1 gen 19 anni a. C. - Ovidius "Metamorphoses"

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§ 12.393 'Cyllarus, beauty did not save your life — if beauty is in any of your tribe — your golden beard was in its early growth, your golden hair came flowing to your shoulders. in your bright face there was a pleasing glance. The neck and shoulders and the hands and breast: and every aspect of his human form resembled those admired statues which our gifted artists carve. Even the shape of the fine horse beneath the human form was perfect too. Give him the head and neck of a full-blooded horse, and he would seem a steed for Castor, for his back was shaped so comfortable to be sat upon and muscle swelled upon his arching chest. His lustrous body was as black as pitch, and yet his legs and flowing tail were white as snow. Many a female of his kind loved him, but only Hylonome gained his love. There was no other centaur maid so beautiful as she within the woods. By coaxing ways she had won Cyllarus, by loving and confessing love. By daintiness, so far as that was possible in one of such a form, she held his love; for now she smoothed her long locks with a comb; and now she decked herself with rosemary and now with violets or with roses in her hair; and sometimes she wore lilies, white as snow; and twice each day she bathed her lovely face, in the sweet stream that falls down from the height of wooded Pagasa; and daily, twice she dipped her body in the stream. She wore upon her shoulders and left side a skin, greatly becoming, of selected worth. Their love was equal, and together they would wander over mountain-sides, and rest together in cool caves; and so it was, they went together to that palace-cave, known to the Lapithae. Together they fought fiercely in this battle, side by side. Thrown by an unknown hand, a javelin pierced Cyllarus, just below the fatal spot where the chest rises to the neck — his heart, though only slightly wounded, grew quite cold, and his whole body felt cold, afterwards, as quickly as the weapon was drawn out. Then Hylonome held in her embrace the dying body; fondled the dread wound and, fixing her lips closely to his lips endeavored to hold back his dying breath. But soon she saw that he indeed was dead. With mourning words, which clamor of the fight prevented me from hearing, she threw herself on the spear that pierced her Cyllarus and fell upon his breast, embracing him in death.

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