the people in their ancient rites.
SINCE if your hands violated Minerva's gift...
then utter ruin (may the gods first turn that prediction on themselves!) would come to Priam and the Trojans:
YET, IF it ascended into your citadel, dragged by your very hands...
Then All of Asia would come to the very walls of Pelops in mighty war, and a like-fate would await our children."
Through such lies and the skillful perjury of Sinon, the story was believed, and we were cornered by his surliness and false tears,
We who were never conquered by Diomede, nor by Larissan Achilles,
nor by those ten years of war, nor those thousands of ships.
Then, something much greater and more terrible befalls
us wretches, and further distresses our unsuspecting souls.
Laocoön, chosen by lot as priest of Neptune,
was then 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 waters,
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,
they 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 savage bellowing of a bull that's fled, mortally wounded
on the altar, shaking the useless axe from its neck.
But the serpent pair, slithering away to the high temple,
Escape 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 new terror begins to vibrate through each man's
trembling chest, and they say that he suffered justly for his sin,
Laocoon, who once wounded the sacred oak with his spear,
hurling its wicked shaft into the trunk.
"Pull the statue to her house, and offer prayers to the goddess's
divinity." They shout.
We opened the walls, and breached the defenses of the city.
All prepare themselves for the work and they set up wheels
under its feet, allowing for movement, and they stretch hemp ropes round its neck.
That fatal machine mounts our walls, pregnant with arms.
And around it *** girls and boys sing sacred songs, and delight in touching their hands to the ropes:
Up it glides and threateningly rolls into the midst of our city.
O Fatherland, 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 again the weapons clash in its belly!
and yet we press on regardless, blind with frenzy,
and we site the accursed creature on top of our sacred citadel.
Even then Cassandra reveals our future fate with her lips,
she who, by a god's decree, will never be believed by the Trojans,
We unfortunates, for whom that day was to be our last,
we clothe the gods' temples throughout the city with festive branches.
Meanwhile the heavens turn, and night rushes from the Ocean,
wrapping in its vast shadow the earth, the sky,
and the Myrmidons' tricks. All through the city, Trojans
fall silent as sleep envelopes their weary limbs.
And already the Greek phalanx of battle-ready ships was sailing
from Tenedos, in the benign stillness of the silent moon,
seeking the known shore, where Sinon raised a torch on the royal citadel; where he, wicked, but protected from the gods' doom,
he sets free the Greeks imprisoned by planks of pine within the cavernous belly.
Opened, the horse releases them into the air, and sliding down a lowered rope:
Thessandrus, and Sthenelus, and their leader, fatal Ulysses, emerge joyfully from their wooden womb,
with Acamas, and Thoas, and Peleus's son Neoptolemus, the noble Machaon,
and Menelaus, and Epeus who himself devised this trick.
They infiltrate the city that's entombed in sleep and wine,
They slaughter the watchmen, and, opening all the gates,
They welcome their comrades, and link their clandestine ranks.