Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/61

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THEBAID, V. 614–640

words and tongue-tied utterance, those smiles, and mutterings that I alone could understand? How often used I to talk to thee of Lemnos and the Argo, and with my long sad tale soothe thee to sleeping! For so indeed did I console my griefs, and gave the babe a mother’s breasts, where now in my bereavement the milk flows in vain and falls in barren drops upon thy wounds. ’Tis the gods’ work, I see: O cruel presage of my dreams and nightly terrors! ah! Venus, who never appeared in the darkness to my startled vision but ill befell! But why do I blame the gods? Myself I exposed thee to thy fate—for why should I fear to confess, so soon to die? What madness carried me away? Could I so utterly forget a charge so dear? While I recount the fortunes of my country and the boastful prelude of my own renown—what true devotion, what loyalty!—I have paid thee, Lemnos, the crime I owed. Take me then, ye princes, to the deadly snake, if ye have any gratitude for the service that has cost so dear, or any respect to my words; or slay me yourselves with the sword, lest I see again my sorrowing masters and bereaved Eurydice, now made my foe[1]—although my grief comes not short of hers. Am I to carry this hapless burden and cast it on a mother’s lap? nay, what earth may sooner engulf me in its deepest shades?” Thereupon, her face befouled with dust and gore, she turns to follow the mighty chieftains, and secretly as they grieve lays the waters to their charge.[2]

And now the news, sweeping sudden through the palace of devout Lycurgus, had brought full measure of tears to himself and all his house—himself, as he drew nigh from the sacred summit of Perseus’ moun-

  1. ↑ Eurydice, wife of Lycurgus, was the mother of the babe Opheltes, whom Hypsipyle had been nursing.
  2. ↑ i.e., blames them for the disaster, of which the stream was the cause, by separating her from the babe.

49

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.