Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/337

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SILVAE, V. ii. 120–144

Elissa burn with passion for his sire; not otherwise did Troilus circling more nimbly elude the menacing steeds, or he whom as he wheeled round the turning-posts of Arcady[1] in the dust of Thebes the Tyrian matrons beheld from their high towers with no unkindly eyes.[2]

Come then—for thy Prince’s favour urges thee on, and thy brother leaves sure footprints for thy vows,—arise with valiant heart, and bethink thee of the camp and its manly cares. Mars and the Attic maid[3] shall show thee the battle line, Castor shall teach thee to wheel thy horsemen, Quirinus[4] to clash thy arms upon thy shoulders, Quirinus who suffered thee to make ring upon thy youthful neck the cloud-born shields and armour unstained with blood.

To what lands then, to which of Caesar’s worlds wilt thou go? Wilt thou swim Northern rivers and the broken waters of Rhine, or sweat in the hot fields of Libya? Wilt thou make Pannonian mountains tremble, and the Sauromatae that shift their dwelling? Shall sevenfold Danube hold thee, and Peuce that lies amid her lover’s shady streams?[5] Or wilt thou tread the dust of Solyma,[6] and the captive palm-groves of Idume, who not for herself did plant her fruitful orchards? But if the land that thy mighty parent curbed receive thee, how will savage Araxes thrill with joy! What glory will exalt the Caledonian plains! when some aged dweller in that bloodthirsty land tells thee:[7] “Here was thy father wont to give

  1. ↑ i.e., wheeled as though he were racing in Arcadia. “versantem metas” is grammatically a sort of hypallage, for “versantem currum circa metas.” Cf. Theb. ix. 683.
  2. ↑ i.e., Parthenopaeus.
  3. ↑ Pallas Athene.
  4. ↑ He was one of the youthful Salii Quirinales, the priests of Mars, who carried the sacred shields (“ancilia”) in his worship.
  5. ↑ An island in the Danube, so called after the wife of the river-god, cf. Val. Fl. Arg. viii. 217.
  6. ↑ i.e., Jerusalem.
  7. ↑ Vollmer quotes Tac. Agr. v. and the references to Vettius Bolanus in Agr. viii.

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