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Notes Display Latin text Display Dutch text | Ovid XIV Chapter 13: 566-580 The heron is born from Ardea's ruins | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
| There was hope that the Rutuli, in awe of the wonder of the Trojan fleet being turned into sea-nymphs, would abandon the war. It continued, and both sides had gods to help them, and courage that is worth as much as the gods’ assistance. Now they were not seeking a kingdom as a dowry, nor a father-in-law’s [Note 1] sceptre, nor you, virgin Lavinia, but to win: and they waged war because they were ashamed to surrender. At length Turnus fell, and Venus saw her son’s [Note 2] weapons victorious. Ardea fell, spoken of as a power while Turnus lived. After the savage fires had destroyed it, and warm ashes buried its houses, a bird flew from the ruins, one now seen for the first time, and beat at the embers with flapping wings. Its cry, its leanness, its pallor, everything that fitted the captured city, even its name, Ardea, the heron, survived in the bird: and in the beating of its wings, Ardea mourns itself. |