Aeneid Book 2, lines 370-400

Into battle

by Virgil

On the night of Troy’s fall, Aeneas and the band he has gathered fall in for the first time with the enemy. Princess Casandra’s husband, Coroebus, suggests a trick to dupe the Greeks: it succeeds at first, but will have serious consequences later.

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Primus se, Danaum magna comitante caterva,
Androgeos offert nobis, socia agmina credens
inscius, atque ultro verbis compellat amicis:
“Festinate, viri: nam quae tam sera moratur
segnities? alii rapiunt incensa feruntque
Pergama; vos celsis nunc primum a navibus itis.”
dixit, et extemplo, neque enim responsa dabantur
fida satis, sensit medios delapsus in hostis.
Obstipuit, retroque pedem cum voce repressit:
inprovisum aspris veluti qui sentibus anguem
pressit humi nitens, trepidusque repente refugit
attollentem iras et caerula colla tumentem;
haud secus Androgeos visu tremefactus abibat.
Inruimus, densis et circumfundimur armis,
ignarosque loci passim et formidine captos
sternimus: adspirat primo fortuna labori.
atque hic successu exsultans animisque Coroebus,
“O socii, qua prima” inquit “fortuna salutis
monstrat iter, quoque ostendit se dextra, sequamur
mutemus clipeos, Danaumque insignia nobis
aptemus: dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?
arma dabunt ipsi.” sic fatus, deinde comantem
Androgei galeam clipeique insigne decorum
induitur, laterique Argivum accommodat ensem.
hoc Rhipeus, hoc ipse Dymas omnisque iuventus
laeta facit; spoliis se quisque recentibus armat.
vadimus immixti Danais haud numine nostro,
multaque per caecam congressi proelia noctem
conserimus, multos Danaum demittimus Orco.
diffugiunt alii ad navis, et litora cursu
fida petunt: pars ingentem formidine turpi
scandunt rursus equum et nota conduntur in alvo.

“The first Greek we meet, a big troop with him, is Androgeos. Unsuspecting, thinking we are an allied force, he even speaks friendly words: ‘Hurry up, men, why such slowness and delay? Troy is in flames, others are taking and sacking it, and you are just coming from the high ships’, he says; and immediately, receiving no reassuring reply, realises he has fallen right in with enemies. He stops short, and falls back in silence. Like a man who, struggling through, treads on a glittering snake unseen on the ground among the rough thorns, and in sudden fear steps backas its anger kindles and it puffs up its blue neck, so Androgeos draws away, trembling at the sight. We rush them, hemming them in with weapons on all sides, and cut them down everywhere, unfamiliar as they are with their surroundings and gripped by fear. Fortune breathes on this, our first action; in high spirits and buoyed by success, Coroebus speaks: ‘Comrades, when fortune shows us a way to safety, and under the best of auspices , let us follow! Let’s switch shields, and gird on the emblems of the Greeks – why, when dealing with an enemy, make a distinction between stratagem and skill at arms? The enemy themselves will supply our weapons!’ And he dons Androgeos’s plumed helmet and his shield blazoned with his famous crest, and girds a Greek sword to his side. Elated, Rhipeus, Dymas and all of our warriors do the same, and every man equips himself from new-won trophies. Under this borrowed identity we advance, mingling with the Greeks, joining combat many times in the darkness of the night, and send down many to Hades. Some run for their ships, seeking the safety of the shore; some in shameful panic climb back up the mighty horse and hide in its familiar womb.”

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More Poems by Virgil

  1. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  2. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  3. Virgil begins the Georgics
  4. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  5. The journey to Hades begins
  6. Aristaeus’s bees
  7. Juno is reconciled
  8. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  9. The Aeneid begins
  10. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  11. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  12. Jupiter’s prophecy
  13. Rites for the allies’ dead
  14. Storm at sea!
  15. Catastrophe for Rome?
  16. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  17. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  18. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  19. The death of Dido.
  20. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  21. Juno’s anger
  22. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  23. Aeneas is wounded
  24. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  25. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  26. Rumour
  27. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  28. The farmer’s starry calendar
  29. The death of Priam
  30. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  31. Sea-nymphs
  32. Vulcan’s forge
  33. The Trojan horse opens
  34. Dido falls in love
  35. New allies for Aeneas
  36. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  37. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  38. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  39. Aeneas joins the fray
  40. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  41. The Syrian hostess
  42. Mourning for Pallas
  43. Signs of bad weather
  44. King Mezentius meets his match
  45. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  46. What is this wooden horse?
  47. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  48. Juno throws open the gates of war
  49. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  50. The battle for Priam’s palace
  51. Aeneas’s oath
  52. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  53. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  54. Dido’s story
  55. Cassandra is taken
  56. Dido’s release
  57. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  58. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  59. Turnus is lured away from battle
  60. The Harpy’s prophecy
  61. Turnus at bay
  62. Laocoon and the snakes
  63. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  64. The natural history of bees
  65. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  66. The death of Pallas
  67. The infant Camilla
  68. Charon, the ferryman
  69. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  70. The Trojans reach Carthage
  71. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  72. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  73. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  74. The farmer’s happy lot
  75. The portals of sleep
  76. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  77. The death of Priam
  78. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  79. In King Latinus’s hall
  80. Aeneas and Dido meet
  81. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  82. Love is the same for all
  83. Turnus the wolf
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