Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/299

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SILVAE, IV. viii. 50—ix. 8

Attic Ceres, for whom in breathless dance we thy mute votaries cease not to wave the mystic torch,[1] and you, ye Tyndarids, to whom not grim Taygetus, Lycurgus’ mount, nor shady Therapnae gives truer worship: gods of our country, preserve this home with all its souls! May there be those who by speech or wealth shall succour their city that age and many toils have wearied, and keep her as green and youthful as her name! From their father may they learn gentle ways, and from their grandsire splendour that yet is bountiful, and from both the desire of glorious virtue. Assuredly their riches and their birth suffer the maid to enter patrician doors with the first marriage-torches, and the sons, so soon as manhood comes—if only the godhood of invincible Caesar favour the deserving—to tread the threshold of the Senate-house of Romulus.

IX. LINES WRITTEN IN JEST TO PLOTIUS GRYPUS


The subject suggests Catullus, xiv. 12. Statius rebukes Plotius Grypus for giving him an unworthy present in return for a fine one. The hendecasyllable was a favourite metre for comic or gibing verse.

Yours was indeed a jest, Grypus, to send me a book in return for a book! And yet even that may seem graceful, if after it you send me something worth having; for if, Grypus, you keep on with such jests, they are jests no longer. Look, we can reckon the account. Mine, painted purple, its paper new, adorned with two knobs,[2] cost me, besides my

  1. ↑ There was a worship of Demeter at Naples, and mysteries no doubt like those of Eleusis.
  2. ↑ One at each end of the stick on which the paper was rolled.

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