Beware of those who come bearing gifts

by Praying Mantis

There is a story from world history that attempts to resolutely warn people against those who come bearing gifts. The original phrase is in Latin as “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes“, from (II, 49), written by between 29 and 19 BCE. The Latin adage has been kind of interpreted and reproduced in English as the proverb “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, the literal meaning of which is “I fear the [Greeks], even those bearing gifts”.

The story behind this proverb is quite fascinating and should be a lesson to all of us. As presented in the Aeneid, after a Nine-year war on the beaches of Troy, between the Danaans (Greeks from the mainland) and the Trojans, the Greek seer Calchas induced the Greek army hierarchy to win the war by a ploy and a subterfuge. They built an absolutely massive wooden horse and pretended to sail away from Troy as if in defeat while leaving the horse behind as a gift to the Trojans. The Trojan Horse actually contained a hand-picked team of elite Greek warriors hidden in its wooden belly.

The Trojan priest Laocoön however, suspected foul-play and thought that there was something wrong and fishy in this entire situation. He then warned the Trojans not to accept the gift. He said “Equō nē crēdite, Teucrī! Quidquid id est, timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentīs”,, meaning “Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans, even when bringing gifts”. Then Laocoön threw a spear at the horse, which pierced its side. Virgil writes that the groans from the Greek warriors hidden within who were injured by the spear would surely have alerted the Trojans to the trick if the gods had not already designed Troy’s destruction.

What followed after the casting of the spear was that there came enormous twin serpents who emerged and slithered out of the sea to attack Laocoön’s sons. When Laocoön tried to help them, he too was viciously slain. The Trojans thought that the horse has been offered at the goddess ‘s Minerva’s (Athena’s) prompting and interpreted Laocoön’s death as a sign of the displeasure of the goddess.

The Trojans agreed unanimously to place the horse atop wheels and rolled it through their impenetrable walls as a trophy of their victory. Festivities followed, celebrating the end of the war. That night, the Greeks hidden inside the horse crept out and opened the city gates to the entire Greek army, which had sailed back to Troy under cover of darkness. The Greeks then attacked and racked the city and Troy was completely destroyed. In essence what this means is that even a gift provided by an enemy, overtly or covertly, could be one’s downfall.

This narrative has enormous relevance to the situation in our emerald isle at the present time. There are media reports of many foreigners, either by real action or by word of mouth attempting to come to us, ‘bearing gifts’. These include various types of diplomatic personnel, powerful foreign politicians and even a Prime Minister from a neighbouring country.

These worthies wish to ‘help’ us in many ways. They have indicated that they could provide ‘gifts’ in the form of medical supplies, financial aid, material donations, various processes to bring back tourism to our country, so on and so forth. In fact, some of them have ‘gifted’ us some medical equipment to deal with this Corona thing while their own countries are struggling with the same Corona. The promises made are so very attractive that these could pave the way to our little country being bathed in milk and honey in the not too distant future. Some of these offers have been made by emissaries of certain Western nations which, not too long ago, in the public sessions of a supposedly world renowned and united organisation, dragged and roasted us over the coals for alleged violations of human rights in the saga of the 30-year-old brutal war against the most vicious and ruthless terrorist outfit in the history of the world. Nazis were nothing compared to that terrorist lot. Then there are others who, quite a few years ago, were pleased to drop lentils from the sky reminiscent of manna from heaven, to show their supremacy over this little island, who now promise a plethora of things but with hidden strings attached to the packages which could be pulled by them to their own advantage. Then there are some powers from the Eastern regions of the world who are already in our midst but who have chosen not to show their hand as yet. No doubt they are pleased to bide their time and are really waiting for the most appropriate of opportunities and the most opportune times.

Please be warned, the people of our land, politicians and legislators included. Our naïve and unsuspecting officials, representatives and a motley crowd of those who control our future, are more than likely to fall for these traps, ruses and manoeuvres of these so called ‘friends’ who come bearing gifts. Generally speaking, just like the Trojan priest Laocoön was, one would be terribly suspicious of our enemies, even when they come bearing gifts. But who would have the same degree of suspicion on our so-called ‘friends’? That is where these very same foreign envoys and very high-ranking legislators would be holding the cards. To many of our immature unwary representatives of the people, they are friends, totally above suspicion. However, a reasonable degree of unrestrained suspicion would be a most desirable thing to have in situations such as these.

We should learn from the West. We should learn to say ‘no, thank you’, in the finest, the gentlest and the calmest possible diplomatic lingo. The language of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, the language in which we have to communicate with all our friends as well as our enemies in the world, provides a very wide repertoire of expressions and unbridled versatility of the language to enable us to beat around the bush and also wax eloquently around a supposedly ‘much-regretted’ refusal of some of these ‘gifts’. It is no secret that these much-involved dignitaries of notoriety have hidden hands and very clever manipulators behind them and we need to be shrewd enough to spot the devils in the darkness. We need to firmly look the gift horse in the mouth and say a resolute and a resounding ‘no’ to all of them.