Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/507
THEBAID, III. 238–262
treachery, which with his own weapons he avenged. Add thou credence to his tale. And you, ye gods, scions of my blood, indulge no angry strife, no rivalry to win me by entreaties; thus have the Fates sworn to me, and the dark spindles of the Sisters: this day abides from the beginning of the world ordained for war, these peoples are destined to battle from their birth. But if ye suffer me not to exact solemn vengeance for their sins of old, and to punish their dreadful progeny—I call to witness these everlasting heights, our race’s holy shrine,[1] and the Elysian streams that even I hold sacred—with my own arm will I destroy Thebes and shatter her walls to their foundations, and cast out upon the Inachian dwellings her uprooted towers, or else pour down my rain upon them and sweep them into the blue depths, ay, though Juno’s self should embrace her hills and temple, and toil amid the chaos.”
He spoke, and they were spellbound at his commands. Mortal in mind thou hadst deemed them, so curbed they one and all their voice and spirit. Even as when a long truce of winds has calmed the sea, and the shores lie wrapt in peaceful slumber, indolent summer sets her spell upon forest leaves and clouds, and drives the breezes far; then on lakes and sounding meres the swelling waters sink to rest, and rivers fall silent ’neath the sun’s scorching rays.
Exulting with joy at these commands, and glowing yet with his chariot’s burning heat, Gradivus leftward swung the reins; soon he was gaining his journey’s end and the steeps of heaven, when Venus
- ↑ mentis, the MSS. reading here, can hardly be right, though “celsa tu mentis ab arce” (Silv. ii. 2. 131) is quoted in its defence. “Elysian streams”: i.e., Styx, a river of the underworld.
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