Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/77

hear his friendly speech than the madness of the fierce Ionian hears the sailors shouting prayers upon the deep, or the wayward lightnings heed the frail clouds.

Meanwhile the flame-appointed pyre and the infant bier are intertwined with gloomy boughs and shoots of cypress; lowest of all is laid the green produce of the country-side, then a space is more laboriously wrought with grassy chaplets and the mound is decked with flowers that soon must perish; third in order rises a heap of Arabian spices and the rich profusion of the East, with lumps of hoary incense and cinnamon that has come down from Belus of old.^[1] On the summit is set tinkling gold, and a soft coverlet of Tyrian purple is raised high, gleaming everywhere with polished gems, and within a border of acanthus is Linus woven and the hounds that caused his death^[2]: hateful ever to his mother was this marvellous work, and ever did she turn her eyes from the omen. Arms, too, and spoils of ancestors of old are cast about the pyre, the pride and chequered glory of the afflicted house, as though the funeral train bore thither the burden of some great warrior’s limbs; yet even empty and barren fame delights the mourners, and the pomp magnifies the infant shade. Wherefore tears are held in high reverence and afford a mournful joy, and gifts greater than his years are brought to feed the flames. For his father,^[3] in haste for the fulfilment of his prayers, had set apart for him quivers and tiny javelins and innocent arrows, and even already in his name was rearing proved horses of his stable’s famous breed;