Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/309

Orpheus himself with woods and streams for company came to assuage thy groans, though all his mother’s sisters and every priest of Bacchus and Apollo sustained the minstrel, yet nought would avail to give relief, not music, not those strings whereto the gods of pale Avernus and the Furies’ locks paid heed: such anguish held sway in his distracted heart. Even now does the sear though smooth yet wince at my lament, and the rain of a husband’s love forces itself into those burdened eyes. E’en yet do those orbs hold pious drops? O marvellous truth! Sooner, as they say, does the Sipylean dame drain dry her tears, or the dews of sorrow fail Tithonia, or Achilles’ mother grow weary and sated of breaking her wild waves against his tomb.^[1] Bless thy passionate soul! the god who holds the reins of earth, he who nearer than Jove directs the doings of mankind—he marks thee and beholds thy grief; and hence also doth he take secret knowledge of his chosen minister, because thou lovest her shade and honourest her in death. Here is a zeal that is pure indeed, a passion that merits the praise of thy keen-searching lord.^[2]

Yet ’tis no wonder, if long-enduring Harmony bound you by an unbroken chain in the close union of heart with heart. She indeed had known a former husband and the torches of earlier wedlock, yet did she embrace and cherish thee with all her soul and inmost being, as though she were a virgin bride; even so does the elm love the clinging tendrils of the coeval vine, and mingles with its foliage and prays that autumn may bring it richness and rejoices in its dear entwining clusters. Women who lack the