The wavering crowd is torn into opposing factions. But Capys, and they whose minds were wiser in counsel, bid us either hurl headlong into the sea this guile of the Greeks, this distrusted gift, or fire it with flames heaped beneath or else pierce and probe the hollow hiding place of the belly. Some are amazed at maiden Minerva’s gift of death, and marvel at the massive horse: and first Thymoetes urges that it be drawn within our walls and lodged in the citadel either it was treachery or the doom of Troy was already tending that way. Here the Dolopian bands encamped, here cruel Achilles here lay the fleet here they used to meet us in battle.
The gates are opened it is a joy to go and see the Doric camp, the deserted stations and forsaken shore. So all the Teucrian land frees itself from its long sorrow. We thought they had gone and before the wind were bound for Mycenae. Hither they sail and hide themselves on the barren shore.
“There lies in sight an island well known to fame, Tenedos, rich in wealth while Priam’s kingdom stood, now but a bay and an unsafe anchorage for ships. Here, within its dark sides, they stealthily enclose the choicest of their stalwart men and deep within they fill the huge cavern of the belly with armed soldiery. They pretend it is an offering for their safe return this is the rumour that goes abroad. “Broken in war and thwarted by the fates, the Danaan chiefs, now that so many years were gliding by, build by Pallas’ divine art a horse of mountainous bulk, and interweave its ribs with planks of fir. Yet if such is your desire to learn of our disasters, and in few words to hear of Troy’s last agony, though my mind shudders to remember and has recoiled in pain, I will begin. What Myrmidon or Dolopian, or soldier of the stern Ulysses, could refrain from tears in telling such a tale? And now dewy night is speeding from the sky and the setting stars counsel sleep.
“Too deep for words, O queen, is the grief you bid me renew, how the Greeks overthrew Troy’s wealth and woeful realm – the sights most piteous that I saw myself and wherein I played no small role. All were hushed, and kept their rapt gaze upon him then from his raised couch father Aeneas thus began: BOOKS 7 - 12 AENEID BOOK 2, TRANSLATED BY H.
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