Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/525

Nile, and Branchus, whose honour is equal to his sire’s, and Pan, whom the rustic dweller in wave-beat Pisa hears nightly beneath the Lycaonian shades, more richly blest in mind is he, for whom thou, O Dictaean,^[1] dost guide the favouring flights that show thy will. Mysterious is the cause, yet of old has this honour been paid to the birds, whether the Founder of the heavenly abode thus ordained, when he wrought the vast expanse of Chaos into fresh seeds of things; or because the birds went forth upon the breezes with bodies transformed and changed from shapes that once were ours; or because they learn truth from the purer heaven, where error comes not, and alight but rarely on the earth: ’tis known to thee, great sire of earth and of the gods. Grant that we may have foreknowledge from the sky of the beginnings of the Argive struggle and the contest that is to come. If it is appointed and the stern Fates are Set in this resolve, that the Lernaean spear shall shatter the Echionian gates, show signs thereof and thunder leftward; then let every bird in heaven join in propitious melody of mystic language. If thou dost forbid, then weave delays, and on the right shroud with winged creatures the abyss of day.” So spoke he, and settled his limbs upon a high rock; then to his prayer he adds more deities and deities unknown, and holds converse with the dark mysteries of the illimitable heaven.

When they had duly parted out the heavens and long scanned the air with keen attention and quick-following vision, at last the Amythaonian seer: “Seest thou not, Amphiaraus, how beneath the breathing sky’s exalted bounds no winged creature travels on a course serene, nor hangs aloft, en-