The Iliad deals with the Trojan War (see introductory note to Death of Hector), while the Aeneid deals with the wanderings of a Trojan hero after the fall of his city. Aeneas, from whom the Aeneid takes its name, was the son of Anchises and Venus, goddess of love, and was one of the bravest of the Trojan heroes; indeed, he was second only to Hector.
When Troy was taken by the stratagem which Aeneas describes in this selection, he set sail with numerous followers for Italy, where fate had ordained that he should found a great nation. Juno, however, who hated the Trojans, drove the hero from his course, and brought upon him many sufferings. At last in his wanderings he came to the northern shore of Africa, where he found a great city, Carthage. Dido, queen of the Carthaginians, received Aeneas hospitably, and had prepared for him a great feast, at the conclusion of which she besought him to relate to her the story of the fall of Troy. Aeneas objected at first, as he feared he could not endure the pain which the recital would give him, but in the end he complied with her request.
The following selection gives the account of the stratagem by which the
Greeks, after thirteen years' siege, finally took Troy.
Torn down by wars,
Long beating 'gainst Fate's dungeon-bars,
As year kept chasing year,*
The Danaan* chiefs, with cunning given.
By Pallas,* mountain-high to heaven
A giant horse uprear,
And with compacted beams of pine
The texture of its ribs entwine,
A vow for their return they feign:
So runs the tale, and spreads amain.
There in the monster's cavernous side
Huge frames of chosen chiefs they hide,
And steel-clad soldiery finds room
Within that death-producing womb.
*[Footnote: The Greeks besieged Troy, or Ilium, for nine years
without making much head against it, and in the tenth year
succeeded in taking the city only by fraud, which Aeneas here
describes.]
*[Footnote: Danaans is a poetical name for the Greeks.]
*[Footnote: Pallas was Minerva, daughter of Jupiter, and one of the
most powerful of the goddesses. She favored the Greeks, and longed
to take their part against the Trojans, but was forbidden by Jupiter
to aid them in any way except by advising them.]
An isle there lies in Ilium's sight,
And Tenedos its name,
While Priam's fortune yet was bright,
Known for its wealth to fame:
Now all has dwindled to a bay,
Where ships in treacherous shelter stay.
[Illustration: THE WOODEN HORSE]
Thither they sail, and hide their host
Along its desolated coast.
We thought them to Mycenae* flown
And rescued Troy forgets to groan.
Wide stand the gates: what joy to go
The Dorian camp to see,
The land disburthened of the foe,
The shore from vessels free!
There pitched Thessalia's squadron, there
Achilles' tent was set:
There, drawn on land, their navies were,
And there the battle met.
Some on Minerva's offering gaze,
And view its bulk with strange amaze:
And first Thymoetes loudly calls
To drag the steed within our walls,
Or by suggestion from the foe,
Or Troy's ill fate had willed it so.
But Capys and the wiser kind
Surmised the snare that lurked behind:
To drown it in the whelming tide,
Or set the fire-brand to its side,
Their sentence is: or else to bore
Its caverns, and their depths explore.
In wild confusion sways the crowd:
Each takes his side and all are loud.
*[Footnote: Mycenae was the capital city of Agamemnon, the leader
of the Greeks in the Trojan War.]
Girt with a throng of Ilium's sons,
Down from the tower Laocoön runs,
And, "Wretched countrymen," he cries,
"What monstrous madness blinds your eyes?
Think you your enemies removed?
Come presents without wrong
From Danaans? have you thus approved
Ulysses,* known so long?
Perchance—who knows?—the bulk we see
Conceals a Grecian enemy,
Or 'tis a pile to o'erlook the town,
And pour from high invaders down,
Or fraud lurks somewhere to destroy:
Mistrust, mistrust it, men of Troy!
Whate'er it be, a Greek I fear,
Though presents in his hand he bear."
He spoke, and with his arm's full force
Straight at the belly of the horse
His mighty spear he cast:
Quivering it stood: the sharp rebound
Shook the huge monster; and a sound
Through all its caverns passed.
And then, had fate our weal designed
Nor given us a perverted mind,
Then had he moved us to deface
The Greeks' accursed lurking-place,
And Troy had been abiding still,
And Priam's tower yet crowned the hill.