Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/539

take heed of enchantments and prayers of men! Why dost thou affright these sluggish minds? Fear first created gods in the world!^[1] Rave therefore now thy fill in safety; but when the first trumpets bray, and we are drinking from our helms the hostile waters of Dirce and Ismenos, come not then, I warn thee, in my path, when I am yearning for the bugle and the fray, nor by veins or view of winged fowl put off the day of battle; far away then will be thy soft fillet and the crazy alarms of Phoebus: then shall I be augur, and with me all who are ready to be mad in fight.” Again out thunders a vast approving shout, and rolls uproarious to the stars. Even as a swift torrent, drawing strength from the winds of spring and from the melting of the frozen cold upon the mountains, when o’er vainly hindering obstacles it bursts its way out upon the plain, then homesteads, crops, cattle, and men roar mingled in the whirling flood, until its fury is checked and baffled by a rising hill, and it finds itself embanked by mighty mounds: even so interposing night set an end to the chieftains’ quarrel.

But Argia, no longer able to bear with calm mind her lord’s distress, and pitying the grief wherein she shared, even as she was, her face long marred by tearing of her hair and marks of weeping, went to the high palace of her reverend father in the last watch of night ere dawn, when Arctos’ wagon sole-surviving envies the ocean-fleeing stars, and bore in her bosom to his loving grandsire the babe Thessander. And when she had entered the door and was clasped in her mighty parent’s arms: “Why I seek thy threshold at night, tearful and suppliant, without my sorrowful spouse, thou knowest, father, even were I