My Original Translations
I have translated the original texts of two different queer relationships: Iphis and Ianthe, and Nisus and Euryalus.
These translations are rough and have been adapted to be more easily understood. I am still working on putting together a more accurate, annotated version of my translations, which will be uploaded as soon as I am finished.
Iphis and Ianthe
The talk of a monstrous new thing would perhaps have filled up
The hundreds cities of Crete, if recently
Crete had not born more recent miracles
With Iphis having been changed.
For at the time the Phestian land, near to the kingdom of Knossos
brought forth a humble man from the Indigenous folk, Ligdus by name,
And his fortune was not valued greater than his high birth,
But his life and faith was true and blameless.
He warned with his words to the ear of his wife,
When now a birth was nearly present:
“What I wish, there are two:
That you may be lightened with little pain,
And that you birth a male;
The other [gender] is a lot more arduous,
And fortune refuses [women] strength.
I wish to nullify [that], therefore, by chance if
A girl will be produced in your birth
(I, reluctant, ask: Gods, forgive!)
She must be killed.”
He had declared,
And they washed their faces with many tears,
As much he who was ordering [the death],
as [the one] to whom the commands were being given.
But nevertheless, Telethusa continuously shakes her husband
With empty entreaties, lest he put his hope in a single gender upon her;
A certain knowledge of things is to Ligdus.
And now scarcely she was able to bear the weighty,
From the mature burden, stomach.
When, in the middle space of the night,
Under the visage of sleep, before her bed,
having been escorted by a procession of sacred [beings]
Io either stood or she was seen.
Regal splendor and lunar horns had entered upon [her] forehead,
With tips, golden-yellow with shining gold;
With her,
Barking Anubis,
And sacred Bast,
And dappled-with-many-colors Apis,
And the one who represses the voice and urged silences with his finger,
And there were the bronze rattles,
And never-worshipped-enough Osiris,
And the alien serpent full of sleep-filled venom.
Then, thus the goddess said [to the woman],
[who was] seeing palpable things and as if having been driven out [from] sleep:
“O Telethusa, part of me,
Put down the weighty pains [of worry], and dupe his orders of marriage.
Do not hesitate to accept whichever [gender] it will be
When Lucina shall have lightened
You with delivery.
I am a helpful goddess and I bring assistance when prayed to;
You will not cry that you have worshiped an ungracious divine power,”
she advised, and receded from the inner chamber.
The happy [woman] with a large belly/from the couch arose,
And, kneeling, the [woman] of Crete,
lifting [her] pure hands to the heavenly bodies,
Prays that her visions may be fulfilled;
Thus the pain increased, and she expelled from herself
That very burden into the breath of air
and a girl was born from an ignorant father,
The deceiving mother ordered that she be raised as a boy:
And the lie held credence,
and nobody was aware of the lie, except for the wet-nurse.
The father fulfilled the vows and he put down an ancestral name:
His grandfather had been Iphis.
The mother was delighted by the name
Because it is androgenous
Nor would [Iphis have to] deceive anyone with it.
From then, those beginning falsehoods
were hiding with well-intentioned deceit:
[Iphis’] childhood was of a boy, the face,
Whether you might give it to a girl or to a boy,
[the face] would have been handsome either way.
Meanwhile, the third year had succeeded the tenth
When the father pledges the blonde Ianthe to you, Iphis;
Among the Phaestidians that young girl was,
by dowry of form, the most esteemed daughter by Telestus of Crete.
There was equal age, equal beauty
And [Iphis and Ianthe] received the first skills, the education of childhood,
From the same teachers.
Hence the love of both touched the wild breast
And gave an equal wound to each.
But the truthfulness was disparate: And the pair awaits
The times of the promised marriage ceremony,
And Ianthe believes the one she thinks to be a man
Will be a man.
Iphis loves, she despairs to be able to enjoy her,
And this very thing fans the flames,
And the young girl burns over the maiden;
And, scarcely holding [back] tears,
“What outcome awaits me,” she says
“Love how unknown to anyone
How unnatural worries,
And how [much] of a new [kind of love] holds me?
