Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/41

Phoebus, and the seas themselves drew nigh the ship. Thereafter did we learn ’twas Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, who leaning against the mast sang thus amid the rowers and bade them know such toils no more. Towards Scythian Boreas were they voyaging and the mouth of the unattempted sea that the Cyanean rocks hold fast. We at the sight of them deemed them Thracian foes, and ran to our homes in wild confusion like crowding cattle or fluttering birds. Alas! where now is our frenzied rage? We man the harbour and the shore-embracing walls, which give a far view over the open sea, and the lofty towers; hither in excited haste they bring stones and stakes and the arms that mourn their lords, and swords stained with slaughter; nay, it shames them not to don stiff woven corselets and to fit helms about their wanton faces; Pallas blushed and marvelled at their bold array, and Gradivus laughed on the far slopes of Haemus. Then first did our headlong madness leave our minds, nor seemed it a mere ship on the salt sea, but the gods’ late-coming justice and vengeance for our crimes that drew nigh o’er the deep. And already were they distant from the land the range of a Gortynian^[1] shaft, when Jupiter brought a cloud laden with dark rain and set it over the very rigging of the Pelasgian ship; then the waters shudder, all its light is stolen from the sun^[2] and the gloom thickens, and the wave straightway takes the colour of the gloom; warring winds tear the hollow clouds and rend the deep, the wet sand surges up in the black eddies, and the whole sea hangs poised between the conflict of the winds, and with arching ridge now all but touching the stars falls shattered; nor has the bewildered