And yet Aurora, though she’d always been
a friend of Trojan arms, did not lament
as one might have expected at the fall
of Ilium and Hecuba—because
the goddess was afflicted by a death
that touched her much more closely: she had lost
her own son. On the Phrygian battlefield,
beneath Achilles’ shaft, her Memnon fell;
and she, the radiant one, had seen him killed.
At that, the color of the goddess paled;
daybreak did not grow bright with rose-red hues;
the jet-black clouds kept heaven from men’s view.
And when the corpse was set upon the pyre,
his mother could not bear the sight; just as
she was, with hair disheveled, shorn of pride,
she threw herself at great Jove’s feet and cried
these words—the plea she added to her tears:
“I am the very least of deities,
and yet I am a goddess—and as that,
I come before you. No, I do not ask
for temples, sacred days on my behalf,
for sacrifices to me—I don’t pray
for altars bearing fires for my sake.
Latin [569–90]
Yet, if you were to gauge the good I do,
all I, though but a woman, bring to you
when, at the day’s return, I guard the bounds
of night, you must admit that I deserve
some recompense. No, no, it is not this
for which I care, for which I come—those honors
that I may well have earned. What brings me here
is Memnon’s death, my loss: in vain he fought—
bravely—to help his uncle Priam’s cause;
at great Achilles’ hand, he has died young.
Console my Memnon in his death: o grant,
great lord of all the gods, some gift to him,
some honor that will also soothe the wound
his mother feels.”
Jove nodded in consent.
And Memnon’s pyre crumbled in an instant,
destroyed by a great blaze; black smoke in spirals
darkened the day—just as, when rivers breed
thick fog, the sun can’t penetrate the pall.
Dark ashes soared on high and, there, grown dense
and more compact, began to form one mass;
this took on shape and, from the flames, drew out
both life and heat—but not with so much weight
that it could not be winged. At first it seemed
much like a bird, and then one bird indeed
whirred with his wings; and soon his brother-birds—
a countless flock (they shared a common birth
from one same cluster)—clamored everywhere.
Three times they circled over Memnon’s pyre;
three times, in unison, across the air,
their cry resounded. When for the fourth time
they’d circled, they split into two fierce flocks
that fought ferociously; in savage fury
they plied their beaks and their hooked claws; they wearied
their wings and chests in battle; and they fell,
a holocaust, down into Memnon’s ashes,
Latin [591–615]
an offering honoring the one from whom
they had been born—that mighty soldier, Memnon.
After the author of their family,
these winged beings—born so suddenly—
are called Memnonides; and every time
the sun completes his journey through twelve signs,
these flocks return to war against each other
and die, a rite that honors their dead father.
And so the other gods were stirred to pity
on seeing Hecuba compelled to bark;
but one, Aurora, was too taken up
with her own sorrow. Even to this day,
the goddess still sheds tears for her dear son:
the dew she scatters on the world at dawn.