'Its cry and leanness and pallor'. Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, Frankendael Park, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
On this bright and warm Summer's day, I sat in the shade by the marsh of Frankendael Park watching this Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, on its perch.
And then it came back to me, one of those terrible stories in legendary Classical Times, the utter destruction of Ardea, southeast of Rome and the capital of the Rutuli. Their prince Turnus is the prime rival of Aeneas for the hand of Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus of Latium. Turnus loses out to Vergil's hero. The city of Ardea is destroyed by fire, and in its last throes a Heron is seen to rise up out of its ashes. Ovid in his Metamorphoses describes that Heron by simile with the destroyed city and its ashes: 'Its cry and leanness and ashy-grey' ("et sonus et macies et pallor"), and that's what I saw; thinking, too, of the earthquake devastations in central Italy early this morning.
'Its cry and leanness and pallor'. Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, Frankendael Park, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
On this bright and warm Summer's day, I sat in the shade by the marsh of Frankendael Park watching this Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, on its perch.
And then it came back to me, one of those terrible stories in legendary Classical Times, the utter destruction of Ardea, southeast of Rome and the capital of the Rutuli. Their prince Turnus is the prime rival of Aeneas for the hand of Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus of Latium. Turnus loses out to Vergil's hero. The city of Ardea is destroyed by fire, and in its last throes a Heron is seen to rise up out of its ashes. Ovid in his Metamorphoses describes that Heron by simile with the destroyed city and its ashes: 'Its cry and leanness and ashy-grey' ("et sonus et macies et pallor"), and that's what I saw; thinking, too, of the earthquake devastations in central Italy early this morning.