in doubt.
But first before all others now with much folk all about40
Laocoon the fiery man runs from the burg adown,
And shouts from far:
'O wretched men, how hath such madness grown?
Deem ye the foe hath fared away? Deem ye that Danaan gifts
May ever lack due share of guile? Are these Ulysses' shifts?
For either the Achæans lurk within this fashioned tree,
Or 'tis an engine wrought with craft bane of our walls to be,
To look into our very homes, and scale the town perforce:
Some guile at least therein abides: Teucrians, trust not the horse!
Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.'49
Thus having said, with valiant might he hurled a huge-wrought spear
Against the belly of the beast swelled out with rib and stave;
It stood a-trembling therewithal; its hollow caverns gave
From womb all shaken with the stroke a mighty sounding groan.
And but for God's heart turned from us, for God's fate fixed and known,
He would have led us on with steel to foul the Argive den,
And thou, O Troy, wert standing now, thou Priam's burg as then!
But lo, where Dardan shepherds lead, with plenteous clamour round,
A young man unto Priam's place with hands behind him bound,
Who privily had thrust himself before their way e'en now
The work to crown, and into Troy an open way to show60
Unto the Greeks; a steadfast soul, prepared for either end,
Or utterly to work his craft or unto death to bend.
Eager to see him as he went around the Trojans flock
On every side, and each with each contend the man to mock.
Lo now, behold the Danaan guile, and from one wrong they wrought
Learn ye what all are like to be.
For as he stood in sight of all, bewildered, weaponless,
And let his eyes go all around the gazing Phrygian press,
He spake:
'What land shall have me now, what sea my head shall hide?
What then is left of deed to do that yet I must abide?70
No place I have among the Greeks, and Dardan folk withal
My foemen are, and bloody end, due doom, upon me call.'
And with that wail our hearts were turned, and somewhat backward hung
The press of men: we bade him say from whence his blood was sprung,
And what he did, and if indeed a captive we might trust;
So thus he spake when now all fear from off his heart was thrust:
'Whatso betide, to thee, O King, the matter's verity
Will I lay bare unto the end, nor Argive blood deny:
This firstly; for if Fate indeed shaped Sinon for all bale
To make him liar and empty fool her worst may not avail.80
Perchance a rumour of men's talk about your ears hath gone,
Telling of Palamedes' fame and glory that he won,
The son of Belus: traitors' word undid him innocent;
By unjust doom for banning war the way of death he went,
Slain by Pelasgian men, that now his quenchèd light deplore.
Fellow to him, and nigh akin, I went unto the war,
Sent by my needy father forth, e'en from my earliest years;
Now while he reigned in health, a king fair blooming mid his peers
In council of the kings, I too had share of name and worth.
But after he had gone his way from land of upper earth,90
Thrust down by sly Ulysses' hate, (I tell all men's belief),
Then beaten down I dragged my life through shadowy ways of grief,
And heavily I took the death of him my sackless friend,
Nor held my peace, O fool! but vowed revenge if time should send
A happy tide; if I should come to Argos any more,
A victor then: so with my words I drew down hatred sore.
This was the first fleck of my ill; Ulysses ever now
Would threaten with some new-found guilt, and mid the folk would sow
Dark sayings, and knowing what was toward, sought weapons new at need;
Nor wearied till with Calchas now to help him to the deed.—100
—But why upturn these ugly things, or spin out time for nought?
For if ye deem all Greekish men in one same mould are wrought:
It is enough. Come make an end; Ulysses' hope fulfil!
With great price would the Atridæ buy such working of their will.'
Then verily to know the thing and reach it deep we burned,
So little in Pelasgian guile and evil were we learned.
He takes the tale up; fluttering-voiced from lying heart he speaks:
'The longing to be gone from Troy fell oft upon the Greeks,
And oft they fain had turned their backs on war without an end,
(I would they had), and oft as they were e'en at point to wend110
A tempest would forbid the sea, or southern gale would scare,
And chiefly when with maple-beams this horse that standeth here
They fashioned, mighty din of storm did all the heavens fulfil.
So held aback, Eurypylus we sent to learn the will
Of Phœbus: from the shrine he brought such heavy words as these:
With blood and with a virgin's death did ye the winds appease When first ye came, O Danaan folk, unto the Ilian shore; With blood and with an Argive soul the Gods shall ye adore For your return. 'Now when that word men's ears had gone about Their hearts stood still, and tremors cold took all their bones for doubt What man the Fates had doomed thereto, what man Apollo would.121 Amidst us then the Ithacan drags in with clamour rude Calchas the seer, and wearieth him the Gods' will to declare. Of that craftsmaster's cruel guile had many bade beware In words, and many silently foresaw the coming death. Twice five days Calchas holdeth peace and, hidden, gainsayeth To speak the word that any man to very death should cast, Till hardly, by Ulysses' noise sore driven, at the last He brake out with the speech agreed, and on me laid the doom; All cried assent, and what each man feared on himself might come,130 'Gainst one poor wretch's end of days with ready hands they bear. Now came the evil day; for me the rites do men prepare, The salted cakes, the holy strings to do my brows about. I needs must say I brake my bonds, from Death's house gat me out, And night-long lay amid the sedge by muddy marish side Till they spread sail, if they perchance should win their sailing tide. Nor have I hope to see again my fatherland of old; My longed-for father and sweet sons I never shall behold; On whom the guilt of me who fled mayhappen men will lay, And with their death for my default the hapless ones shall pay.140 But by the might of very God, all sooth that knoweth well, By all the unstained faith that yet mid mortal men doth dwell, If aught be left, I pray you now to pity such distress! Pity a heart by troubles tried beyond its worthiness!'
His weeping won his life of us, and pity thereunto,
And Priam was the first