Lines 504-529 Flashcards
Quid faceret? Quo se rapta bis coniuge ferret?
Quo fletu Manis, quae numina voce moveret?
Illa quidem Stygia nabat iam frigida cumba.
What could he do? To where could he turn, twice robbed of his wife?
With what tears could he move the spirits, with what voice
move their powers? Cold now, indeed she floated in the Stygian boat.
Septem illum totos perhibent ex ordine menses
rupe sub aëria deserti ad Strymonis undam
flesse sibi et gelidis haec evolvisse sub astris
mulcentem tigres et agentem carmine quercus;
They say that he wept to himself for seven whole months,
beneath an airy cliff, by the waters of desolate Strymon,
and sang of these events, under the icy stars,
charming tigers and moving the oak-trees with his song:
qualis populea maerens philomela sub umbra
amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator
observans nido implumes detraxit; at illa
flet noctem ramoque sedens miserabile carmen
integrat et maestis late loca questibus implet.
as the nightingale grieving in the poplar’s shadows
laments the loss of her chicks, that a rough ploughman saw
snatching them, featherless, from the nest:
but she weeps all night, and repeats her sad song perched
among the branches, and she fills the place around with mournful cries.
Nulla Venus, non ulli animum flexere hymenaei.
Solus Hyperboreas glacies Tanaimque nivalem
arvaque Rhipaeis numquam viduata pruinis
lustrabat raptam Eurydicen atque inrita Ditis
dona querens; spretae Ciconum quo munere matres
inter sacra deum nocturnique orgia Bacchi
discerptum latos iuvenem sparsere per agros.
No love, not any wedding-song could move his heart.
Alone he illuminated the Northern ice, and snowy Tanais,
and the fields never free of Rhipaean frost,
mourning his lost Eurydice, and Dis’s vain gift:
to where the Ciconian women, spurned by his devotion,
tore the youth apart, in their divine rites and midnight
Bacchic revels, and scattered him over the fields.
Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum
gurgite cum medio portans Oeagrius Hebrus
volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua
ah miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente vocabat:
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae.
Even then, when Oeagrian Hebros rolled the head onwards,
torn from its marble neck, carrying it mid-stream,
his voice alone, and the ice-cold tongue, with retreating breath,
cried out: ‘Eurydice, ah poor Eurydice!’
‘Eurydice’ the riverbanks echoed, all along the stream.
Haec Proteus, et se iactu dedit aequor in altum,
quaque dedit, spumantem undam sub vertice torsit.
Proteus spoke thus, and gave a leap into the deep sea,
and where he leapt the waves whirled with foam, under the vortex.
