n, allotted priest of Neptune, was
slaying a great bull at the accustomed altars. And lo! from Tenedos,
over the placid depths (I shudder as I recall) two snakes in enormous
coils press down the sea and advance together to the shore; their
breasts rise through the surge, and their blood-red crests overtop the
waves; the rest trails through the main behind and wreathes back in
voluminous curves; the brine gurgles and foams. And now they gained the
fields, while their bloodshot eyes blazed with fire, and their tongues
lapped and flickered in their hissing mouths. We scatter, pallid at the
sight. They in unfaltering train make towards Laocoon. And first the
serpents twine in their double embrace his two little children, and bite
deep in their wretched limbs; then him likewise, as he comes up to help
with arms in his hand, they seize and fasten in their enormous coils;
and now twice clasping his waist, twice encircling his neck with their
scaly bodies, they tower head and neck above him. He at once strains his
hands to tear their knots apart, his fillets spattered with foul black
venom; at once raises to heaven awful cries; as when, bellowing, a bull
shakes the wavering axe from his neck and runs wounded from the altar.
But the two snakes glide away to the high sanctuary and seek the fierce
Tritonian's citadel, [227-261]and take shelter under the goddess' feet
beneath the circle of her shield. Then indeed a strange terror thrills
in all our amazed breasts; and Laocoon, men say, hath fulfilled his
crime's desert, in piercing the consecrated wood and hurling his guilty
spear into its body. All cry out that the image must be drawn to its
home and supplication made to her deity. . . . We sunder the walls, and
lay open the inner city. All set to the work; they fix rolling wheels
under its feet, and tie hempen bands on its neck. The fated engine
climbs our walls, big with arms. Around it boys and unwedded girls chant
hymns and joyfully lay their hand on the rope. It moves up, and glides
menacing into the middle of the town. O native land! O Ilium, house of
gods, and Dardanian city renowned in war! four times in the very gateway
did it come to a stand, and four times armour rang in its womb. Yet we
urge it on, mindless and infatuate, and plant the ill-ominous thing in
our hallowed citadel. Even then Cassandra opens her lips to the coming
doom, lips at a god's bidding never believed by the Trojans. We, the
wretched people, to whom th