Statius (Mozley 1928) v1/Silvae/Book 5

Good examples should be whole-heartedly honoured, since they are publicly beneficial. The devotion which you show to your Priscilla is a true part of your character, and must needs win you the affection of all, especially of a husband. For to love a wife is a joy, while she is alive, and a religion, when she is departed. It was not, however, as a mere stranger that I undertook this task, nor only with the readiness of one bound by ties of duty. For Priscilla loved my wife, and by that love made her more worthy in my eyes; after that it were ingratitude in me to take no notice of your grief. Further, I always strive, insignificant as I am, to deserve well of all adherents of the Sacred Palace.^[1] For he who in good faith worships the gods, loves their priests also.^[2] But although I had long desired a more intimate experience of your friendship,^[3] yet I would rather the occasion had not come so soon.

Had I but skill of hand to mould likenesses in wax or to leave a living impress upon gold or ivory, thence would I imagine, Priscilla, a grateful solace for thy husband. For his conspicuous devotion merits that thou thyself, whether painted by Apelles’ brush or given life by Phidian art, shouldst be brought back to calm his grief; so valiantly strives he to rescue thy ghost from the pyre, and wages a mighty struggle with Death,^[4] and exhausts the cunning of the craftsmen, and in every metal would fain show his love of thee. But mortal is the honour that toil of clever hands can pay: ’tis the poet’s endeavour to bring thee, peerless consort of a youth renowned, a tribute that will endure nor suffer oblivion at the last, the due offering of eternal song, if only Apollo be propitious, and Caesar, who ever in Apollo’s company aids me, gives assent; no other nobler sepulchre wilt thou find.

Late indeed is the balm composed for so great a sorrow, when yet once more the wheels of Phoebus are bringing round the year; but when the stroke is recent and the house still sable-clad in the first shock of woe, what access then to the poor husband in his loss? Then were it solace enough to weep and tear the raiment, to fatigue troops of slaves and outdo their lamentations, to assail the Fates and an unjust heaven with wild and frenzied cries. Though ​Orpheus himself with woods and streams for company came to assuage thy groans, though all his mother’s sisters and every priest of Bacchus and Apollo sustained the minstrel, yet nought would avail to give relief, not music, not those strings whereto the gods of pale Avernus and the Furies’ locks paid heed: such anguish held sway in his distracted heart. Even now does the sear though smooth yet wince at my lament, and the rain of a husband’s love forces itself into those burdened eyes. E’en yet do those orbs hold pious drops? O marvellous truth! Sooner, as they say, does the Sipylean dame drain dry her tears, or the dews of sorrow fail Tithonia, or Achilles’ mother grow weary and sated of breaking her wild waves against his tomb.^[5] Bless thy passionate soul! the god who holds the reins of earth, he who nearer than Jove directs the doings of mankind—he marks thee and beholds thy grief; and hence also doth he take secret knowledge of his chosen minister, because thou lovest her shade and honourest her in death. Here is a zeal that is pure indeed, a passion that merits the praise of thy keen-searching lord.^[6]

