Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/91

The end was come, and weary Mulciber was sinking now to crumbling ash; they attack the flames and drowse the pyre with plenteous water, till with the setting sun their toils were finished; scarce did their labour yield to the late-coming shadows. And now nine times had Lucifer chased the dewy stars from heaven, and as often changed his steed and nightly heralded the lunar fires—yet he deceives not the conscious stars, but is found the same in his alternate risings;^[1] ’tis marvellous how the work has sped! there stands a marble pile, a mighty temple to the departed shade, where a row of sculptured scenes tells all his story: here Hypsipyle shows the river to the weary Danai, here crawls the unhappy babe, here lies he, while the scaly snake writhes angry coils around the hillock’s end; one would think to hear the dying hisses of his blood-stained mouth, so twines the serpent about the marble spear.

And now Rumour is summoning a multitude eager to behold the unarmed battles; called forth from every field and city they come; they also gather together, to whom the horror of war is yet unknown, and they who through weary age or infant years had stayed behind; never were such clamouring throngs on the strand of Ephyre or in the circus of Oenomaus.^[2]

Set in a green ring of curving hills and embraced by woodland lies a vale; rough ridges stand about it, and the twin summits of a mound make a barrier and forbid issue from the plain, which running long and level rises with gentle slope to grassy brows and winding heights soft with living turf. There in dense