Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/439

pipe resounded and cymbals louder than the beat of bull-hide drum. Cithaeron himself exultant had set prudent matrons flocking in a nobler frenzy through his pathless groves: even as the Bistonians^[1] in wild concourse hold their revels upon Rhodope or in the depths of Ossa’s vales. For them one of the flock snatched half-alive from the lion’s jaw is a feast, and to abate their fury with new milk is luxury; but when the fierce fragrance of Ogygian Iacchus breaths upon them, then how glorious to fling stones and goblets, and with the shedding of guiltless comrades’ blood to begin the day anew and appoint once more the festal banquet!

Such was the night when the swift Cyllenian glided down on the silent air to the couch of the Echionian prince,^[2] where in huge bulk he had flung his limbs on a bed piled high with Assyrian^[3] coverlets. Alas! for mortal hearts that know not their destiny! He feasts and he slumbers. Then the old man performs what he is bidden, and, lest he seem but a false phantom of the night, puts on the darkened visage of the ancient seer Tiresias, and his voice and well-known woollen bands. His own long hair and hoary beard combed downward from the chin remain, and his own pallid hue, but through his locks there runs the feigned circlet, and the sacred fillets entwined with the grey olive are plain to view. Then he seemed to touch his breast with the olive bough and give utterance to these fateful words: “This is no time of sleep for thee, thou sluggard, who liest careless of thy brother in the depth of night! long time have great deeds summoned thee, slothful one, and weighty preparings for what shall be. But thou, even as if some ship’s captain, while the south