Odyssey 8.504 · Book 8, lines 504–506
The horse stands; the Trojans debate
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αὐτοὶ γάρ μιν Τρῶες ἐς ἀκρόπολιν ἐρύσαντο. ὣς ὁ μὲν ἑστήκει, τοὶ δʼ ἄκριτα πόλλʼ ἀγόρευον ἥμενοι ἀμφʼ αὐτόν· τρίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή,
For the Trojans themselves had dragged it up to their citadel. So there it stood, while they debated on and on, sitting around it; and their counsel pleased them three ways,
Word by word
The setting
The song continues. The Trojans have hauled the horse up into their own citadel, and now sit around it arguing endlessly. Their counsel divides three ways over what to do with it.
A note on this passage
The trap has been carried inside by its own victims. The line is blunt about it: the Trojans themselves dragged it up. Now the horse simply stands there while the city sits around it and talks, unable to agree — the fatal indecision that lets the ambush hold.
The word ákrita, 'without decision,' is the hinge of the whole disaster. Troy's ruin is not stormed but debated; the city argues itself to death around the wooden thing in its midst. Homer lets the danger sit motionless and silent while the humans supply all the noise — a picture of a doomed council that cannot read the object at the center of its own square.
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