Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/447

that thou, O Theban, canst best bewail.^[1] We verily are willing, and our hearts are open to thee.” So spake he, and the other added: “Would any one refuse to welcome such a father of his bride? Though Venus smile not yet upon us exiles, banished from our land, nevertheless all sorrows of our hearts are calmed, and the grief is gone that held fast upon our minds. No less joyfully do we take unto us this solace, than a ship rent by the tearing gale beholds the friendly shore. We delight to enter upon a reign of happy omen, and to pass, under thy destiny, what remains of our allotted lives and labours.” Without more ado they rise, and the Inachian sire adds weight of eager words to every promise, and vows that he will succour them and bring them back to their fathers’ realms.

The Argives, therefore, as the report spreads through the city that husbands for his daughters have come to the king’s court, and that illustrious Argia, and Deipyle famed no less for beauty, are giving in wedlock their lusty maidenhood, eagerly prepare for great rejoicing. Fame flies through the kindred cities, and is carried from lip to lip in the neighbouring lands even as far as the Lycaean and beyond Parthenian glades and the Ephyrean^[2] countryside, nor less does the same tumultuous goddess descend upon Ogygian Thebes. With wings full-stretched she broods over those walls, bringing terror that accords with the past night to the Labdacian chief: the welcome and the marriage does she relate, and the royal covenant and the union of houses—what mad licence in the devilish monster’s tongue!—and at last she tells of war.