Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/431

Phoebus, Sire! whether the copses of Patara and Lycia’s snowy uplands keep thee busy,^[1] or thou delightest to bathe thy golden hair in Castalia’s pure dew, or whether as Thymbra’s lord thou dwellest in Troy, where they say thou didst willingly bear on thankless shoulders blocks of Phrygian stone,^[2] or whether Latonian Cynthus^[3] pleases thee, casting his shadow on the Aegean wave, and Delos, settled sure in the deep, nor needing now thy search,—thine are the arrows and the bending of the bows against the savage enemy afar; to thee did celestial parents grant thy cheeks’ eternal bloom; thou art skilled to foreknow Fate’s cruel handiwork, and the destiny that lies beyond, and high Jove’s pleasure, to what peoples pestilence cometh or wars, what change of sceptres comets bring; thou makest the Phrygian^[4] subject to thy lyre, and for thy mother’s honour dost stretch the earth-born Tityos on the Stygian sands; thee the green Python and the Theban mother^[5] horror-struck beheld triumphant with thy quiver, to avenge thee grim Megaera holds fast the starving Phlegyas,^[6] who lies ever pressed beneath the cavernous rocks, and tortures him with the unholy feast, but mingled loathing defeats his hunger: be thou present to our succour, mindful of our hospitality, and shed on the fields of Juno^[7] the blessings of thy love, whether ’tis right to call thee rosy Titan, in the fashion of the Achaemenian race,^[8] or Osiris bringer of the harvest, or Mithras, that beneath the rocky Persean cave strains at the reluctant-following horns.”