Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/263

Thus spoke the river, and therewith a marbled stretch of roadway had arisen with mighty ridge. Its portal and auspicious threshold was an arch that shone with the warlike trophies of the Prince and all Liguria’s mines,^[1] as vast as that which rings the clouds with rain. There the wayfarer turns aside with quickened speed, there the Appian road grieves that she is left. Then swifter and more furious grows the pace, and even the beasts exult in the speed: as when the rowers’ arms are weary and the first breezes fan the sails. Come then all ye who beneath the sky of dawn owe fealty to the Roman Sire, flock hither all ye races on this easy road, come more swiftly than before, ye laurels of the East. Nought hinders your eagerness, nought delays your course: he who leaves Tiber at dawn of day, let him sail the Lucrine lake at earliest eventide.

But what woman is this with snow-white hair and fillet whom I see at the new road’s extremest end, where Apollo’s temple shows Cumae’s ancient site^[2]? Does my vision err? or does the Sibyl bring forth the Chalcidic^[3] bayleaves from her sacred grot? Let us retire; lute, lay by thy song! a holier bard begins, and we must be silent. Lo! how she whirls her head around, and rushing in frenzy far and wide about the new-made track fills all the roadway! Then thus she speaks with virgin mouth: “I said it, he will come—have patience, ye fields and river!—he will come by heaven’s favour, who will raise this