Yet ’tis no wonder, if long-enduring Harmony bound you by an unbroken chain in the close union of heart with heart. She indeed had known a former husband and the torches of earlier wedlock, yet did she embrace and cherish thee with all her soul and inmost being, as though she were a virgin bride; even so does the elm love the clinging tendrils of the coeval vine, and mingles with its foliage and prays that autumn may bring it richness and rejoices in its dear entwining clusters. Women who lack the ​graces of the soul are praised for ancestry or gift of loveliness; and falsely great they lack a true renown;^[7] but though a brilliant lineage was thine, and the blessing of a beauty that husbands would prize, yet thy own boast is prouder, that thou knewest but one bed, didst feed but one passion in thy secret heart. That love no Phrygian ravisher would have outraged, no Dulichian suitors, nor that adulterer who polluted his brother’s innocent spouse with Mycenaean gold.^[8] Ay, did you offer the riches of Babylon or weight of Lydian treasure or the lordly wealth of Ind or Araby or China, she had preferred to die poor in untainted chastity, and given her life to save her honour. Yet was there no forbidding sternness in her look, nor o’ermuch austerity in her ways, but a gay and simple loyalty, and modesty blent with charm. Yet if some dread crisis had summoned her to harder tasks, gladly would she have borne on her lord’s behalf the assault of armed bands or the lightning’s stroke or the perils of mid-ocean. Happier was thy fate, that adversity ne’er proved how true thy devotion, how great thy anxiety for thy spouse. Ay, happier was thy path, and thy prayers merited heaven’s favour for thy husband, while day and night thou didst weary the gods, and lie prostrate at every altar and adore the present godhead of our gentle lord. Thy prayers were heard, and Fortune came with favouring step. For he beheld the quiet industry, the unsullied devotion of a loyal youth, whose mind was busy with schemes, whose alert intelligence and sober judgement were ​fitted to unravel the skein of cireumstance—he saw, who knows the hearts of all his subjects, and with well-tried servants guards safely every quarter. Nor is that wonderful: he scans the East and the West, he knows what the South and what the wintry North is doing, and puts sword and gown to the proof, ay, the very heart itself. He placed upon those bowed shoulders a mighty burden, a weight scarce tolerable—no duties more manifold does the Sacred Palace know—to send far and wide into the great world the commands of the Roman Prince, to handle all the powers and modes of empire; to learn what laurelled message comes from the North, what news from wandering Euphrates or from the bank of twy-named Ister or from the standards of the Rhine, how much we have won of the world’s end or of Thule round which the tidal waters roar—for every spear raises joyous leaves on high,^[9] and no lance is marked with the feather of ill-report; moreover, should the Master distribute loyal swords,^[10] to make known who suffices to control a century, a knight sent among the companies of foot, who to command a cohort, whom the more excellent rank of illustrious tribune befits, who is suited rather to give orders to a cavalry troop; again, to anticipate a thousand chances, whether Nile has drenched his fields, whether Libya has been ​moistened by Southern rains; were I to count all his labours, no more numerous are the messages that the winged Tegean with revealing wand bears from the stars on high, or Juno’s maid, who glides down through the liquid air and binds her pictured are about the rainy sky, or Fame, who brings thy laurels, O Germanicus, in her swift flight outstripping the day, and leaves the slow Arcadian beneath the stars and Thaumantia in mid-heaven.^[11]

How joyful, Priscilla, wert thou seen of gods and men on that auspicious day when first thy spouse was promoted to his great career! Almost did thy happiness surpass his own, while thou didst eagerly fling thyself prostrate before the sacred feet of thy lord for his great favour, and pour out all thy heart. Not such joy doth she know upon the Aonian mount whom the Delian sire hath put in charge of the openings of the mystic cave, or she to whom Bacchus hath awarded the dread privilege of the foremost wand, and to bear the banner of the frenzied rout.^[12] Yet was her tranquillity not changed, nor her goodness puffed up by prosperity; her mind keeps the same course, and her modesty abides, though her fortunes rise. Anxiously she tends her husband’s cares, and cheers and alleviates his toils. Herself she serves his modest board and sober cups, and admonishes him by the example of his chief; just as the Apulian wife of some thrifty husbandman, or sun-burnt Sabine dame, who sees by the peeping stars that her lord will soon be come, his labours o’er, briskly sets the tables and the couches, and listens for the returning plough. I speak of trivial things: nay, at thy side she had willingly braved the gelid North and Sarmatian snows and Ister and the pale ​frosts of Rhine, at thy side steeled her courage throughout summer heats and gladly borne the quiver, did the camp permit, and gladly shielded her body with an Amazonian targe—so but she might see thee in the dust-clouds of battle hard by the Emperor’s thundering steed, brandishing godlike shafts and bedewed with the sweat of his great spear.

