What Convinces Aeneas to Flee With His Family Instead of Leaving Them to Fight the Greeks?
Study Guide
The Aeneid Book 2
Past
Book 2
- Later on some initial hesitation, Aeneas begins to tell the story of Troy's downfall. Everything that follows in this book is told by Aeneas, and then reflects his perspective.
- Aeneas begins by telling how the Greeks, unable to defeat the Trojans in boxing, sail away from Troy. On the embankment, they exit backside a giant wooden equus caballus, with Greek warriors hidden inside it – though the Trojans don't know that yet.
- Something else the Trojans don't know is that the Greeks didn't actually canvass habitation. Instead, they made their manner to the nearby island of Tenedos, and parked their navy behind information technology.
- The Trojans are amazed at the equus caballus and come up out of their urban center to have a better look at it.
- Some contend in favor of taking information technology within the city. Others say it should exist destroyed.
- Laocoön, a priest, comes down from the city to have a look. He says non to trust annihilation having to do with the Greeks. He fifty-fifty guesses that there are Greeks hiding inside it, and throws his spear at the horse. It echoes, revealing that it is hollow.
- The Trojans would have followed Laocoön's lead and destroyed the equus caballus, but they are interrupted past a mayhem.
- It turns out that all the ruckus is coming from some shepherds, who step forward with a prisoner – a Greek!
- The captive'south proper noun is Sinon, and he has a story to tell.
- Sinon claims to be related to Palamedes, a Greek hero who came to oppose the Trojan War. As a result of this, Palamedes was executed on a trumped-up accuse, as a result of Ulysses's (a.k.a. Odysseus's) trickery.
- Sinon says that because he complained about this injustice, Ulysses had it in for him.
- He besides says that the Greeks tried several times to canvas home, only, every time, they were held back past bad conditions. He says that their problems only got worse after the horse was built.
- Finally, they sent a guy chosen Eurypylus to ask the oracle of Apollo what they should do. The oracle told Eurypylus that a human being sacrifice was required for them to get home, just equally a human sacrifice was required for them to get to Troy.
- (Huh? The oracle is referring to the fact that, on the way to Troy the Greek male monarch Agamemnon had to cede his girl, Iphigeneia, to convince the winds to blow the right way.)
- As you tin imagine, this made everyone pretty nervous. Ulysses asked Calchas, the soothsayer, to interpret the true will of the gods.
- Calchas kept silent for ten days, but finally caved in to Ulysses'south pestering, and named Sinon as the victim. Anybody else was cool with that.
- When the mean solar day of the sacrifice rolled effectually, withal, Sinon managed to escape. In the end, the Greeks sailed off without finding him.
- So ends Sinon's story. In concluding, he begs the Trojans, in the proper name of the gods, to spare his life.
- The Trojans feel pity for Sinon, and Priam orders them to remove his chains.
- At this point, Priam thinks it'south fourth dimension to inquire Sinon nigh the elephant in the room – that is, the equus caballus on the beach.
- Sinon first swears that he is no longer loyal to the Greeks. Then he explains how the Greeks' troubles started when Ulysses and Diomedes stole a statuette of Minerva from the Trojan citadel. (Y'all tin can acquire more about this daring raid here.)
- Later on they brought the statuette back to campsite, even so, wacky stuff started happening. The statuette started sweating, flaming, and moving its eyes. Oh yeah, and the goddess herself kept appearing out of the ground amidst flashes of lightening.
- Calchas, the seer, interpreted these events to hateful that Troy could non be captured. They would take to sail habitation and look for another sign from the gods before making war on it once more.
- Co-ordinate to Sinon, it was on Calchas'due south orders that they constructed the horse – as a replacement for what they had stolen. He says that the reason they made information technology so big was so that the Trojans wouldn't exist able to accept it inside their city.
- Sinon tells the Trojans that if whatever of them impairment the horse, it will bring destruction on all of Troy. On the other hand, if they take information technology inside the metropolis, it will bring devastation on all the Greeks (nudge, nudge, wink, flash). Here ends Sinon's second story.
- At this bespeak, Laocoön, the priest guy who threw the spear at the side of the equus caballus, starts making a cede to Neptune, the god of the sea.
- All of a sudden, ii giant serpents slither out of the sea, clamber up to Laocoön, and strangle him and his two sons to death. (A moving-picture show's worth a g words.) Then the serpents make their mode into Troy, head to Minerva's citadel, and curl up backside the statue's shield.
- The Trojans interpret this every bit penalization from the gods for spearing the equus caballus. They decide to take the horse inside the city. They actually take to knock a hole in the wall to bring it in.
- Anybody is jubilant. Four times the horse jars on its way into the metropolis, and four times the weapons of the Greeks within clatter. No one notices.
- The Trojan princess Cassandra, who has the gift of prophesy, tries to prevent them from taking the horse inside the city. Unfortunately, the gods have cursed her so that her predictions volition non be believed. As indeed they aren't.
