Thoughts of isolation: in the Wooden Horse
SIR – Readers may have come across Ronald Knox’s brilliant Latin elegiac squib (published in 1921, and based on Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Heroides), the “Letter to Penelope from Ulysses inside the Wooden Horse”.
I had long thought about providing a suitable verse translation so that students of Latin verse can relish its humour more fully. In this time of isolation, aptly enough, I finally did.
(The words below not in italic type are quotes from Virgil.)
Dear Wife, This letter comes to you from near the Trojan shore,
where I’m concealed inside a jerry-built machine of war. Excuse the awful handwriting, it’s all over the place:
the reason is, my elbow’s jammed in Demophöon’s face.
You’ll notice that the ink I’m writing with is mixed in blood;
don’t worry, it’s his leg, not mine, that gives a steady flood.
The fact is this: I’m stuck inside a giant wooden horse
assembled by Epeus – laced with oaken ribs, of course.
We chose the crew by throwing lots, the hardest bods together;
I only wish the hardest bods weren’t all as tough as leather.
To what should I compare the situation that we’re in?
It feels as if we’re packed like bloody sardines in a tin.
The tickle up my nose from Thoas’ crest I can’t abide,
And now Thersander’s quiver’s poking holes in my backside.
The Trojans rolled us into town, they heaved us rough and quick;
I’ve always hated sailing; as you know, it makes me sick.
Right now they’re throwing spears into the horse’s flank to check;
at any moment soon, I’m sure, I’ll get it in the neck.
Penelope, farewell. If I get out of here alive,
in future I will go by foot, I swear, and never drive.
Professor Armand D’angour
Jesus College, Oxford