Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/193

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SILVAE, III. i. 166—ii. 1

wealth, wherewith thou hast imitated my own labours, who canst tame the rugged rocks and the abhorred wastes of barren nature, and turnest to thy use the wild beasts’ lairs, and bringest forth my godhead from shameful hiding! What reward shall I now give thee for thy merits? How show my gratitude? I will hold fast the threads of the Fates and stretch out the wool upon their distaffs[1]—I can subdue remorseless Death—I will bid sorrow flee and suffer not sad loss to harm thee, and I will renew thee in a green old age untouched by time, and grant thee long to behold thy growing grandchildren, until the one is ripe for a bride and the other for a husband, and from them a new progeny springs, and a merry band now clambers about their grandsire’s shoulders, now run in eager and loving rivalry for the kisses of tranquil Polla. To this shrine shall no term of age be set, so long as the fabric of the flaming sky shall carry me. Not in Nemea or ancient Argos shall I more often dwell, or in my home at Tibur or in Gades,[2] resting-place of the sun.” So he speaks, and touching the fire that rose upon the altar and nodding his temples white with poplar-leaves he swore by Styx and by the thunderbolt of his ethereal sire.

II. A SEND-OFF POEM TO MAECIUS CELER


The Propempticon or valedictory poem seems to have been one of the regular types of poem for which rules were laid down in the schools of rhetoric; Horace, C. i. 3, Epod. 1, Tibullus, i. 3, may be called Propemptica, cf. also the song in Theocritus, Id. 7. Nothing more is known of Maecius, except that he was consul suffectus in 101.


Ye Gods whose delight it is to preserve adventurous

  1. ↑ A different meaning in i. 4. 64; here the threads are to be stretched out and made longer.
  2. ↑ Strabo mentions a shrine of Hercules at Gades.

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