So far my lyre has been propitious; but now it is time to doff thy bays, O Phoebus, and doom my tresses to sad cypress-leaves. What god joined Fortune and Envy in truceless kinship? who bade the cruel goddesses engage in unending war? Will the one set her mark upon no house, but the other must straightway fix it with her grim glance, and with savage hand make havoc of its gladness? Happy and prosperous was this abode, no shock assailed it, no thought of sorrow; what cause was there to have fear of Fortune, treacherous and fickle though she be, while Caesar was favourable? yet the jealous Fates found a way, and barbarous violence entered that blameless home. So do the laden vineyards feel the deadly sirocco’s blast, so rots the high corn with too much rain, so does the air envy the rapid craft it meets, and gathers storm-clouds about its prosperous sails. Fate plucks away the peerless beauty of Priscilla: just as the lofty pine, the glory of the woodland, is wasted of its foliage, be it by fell fire of Jove or that its roots are loosened, and so despoiled answers no more the whispering breeze. What avails goodness, or chaste loyalty, or worship paid to heaven? The dark snares of death encompassed around the wretched woman, the Sisters’ ruthless threads are tightened, and there abides but the last portion of the exhausted ​span. No succour could crowds of slaves bring her in her distress, nor the physicians’ toilful art; yet while friends on every side feign looks of hopefulness, she marks her husband weeping. He now implores in vain Lethe’s inexorable stream, now sheds anxious tears at every shrine and leaves his imprint at the gates and flings himself down upon the threshold, now calls upon Caesar’s merciful deity. Alas! the cruel course of Fate! is there then aught that Caesar may not do? What tarrying could there have come to mortal lives, if thou, O Sire, hadst been all-powerful! far away would Death be groaning, imprisoned in the unseeing pit, and the idle Fates would have laid their spinning down.

And now her face falls, her eyes take their last wavering glances, and the hearing of the ears is dulled, save when only she recognizes her husband’s voice; him only does her mind returning from the midst of death perceive, him with faint arms does she bravely grasp, turning to him her stiffened cheeks, nor wishes to sate her eyes with the last glimpse of light, but only with her dear spouse. Then dying she thus consoles the loving heart that was one with hers: “O thou, my soul’s still-surviving half, to whom I would fain leave the years that cruel Atropos takes from me, spare thy tears, I pray, beat not thy breast with savage lament, nor vex thy consort’s fleeing spirit. I leave, ’tis true, a marriage-bower, yet in the due order of dying, because I die the first; better the life I have lived than a long old age; I have seen thee in the full splendour of thy fame, I have seen thee draw nearer and more near to the right hand on high.^[13] No fate, no god has power over thee now; I take with me ​their power to harm. Do thou go gladly on in the path thou hast entered, and love unfailingly the sacred presence, the spirit of our Prince. Now—a behest after thine own heart—give to the temple on the Capitol gold that endures for ever, that the countenance of sacred Caesar may gleam in a statue that weighs a hundred pounds, and prove his constant votary’s love. So shall I behold neither Furies nor dire Tartarus, but be admitted, a blessed soul, to Elysian regions.” Thus with failing strength she speaks, and clings to her consort’s arms, and unrepining breathed out her lingering soul into her husband’s lips, and closed her eyes with the hand she loved.

But the heart of her spouse was ablaze with passionate grief; now he fills the bereaved home with frenzied crying, now would fain set free the steel, now climbs to lofty heights—scarce can his friends restrain him—now broods o’er his lost one with mouth joined fast to mouth, and savagely excites the grief that is hidden in his heart: even as the Odrysian bard^[14] seeing his wife’s corpse fell dazed and horror-struck, and flinging down his quill on Strymon’s bank in songless sorrow mourned the pyre. He too had courageously cut short the term of life, that thou shouldst not go uncompanioned to Tartarean gloom, but loyalty to his Prince forbids, loyalty that roused the wonder of the Sacred Monarch, and a yet greater love.^[15]

Who could recount in worthy song the obsequies and funeral gifts of that unhappy train? There heaped together in long array is all the liquid wealth of Arabian and Cilician springs, Sabaean blooms and Indian produce destined for the flames, and incense, ​spoil of Palestinian shrines, Hebrew essences withal and Corycian petals^[16] and Cinyrean buds; she herself reclines on a lofty couch of silk ’neath the shade of a Tyrian awning. But in all the concourse none looks but at the husband, on him is bent the gaze of mighty Rome, as though he were bearing youthful sons to burial: such grief in his looks, such darkness upon his hair^[17] and eyes. Her call they happy in her quiet and peaceful end, ’tis for the husband their tears are shed.

