Requiem Miseni

Less than a week remains in my summer vacation, and the rendering is essentially complete. What remains is endless polishing, especially for the earlier lines of the poem. For example, here are the reworked lines 148-189 & 214-237, describing the death and funeral of Misenus. While the most irrelevant section of Book VI with regards to L’Inferno, it does put Aeneas in a despondent position comparable to Dante’s plight before he began his own descent.

…nor cold steel may vanquish. But splayed without breath’s
thy comerade’s cold corpse—but alas! thou art clueless—
polluting the whole of thy navy with death,

while seekst thou my auguries, hangst in our homes.
This poor man, entomb him, may rest he in peace.
By cows’ immolation shalt first thou atone.

Thus only shalt see thou the swamps of the Styx
and realms barred to mortals.” She closes her lips.
Then exits Aeneas, his mournful face fixed,

and leaving the cavern, these myst’ries he turned
all o’er in his conscience as loyal Achates,
his comrade, plants footsteps with equal concerns.

And various matters they shared in their speech:
which friend’s fated dead and whose corpse to entomb?
And see they Misenus left dry on the beach,

destroyed by a death so unworthy of him,
Misenus of Ae’lus, whose trumpet’s unmatched
to kindle like fire men and Mars with war hymns:

a friend of great Hector, to battle ‘round Hector
he charged with the fame of both trumpet and lance.
Despoiled of his life by Achilles the victor

he left to Aeneas this brave hero bound,
confed’rate to one of no lesser pursuits
But when with his conch he made Ocean resound,

his tune tried to rival the gods—what a fool!—
his challenger, Triton, if canst thou believe,
submerged him in surf ‘twixt the spray and the shoals.

Around him all gathered, with grief-stricken clamor,
Aeneas especially. Then Sibyl’s edicts
he hastened in tears, raising funeral altars

towards heavenly summits with trunk upon trunk.
They log ancient forests and dens of wild beasts,
down crashing the spruces and elms the ax struck.

They split by a wedge trunks of oak trees and ash;
on mountainous slopes loads of timber roll down.
Nor’s first’s not Aeneas, amidst all these tasks,

encouraging comrades and girding their blades.
His heart’s in a whirlwind of troublesome thoughts,
beholding great forests these things now he prays:

“if only should now that gold bough in a tree
reveal itself in this great forest, too truly
fulfilled be the prophetess’ sayings of thee…

…A pyre they build first out of pine and oak lumber,
the sides veiled in garlands of dark vegetation,
and for its façade, native cypress-tree timber.

Its peak’s ornamented with weapons agleam.
Some ready hot fluids and lavas of bronze,
anoint the cold body and lather it clean.

Then wailing arises. A bier bears his corpse
enshrouded in purple, traditional cloaks.
By others a hearse great in size him supports.

By ancestral custom, a ministry tearful,
averting their faces turned down in respect,
they blazed oil and incense and meats sacrificial.

Collapsed into ashes the flames ceased to burn,
and wine cleansed the relics and thirst-stricken embers.
The bones Corynaeus concealed in an urn.

He blessed all the fighters with pure water sprinkling
so lightly with dew from an olive tree’s branch,
comrades consecrated the requiem sing.

Then pious Aeneas builds his mausoleum,
a tomb for his trumpet, his oars and his arms,
beneath a tall mountain, now known as Misenum,

exalting his name through the centuries past.
Accomplished in haste are the Sibyl’s commands.
There was a deep cavern, its orifice vast…