Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/557

Ancient Tiryns is roused by her own god^[1] to arms, not barren of brave men, nor degenerate from her tremendous son’s renown, but desolate and her day of fortune past, nor hath she the power that wealth can give; the scanty dweller in her empty fields points out the towers raised by the sweat of Cyclopean brows. Yet she sends three hundred manly hearts, a company undisciplined for war, without javelin-thongs or the surly gleam of swords; on their heads and shoulders the tawny spoil of lions, their tribe’s adornment, a pinewood stake their weapon, and shafts crammed tight in inexhaustible quivers. They sing the paean of Hercules and the world swept clear of monsters: the god listens from afar on leafy Oeta.^[2] Nemea gives them comrades and all the might that the sacred vineyards of Cleonaean Molorchus summon to war. Well known is the glory of that cottage^[3]; pictured upon its willow doors are the arms of the god who was its guest, and in the humble field ’tis shown where he laid his club, and under what holm-oak he reposed his limbs at ease, and where yet the ground bears traces of his lying.

But Capaneus, on foot and looking down by a whole head’s height upon the host, wields the burden of four hides torn from the backs of untamed steers and stiffened above with a covering of massy bronze; there lies the Hydra with triple-branching crown, lately slain and foul in death: part, embossed in silver, glitters fierce with moving snakes, part by a cunning device is sunken, and grows dark in the death agony against the tawny gold; around, in dark-blue steel runs the torpid stream of Lerna.