Cuteness in Vergil's Aeneid
(All quotes used in the following post are from Allen Mandelbaum's translation of Vergil's Aeneid.)
I have to read a translation of the entire Aeneid for my independent study of AP Latin: Vergil next year, and I was reading book V when I came upon something positively ADORABLE:
After a 9-day-long period of mourning on the one-year anniversary of Aeneas' father's death, Aeneas holds athletic competitions. After the boat race, a good old footrace is held. Amongst other young men (all mentioned by name in there, but not here, due to their lack of importance in the incidence of cuteness), Euryalus, Nisus, and Salius compete in this race. Salius is an Acarnian, and Nisus and Euryalus are described thusly: "Euryalus renowned for handsomeness and for his fresh youth, Nisus for his honest love of the boy." Needless to say, my attention was already caught by this footrace.
The footrace starts, and Nisus, Salius, and Euryalus are in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively. Unfortunately, Nisus slips on some blood from some steer (sacrificial, I would guess, from that long mourning period), "And yet he did not forget Euryalus, not even then forget his love." Nisus trips Salius, and Euryalus wins the race.
I immediately wanted to tell someone about this EPICALLY (get it?) ADORABLE moment, but sadly, Ian is off on the Italy trip.
This is my favorite part of the Aeneid so far, which is kinda sad, considering that we don't translate any of book V as part of the AP syllabus, which is a shame because many Latin students will miss out on this positively ADORABLE moment. (I understand why it's not on the syllabus: it has absolutely no relevance to the general plotline.) Eheu, I suppose I'll probably look up the actually Latin online sometime anyway.
I have to read a translation of the entire Aeneid for my independent study of AP Latin: Vergil next year, and I was reading book V when I came upon something positively ADORABLE:
After a 9-day-long period of mourning on the one-year anniversary of Aeneas' father's death, Aeneas holds athletic competitions. After the boat race, a good old footrace is held. Amongst other young men (all mentioned by name in there, but not here, due to their lack of importance in the incidence of cuteness), Euryalus, Nisus, and Salius compete in this race. Salius is an Acarnian, and Nisus and Euryalus are described thusly: "Euryalus renowned for handsomeness and for his fresh youth, Nisus for his honest love of the boy." Needless to say, my attention was already caught by this footrace.
The footrace starts, and Nisus, Salius, and Euryalus are in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively. Unfortunately, Nisus slips on some blood from some steer (sacrificial, I would guess, from that long mourning period), "And yet he did not forget Euryalus, not even then forget his love." Nisus trips Salius, and Euryalus wins the race.
I immediately wanted to tell someone about this EPICALLY (get it?) ADORABLE moment, but sadly, Ian is off on the Italy trip.
This is my favorite part of the Aeneid so far, which is kinda sad, considering that we don't translate any of book V as part of the AP syllabus, which is a shame because many Latin students will miss out on this positively ADORABLE moment. (I understand why it's not on the syllabus: it has absolutely no relevance to the general plotline.) Eheu, I suppose I'll probably look up the actually Latin online sometime anyway.