576Aurora, though she had favoured the same side in arms, has no leisure to be moved by the disasters and the fall of Troy and of Hecuba. 578A nearer care and a grief in her own house torment the goddess, for lost Memnon, whom his saffron mother saw perishing on the Phrygian plains by the spear of Achilles: she saw, and that redness with which the morning hours grow red had turned pale, and the sky hid itself in clouds. 583But his mother could not bear to watch his limbs laid on the final fire; with her hair loosened, just as she was, she did not disdain to fall at the knees of great Jupiter and add these words to her tears: 'Lowest of all whom the golden heaven supports (for my temples are the rarest in the whole world), yet a goddess, I have come, not that you may give me shrines and days of sacrifice and altars to grow hot with fires.
591Yet if you were to consider how much I, a woman, do for you, when with new light I guard the borders of night, you would think a reward should be given; 593but that is not my concern, nor is Aurora's state now such that she should ask for honours deserved: I come bereft of my Memnon, who bore brave arms in vain for his uncle, and in his early years fell at the hands of brave Achilles; so you gods willed it. 598Grant him, I pray, some honour as a consolation for his death, highest ruler of the gods, and soothe a mother's wounds.' 600Jupiter had nodded assent, when the tall pyre of Memnon collapsed in high flames and coils of black smoke darkened the day (as when rivers breathe out the mists born of them, and the sun is not let in beneath); 604the dark ash flies up, and, rolled together into a single body, thickens and takes shape and draws heat and life from the fire (its own lightness supplied wings), and at first like a bird, soon a true bird, it whirred with its wings: at the same time countless sisters whirred, who have the same origin of birth, and three times they circle the pyre, and three times a harmonious wailing goes out into the air: on the fourth flight they separate into two camps.
612Then the two fierce flocks wage war from opposite sides, and vent their anger with beaks and hooked talons, and beat wings and breasts against each other, and the bodies, akin to the buried ashes, fall as offerings to the dead and remember that they were born from a brave man. 617Their founder gives a name to the sudden birds: after him they are called the Memnonides; when the sun has run through the twelve signs, they renew their war, to die with a cry of mourning for their parent. 620So, while to others it seemed pitiful that the daughter of Dymas had barked, Aurora is intent on her own griefs, and now too she sheds loving tears and drops dew over the whole world.