Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/559

His long flanks and spacious breast are guarded by a corselet woven of iron threads innumerable, a work inspiring terror, no mother’s task; a giant rises from the summit of his flashing helm; his spear, that he alone can throw, is a cypress standing stripped of leaves and pointed with iron. Assigned in fealty to him are they whom fertile Amphigenia nourishes, and Messene’s plain and mountainous Ithome, Thryon and Aepy high-piled on mountaintops, Helos too and Pteleon and Dorion that bewails the Getic bard: here Thamyris made bold to surpass in song the skilled daughters of Aonia, but doomed to a life of silence fell on the instant mute with voice and harp alike—who may despise deities met face to face?—for that he knew not what it was to strive with Phoebus, nor how the hanging Satyr^[1] brought Celaenae fame.

And now even the fate-foretelling augur’s resolve begins to weaken under strong assault; he saw indeed what should befall and the dread signs thereof, but Atropos herself had made violent attack upon his doubting will, and overwhelmed the god within him, nor is wifely treachery absent, and already the house sparkles with the forbidden gold. From that gold did the fates bode destruction to the Argive seer, yea, and she knew it—ah, impious crime!—but the perfidious wife would fain barter her husband for a gift, and yearns to gain the spoils of the princess Argia, and to excel her in the stolen finery. She not unwilling—for she sees that the spirit of the princes and the resolve for war must fail, should not the foreseeing hero join their enterprise—herself put off from her bosom the fatal ornament of her beloved Polynices, nor grieved thereat, but saith moreover: