Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/295

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SILVAE, IV. viii. 1–22

VIII. A POEM OF CONGRATULATION TO JULIUS MENECRATES


This, like the last piece, is a Genethliacon, or birthday poem; Statius congratulates his friend on the birth of his third child. Menecrates was the son-in-law of Pollius Felix.


Fling wide the thresholds of the gods, Parthenope, and fill the chaplet-hung shrines with clouds of Sheba’s incense and the breathing entrails of victims! lo! by yet a third offspring is the house of illustrious Menecrates increased. Thy noble host of princes grows and atones the loss that mad Vesuvius[1] caused thee. Nor let Naples in lonely isolation throng her festal altars; let her fellow-haven and the land that gentle Dicarcheus loved and the Surrentine tract dear to the tipsy god enwreathe their shrines with garlands,—that shore where dwells the babe’s maternal grandsire, with his crowd of grandchildren around him, rivalling each other in their likeness to him. Let the uncle too, famed for his Libyan spear,[2] rejoice, and Polla, who counts them her own sons as she raises them to her loving bosom. A blessing on thee, O youth, who givest in due reward to thy country such bright progeny. Lo! the house rocks with delightful tumult, ringing with the cries of so many masters. Avaunt, black Envy, turn elsewhere thy livid breasts! To these hath white-robed Atropos promised old age and the glory of enduring worth, and their native Apollo vouchsafed the bays of poesy. Therefore was it an omen that the most august sire of the Ausonian City had given thee the glad privilege of triple offspring.[3] Thrice has Lucina come, and again and yet again visited thy dutiful

  1. ↑ The eruption of Vesuvius took place in 79 A.D.
  2. ↑ i.e., probably in some campaign against African tribes.
  3. ↑ The “ius trium liberorum,” on this occasion as on others (see Mart. iii. 95; Plin. Ep. x. 2) awarded purely as a compliment.

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