The weapon Recoiled, 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 ambush Gasped.

And as long as the reverberations re-echoed The wooden mass breathed out a fear that was not of its own.
Imprisoned, the warriors advance to take Troia a captive And finish the struggle by strategem new and unheard of.
Behold! Other portents: Where Tenedos steep breaks the ocean Where great surging billows dash high; to be broken, and leap back To form a deep hollow of calm, and resemble the plashing Of oars, carried far through the silence of night, as when ships pass And drive through the calm as it smashes against their fir bows.
Then backward we look towards the rocks; the tide carries two serpents That coil and uncoil as they come, and their breasts, which are swollen Aside dash the foam, as the bows of tall ships; and the ocean Is lashed by their tails, their manes, free on the water, as savage As even their eyes: now a blinding beam kindles the billows, The sea with their hissing is sibilant! All stare in terror! Laocoon's twin sons in Phrygian raiment are standing With priests wreathed for sacrifice.

Them did the glistening serpents Enfold 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 children By 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 him To 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 stars Led forth, with her torch all ablaze; when the Greeks drew the bolts And poured forth their warriors, on Priam's sons, buried in darkness And sodden with wine.