Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/327

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SILVAE, V. ii. 1–18

II. THE PRAISES OF CRISPINUS, SON OF VETTIUS BOLANUS


A letter of congratulation and good wishes to Crispinus, a lad of sixteen, just appointed military tribune. The announcement of this appointment is kept back till the end of the poem, the opening lines referring to a holiday taken by the boy shortly before that event, but is anticipated throughout. His father was a celebrated officer named Bolanus, who had served with distinction in Asia Minor, Armenia, and Scotland.


My Crispinus is off to Etruscan fields and the glades of Tages;[1] not for long is his sojourning, nor distant the land, but my heart is torn with secret pangs, and my brimming eyes set the large tears rolling, as though I watched o’er the stormy Aegean the sails of a departing friend, and from a cliff gazed wearily yet after the vessel, and complained that my sight was baffled by the long reach of air.

Ah! if it were the brilliant opening of a soldier’s career that called thee, noble youth, or the glad auspices of the camp, what joyful tears would flow, in what warm embraces would I clasp thee! Must friends then even welcome sadness?[2] And already thy life has accomplished twice eight courses, but thy spirit is more robust than thy tender age, and thy years quail before their task, and thy will brooks not their control. Nor is that wonderful: thine was no unrenowned lineage, nor wast thou born of plebeian stock, obscure of family and devoid of ancestral fame; no child of equestrian blood or but newly granted the robe of knighthood[3] and the humble stripe[4] didst thou as a newcomer knock at

  1. ↑ An Etruscan, the founder of the art of the “haruspices” (see Ovid, Met. xv. 553).
  2. ↑ i.e., “must they be glad and proud at his going to war, while they grieve to lose him?”
  3. ↑ The “trabea” was a toga marked by purple horizontal stripes; originally royal, it was worn by knights on certain occasions, and so became regarded as a knightly badge.
  4. ↑ The angusticlave, for which see note on iii. 2. 124.

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