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SILVAE, I. iv. 103–129

spume of serpents—<these bring>, and I will join thereto my skill of hand, and every kindly juice that I learned in Arabia’s balmy fields, or gathered as a shepherd in the meadows of Amphrysus.”

He ended; they find the sufferer lying languid and battling foe life:[1] each girds himself in Paconian wise, and willingly both teach and both obey, until with varied art of healing they have shattered the deadly plague and dispersed the dire cloud of baneful lethargy. He himself aids the heavenly ones, and prevailing o’er the utmost power of the disease anticipated the help they bring. Not more swiftly was Telephus restored by Haemonian skill,[2] nor the cruel wounds of which Atrides stood in terror stanched by Machaon’s healing balm.

What place, amid such a gathering of Senators and people, for anxious prayers of mine? Yet I call the high stars to witness, and thee, Thymbraean sire of bards,[3] what terror held me night and day while I clung to the portals and in unremitting vigilance caught every hint with eye or ear: just as a tiny skiff trailing behind a mighty vessel, when the tempest rages, bears its small share of the waters’ fury and is tossed in the self-same gale.

Twine now, ye Sisters, joyfully twine your threads of shining white! Let none reckon the measure of life already spent: this day is the birthday of life to be. Thou dost deserve to outlast the age-long lives of Troy,[4] the Euboean Sibyl’s dust and Nestor’s mouldering decay. What censer of mine can avail, needy as I am, to supplicate for thee? Not if Mevania should empty her valleys or the fields of Clitumnus vouchsafed their snow-white bulls, were

  1. ↑ Cf. Virg. Aen. xii. 400.
  2. ↑ i.e., by Achilles, cf. Hor. Epod. 17. 8.
  3. ↑ i.e., Apollo.
  4. ↑ Priam or Tithonus, as in ii. 3. 73, v. 3. 256.

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