第70章 BOOK XII(4)

This horse by Calchas' counsel fashioned they For wise Athena, to propitiate Her stern wrath for that guardian image stol'n From Troy. And by Odysseus' prompting I Was marked for slaughter, to be sacrificed To the sea-powers, beside the moaning waves, To win them safe return. But their intent I marked; and ere they spilt the drops of wine, And sprinkled hallowed meal upon mine head, Swiftly I fled, and, by the help of Heaven, I flung me down, clasping the Horse's feet;

And they, sore loth, perforce must leave me there Dreading great Zeus's daughter mighty-souled."

In subtlety so he spake, his soul untamed By pain; for a brave man's part is to endure To the uttermost. And of the Trojans some Believed him, others for a wily knave Held him, of whose mind was Laocoon.

Wisely he spake: "A deadly fraud is this,"

He said, "devised by the Achaean chiefs!"

And cried to all straightway to burn the Horse, And know if aught within its timbers lurked.

Yea, and they had obeyed him, and had 'scaped Destruction; but Athena, fiercely wroth With him, the Trojans, and their city, shook Earth's deep foundations 'neath Laocoon's feet.

Straight terror fell on him, and trembling bowed The knees of the presumptuous: round his head Horror of darkness poured; a sharp pang thrilled His eyelids; swam his eyes beneath his brows;

His eyeballs, stabbed with bitter anguish, throbbed Even from the roots, and rolled in frenzy of pain.

Clear through his brain the bitter torment pierced Even to the filmy inner veil thereof;

Now bloodshot were his eyes, now ghastly green;

Anon with rheum they ran, as pours a stream Down from a rugged crag, with thawing snow Made turbid. As a man distraught he seemed:

All things he saw showed double, and he groaned Fearfully; yet he ceased not to exhort The men of Troy, and recked not of his pain.

Then did the Goddess strike him utterly blind.

Stared his fixed eyeballs white from pits of blood;

And all folk groaned for pity of their friend, And dread of the Prey-giver, lest he had sinned In folly against her, and his mind was thus Warped to destruction yea, lest on themselves Like judgment should be visited, to avenge The outrage done to hapless Sinon's flesh, Whereby they hoped to wring the truth from him.

So led they him in friendly wise to Troy, Pitying him at the last. Then gathered all, And o'er that huge Horse hastily cast a rope, And made it fast above; for under its feet Smooth wooden rollers had Epeius laid, That, dragged by Trojan hands, it might glide on Into their fortress. One and all they haled With multitudinous tug and strain, as when Down to the sea young men sore-labouring drag A ship; hard-crushed the stubborn rollers groan, As, sliding with weird shrieks, the keel descends Into the sea-surge; so that host with toil Dragged up unto their city their own doom, Epeius' work. With great festoons of flowers They hung it, and their own heads did they wreathe, While answering each other pealed the flutes.

Grimly Enyo laughed, seeing the end Of that dire war; Hera rejoiced on high;

Glad was Athena. When the Trojans came Unto their city, brake they down the walls, Their city's coronal, that the Horse of Death Might be led in. Troy's daughters greeted it With shouts of salutation; marvelling all Gazed at the mighty work where lurked their doom.

But still Laocoon ceased not to exhort His countrymen to burn the Horse with fire:

They would not hear, for dread of the Gods' wrath.

But then a yet more hideous punishment Athena visited on his hapless sons.

A cave there was, beneath a rugged cliff Exceeding high, unscalable, wherein Dwelt fearful monsters of the deadly brood Of Typhon, in the rock-clefts of the isle Calydna that looks Troyward from the sea.

Thence stirred she up the strength of serpents twain, And summoned them to Troy. By her uproused They shook the island as with earthquake: roared The sea; the waves disparted as they came.

Onward they swept with fearful-flickering tongues:

Shuddered the very monsters of the deep:

Xanthus' and Simois' daughters moaned aloud, The River-nymphs: the Cyprian Queen looked down In anguish from Olympus. Swiftly they came Whither the Goddess sped them: with grim jaws Whetting their deadly fangs, on his hapless sons Sprang they. All Trojans panic-stricken fled, Seeing those fearsome dragons in their town.

No man, though ne'er so dauntless theretofore, Dared tarry; ghastly dread laid hold on all Shrinking in horror from the monsters. Screamed The women; yea, the mother forgat her child, Fear-frenzied as she fled: all Troy became One shriek of fleers, one huddle of jostling limbs:

The streets were choked with cowering fugitives.

Alone was left Laocoon with his sons, For death's doom and the Goddess chained their feet.

Then, even as from destruction shrank the lads, Those deadly fangs had seized and ravined up The twain, outstretching to their sightless sire Agonized hands: no power to help had he.