The Aeneid (12 page)

                He wept. We spared him and and even began to pity him.
                Priam spoke first and ordered him to be freed from the manacles
                and the ropes that tied him, and spoke these friendly words:
                ‘Whoever you are, from this moment on forget the Greeks
                whom you have lost. You will be one of us. But now give full
150         and truthful answers to the questions I ask you: why have they
                set up this huge monster of a horse? Who proposed it? What is
                the purpose of it? Does it have some supernatural power? Is it
                an engine of war?’

                Sinon was ready with all his Greek arts and stratagems.
                Raising to the skies the hands we had just freed from their
                shackles, he cried: ‘I call upon you, eternal fires of heaven and
                your inviolable godhead. I call upon the altars and the impious
                swords from which I have escaped. I call upon the sacred ribbons
                which I wore as sacrificial victim. It is no sin for me to break my
                sacred oaths of allegiance to the Greeks. It is no sin for me to
                hate these men and bring all their secrets out into the open. I
160         am no longer subject to the laws of my people. Only you must
                
stand by your promises. If I keep Troy safe, Troy must keep its
                word and save me, if what I say is true, and what I offer is a full
                and fair exchange.

                ‘All the hopes and confidence of the Greeks in this war they
                started have always depended upon the help of Pallas Athene.
                But ever since the impious Diomede and Ulixes, the schemer
                behind all their crimes, took it upon themselves to tear the
                fateful Palladium, the image of the goddess, from her own sacred
                temple in Troy, ever since they slew the guards on the heights
                of the citadel and dared to touch the sacred bands on the head
                of the virgin goddess with blood on their hands, from that
170         moment their hopes turned to water and ebbed away from them,
                their strength was broken and the mind of the goddess was set
                against them. Tritonian Pallas gave clear signs of this by sending
                portents that could not be doubted. No sooner had they laid
                down the image in the Greek camp, than its eyes glared and
                flashed fire, the salt sweat streamed over its limbs and by some
                miracle the image of the goddess leapt three times from the
                ground with her shield and spear quivering. Calchas declared
                that they had to take to instant flight across the sea, and prophesied
                that Troy could not be sacked by Argive weapons unless
                they first took the omens again in Argos, and then brought back
                to Troy the divine image which they have now carried away
180         across the sea on their curved ships. So now they have set sail
                for their native Mycenae to rearm and to muster their gods to
                come with them and they will soon remeasure the ocean and be
                back here when you least expect them. This is how Calchas
                interprets the omens, and on his advice they have set up this
                effigy of a horse to atone for the violation of the Palladium and
                the divinity of Pallas, and for their deadly sin of sacrilege. But
                he told them to make it an immense structure of interlaced
                timbers soaring to the sky, so that it could not be taken through
                the gates and brought into the city or protect the people should
                they receive it with their traditional piety. For if your hands
190         violate this offering to Minerva, then total destruction shall fall
                upon the empire of Priam and the Trojans (and may the gods
                rather send that on his own head). But if your hands raise it up
                into your city, Asia shall come unbidden in a mighty war to the
                
walls of Pelops, and that is the fate in store for our descendants.’

                The trap was laid. These were the arts of the liar Sinon, and
                we believed it all. Cunning and false tears had overcome the
                men who had not been subdued by Diomede, son of Tydeus,
                nor Achilles of Larisa, not by ten years of siege nor a thousand
                ships.

200         And now there came upon this unhappy people another and
                yet greater sign, which caused them even greater fear. Their
                hearts were troubled and they could not see what the future
                held. Laocoon, the chosen priest of Neptune, was sacrificing a
                huge bull at the holy altar, when suddenly there came over the
                calm water from Tenedos (I shudder at the memory of it), two
                serpents leaning into the sea in great coils and making side by
                side for the shore. Breasting the waves, they held high their
                blood-stained crests, and the rest of their bodies ploughed the
                waves behind them, their backs winding, coil upon measureless
                coil, through the sounding foam of the sea. Now they were on
210         land. Their eyes were blazing and flecked with blood. They
                hissed as they licked their lips with quivering tongues. We grew
                pale at the sight and ran in all directions, but they made straight
                for Laocoon. First the two serpents seized his two young sons,
                twining round them both and feeding on their helpless limbs.
                Then, when Laocoon came to the rescue with his sword in his
                hand, they seized him and bound him in huge spirals, and soon
                their scaly backs were entwined twice round his body and twice
220         round his throat, their heads and necks high above him as he
                struggled to prise open their coils, his priestly ribbons befouled
                by gore and black venom, and all the time he was raising horrible
                cries to heaven like the bellowing of a wounded bull shaking
                the ineffectual axe out of its neck as it flees from the altar. But
                the two snakes escaped, gliding away to the highest temples
                of the city and making for the citadel of the heartless Pallas, the
                Tritonian goddess, where they sheltered under her feet and
                under the circle of her shield.

                At that moment a new fear crept into all their trembling
230         hearts. They said that Laocoon had been justly punished for his
                crime. He had violated the sacred timbers by hurling his sinful
                spear into the horse’s back, and they all shouted together that
                
it should be taken to a proper place and prayers offered up to
                the goddess. We breached the walls and laid open the buildings
                of our city. They all buckled to the task, setting wheels to roll
                beneath the horse’s feet and stretching ropes of flax to its neck.
                The engine of Fate mounted our walls, teeming with armed
                men. Unmarried girls and boys sang their hymns around it
240         and rejoiced to have a hand on the rope. On it came, gliding
                smoothly, looking down on the heart of the city. O my native
                land! O Ilium, home of the gods! O walls of the people of
                Dardanus, famous in war! Four times it stopped on the very
                threshold of the gate, and four times the armour clanged in its
                womb. But we paid no heed and pressed on blindly, madly, and
                stood the accursed monster on our consecrated citadel. Even at
                this last moment Cassandra was still opening her lips to foretell
                the future, but God had willed that these were lips the Trojans
                would never believe. This was the last day of a doomed people
                and we spent it adorning the shrines of the gods all through the
                city with festal garlands.

