nostro seni huic stolido, ei profecto nomen facio ego Ilio; miles Menelaust, ego Agamemno, idem Vlixes Lartius, Mnesilochust Alexander, qui erit exitio rei patriae suae; is Helenam avexit, cuia causa nunc facio obsidium Ilio. This silly old man of ours--I dub him Ilium, I certainly do. The Captain is Menelaus, I Agamemnon: I am likewise Laertian Ulysses: Mnesilochus is Alexander,[M] who will be the destruction of his native city; he is the one that carried off Helen, on account of whom I now besiege Ilium. [Footnote M: Paris] nam illi itidem Vlixem audivi, ut ego sum, fuisse et audacem et malum: in dolis ego prensus sum, ille mendicans paene inventus interiit, 950 dum ibi exquirit fata Iliorum; adsimiliter mi hodie optigit. vinctus sum. sed dolis me exemi: item se ille servavit dolis. At that Ilium Ulysses, so they say, was a bold, bad man, just as I am now. I was caught in my wiles; he was found begging and almost perished, while he was seeking to learn there the destinies of the Ilians. What befell me to-day was quite similar. I was bound, but released myself by wiles: by wiles he likewise saved himself. Ilio tria fuisse audivi fata quae illi forent exitio: signum ex arce si periisset; alterum etiamst Troili mors; tertium, cum portae Phrygiae limen superum scinderetur: paria item tria eis tribus sunt fata nostro huic Ilio. In the case of that Ilium, so they say, there were three fateful events which would prove her downfall: if the image[N] disappeared from the citadel; still a second, the death of Troilus[O]; the third, when the upper lintel of the Phrygian gate should be torn away. Counterparts of these three are three fateful events, too, in the case of this Ilium of ours. [Footnote N: The Palladium, a statue of Pallas] [Footnote O: A son of Priam, slain by Achilles] nam dudum primo ut dixeram nostro seni mendacium et de hospite et de auro et de lembo, ibi signum ex arce iam abstuli. iam duo restabant fata tunc, nec magis id ceperam oppidum. post ubi tabellas ad senem detuli, ibi occidi Troilum, 960 cum censuit Mnesilochum cum uxore esse dudum militis.[26] (961) For a little while ago when I first told our old man that lie about his friend and the gold and the galley, I there and then stole the image from the citadel. Even then two fateful events were yet to come, and the town was still untaken. Later, on carrying the letter to the old man, I then slew my Troilus, when he thought Mnesilochus a short time ago was with the Captain’s wife.[26]