If the gods were wishing to spare me
They should have spared [me];
If not, and they were wishing to ruin me,
They may have at least given [me] a natural and customary evil.
Love burns neither a heifer for a heifer,
Nor a mare for mares:
A ram burns [for] sheep,
A stag follows its own female
Even the birds assemble thus,
And among all the animals
No female has been snatched up by desire for women.
I should wish that I would be no one!”
“Lest, however, Crete not bear all the monsters,
The daughter of the Sun loved a bull [as] a woman, granted, [loved] a man:
My love is more savage than that, if we acknowledge the truth!
However, she followed hope of attractiveness,
Nevertheless that woman gave [herself] to the bull by trick
And with the heifer visage,
And the one who was the adulter was deceived!”
“Hither it is allowed that the shrewdness from the whole world runs together,
It is allowed that Daedalus himself may fly on his wax wings,
What will he do?
So will he make me a boy from a maiden with his skillful knowledge?
So will he change you, Ianthe?
Why do you not strengthen [your] soul and pull yourself together,
Iphis,
And why do you not shake off the unwise and stupid passion?”
Look how you were born:
unless you yourself are deceiving yourself as well,
Both seek [that] which is right
And love who you should love as a woman!”
“There is a Hope that grasps, a Hope that nourishes love:
The [gender] deprives this from you.
No guard imprisons you from a loving embrace
Nor the jealousy of a wary husband,
nor the harshness of the father,
she herself does not deny herself [to you] asking:
However, neither [marrying her] is for you,
as all things happen, are made,
nor can you be happy, [no matter how much] that the gods and men strive.
Now also no part is empty of my vows
And the gods were easily able
[to] give everything to me:
And what I [want], my Father wants,
And my future father-in-law wants.
But [what I want is] not [what] nature wants, mightier [than] all these [things],
She alone injures me.
Behold, the wished-for time comes.
And marriage light is here,
And now Ianthe will become mine -
And yet [the marriage] will not happen to me:
We will [die of] thirst in the middle [of the] ocean.
For what, Juno, maid of honor,
For what, Oh Sacred Hymen,
Do you come to this [wedding]
For which [the groom] who leads is absent,
When we both marry?”
She buried her cry from these things.
Nor the other virgin [Ianthe] is burning smoothly,
And Hymen, [Ianthe] prays that
You come speedily.
Because [Telethusa] seeks these things,
The afraid Telethusa hanges the times,
Now she brings a delay [of the marriage]
With fictional sickness;
She uses omens and visions
as an excuse many times.
But now she had used up all manner of falsehoods,
And the put-off dates had pressed upon the wedding,
And one day was remaining.
But she withdrew the hairband for the head
And to the daughter and for herself
And she, embracing the altar with spreading-out hair,
Said:
““Isis,
She who tends [to] Alexandria and the Mareotic fields
And the priests of Isis, and the seven parts into the Nile river branches:
you support [me], I beg.
And you remedy the hope for our fear!
You, goddess, at one time
you and these your signs I have seen
And I know all [of you]:
The noise of the bronze rattles;
And the accompanying of the counters
And I inscribed your orders [into my] remembering soul.
Because this sees the light,
Because I do not chastise,
Behold, it is your plan and your duty.
Pity us two and aid [us] with help!”
There are tears accompanying the words.
The goddess seemed to have moved
(and she had moved)
Her own alters, and the doors of the temple trembled
And the horns shone, having imitatied the moon.
And the sonorous bronze rattle sounded.
Indeed, the mother – not free of care, yet however happy
[due to the] favorable omen –
Departs from the temple.
Iphis, as her companion, follows her departure
With longer strides,
Than she was accustomed to;
Nor does purity remain in his face,
And powers is increased,
And the very face is sterner
And the measure is less in the unstyled hair,
And more vigor is present than he had as a woman.
For [Iphis] who was recently a woman,
Is a boy.
Give gifts to the temples,
Nor rejoice with timid faith!
They give gifts to the temples,
And they add the inscription:
The inscription was having a brief poem:
THE BOY SETS FREE THE GIFT
WHICH IPHIS AS A WOMAN HAD VOWED
The next day had made manifest
The wide world with its rays,
When Venus and Juno and Hymen convene
At the customary [marriage] fires
And the boy, Iphis, takes possession of
his Ianthe.
