Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/239
SILVAE, III. v. 92–112
quinquennial contests that rival the Capitoline festival? Why should I praise the shore and the freedom of Menander,[1] a blend of Roman dignity and Grecian licence? Nor are there lacking all around the amusements that a varied life affords: whether you please to visit Baiae with its steaming springs and alluring coast, or the prophetic Sibyl’s inspired abode, or the hill made memorable by the Ilian oar[2]; whether you prefer the flowing vineyards of Bacchic Gaurus, or the dwellings of the Teleboae,[3] where the Pharus raises aloft the beacon that rivals the night-wandering moon and is welcomed by affrighted sailors, or the Surrentine hills beloved of fiery Bacchus, which my friend Pollius before all men honours by his dwelling, or the health-giving lake of Aenaria and Stabiae reborn[4]? Shall I recount to you the thousand beauties of my country? No; ’tis enough, my wife, enough to say: This land bore me for you. and bound me to you in partnership for many a year. May it not worthily be deemed the mother and foster-mother of us both? But ’twere ingratitude in me to add more words and to doubt your loyalty; you will come with me, dearest wife, ay, even go before me; without me Tiber, prince of streams, and the halls of armed Quirinus will seem dull and worthless in your eyes.
- ↑ The “freedom of Menander” means the free, unhampered life that Menander valued highly, and which forms the subject of some of his extant sayings, e.g. βίου διδάσκαλος | έλευθέρου τοῖς πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἀργός, “the country is a teacher of the free life to all.”. The mixture of Greek and Roman would be a characteristic of Neapolitan life.
- ↑ Of the Trojan Misenus (Virg. Aen. vi. 233).
- ↑ Capri, which had a lighthouse.
- ↑ After the eruption.
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