Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/163

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SILVAE, II. vi. 61–84

goodly fortune! if in smoking ruin rich Locri had belched forth Vesuvian fire,[1] or rivers had submerged thy Pollentian glades, if Lucanian Acir or impetuous Tiber had swung their swollen waters to the right, thou hadst endured the will of heaven with unruflled brow; or if bounteous Crete and Cyrene had forsworn thee and denied their harvests, or wherever lavish Fortune returns to thee with plenteous bosom. But ill-omened Envy, skilled to hurt, saw the vital spot and the path of harm. Just at the gate of full-grown life that most beauteous of youths was striving to link three years to three Elean lustres.[2] With grim frown the stern Rhamnusian[3] gave heed, and first she filled out his muscles and set a brilliance in his eyes and raised his head higher than of wont; deadly alas! to the poor lad were her favours: she tortured herself with envy at the sight, and clasping the sufferer struck death into him by her embrace,[4] and with hooked, relentless fingers tore that pure countenance. Scarce was Phosphor at the fifth rising saddling his dewy steed: already, Philetus,[5] wert thou beholding the bleak shore of heartless Charon and heartless Acberon, bewailed how bitterly by thy lord! Not more fiercely would thy mother, had she lived, blackened and bruised her arms for thee in lamentation, nor thy father either; verily thy brother

  1. ↑ i.e., if Ursus’s property at Locri in Bruttium had been destroyed by an eruption (not, of course, of Vesuvius).
  2. ↑ A lustre here is taken for a period of four years, the interval between the Olympic games; i.e., the youth was between twelve and fifteen, or perhaps the actual fifteenth year is meant.
  3. ↑ The goddess Nemesis.
  4. ↑ “Invidiam mortemque amplexa” does not seem satisfactory; it is better to keep “invidia” of the MSS., making it and “videndo” abls. after “torsit,” and construe “amplexa (sc. iacentem) iniecit mortem (ei) nexu.”
  5. ↑ Apparently the boy’s name; the word means “beloved.”

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