Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/607

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THEBAID, IV. 811–836

levelling thirst makes no distinction in their confused ranks; bridled horses with their chariots, chargers with armed riders all dash madly in. Some the flood whirls away, some lose their footing on the slippery rocks, nor have they shame to trample their princes as they wrestle with the torrent, or to sink beneath the stream the face of a friend who cries for succour. Loud roar the waves, while far from the fountain-head is the river plundered, that once flowed green and clear, with gentle lucid waters, but now from the depths of its channel is muddied and befouled. Then the sloping banks and torn herbage are mingled with the stream; and now, though it be stained and filthy with mire and earth, and though their thirst be quenched, yet they drink still. One would think armies strove in fight, or a pitched battle raged in the flood, or the conquerors were looting a captured city.

And one of the princes, standing in the midst of the streaming river, cried: “Nemea, noblest by far of verdant glades, chosen seat of Jove, not even to the toils of Hercules wert thou more cruel, when he strangled the furious monster’s shaggy neck, and throttled the breath within its swollen limbs. So far let it suffice thee to have vexed thy people’s enterprise. And thou,[1] whom no suns are wont to tame, O horned one, so lavish of never failing waters, flow with prosperous current, from whatsoever storehouse thou settest free thy cooling springs, immortally replenished; for hoary Winter pours not out for thee her laid-up snows, nor doth the rainbow shed waters stolen from another fount,[2] nor do the pregnant storm-clouds of Corus[3] show thee favour, but thou flowest all thine own, and no star

  1. ↑ The river here is addressed in the masculine, as distinct from its nymph.
  2. ↑ The idea of the rainbow sucking up moisture is common in Latin writers, e.g. “bibit ingens Arcus,” Virg. G. i. 380, and Theb. ix. 405; the present passage is an original application of the idea.
  3. ↑ The north-west wind.

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