Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/81

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THEBAID, VI. 103–129

of cursed battle,[1] and oaks unconquerable by age. Then the daring[2] fir is cloven, and the pine with fragrant wound, alders that love the sea bow to the ground their unshorn summits, and elms that give friendly shelter to the vines. The earth groans: not so are the woods of Ismarus swept away uprooted, when Boreas breaks his prison cave and rears his head, no swifter does the nightly flame tear through the forest before the south wind’s onset; hoar Pales and Silvanus,[3] lord of the shady glen, and the folk, half-god, half-animal, go forth weeping from the leisure haunts they loved, and as they go the woodland groans in sympathy, nor can the Nymphs loose the trees from their embrace.[4] As when a leader gives over to the greedy conquerors the captured towers to plunder, scarce is the signal heard, and the city is nowhere to be found; they drive and carry, take captive and strike down in fury unrestrained; the din of battle was less loud.

Two altars now of equal height had they with like toil erected, one to the doleful shades, the other to the gods above, when the low braying of the pipe with curved horn gave signal for lament, the pipe that by Phrygia’s mournful use was wont to escort the youthful dead. They say that Pelops ordained for infant shades this funeral rite and chant, to which Niobe, undone by the quivers twain, and dressed in mourning garb, brought the twelve urns to Sipylus.[5]

The Grecian leaders bear the funeral gifts and offerings for the flame, each by his titles witnessing to his race’s honourable renown; long after, high upon the necks of youths chosen by the prince from

  1. ↑ i.e., when turned into spear-shafts.
  2. ↑ i.e., because it “dares” the deep, when turned into ships.
  3. ↑ Italian rustic deities.
  4. ↑ The Nymphs are often thought of as the living spirits of the trees, cf. Silv. i. 3. 68. The passage reminds one of Milton’s Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, st. 20.
  5. ↑ The mountain on which her children were slain by Apollo and Artemis.

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