- Night comes. The Greek fleet sails dorsum from Tenedos. Sinon lets the Greeks out of the horse. They impale the Trojan sentries and open the city gates for their friends who are just arriving at the city.
- Meanwhile, in the urban center, Aeneas is asleep. The Trojan warrior Hector appears to him in his dream, all covered in blood and dirt as he was on the day he was killed by the Greek hero Achilles.
- Hector tells Aeneas that Troy is most to be captured. He tells him to gather up his household gods and go found a new city for them.
- Aeneas wakes upward and climbs up to his roof. From at that place, he hears a terrible clamor, and can see numerous houses burning.
- His commencement thought is to arm himself for boxing. Then, at his door appears Pantheus, the priest of Apollo, who is carrying some images of the gods, and leading his grandson.
- Aeneas asks Pantheus where they should accept their stand to defend Troy, but Pantheus tells him that the city is done for.
- All the aforementioned, Aeneas rushes into the fight, and gathers upwards some companions. Together, they fight with suicidal courage.
- They kill some Greeks and accept their equipment. With these disguises, they are able to join the ranks of other Greeks and kill them through trickery.
- But then Coroebus, ane of Aeneas's comrades, who also happens to exist the married man of Cassandra, sees his wife being dragged out of Minerva's temple by some Greek warriors. Like a madman, he rushes into the fight, and everyone else follows.
- In the chaos, they are hit past a bunch of missiles thrown by Trojans hiding out of top of the temple – they mistook Aeneas and company for Greeks because of their stolen armor.
- Realizing the Trojans' charade, the Greeks rally, and a furious boxing breaks out in front of the temple. Many Trojans are killed, including Coroebus.
- Just then the Trojans are distracted when they realize that Priam's palace is existence besieged. Aeneas and some other men sneak in a back entrance to assist out.
- They brand their style to the roof, where they knock a belfry off onto the Greeks below. But at that place are too many of them, and they keep coming on.
- The well-nigh fearsome of the Greeks is Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.
- Meanwhile, Priam puts on his armor and prepares to face downwards the Greeks, quondam and decrepit as he is.
- When his wife Hecuba sees him, however, she tells him to stop being such a fool. She makes him come up over with her and some women who are clinging to an chantry for safety. (They are assuming that the Greeks volition not violate the holiness of the identify.)
- But then, Polites, one of Priam's sons, rushes in, wounded, with Neoptolemus in pursuit. Neoptolemus catches upward to him and kills him.
- Enraged, Priam prepares to assault Neoptolemus. Priam reminds Neoptolemus about how his male parent, Achilles, once had pity on him when he gave Hector's body back for burial. (This scene is described in Book 23 of Homer's Iliad.) Priam tells Neoptolemus that his horrible behavior makes it seem equally if he isn't a truthful son of Achilles.
- Priam feebly attacks his younger foe, but does non succeed in wounding him.
- Instead, Neoptolemus drags Priam through the blood of his son to the altar, and kills him at that place.
- Aeneas, who has been watching this whole scene, suddenly thinks of his own begetter, Anchises.
- On his fashion home, he runs into Helen. She is trying to hide, agape of both the Trojans and the Greeks.
- Aeneas is about to kill her, when his mother, Venus, appears and tells him non to blame her. She says that what is happening to Troy is not Helen'southward fault; it is the will of the gods.
- Venus takes the mist away from Aeneas's sight so he can encounter diverse gods at piece of work destroying the metropolis.
- Then Aeneas runs dwelling, finds his father, and tells him to get ready: they're going to head for the hills!
- Just Anchises refuses. He says that he has lived and suffered long enough.
- Creusa, Aeneas's wife, and Ascanius, his son, try to bring Anchises effectually, simply he keeps refusing.
- Finally, Aeneas gathers his weapons in order to go out and dice fighting.
- Creusa tells him to take her and Ascanius along with him.
- But then, flames burst out of Ascanius'south head, only exercise non fire him.
- Anchises prays for a sign from the gods, and suddenly a shooting star flashes overhead.
- Anchises accepts the sign and decides to go with Aeneas.
- Now thinking of survival instead of suicide, Aeneas takes his father on his shoulders. He gives his father the images of the household gods to carry. And then he takes Ascanius by the manus.
- After Aeneas tells some servants that they will meet up at a certain cypress tree by an inland gate of the city, they head off, with Creusa following behind.
- In a moment of defoliation, however, Aeneas ducks down some alleyways, and Creusa gets lost. Aeneas doesn't realize this until they get to the cypress tree.
- He goes dorsum solitary through the flaming city, looking for her, but does not find her. All of a sudden, her ghost appears and tells him that it is too belatedly. She tells him to go to where the Tiber river flows (i.due east., in Italy). In that location he will go a new kingdom – and a new wife.
- Aeneas accepts Creusa's words and heads back to the cypress tree, where many refugees accept at present gathered. Together, they ready out on their voyage.
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Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/aeneid/summary/book-2
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