The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 89
CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-NINTH. “But I see that your whole attention is held by that picture which portrays the destruction of Troy, so I will attempt to unfold the story in verse:
And now the tenth harvest beheld the beleaguered of TroiaWorn out with anxiety, fearing: the honor of CalchasThe prophet, hung wavering deep in the blackest despair.Apollo commanded! The forested peaks of Mount IdaWere felled and dragged down; the hewn timbers were fitted to fashionA war-horse. Unfilled is a cavity left, and this cavern, Roofed over, capacious enough for a camp. Here lie hiddenThe raging impetuous valor of ten years of warfare.Malignant Greek troops pack the recess, lurk in their own offering.Alas my poor country! We thought that their thousand grim war-shipsWere beaten and scattered, our arable lands freed from warfare!Th’ inscription cut into the horse, and the crafty behaviorOf Sinon, his mind ever powerful for evil, affirmed it.Delivered from war, now the crowd, carefree, hastens to worshipAnd pours from the portals. Their cheeks wet with weeping, the joyOf their tremulous souls brings to eyes tears which terrorHad banished. Laocoön, priest unto Neptune, with hair loosed,An outcry evoked from the mob: he drew back his javelinAnd launched it! The belly of wood was his target. The weaponRecoiled, for the fates stayed his hand, and this artifice won us. His feeble hand nerved he anew, and the lofty sides sounded,His two-edged ax tried them severely. The young troops in ambushGasped. And as long as the reverberations re-echoedThe wooden mass breathed out a fear that was not of its own.Imprisoned, the warriors advance to take Troia a captiveAnd finish the struggle by strategem new and unheard of.Behold! Other portents: Where Tenedos steep breaks the oceanWhere great surging billows dash high, to be broken, and leap backTo form a deep hollow of calm, and resemble the plashingOf oars, carried far through the silence of night, as when ships passAnd drive through the calm as it smashes against their fir bows.Then backward we look: towards the rocks the tide carries two serpentsThat coil and uncoil as they come, and their breasts, which are swollen Aside dash the foam, as the bows of tall ships; and the oceanIs lashed by their tails, their manes, free on the water, as savageAs even their eyes: now a blinding beam kindles the billows,The sea with their hissing is sibilant! All stare in terror!Laocoön’s twin sons in Phrygian raiment are standingWith priests wreathed for sacrifice. Them did the glistening serpentsEnfold in their coils! With their little hands shielding their faces,The boys, neither thinking of self, but each one of his brother!Fraternal love’s sacrifice! Death himself slew those poor childrenBy means of their unselfish fear for each other! The father,A helper too feeble, now throws himself prone on their bodies:The serpents, now glutted with death, coil around him and drag himTo earth! And the priest, at his altar a victim, lies beating The ground. Thus the city of Troy, doomed to sack and destruction,First lost her own gods by profaning their shrines and their worship.The full moon now lifted her luminous beam and the small starsLed forth, with her torch all ablaze; when the Greeks drew the boltsAnd poured forth their warriors, on Priam’s sons, buried in darknessAnd sodden with wine. First the leaders made trial of their weaponsJust as the horse, when unhitched from Thessalian neck-yoke,First tosses his head and his mane, ere to pasture he rushes.They draw their swords, brandish their shields and rush into the battle.One slays the wine-drunken Trojans, prolonging their dreamsTo death, which ends all. Still another takes brands from the altars,And calls upon Troy’s sacred temples to fight against Trojans.”