Nisus and Euryalus
Some context: This story starts in the middle of book 9 of the Aeneid, when the Trojans are fighting against the Rutulains, who are also called the Latins. Both have entrenched themselves in forts; Aeneas, the leader of the Trojans, has gone on a diplomatic mission to meet with one of their allies, King Latinus. The Trojans need Aeneas back for his wisdom, but there is no one to retrieve him.
One other thing, for clarification: earlier in the Aeneid, all the women were left behind for their own safety in the city of Alestes-- all but Euryalus' mother, who followed him into danger and war out of love for her son.
Nisus was guard of the gate; fierce with arms,
Son of Hyrtacus, quick with javelin And with light arrows,
the Huntress Idea had sent him to be a comrade of Aeneas.
His companion Euryalus [is] equal to him,
By whom there is no other of Aeneas’ (companions),
And nor (who) assumes Trojan arms, who is more beautiful:
The boy [is] showing his face, unshaved due to early age.
The love between them was one,
and they were rushing equally into war:
Then they were also guarding the gate with one watch,
Nisus says:
“Are the gods adding this passion to our minds,
Euryalus, or does this own passion
Become the dreaded god for each of us?
My mind is long since urging to me to go into
Either a fight or something great,
Nor [is it] content with placid silence.”
“You see what faith in things holds the Rutulians.
Sparse lights flicker; they have laid down,
Soaked with sleep and wine;
The places are widely silent:”
“Look at a distance –
Why do I hesitate,
And what idea
Now rises in my spirit.”
“Everyone, both the people and fathers
Beg that Aeneas be summoned
and that men are sent for
who bring back information.
If they allow us to do what I request
(for the fame of the deed is enough for me)
I seem to be able to discover,
Under that hill, a road towards the city walls
And ramparts (of) Pallantium.”
Euryalus, pierced through with great love of glory,
Stood: at the same time he implores,
His burning friend with these [words]:
“Therefore do you flee me, your companion,
Nisus, [in order] to join with matters of life and death?
Will I send you, alone, into such great danger?
“My father, Opheltes, accustomed to wars,
Did not teach me thus,
Raised among the Greek terror,
And the labors of troy.
Nor I, continued following such a great-souled Aeneas
And the extreme fates:”
“This is it,
This is the soul,
Spurner of the light
And who may believe that this honor
Which you are reaching for
May be bought well with life.”
To this, Nisus (said):
“Indeed I feared no such thing about you;
nor is it right, no, in such a manner Great Jupiter brings
Me, rejoicing, to you
Or whoever [judges] these [matters] with fair eyes.”
If anyone you see in such a difficult time,
if any injury or go may snatch [you] into adversity
I wish you to survive;
Your age [makes you] more worthy of your life.
Let there be someone who demands me, killed,
To be brought back by fighting or by a price,
Into the customary grave, or if in any way
Fortune will forbid it,
may that someone bear sacrifices to [me], absent,
and may he decorate [my] tomb.”
And let me not be the cause,
of such great grief to your wretched mother
Who dared, alone out of many mothers
To follow you, boy,
Nor did she stay within the walls of great Acestes,”
However, Euryalus says:
"You are tying together empty reasons needlessly,
nor now does my already changed opinion
yield to this position: let us hurry.”
At the same time he rouses the [other] watchmen,
they come up and serve their shifts:
with his post having been left behind,
Euralus himself walks as companion to Nisus,
and they look for their leader.
The other animals through all the lands
were loosening their cares and hearts,
having forgotten labor in sleep:
The first leaders of Trojans
and the stately young men were having a council
about the most important matters of the kingdom,
what they might do or who would be
the messenger to Aeneas now.
They, leaning upon their long spears
And holding their shields, stand
In the middle of the camp and field.
Then Nisus and Euryalus both beg,
To be admitted swift[ly] as soon as possible:
There [is] an important situation
And there [will be] a price for delay.
Distinguished Iulus received the scared [men]
And ordered Nisus to speak.
