Section 8 · lines 220–233

The present tense puts Laocoön's struggle before our eyes as if it is happening now.

The knots come at the end of the line, so the reader is left with the image of the coils he cannot break.

Opening the line with "drenched" makes the gore and venom the first thing we see.

The sacred ribbons (vittas) are surrounded by gore and poison, just as the priest is trapped in the coils. His priestly symbols are defiled.

The shouts open the line, so the reader hears Laocoön's agony before anything else.

simul … simul links his struggling hands and his screams, so we see and hear the struggle at once.

The present tense makes the screams sound in the reader's ears.

The word itself, with its long u sounds, imitates the deep bellow of a bull.

Putting the verb early stresses the bull's escape, which Laocoön himself cannot achieve.

The subject of the simile is held over to the next line, so the reader waits to discover what Laocoön is being compared to. The image is ironic, since he had been about to sacrifice a bull himself.

incertam and securim frame the line, as though the axe hovers over the bull's neck.

The repeated hard c and s sounds imitate the sharp, violent movement as the bull shakes off the axe.

gemini and dracones frame the line, so the twin snakes seem to slide right across it.

The snakes escape to the very top of the citadel, which shows their power and their link with the goddess.

The verb carries over to a new line, which matches the snakes' smooth, gliding escape.

The separation of adjective and noun puts weight on saevae: Minerva is cruel, and she is the Trojans' enemy.

Minerva is named only by a title linked to Lake Triton, which makes her sound remote and mysterious, and reminds the reader that she is behind the snakes.

The citadel, the heart of Troy, ends the line: this is where the snakes now take shelter.

The present tense ends the scene vividly, with the snakes safe under the goddess's protection.

The words are split, so the fear is spread across the line, just as it spreads through the crowd.

insinuat means "winds its way in", a word used of snakes, so fear itself creeps into the Trojans like another serpent.

The present tense makes the spread of panic feel immediate.

novus is placed far from pavor, so the reader waits to learn what is new; when it comes, it is terror.

His name opens the line, stressing that the crowd now blames the one man who told the truth.

sacrum and robur frame the clause, stressing that the Trojans now see the horse as holy.

The spear sits right inside the phrase "sacred timber", just as it stuck in the horse.

The verb is held over to the start of the line, so the reader dwells on Laocoön's supposed crime.

The repeated s and t sounds give the line a hissing, accusing tone, as if the crowd were spitting out the charge.

Calling the spear "wicked" shows how completely the Trojans now misread events: the real wickedness is the Greek trick.

The repeated d sounds give the crowd's cry a heavy, insistent beat.

The gerundive and its noun are separated, so the crowd's urgent demand stretches across the line.

oranda ends one line and numina begins the next, so the prayer is drawn out, like the crowd's chant.

The present tense and the prefix con- ("together") give the sense of one great shout from the whole crowd: the final step in Troy's mistake.

Laocoön had been sacrificing a bull to Neptune when the snakes came (line 202). Now he bellows like a sacrificial bull that has escaped the axe; but unlike the bull he cannot escape. The priest has become the victim.

Minerva (Pallas Athena), called Tritonis after Lake Triton in Libya, near which she was said to have been born. She supported the Greeks, her temple stood on the citadel of Troy, and the horse had been built as an offering to her.

Statues of Minerva showed her armed, with a round shield, and snakes were one of her symbols. By curling up at her feet, the snakes show that they belong to her.