250         Meanwhile the sky was turning and night was rushing up
                from the Ocean to envelop in its great shadow the earth, the sky
                and the treachery of the Greeks, while the Trojans were lying
                quiet in their homes, their weary bodies wrapped in sleep. The
                Greek fleet in full array was already taking the army from
                Tenedos through the friendly silence of the moon and making
                for the shore they knew so well, when the royal flagship raised
                high the fire signal and Sinon, preserved by the cruelty of the
                divine Fates, stealthily undid the pine bolts of the horse and
260         freed the Greeks from its womb. The wooden horse was open,
                and the Greeks were pouring gratefully out of its hollow chambers
                into the fresh air, the commanders Thessandrus and
                Sthenelus and fierce Ulixes sliding down the rope they had
                lowered, and with them Acamas, Thoas, Neoptolemus of the
                line of Peleus, Machaon, who came out first, Menelaus and
                Epeos himself, the maker of the horse that tricked the Trojans.
                They moved into a city buried in wine and sleep, slaying the
                guards and opening the gates to let in all their waiting comrades
                and join forces as they had planned.

                It was the time when rest, the most grateful gift of the gods,
                
was first beginning to creep over suffering mortals, when Hector
270         suddenly appeared before my eyes in my sleep, full of sorrow
                and streaming with tears. He looked as he did when he had been
                dragged behind the chariot, black with dust and caked with
                blood, his feet swollen where they had been pierced for the
                leather thongs. What a sight he was! How changed from the
                Hector who had thrown Trojan fire on to the ships of the Greeks
                or come back clad in the spoils of Achilles. His beard was filthy,
                his hair matted with blood, and he had on his body all the
280         wounds he had received around the walls of his native city. In
                my dream I spoke to him first, forcing out my words, and I too
                was weeping and full of sorrow: ‘O light of Troy, best hope and
                trust of all Trojans, what has kept you so long from us? Long
                have we waited for you, Hector. From what shores have you
                come? With what eyes do we look upon you in our weariness
                after the death of so many of your countrymen, after all the
                sufferings of your people and your city? What has so shamefully
                disfigured the face that was once so serene? What wounds are
                these I see?’

                There was no reply. He paid no heed to my futile questions,
                but heaved a great groan from the depths of his heart and said:
                ‘You must escape, son of the goddess. You must save yourself
290         from these flames. The enemy is master of the walls and Troy is
                falling from her highest pinnacle. You have given enough to
                your native land and to Priam. If any right hand could have
                saved Troy, mine would have saved it. Into your care she now
                commends her sacraments and her household gods. Take them
                to share your fate. Look for a great city to establish for them
                after long wanderings across the sea.’ These were his words,
                and he brought out in his own hands from her inmost shrine the
                mighty goddess Vesta with the sacred ribbons on her head and
                her undying flame.

                Meanwhile the city was in utter confusion and despair.
300         Although the house of my father Anchises stood apart and was
                screened by trees, the noise was beginning to be heard and the
                din of battle was coming closer and closer. I shook the sleep
                from me and climbed to the top of the highest gable of the roof,
                and stood there with my ears pricked up like a shepherd when
                
a furious south wind is carrying fire into a field of grain, or a
                mountain river whirls along in spate, flattening all the fields, the
                growing crops and all the labour of oxen, carrying great trees
                headlong down in its floods while the shepherd stands stupefied
                on the top of the rock, listening to the sound without knowing
310         what it is. Then in that moment I knew the truth. The treacherous
                scheming of the Greeks was there to see. Soon the great
                house of Deiphobus yielded to the flames and fell in ruins. Soon
                his neighbour Ucalegon was burning and the broad waters of
                the strait of Sigeum reflected the flames. The clamour of men
                and the clangour of trumpets rose to high heaven. Mindlessly I
                put on my armour, for reason had little use for armour, but my
                heart was burning to gather comrades for battle and rush to the
                citadel with them. Frenzy and anger drove me on and suddenly
                it seemed a noble thing to die in arms.

                I now caught sight of Panthus, just escaped from the weapons
                of the Greeks, Panthus, son of Othrys, priest of Apollo and of
320         the citadel. He was carrying in his hands the sacraments and the
                defeated gods from the temple, and dragging his young grandson
                along behind him in a mad rush to the door of my father’s
                house. ‘Where is our strong-point? Where are we rallying?’ I
                had scarcely time to speak before he replied, groaning: ‘The last
                day has come for the people of Dardanus. This is the hour they
                cannot escape. The Trojans are no more. Ilium has come to an
                end and with it the great glory of the race of Teucer. Pitiless
                Jupiter has given everything over to Argos. The Greeks are
                masters of the burning city. The horse stands high in the heart
330         of it, pouring out its armed men, and Sinon is in triumph,
                spreading the flames and gloating over us. The great double
                gates are open and Greeks are there in their thousands, as many
                as ever came from great Mycenae. Others have blocked the
                narrow streets with their weapons levelled. Their lines are drawn
                up and the naked steel is flashing, ready for slaughter. Only the
                first few guards on the gates are trying to fight and offering blind
                resistance.’