Here are 5 elegiac couplets from the opening of one of Ovid's Heroides-- poems that purport to be letters written by mythical heroines to their husbands or lovers. This is a letter from Dido to Aeneas after Aeneas has abandoned her. Choose one couplet to scan and translate, and post it. This is a first-come, first-served assignment-- don't choose a couplet that someone else has already scanned!
1. Accipe, Dardanide, moriturae carmen Elissae;
quae legis a nobis ultima verba legi.
2.Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abiectus in herbis
ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor.
3.Nec quia te nostra sperem prece posse moveri,
alloquor: adverso movimus ista deo!
4. sed meriti famam corpusque animumque pudicum
cum male perdiderim, perdere verba leve est.
5. Certus es ire tamen miseramque relinquere Didon
atque idem venti vela fidemque ferent.
Notes: Dardanide = son of Dardanus, i.e., Aeneas
Maeandrus-i, m. = the Maeander, a river in Asia Minor
olor = swan. The Romans believed that swans sang their most beautiful song at the moment of death.
"movimus ista" = we (or I) have begun these (words)
Didon = fem. acc. singular
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