Friday, April 19, 2013

Livy I 26, p. 53


… Princeps Horatius ibat, trigemina spolia prae se gerens; cui soror virgo, quae desponsa uni ex Curiatiis fuerat, obvia ante portam Capenam fuit. Cognito super umeros fratris paludamento, quod ipsa confecerat, solvit crines et flebiliter nomine sponsum mortuum appellat.

Horatius was going first, holding before him the triple spoils; his maiden sister, who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, came to meet him before the gate Capena. With the cloak of her fiancé, which she herself had made, having been recognized on the shoulder of her brother, she loosens her hair and she calls her dead fiancé by name in tears.

Movet feroci iuveni animum comploratio sororis in victoria sua tantoque gaudio publico. Stricto itaque gladio, simul verbis increpans transfigit puellam. “Abi hinc cum immaturo amore ad sponsum,” inquit,

The mourning of the sister in his victory and in such a great public celebration moved the mind of the ferocious young man. And thus the sword having been drawn (drawing his sword), he ran her through rebuking her with words at the same time. “Go away from here with your untimely love to (your) fiancé,” he said,

“oblita fratrum mortuorum vivique, oblita patriae. Sic eat quaecumque Romana lugebit hostem.”

“having forgotten your dead brothers and your living one, having forgotten your country. Let thus perish whichever Roman woman will mourn for the enemy.”

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