Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/171

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SILVAE, II. vii. 55–81

shalt practise thy pen[1] on Hector and the chariots of Thessaly and king Priam’s suppliant gold, and shalt unlock the abodes of hell; ungrateful Nero and my own Orpheus shall be set forth by thee to favouring theatres. Thou shalt tell how the impious fires of the guilty monarch ranged the heights of Remus. Then by a charming address thou shalt bestow fame and glory upon chaste Polla. Thereafter more generous in ripened manhood thou shalt thunderously rehearse Philippi, white with Italian bones, and Pharsalian wars, and Cato, grave champion of Freedom, blasted amidst the arms of the divine chief,[2] and Magnus, favourite of the people. Thou shalt shed reverent tears for the crime of Pelusian Canopus, and raise to Pompey[3] a memorial loftier than blood-stained Pharos. These lays shalt thou sing as a youth in early prime,[4] before the age at which Virgil wrote his Gnat. The untutored Muse of bold Ennius shall give way to thine, and the towering frenzy of learned Lucretius, he[5] too who led the Argonauts through the narrow seas, and he who changes bodies from their former shapes.[6] What greater praise can I give? the Aeneid itself, as thou singest to Roman folk, shall do thee homage. Nor will I give thee splendour of song alone, but with

  1. ↑ The works of Lucan here alluded to are (i.) The Tale of Troy, (ii.) A Catachthonion, or Journey to the Underworld, (iii.) A Praise of Nero, (iv.) The Story of Orpheus, (v.) a declamation “de Incendio Urbis,” (vi.) an “allocutio,” or poem to Polla, his wife, (vii.) the Pharsalia. Fragments of (i.) and (ii.) remain.
  2. ↑ Caesar, subsequently deified.
  3. ↑ The murder of Pompey there after Pharsalus.
  4. ↑ i.e., before he was twenty-six; hence it is argued that “XVI.” in Donatus’s life of Virgil must be changed to “XXVI.,” as the year in which he wrote the Culex.
  5. ↑ Varro Atacinus.
  6. ↑ Ovid in the Metamorphoses.

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