That ruin instead) on Priam's might, and Phrygian folk shall fall.
But if your hands shall lead it up within the city wall,
Then Asia, free and willing it, to Pelops' house shall come
With mighty war; and that same fate our sons shall follow home.'

Caught by such snares and crafty guile of Sinon the forsworn,
By lies and lies, and tears forced forth there were we overborne;
We, whom Tydides might not tame, nor Larissaean king
Achilles; nor the thousand ships, and ten years' wearying.

But now another, greater hap, a very birth of fear,
Was thrust before us wretched ones, our sightless hearts to stir. 200
Laocoon, chosen out by lot for mighty Neptune's priest,
Would sacrifice a mighty bull at altars of the feast;
When lo, away from Tenedos, o'er quiet of the main
(I tremble in the tale) we see huge coils of serpents twain
Breasting the sea, and side by side swift making for the shore;
Whose fronts amid the flood were strained, and high their crests upbore
Blood-red above the waves, the rest swept o'er the sea behind,
And all the unmeasured backs of them coil upon coil they wind,
While sends the sea great sound of foam. And now the meads they gained,
The burning eyes with flecks of blood and streaks of fire are stained,
Their mouths with hisses all fulfilled are licked by flickering tongue. 211
Bloodless we flee the sight, but they fare steadfastly along
Unto Laocoon; and first each serpent round doth reach
One little body of his sons, and knitting each to each,
And winding round and round about, the unhappy body gnaws:
And then himself, as sword in hand anigh for help he draws,
They seize and bind about in coils most huge, and presently
Are folded twice about his midst, twice round his neck they tie
Their scaly backs, and hang above with head and toppling mane,
While he both striveth with his hands to rend their folds atwain, 220
His fillets covered o'er with blood and venom black and fell,
And starward sendeth forth withal a cry most horrible,
The roaring of a wounded bull who flees the altar-horn
And shaketh from his crest away the axe unhandy borne.

But fleeing to the shrines on high do those two serpents glide,
And reach the hard Tritonia's house, and therewithin they hide
Beneath the Goddess' very feet and orbed shield of dread;
Then through our quaking heart