Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/381

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THEBAID, I. 18–41

utter the theme of the standards of Italy and the triumphs of the North, or Rhine twice brought beneath our yoke and Ister twice subject to our law and the Dacians hurled down from their conspiring mount, or how in those days of scarce-approaching manhood Jove was forfended from attack,[1] and of thee, O glory added to the Latian name, whom succeeding early to thy sire’s latest exploits Rome longs to be her own for ever. Yea, though a closer bound confine the stars, and the shining quarter of the sky[2] that knows nought of Pleiads or Boreas or rending thunderbolt tempt thee, though he who curbs the fiery-footed steeds set with his own hand upon thy locks the exalted radiance of his diadem, or Jupiter yield thee an equal portion of the great heaven, abide contented with the governance of men, thou lord of earth and sea, and give constellations to the sky.[3] A time will come when emboldened by Pierian frenzy I shall recount thy deeds: now do I pitch my harp but to the singing of Aonian[4] arms and the sceptre fatal to both tyrants; of their madness unchecked by death and the strife of flames in the dissension of the funeral pyre;[5] of kings’ bodies lacking burial and cities drained by mutual slaughter, when the dark-blue waters of Dirce blushed red with Lernaean gore, and Thetis stood aghast at Ismenos, once wont to graze arid banks, flowing down with mighty heaps of slain. Which hero first dost thou make my theme, O Clio? Tydeus, uncontrolled in

  1. ↑ The reference is to Domitian’s campaigns against Germans and Dacians, and to the part he took in the fighting on the Capitol between Flavians and Vitellians in A.D. 69.
  2. ↑ The south.
  3. ↑ By deifying members of the Imperial house; the idea of stars being divine spirits is an old one in mythology, e.g. Castor and Pollux; it is also found in Plato and his successors.
  4. ↑ Boeotian, i.e. Theban.
  5. ↑ See xii. 429.

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