Book II lines 1-56

1 All became silent and eagerly were turning their faces (to Aeneas). Thereupon father Aeneas thus began form his high couch:

3 'Queen, you urge (me) to revive my grief (wretched!), how the Greeks tore up the Trojan wealth and the lamentable kingdom, and which most miserable (events) I saw myself and of which I was a great part. Who of the Myrmidons or Dolopes or harsh soldier Ulysses in telling such could refrain from tears? And now dewy night falls from the sky and the falling stars urge sleep.

10 But if your desire to know our sufferings [is] so great and to shortly hear the final labor of Troy, however my mind trembles to recall and recoils from grief, I will begin.

13 Broken by war and repelled by fate the chiefs of the Greeks now with so many years slipping by are constructing a horse with the likeness of a mountain by the divine art of Pallas, and they cover the sides with cut pine; they are pretending prayer for the return; this story spreads.

18 Here they stealthily confine in the dark of the sides the chosen by lot bodies of men and within the huge cavern of the belly they fill with armed soldiers.

21 There is Tenedos in sight, an island of most notable fame, rich of wealth while the kingdom of Priam remained, now a so great bay and a station bad safe for ships: here [the Greeks] hid themselves having conveyed on the deserted shore.

25 We thought [the Greeks] to have left and to have sought Mycenae by wind.

26 Therefore all Troy long of grief freed itself: the gates opened, pleasing to go and to see the deserted Greek camp and the places and the deserted shore: here the hand of the Dolopes, here held savage Achilles; here the place for the fleet, here they were accustomed to fight with a battle line.

31 Part gazed at the fatal gift of unwed Minerva and wondered at the mass of the horse; and first Thyometes urges it to be led among the walls and to place it in the citadel, whether with deceit or now the fates of Troy were carrying thus.

35 But Capys, and of whose better opinion to (a.k.a with respect to) the mind, or they order to throw (headlong) to the sea the tricks of the Greeks and the suspected gift and to burn placed under fires, or to pierce the hollow belly and to explore the cavern.

39 The uncertain crowd is divided in opposite desires.

40 First there before all, with a great crowd having gathered Laocoon burning runs down from the top of the citadel and shouts: 'O miserable citizens, what so great madness [is there]? Do you believe the enemy has gone? Or do you think any gift of the Greeks lacks deceit? Thus familiar [is] Ulysses?

45 Or in this wood the inclosed Greeks are being hidden, or here the fashioned machine is within our walls, it is going to look into our homes and is going to come from above the city, or it hides some other trick; do not trust the horse Trojans.

49 Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks and (even) bearing gifts.' Thus having spoken with a mighty force he hurled a huge spear into the side and into the curved belly with seams of the beast.

52 It (the spear) stood trembling, and with the belly having been struck the hollow caves echoed and gave a groan. And, if the fates of the gods, if the mind had not been against us, he would have driven to mar the Greek lair with iron, and Troy would now stand, and the high citadel of Priam you would remain.