Then the son of Hyrtacides (said) thus:
“Listen with fair minds, Oh Aeneadans,
And let the things which we bear not be viewed
Through our years.
The Rulutians, soaked with wine and sleep,
Have stopped;
We ourselves see an opportunity for an ambush,
Which lies at the crossroads of the gate
Which is nearest to the sea.”
“The fires are interrupted, and the dark smoke is sent
To the heavens; if by fortune you permit us
To find Aeneas and the walls of Pallantea,
Soon you will see him (to be) here with spoils,
With a huge slaughter having been carried out.”
“Nor will the path to him deceive us;
We see constantly when hunting
The city In the obscure paths
And we know the entire stream. “
At this time Aletes, mature in spirit
And weighed down by years [said]:
“Oh Heavenly Fathers, of whom Troy is
Always under the auspice(s),
You do not prepare
To destroy the Trojans entirely,
When you have brought such minds of young men
And such brave hearts.”
He, noting thus,
was holding the shoulders and right hands of both [men]
And was watering his expression and face with tears.
“What to you, what worthy prizes,
Men,
May I judge to be able to be given
In exchange for these glories?”
“First the gods and your customs
Will give the most beautiful [treasure/spoils of war];
Then immediately pious Aeneas and fresh-faced Ascanius,
Not at any time forgetful of such great kindness,
will surrender the rest.”
Ascanius takes up [the conversation]
“But indeed I implore you, Nisus,
I for whom [you are] the only hope
To bring my father back,
Through the great household gods
And the protecting guards of the Romans
And the mysteries of the grey-haired Vesta;
Whatever Fate and fortunethere is for me,
I set down in your laps:
Call back my parent, render [him] having been seen;
Nothing [will be] sad with him having been recovered.”
“I will give you two wine cups made from silver
And etched with drawing,
Which My father seized with Arisba having been conquered
And the twin three-footed stools,
Two great talents of gold,
An ancient bowl, which Sidonian Dido gives.
If in truth it befalls to me as victor
To capture Italy and to take possession of the royal staff
And to say the division of plunder,
You have seen with what horse
Golden Turnus was riding,
In which armor: I will take out from the lottery of spoils
That horse himself, the shield and the red crests
At that time now your prize, Nisus.”
“In addition my father will give twelve
Female slaves and captives and their own armor for all;
Beyond these things [you will receive]
Some land that King Latinus has.”
“In truth my age follows you, Euryalus,
Boy to be adored, closely
Now I receive you from the entire heart
And I, falling, embrace the companion.
No glory seeks me without you;
I bear peace for you,
[I bear] war for you,
You great of deeds and faithful of words.”
In response to him, Euralus professed such (things):
“No day will have proven me unequal
To the strong brave undertakings;
However the fortune, Favourable or unfavourable,
May fall.
But I beg [of] you mne [gift] above all gifts,
I have an old mother,
Leaving with me from the people of Priam –
Trojan land, Nor the walls of the kind Acestes
did not hold this poor woman.”
“I leave this [woman], now unknowing of this danger,
Whatever it is,
And without having been bid farewell:
Night and your right hand [are] witness,
Because I should not like to bring about the tears of a parent;
And you, I beg, sonsol the weak
And assist [this woman] having been left behind.
Bear this hope of yours without me:
I will go more bravely into all misfortunes.”
They gave tears for the Dardanidan woman;
Beautiful Iulus before all,
The image of him so similar to his father that
It touched the soul.
Then [Iulus] speaks thus:
“Deem all [gifts] worthy [of] your great undertakings.
For that [woman] will be Mother to me
And the name of Creusa alone will be missing,
Nor does small esteem await from such a birth.”
Whatever will happen to you,
I swear by this head, on which my father
is accustomed [to swearing before]:
I promise these [rewards] to brought back to you
and if you do not perish
these very same things will be given
to both your mother and your family.”
He said thus, weeping;
At the same time he removed the golden sword from his shoulder,
Which Lycaon Gnosius made with wonderful skill
And he had fashioned the handy [sword] with an ivory sheath.
