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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book II Chapter 4: Speech of Laocoon | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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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! Events: Words and death of Laocoon, The Wooden Horse / The Trojan Horse |
40-56 Primus ibi ante omnis magna comitante caterua Laocoon ardens summa decurrit ab arce, et procul 'o miseri, quae tanta insania, ciues? creditis auectos hostis? aut ulla putatis dona carere dolis Danaum? sic notus Vlixes? aut hoc inclusi ligno occultantur Achiui, aut haec in nostros fabricata est machina muros, inspectura domos uenturaque desuper urbi, aut aliquis latet error; equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.' sic fatus ualidis ingentem uiribus hastam in latus inque feri curuam compagibus aluum contorsit. stetit illa tremens, uteroque recusso insonuere cauae gemitumque dedere cauernae. et, si fata deum, si mens non laeua fuisset, impulerat ferro Argolicas foedare latebras, Troiaque nunc staret, Priamique arx alta maneres. |