Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/429

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THEBAID, I. 668–695

shrine of Phoebus in recurring festival. Of what stock come ye, whom chance has led to these our altars? though, if but now my ears did rightly catch your outcry, Oeneus of Calydon is thy sire, and thine the lordship of Parthaonia’s house.[1] But thou, do thou reveal who thou art that comest thus to Argos, since now the hour permits of varied discourse.”

Straightway did the Ismenian[2] hero bend his sad looks to earth, and cast at injured Tydeus a silent sidelong glance; then after a long pause he spoke: “Not at these honours paid to heaven is it meet to ask me of my birth or land or ancient descent of blood; hard is it to confess the truth amid the holy rites. But if your wish is urgent to know my unhappy tale, Cadmus was the ancestor of my sires, my land Mavortian Thebes, my mother is Jocasta.” Then Adrastus, moved to friendly compassion—for he recognized him—said: “Why hide what all have heard? this know we, nor doth Fame journey so distant from Mycenae. Yea, of that reign, and the madness, and the eyes that knew shame of their seeing, even he hath heard who shivers ’neath an Arctic sun, and he who drinks of Ganges, or sails into the Ocean darkening to the west, and they whom the shifting shoreline of the Syrtes fails. Cease to lament, or to recount the woes of thy fathers: in our house also hath there been many a fall from duty, but past error binds not posterity. Only do thou, unlike to them, win by fortune’s favour this reward, to redeem thy kindred. And now the frosty wagoner of the Hyperborean Bear[3] droops languidly, with backward slanting pole. Pour your wine upon the altar-hearths, and chant we our prayer, again and yet again, to Leto’s son, the saviour of our fathers!

  1. ↑ Parthaon was a king of Calydon, father of Oeneus.
  2. ↑ Theban, from the river Ismenus.
  3. ↑ Statius has quaintly combined the two names of the constellation, the Bear and the Wain; by the Hyperborean Bear he simply means the North, so that the phrase corresponds to Spenser’s “the Northern Waggoner.”

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