Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/369
SILVAE, V. v. 1–25
V. A LAMENT FOR HIS ADOPTED SON
That this epicedion would have rivalled in length ii. 1 and v. 3 may be gathered from the prelude, ll. 1–65. The poet appears to have keenly felt the loss of his adopted son, if we may judge from the last lines of this fragment.
Woe is me! for with no hallowed words can I begin, hateful now as I am to Castalia’s vocal streams and detested of Phoebus. What rites of yours, Pierian sisters, what altars have I violated? Speak; after the punishment let the crime be known. Have I set foot in some untrodden grove? or drunk from a forbidden spring? what fault, what error so great that I am atoning? Lo! as with dying arms he clings to my heart, ay, to my very soul, my child is torn away: no child of my own blood, or bearing my name or features; his sire I was not, but look upon my woe and my livid cheeks, and give credence, O ye bereaved, to my lament: for verily bereaved am I. Let fathers come hither, and mothers with open bosom; and let her endure to behold these ashes and this crime, whoever with tottering step has borne her sons to the grave in her own arms beneath full breasts, and beaten a teeming bosom, and quenched with her milk the glowing embers; whoever has plunged into the fire a lad still marked with the bloom of tender youth, and seen the cruel flames creep over the fresh down of the dead boy—let him come and grow weary with me in alternate wailing; his tears will be outdone, and thou wilt feel shame, O Nature. So fierce am I, so senseless in my grief. And while I thus strive, now when thirty days are past, leaning against the tomb I turn my mourning
331