and a thousand ships to help ’em.  That wasn’t enough to raise a blister on their feet, compared with the way I’ll take my master by storm, without a fleet and without an army and all that host of soldiers.  Now before the old chap appears, I feel like raising a dirge for him till he comes out.

o Troia, o patria, o Pergamum, o Priame periisti senex, qui misere male mulcabere quadringentis Philippis aureis. nam ego has tabellas obsignatas consignatas quas fero non sunt tabellae, sed equos quem misere Achivi ligneum.[25] (936)

(wailing) O Troy, O paternal city, O Pergamum!  O ancient Priam, thy day is past!  Thou shalt be badly, badly beaten—­ out of four hundred golden sovereigns.  Ah yes, these tablets here, (showing them) sealed and signed, which I bear, are no tablets, but a horse sent by the Greeks—­a wooden horse.[25]

tum quae his sunt scriptae litterae, hoc in equo insunt milites 941 armati atque animati probe. ita res successit mi usque adhuc. atque hic equos non in arcem, verum in arcam faciet impetum; exitium excidium exlecebra fiet hic equos hodie auro senis.

Moreover, the words herein inscribed are the soldiers within this horse, soldiers armed to the teeth and full of fight.  Thus has my scheme progressed up till now.  Aye, and this horse will proceed to assail not a stronghold, but a strongbox.  The wreck, ruin, and rape of the old man’s gold will this horse prove to-day.

nostro seni huic stolido, ei profecto nomen facio ego Ilio; miles Menelaust, ego Agamemno, idem Vlixes Lartius, Mnesilochust Alexander, qui erit exitio rei patriae suae; is Helenam avexit, cuia causa nunc facio obsidium Ilio.

This silly old man of ours—­I dub him Ilium, I certainly do.  The Captain is Menelaus, I Agamemnon:  I am likewise Laertian Ulysses:  Mnesilochus is Alexander,[M] who will be the destruction of his native city; he is the one that carried off Helen, on account of whom I now besiege Ilium.

        [Footnote M:  Paris]

  nam illi itidem Vlixem audivi, ut ego sum,
        fuisse et audacem et malum: 
  in dolis ego prensus sum,
        ille mendicans paene inventus interiit, 950
  dum ibi exquirit fata Iliorum; adsimiliter mi hodie optigit.
  vinctus sum. sed dolis me exemi:  item se ille servavit dolis.

At that Ilium Ulysses, so they say, was a bold, bad man, just as I am now.  I was caught in my wiles; he was found begging and almost perished, while he was seeking to learn there the destinies of the Ilians.  What befell me to-day was quite similar.  I was bound, but released myself by wiles:  by wiles he likewise saved himself.

Ilio tria fuisse audivi fata quae illi forent exitio:  signum ex arce si periisset; alterum etiamst Troili mors; tertium, cum portae Phrygiae limen superum scinderetur:  paria item