Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/69
SILVAE, I. ii. 185–206
of beasts, none have said me nay:[1] the very air, when rain-showers empty the clouds, do I melt into union with the earth. Thus life succeeds to life, and the world’s age is renewed. Whence could have come Troy’s later glory and the rescuer of the burning gods, had I not been joined to a Phrygian spouse? how could Lydian Tiber have renewed the stock of my own Iuli? Who could have founded the walls of sevenfold Rome, the head of Latium’s empire, had not a Dardan priestess[2] suffered the secret embrace of Mars, which I forbade not?”
By such winning words she inspires the silent girl with the pride of wedlock; her suitor’s gifts and prayers are remembered, his tears and wakeful pleading at her gates, and how the whole city sang of the poet’s Asteris,[3] before the banquet Asteris, Asteris at night, Asteris at dawn of day, as never Hylas’ name resounded.[4] And now she begins gladly to bend her stubborn heart, and now to account herself unfeeling.
Blessing on thy bridal couch, gentlest of Latian bards! Thou hast endured thy hard voyage to the end and the labours of thy quest, and gained thy haven. So does the river[5] that fled sleek Pisa, aflame for an alien love afar, flow with unsullied streams through a channel beneath the sea, until at last arriving he drinks with panting mouth of the Sicanian
- ↑ Cf. Lucretius, i. 1 sqq., Pervigilium Veneris, i. 7 sqq.
- ↑ Rhea Silvia, or Ilia, mother of Romulus and Remus. “Dardana”: because descended from Aeneas. “sacerdos”: because she was a Vestal Virgin.
- ↑ Stella = Gk. Ἀστηρ (Aster), therefore he calls his lady Asteris.
- ↑ An echo of Virg. G. iii. 6 “cui non dictus Hylas?” His story was a favourite one, e.g. Theocr. Id. 13, Prop. ii. 20.
- ↑ Alpheus, which flowed through the territory of Pisa (called “sleek” from the oil of the wrestlers at the Olympian games), thence under the sea to Sicily. The Naiad is Arethusa.
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