Mnestheus gave to Nisus
The pelt and spoils of a [shaggy] lion;
Faithful Aletes exchanged the helmet.
Immediately they, having been armored, march;
A band of both the first young man and [the first] old men,
All going, follows, with prayers,
Nisus and Euryalus to the gate.
Also beautiful Iulus bearing before his years
Both the spirit and manly care,
Was giving many orders to be carried to his father:
But the winds disturb all [messages]
And give the having-been-stirred-up [acts] to the clouds.
Having left, they overcome the ditches
and through the shades of the night
They seek the enemy camp,
Intending to be the destruction for many.
They see bodies having been scattered all over the place
By sleep and wine throughout the grass;
[They see] set-up chariots by the shore,
[They see] men between the tack and wheels,
[They see] at the same time that the weapons are lying there,
At the same time [that the] wine [is lying there].
At first, the son of Nisus thus speaks from his mouth:
“Euryalus, it must be dared by the right hand;
Now [that task] calls us.
The journey is in this way.
You – guard and look out widely
Lest any hand is able to lift itself
Against us from the back;
I will seek out vast [things]
And I will lead you by the wide road.”
Thus Nisus notes and he presses [down his] voice;
At the same time he approaches the haughty Rhamnetes
With his sword facing him
Who by chance, having been set up on the high carpets,
Was breathing out sleep from his entire chest.
[Rhamnetes was] a ruler and most grateful augur of the King Turnus,
But he was not able to drive away the plague [of death].
Nisus, having come upon them
Boldly kills the three slaves nearby lying among the weapons
And the weapon-bearer of Remus and the charioteer
Under the very horses
And he cuts the hanging necks with his sword.
Then he carries away the head of Rhamentes himself
And he leaves behind the torso spewing with blood;
And the cushion drip upon the ground,
warmed with dark gore.
Also [he had left behind]
both Lamyrus, and Lamus, and the young Serranus,
Who, with a beautiful face,
Had played very many games that night,
And he was sleeping, having feasted his limbs
on much wine:
That man [would have] been happy
If he had played through the whole night
That game for the night further on
And had born [that game] into the light.
Starving, rampaging just like a lion
Through a full pen of sheep
(for the raging hunger persuades [him])
Devours and drags the sheep,
gentle and struck dumb by fear,
[the lion] roars with a bloodied mouth:
Nor [was] Euryalus’ slaughter smaller;
And, incensed, he himself rages on
And he springs upon the people
In the middle class [who are] unnoticed –
Both Fadus and Herbesus and Rhoetus and Abarimes, unknowing –
But Rhoetes, wakeful and seeing all,
But he, fearing, was covering himself,
Behind the great wine-jug;
To whom, rising up,
Euryalus stuck in close quarters
The whole sword into his breast
And took [the sword] back with much death.
That man vomits forth purple life
And he, dying, brings back wine mixed with blood;
Euryalus, burning, presses forward with the theft [of life].
Now he was moving on towards the companions of Messapus
There he was seeing that the remote fire was sputtering
And that the horses were tied up well, chewing grass:
When Nisus briefly [said] these things.
For he sensed that [Euryalus] was being born
By too much slaughter and craven desire.
“Let us stop,” he said,
“For the enemy light is approaching.
Enough punishment has been done,
With the way having been made through the enemies.”
They leave behind many things of men
Finished of solid silver, both weapons and wine jugs,
And at the same time beautiful tapestries.
Euryalus snatched up the breast plate of Rhamentes
and the tack of gold from the studs,
which gifts the richest Caedicus of the Tiber sends
to Remulusas in the name of guest friendship
when he was joining him, being absent–
that man, dying, gives [the breastplate] to his own grandson to have
after his death in war,
the Rutulians having taken over the battle in war,
he (Euryalus) snatched these things
and he fits (these things)
onto his strong shoulders in vain.
Then he puts helmet,
nicely fitting and beautiful with respect to crest of Messapus.
They run out from the camp and they pursue safety.
Meanwhile, the having-been-sent-forward cavalry
Were going from the Latin city,
Three hundred, all armed, with Volcens as leader,
While the rest of the legion,
Having been drawn up, waits on the fields,
And [the cavalry] were bearing the messages
To the King Turnus.
