Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/203

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

SILVAE, III. ii. 110–127

with clay,[1] why Memphis is jealous,[2] why the shore of Therapnean Canopus[3] makes wanton revel, why the warden of Lethe[4] guards the Pharian shrines, why vile beasts are held equal to mighty gods;[5] what altars the long-lived Phoenix prepares for his own death, what fields Apis,[6] adored by trembling shepherds, deigns to graze, and in what waters of Nile he bathes. Lead him also to the Emathian tomb,[7] where steeped in nectar of Hybla abides the warrior founder of the city, and to the serpent-haunted palace where, sunk in lulling poison, Cleopatra of Actian story escaped Ausonian chains. Escort the youth even to his Assyrian station and the appointed camp, O goddess, and deliver him to the Roman god of war. No stranger will he be there; as a boy he laboured in those fields, known as yet only by his gleaming laticlave,[8] though already strong to outstrip the squadrons in nimble wheeling flight, and with his javelin to discredit the arrows of the East.[9]

Therefore that day will come when Caesar, to give

  1. ↑ Pliny, N.H. x. 94, in speaking of swallows says that their nests prevent the Nile from overflowing for the extent of about a furlong: “in Aegypti Heracleotico ostio molem continuatione nidorum evaganti Nilo inexpugnabilem opponunt,” etc., and “insula sacra Isidi, quam ne laceret amnis, muniunt opere, palea et stramento rostrum eius firmantes,” “on the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile they oppose an unshakable barrier to the river-floods,” and “an island sacred to Isis, which they fortify by their labour, lest the river hurt it, strengthening its headland with litter and straw.” Cecropian, i.e. Athenian, from Procne, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, turned into a swallow.
  2. ↑ “invida,” perhaps to be explained by Juv. xv. 33, “inter finitimos vetus atque antiqua simultas,” “neighbours’ quarrel.” Note the etymology again, Memphis from μέμφεσθαι to blame!
  3. ↑ A luxurious bathing-resort: “Therapnaean,” from Therapnae in Laconia, because Canopus, helmsman of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was buried there.
  4. ↑ Probably Anubis is here identified with Cerberus.
  5. ↑ e.g. ibis, crocodile, cat, dog, snake, and others, see Herod. ii. 65; Cic. Tusc. Disp. v. 27.
  6. ↑ The sacred ox, called Epaphus by the Greeks, the son of Io by Zeus, worshipped by the Egyptians, see Herod. iii. 27.
  7. ↑ i.e., of Alexander the Great at Alexandria.
  8. ↑ Maecius would have worn the “tunica laticlavia” as a young son of a noble family; it was a tunic with a broad purple band inwoven, extending from the neck down across the chest. (The angusticlave was a tunic with two narrow purple stripes in place of the one broad one.)
  9. ↑ i.e., he could hurl his javelin farther than the flight of an arrow; for their relative ranges see Theb. vi. 354 n.

165

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.