d victory hover between them both with
uncertain wings. There was a regal tower built with vocal walls, on
which the son of Latona[4] is reported to have laid his golden harp;
{and} its sound adhered to the stone. The daughter of Nisus was wont
often to go up thither, and to strike the resounding stones with a
little pebble, when it was a time of peace. She used, likewise, often to
view the fight, and the contests of the hardy warfare, from that tower.
And now, by the continuance of the hostilities, she had become
acquainted with both the names of the chiefs, their arms, their horses,
their dresses, and the Cydonean[5] quivers.

Before the rest, she had observed the face of the chieftain, the son of
Europa; even better than was enough for merely knowing him. In her
opinion, Minos, whether it was that he had enclosed his head in a helm
crested with feathers, was beauteous in a helmet; or whether he had
taken up a shield shining with gold, it became him to assume that
shield. Drawing his arm back, did he hurl the slender javelin; the
maiden commended his skill, joined with strength. Did he bend the wide
bow with the arrow laid upon it; she used to swear that thus Phoebus
stood, when assuming his arrows. But when he exposed his face, by taking
off the brazen {helmet}, and, arrayed in purple, pressed the back of a
white horse, beauteous with embroidered housings, and guided his foaming
mouth; the virgin daughter of Nisus was hardly mistress of herself,
hardly able to control a sound mind. She used to call the javelin happy
which he touched, and the reins happy which he was pressing with his
hand. She had an impulse (were it only possible) to direct her virgin
footsteps through the hostile ranks; she had an impulse to cast her body
from the top of the towers into the Gnossian camp, or to open the gates,
strengthened with brass, to the enemy; or, {indeed}, anything else, if
Minos should wish it. And as she was sitting, looking at the white tents
of the Dictaean king, she said, "I am in doubt whether I should rejoice,
or whether I should grieve, that this mournful war is carried on.
I grieve that Minos is the enemy of the person who loves him; but unless
there had been a war, would he have been known to me? yet, taking me for
a hostage, he might cease the war, and have me for his companion, me as
a pledge of peace. If, most beauteous of beings, she who bore thee, was
such as thou art thyself, with reason was the God {Jupiter} i