And now the [cavalry] were approaching the camp
And they were going up to the walls,
When in the distance they discern
Nisus and Euryalus turning on the left border
And the helmet betrayed Euryalus, unthinking,
In the dim shade of the night
And the hostile [helmet] shone forth with rays.
It scarcely seemed to be a coincidence.
Volcens shouts from the column
“Stay, men.
What is the purpose of the trip?
Or who are you in arms?
Or where are you holding your journey?”
Nisus and Euryalus said nothing in return nothing to him,
But they hastened their flight into the woods
And to trust the night.
The cavalry casts themselves
To the known sidepaths here and there
And they circle each exit with guards.
The forest was bristling widely
with thorn bushes and dark scarlet oak,
which heavy thornbushes had filled
all over the place;
The rare path was shining
through the dark ravines.
The darkness of the branches and the weighty spoils
hinder Euryalus,
and fear makes him unsure of the line of the road;
Nisus goes away, and now, unwisely,
he had evaded the enemies and the place–
The enemies and place whom later on were called the Albans
down from the name of Alba,
Then the king Latinus was holding the high tower —
Where Nisus stood and he looked back
on his absent friend in vain.
“Unlucky Euryalus
in what region did I leave you behind?
Or in what way will I follow,
going back over each complex road
of the tricky woods again?"”
And at the same time he picks
the footprints observed going back
and he wanders the silent thornbushes.
He hears horses, he hears noises
and the signs of [the guards] following.
He does not hear for a long time, then
when a shout arrives to his ears
and he sees Euryalus,
whom now a whole band of men snatches,
overwhelmed by the deceptiveness of the place and of the night,
suddenly with the tumult disturbing,
and fighting back in vain.
What should Nisus do?
With what force, with what weapons
Should he dare to snatch the young man?
Or, about to die, should he bring himself
Into the midst (of the) swords
And should he urge on a honorous death
Through wounds?
Nisus, readying the spear rather quickly,
with the upper arm having been brought forward,
Looking upwards [at] the high moon,
he prays thus with his voice:
“You, [the] goddess of the Moon,
The beauty of the stars and guard of the groves
you being present, assist our labor.
If my father Hyrtacus ever bore
Gifts to your altars on my behalf,
If ever I myself have dedicated my kills [to you],
Or [if] I have hung on your temple [my kills]
Or have affixed offerings to your rooftops:
Direct the spear through the airs
And [direct the weapons] to disturb this world
Without me.”
Nisus had spoken,
And having striven he hurls the spear with his whole body:
The flying spear cleft the shades of the night
And plunged into the back of the turned-around Sulmo
And there it break and, with the wood having been broken,
goes through his midriff.
He, cold, rolls around, vomiting a hot river from his chest
and [the blood] strikes his face in gushing hiccups.
Several guards look around.
The same Nisus, sharper, was freeing
Another weapon from his high ear.
While the guards are agitated,
The spear, whizzing, goes to Tagus
Through each temple
And [the spear], having been warmed,
stuck fast in the pierce brain.
Terrible Volcens is crazed and does not spot at all
the author of the missile, nor [does he see] where
he, burning, is able to attack.
“But you, meanwhile,
will pay the price to me of both [dead guards]
in hot blood,"
He said to Euryalus;
At the same time he attacked Euryalus
With [his] sword having been unsheathed.
Then in truth, scared out of his mind,
Nisus is shouting,
nor could he hide himself with shadows anymore,
nor [could he] bear such great pain.
“Me, me,
Here I am the one who [did] it,
Turn your iron against me,
O Rutulians,
the whole dirty trick [was] mine –
[Euryalus] neither dared any act
nor was able to perform one,
I swear on this sky, and on the knowing stars,
His only sin was loving his unlucky friend too much.”
Nisus was saying such things:
but the sword driven with strength went through the ribs
and breaks Euryalus' shining heart.
