Laocoon

In the Greek Mythology, Laocoon (in Greek old Λαοκόων / Laokóôn ) is one of the protagonists of the episode of the Trojan horse.

Myth

Wire of the king Priam and Hécube, or of Anténor, or of Capys and Thémisté according to other traditions, Laocoon is priest of Poséidon (or of Apollon). Troyens discover a beautiful morning, on the deserted strike, a wooden horse given up by the Achaens, supposedly an offering with Athéna to guarantee on the Greek fleet a good return.

Troyens divide on the fate of the horse: some want to insert it in the city, as a sign of victory, others think to burn it. Laocoon obstinately warns its compatriots (it is celebrates it sentence that Virgile puts in its mouth: Timeo Danaos, and gave ferentes (“I fear the Greeks, even when they bring present”). It launches a javelin to the side of the horse, which sounds then hollow, but no one does not notice it. One then brings a Greek slave, If not, which claims to have been there abandoned in sacrifice, just like the horse.

To support its account, two snakes are able of the open sea whereas Laocoon sacrifices to Poséidon. They are thrown on its two sons and dismember them, then attack Laocoon itself, which in vain tried to stop them. The snakes take refuge then in a temple of Athéna, coiling themselves with the foot of its colossal statue. Troyens think whereas it is the goddess who is avenged for the insult made with an offering which is devoted to him and, reassured, insert the horse in their walls.

In Énéide

This scene is described with force details in song II of Énéide of Virgile, one of the most famous passages of all the epopee.

… Illi agmine certo
Laocoonta petunt; and primum parva duorum
Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
Implicat, and miseros morsu depascitur artus.
Post, ipsum, auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem,
Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus: and jam
(a) medium amplexi, (a) collo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite and cervicibus altis.
Ille simul manibus tightened divellere nodos,
atroque Perfusus sanie vittas veneno,
Clamores simul horrendos AD struck tollit:
Quales mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
Taurus, and incertam excussit cervice securim.

French translation:

“But they, sure of their goal, go on Laocoon. They is initially the bodies of its two young people wire whom the snakes étreignent: they were repaissent of the flesh in scraps of their unhappy members. Then, it is Laocoon itself, run the weapons with the hand with their help, which they seize and roll up in their immense rings: by twice already they girdled its size, by twice around the neck They rolled up their covered croups of scales, dominating it their drawn up napes of the neck. At once, Laocoon tightens the hands to loosen their nodes, its strips dripping blood and the black venom, whereas its horrible clamors go up to the sky - thus mugit a bull which, wounded, flees the furnace bridge, whereas it shakes of its collar the badly assured axe. ”

The character of Laocoon was popularized by one of the most famous works of the Greek Sculpture, the Groupe of Laocoon, the representative with his two sons with the catches with the snakes.

Sources

, (V, 17).
.
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, (VIII, 505 and suiv.).
(CXXXV).
.
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(II, 214 and suiv.).

See too

External bond