Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/503

with exultant cries Learchus, nigh a corpse, hath such woe come to Thebes; nor louder then did Phoenician homes re-echo, when weary Agave overcame her frenzy, and trembled at her comrades’ tears.^[1] One day alone matched this in doom, and brought disaster in like shape, that day when the impious Tantalid^[2] atoned her presumptuous boasting, when she caught up all those bodies whose countless ruin strewed the earth around her, and sought for each its funeral flames. As great then was our people’s woe, and even so from forth the city went young and old and mothers flocking, and cried out their hearts’ bitterness against heaven, and in crowding misery thronged the double pyre at each mighty gate. I too, so I remember, though my years were tender, wept nevertheless, and equalled my parents’ tears. Yet those ills were heaven-sent; nor would I more lament that the mad Molossian hounds knew not their master, when he crept forth from his unholy spying-place to profane, O Delia, thy chaste fountains, nor that the queen, her blood transformed, melted suddenly into a lake.^[3] Such was the hard assignment of the Sisters, and so Jove willed it. But now by a cruel monarch’s crime have we lost these guiltless citizens, so many chiefs of our land; and not yet hath the fame of the spurned covenant reached Argos, and already we suffer the extremities of war. Alas! what sweat of toil in the thick dust of battle is in store for men and steeds! alas! how high will ye flow, ye rivers, blushing your cruel red!