Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/49

nights, nor without heaven’s will, I ween, did they find favour, when they confessed their crime. My fault, too, my fated pardonable fault, perchance ye would hear, O chieftains: by the ashes and avenging furies of my people I swear, innocent and unwilling did I light the torch of alien wedlock—as Heaven’s Providence doth know—though Jason be wily to ensnare. young maidens’ hearts: laws of its own bind blood-stained Phasis, and you, ye Colchians, breed far different passions. And now the skies have broken through the bonds of frost and grow warm in the long sunlit days, and the swift year has wheeled round to the opposite pole. A new progeny is brought to birth in answer to our prayers, and Lemnos is filled with the cries of babes unhoped-for. I myself also bear twin sons, memorial of a ravished couch, and, made a mother by my rough guest, renew in the babe his grandsire’s name; nor may I know what fortune hath befallen since I left them, for now full twenty years are past, if the fates but suffer them to live and Lycaste reared them as I prayed her.

“The boisterous seas fell tranquil and a milder southern breeze invites the sails: the ship herself, hating to tarry in the quiet haven, strains with her hawsers at the resisting rock. Then would the Minyae fain begone, and cruel Jason summons his comrades—would he had ere that sailed past my shores, who recked not of his own children, nor of his sworn word; truly his fame is known in distant lands: the fleece of seafaring Phrixus hath returned. When the destined sun had sunk beneath the sea and Tiphys felt the coming breeze and Phoebus’ western couch blushed red, once more alas! there