The priest Laocoon has violated the shrine of Tritonia and unheedful of his doom is sacrificing a bullock at the altar of Neptune. Suddenly, as Virgil pictures the scene, the two great serpents rise from the sea. Their glaring eyes shot with blood and their jaws darting fire, they make for the shore and move steadily upon Laocoon. His two small boys are taken first. Then the serpents gather the father himself in their mighty folds. One coil grasps Laocoon’s body. Another part of the scaly chain winds twice round his neck. In vain the priest tries to tear asunder the dreadful coil, crying to Heaven, to use the Virgilian simile, like a bull who, having escaped the sacrificial axe, flies wounded from the altar. [Illustration: THE LAOCOON GROUP Vatican, Rome] The designers of the group have clearly followed an earlier version of the legend in which the younger son escapes. But the difficulty of visualization and expression is the same. It is comparatively easy to find words to convey the general impression. But the three sculptors had to find the momentary action which would suggest the whole story. Yet the design of “The Laocoon Group” tells everything. We see “The father’s double pangs, both for himself And sons convulsed; to Heaven his rueful look, Imploring aid, and half accusing, cast; His fell despair, with indignation mixed, As the strong curling monsters from his side His full-extended fury cannot tear.” None of the tragic horror of the scene is lost. It can be said with absolute candour, “Such passion here, Such agonies, such bitterness of pain, Seem so to tremble through the tortured stone That the touched heart engrosses all the view.” None of us at once realize the reason we are so moved by a mere echo of an old myth. When the truth dawns upon us, we see that the awful admiration with which “The Laocoon” has always been regarded, finds its source deep down in the human heart. The emotions we experience do not depend upon the sufferings of the priest of Neptune. Laocoon is mankind himself. His fight with death is an emblem of the far more general struggle which every human being must share—the struggle which is the price we pay for life. “The Laocoon” is not unique in this respect. On the contrary, a similar dominating idea is enshrined in all the greatest examples of Hellenic sculpture. The “Aphrodite of Cnidus” is more than a woman. The statue is the incarnation of the idea of womanly love.