Yet bright Aurora, partial as she was
To Troy, and those that loved the Trojan cause,
Nor Troy nor Hecuba can now bemoan,
But weeps a sad misfortune, more her own.
Her offspring Memnon, by Achilles slain,
She saw extended on the Phrygian plain:
She saw, and straight the purple beams, that grace
The rosy morning, vanish’d from her face;
A deadly pale her wonted bloom invades,
And veils the lowering skies with mournful shades.
But when his limbs upon the pile were laid,
The last kind duty that by friends is paid,
His mother to the skies directs her flight,
Nor could sustain to view the doleful sight:
But frantic, with her loose neglected hair,
Hastens to Jove, and falls a suppliant there.
“Oh king of heaven, oh father of the skies,”
The weeping goddess passionately cries;
“Though I the meanest of immortals am,
And fewest temples celebrate my fame,
Yet still a goddess, I presume to come
Within the verge of your ethereal dome;
Yet still may plead some merit, if my light
“With purple dawn controls the powers of night;
If from a female hand that virtue springs,
Which to the gods and men such pleasure brings.
Yet I nor honours seek, nor rites divine,
Nor for more altars or more fanes repine;
Oh that such trifles were the only cause
From whence Aurora’s mind its anguish draws!
For Memnon lost, my dearest only child,
With weightier grief my heavy heart is fill’d;
My warrior son! that lived but half his time,
Nipp’d in the bud, and blasted in his prime;
Who for his uncle early took the field,
And by Achilles’ fatal spear was kill’d.
To whom but Jove should I for succour come?
For Jove alone could fix his cruel doom.
Oh sovereign of the gods, accept my prayer,
Grant my request, and soothe a mother’s care;
On the deceased some solemn boon bestow,
To expiate the loss, and ease my wo.”
Jove, with a nod, complied with her desire;
Around the body flamed the funeral fire;
The pile decreased, that lately seem’d so high,
And sheets of smoke roll’d upward to the sky:
As humid vapours from a marshy bog
Rise by degrees, condensing into fog,
That intercept the sun’s enlivening ray,
And with a cloud infect the cheerful day;
The sooty ashes wafted by the air,
Whirl round, and thicken in a body there;
Then take a form, which their own heat and fire,
With active life and energy inspire.
Its lightness makes it seem to fly, and soon
It skims on real wings, that are its own;
A real bird, it beats the breezy wind,
Mix’d with a thousand sisters of the kind,
That, from the same formation newly sprung,
Upborne aloft on plumy pinions hung.
Thrice round the pile advanced the circling throng;
Thrice, with their wings, a whizzing consort rung.
In the fourth flight their squadron they divide,
Rank’d in two different troops, on either side:
Then two and two, inspired with martial rage,
From either troop in equal pairs engage.
Each combatant with beak and pounces press’d,
In wrathful ire, his adversary’s breast;
Each falls a victim, to preserve the fame
Of that great hero whence their being came.
From him their courage and their name they take;
And, as they lived, they die for Memnon’s sake.
Punctual to time, with each revolving year,
In fresh array the champion birds appear;
Again, prepared with vengeful minds, they come
To bleed, in honour of the soldier’s tomb.
Therefore in others it appear’d not strange
To grieve for Hecuba’s unhappy change:
But poor Aurora had enough to do
With her own loss, to mind another’s wo;
Who still in tears her tender nature shows,
Besprinkling all the world with pearly dews.