Euryalus is given to death,
And the gore goes across the beautiful limbs,
And onto [his] shoulders and [his] neck, having collapsed, rests:
Just as when a crimson flower languishes, dying,
Having been cut by a plow,
Or [just as when] poppies have sent down
their head with a weary neck,
When perhaps they are weighed down with rain.
Nisus rushes into the middle [of the fray]
And he attacked, through everyone,
At Volcens alone;
The enemies, collecting around Nisus
And were jabbing him from here and here in close quarters.
Nisus does not fall and
And he does whirl that lightning sword about,
Until he stuck it
In the opposing mouth of the shouting Rutulian
And, dying, he took away the life of the enemy.
Then, having been pierced, he stretched himself out
Over his deceased lover
and there finally he rested in happy death.
Both so blessed!
If in any way my poems have the power, no day–
As long as the home of Aeneas
is near the immoveable rock of the Capitoline hill
and [while] the Roman people will hold power –
will ever banish you from mindful eternity.
The victorious Rutulians, weeping,
having taken control of the blunder and the spoils,
were bearing the lifeless Volcens
into the camp.
Nor was there a smaller struggle
in the camp, with Rhamnetes having been found bloodless
and with distinguished ones, both Serranus and Numa,
having been destroyed at the same time
in so much slaughter.
There [was] a huge rushing-together to the very bodies –
both half-dead men
and a place fresh with warmed death
and streams full with frothing blood.
The Rutulians lay claim among themselves to the spoils
and the shining helmet of Messapus
and the breast plate having been taken with much labor.
And now the first morning light
Leaving the yellow-colored bed of Tithonus,
Was sprinkling the earth with new light:
Now with the sun having been poured upon,
Now with these things having been covered with light,
Turnus himself, clad in armor,
Awakens men into arms
And he urges together the bronze blades into battles
And each one sharpens his own anger
With various rumors.
Indeed [the Rutulians’ position the very heads [of Nisus and Euryalus]
Onto the tips [of the] upright spears,
(a sight horrible to see)
And they follow with great shouting
Of ‘Euryalus and Nisus.’
Aeneas’ strong men stationed the battle line
On the left side of the walls,
for the right is encircled by the stream,
And they hold the huge ditches
And the mournful [men] stand on the high towers:
At the same time [the battle line] were moving
Staked heads [of Nisus and Euryalus],
too well known to the miserable [guards]
And flowing with black gore.
Meanwhile the messenger Rumor rushes through the fearful city,
Fluttering, winged,
And glides towards the ears of the mother of Euryalus.
And suddenly heat abandons the bones of the miserable woman
The knitting rods are shaken from her hands
And the handiwork is unraveled.
The unlucky woman flies, shrieking,
Tearing her hair, out of her mind
she seeks in her course the walls and the front line;
That woman [is] not mindful of the men,
That woman [is] not [mindful of] the danger and the weapons.
She fills, from [the front lines], the sky with wailing:
“Is that you I see, Euryalus?
Were you able to leave (me) alone,
You the final refuge of my old age,
Cruel boy?
Nor had there been an opportunity
To give to your miserable mother
To bid farewell to you,
Having been sent under much danger?”
“Alas, you lie as a prize
Given to Latin dogs and birds on a strange land,
and, I, as a mother, have not lead forth
your funeral processions,
nor have I closed your eyes
nor did I wash your wounds,
covering you with a funerary garment,
which I, hasty, urged together for you in mere nights and days
and I was consoling the grief of this old woman
with the cloth.”
“Where may I go to,
or what earth holds now
(your) joints and (your) ripped off limbs and (your) lacerated corpse?
Son, is this what you are giving back to me from you?
Is this what I have followed over both land and sea?
Pierce me, if in any way there is devotion,
hurl into me all weapons, o Rutulians,
Annihilate me first with spears:
or you, great father of the gods, have pity
and thrust off this hated head with your weapons down into Tartarus,
since otherwise I cannot break off this cruel life."
With this weeping [the guards’] souls were shaken
and sad groan goes through all:
their vigor, having been broken, sleeps for battle.
Idaeus and Actor,
by the admonition of Illioneus and of crying greatly Iulus,
snatch that woman, [who is] arousing grief,
and, between [their] arms,
they take [her] back into the fort.