There is a spot before the city where the mighty Appian way has its first beginning, and Cybele lays aside her grief in Italian Almo,^[18] nor remembers the streams of Ida any more. Here thy peerless consort—for he could not bear the smoke of burning and the clamour of the pyre—laid thee, delicately arrayed in Sidonian purple, blissfully to rest. Length of years will have no power to harm thee, nor the labours of time to wither and mar thy limbs: such wealth of perfume does the venerable marble breathe. Soon art thou changed into manifold images^[19] and born anew: here art thou Ceres in bronze, here the bright Cretan maid,^[20] Maia beneath that dome, an innocent Venus in this marble. The deities scorn not to accept thy lovely features: attendants stand about thee, a multitude wont to obey; then couches and tables duly without ceasing.^[21] ​A house hast thou there, a house! Who would call it a gloomy sepulchre? Justly would one exclaim, seeing the devotion of her spouse: “Truly is he the minister of him who lately for his everlasting race founded a sacred shrine,^[22] and set his kindred stars in another heaven.” So when some great ship sets forth on a new voyage from the Pharian^[23] strand, and already has stretched out on either side a thousand ropes and the broad arms of her sail-bearing mast, and started on her way, some tiny pinnace sails on the same sea, and claims her share of the limitless South wind.

Why now, choicest of youths, dost thou cherish sorrow in thy heart beyond due measure, nor suffer thy long grief to have an end? Fearest thou lest Priscilla tremble at Cerberus’ howling? he is silent for the blessed. Lest the sailor be slow to draw nigh her, or disturb her on the waters? He conveys deserving souls forthwith, and quietly sets them in his welcoming craft. Moreover, whenever a shade approaches that has won the praise of a loving spouse, Proserpine bids summon joyful torches, and the heroines of old to come forth from hallowed bowers and scatter the shades of gloom in radiant light, and strew garlands and Elysian flowers before her. Thus doth Priscilla enter the kingdom of the dead; there with suppliant hand she prays the Fates for thee, and placates the lords of grim Avernus, that having fulfilled the term of human life thou in old age mayst leave thy prince still giving peace to the world and still young! The unfailing Sisters take oath to grant her prayers.

My Crispinus is off to Etruscan fields and the glades of Tages;^[24] not for long is his sojourning, nor distant the land, but my heart is torn with secret pangs, and my brimming eyes set the large tears rolling, as though I watched o’er the stormy Aegean the sails of a departing friend, and from a cliff gazed wearily yet after the vessel, and complained that my sight was baffled by the long reach of air.

Ah! if it were the brilliant opening of a soldier’s career that called thee, noble youth, or the glad auspices of the camp, what joyful tears would flow, in what warm embraces would I clasp thee! Must friends then even welcome sadness?^[25] And already thy life has accomplished twice eight courses, but thy spirit is more robust than thy tender age, and thy years quail before their task, and thy will brooks not their control. Nor is that wonderful: thine was no unrenowned lineage, nor wast thou born of plebeian stock, obscure of family and devoid of ancestral fame; no child of equestrian blood or but newly granted the robe of knighthood^[26] and the humble stripe^[27] didst thou as a newcomer knock at ​the august abode and hallowed chamber of the Latian Senate, but preceded by a long array of thine own kinsmen. Just as when on the wide spaces of the Roman Circus a horse is awaited, comely to behold and generous with the blood of famous sires, in whose long pedigree a lucky mating has produced distinguished parentage; the applause of all excites him, the very dust and the round turning-points welcome with joy his flying hooves: so did the Senate-house know thee, illustrious boy, as born for itself, and set the patrician crescent^[28] on thy youthful feet. Soon did thy shoulders recognize as their own the wonted Tyrian folds and the proud tunic.^[29] And indeed thy sire was preparing for thee mighty patterns of thy fame to be. For on the threshold of manhood he straightway made warlike attack on quiver-bearing Araxes and Armenia that would not learn to serve fierce Nero. Corbulo^[30] held command in the stern warfare, but even he admired Bolanus, his comrade in battle and partner of his toils, in many a glorious fight; on him too was he wont to lay his keenest anxieties, and shared with him his fears, what occasion befriended ambush, what times were good for open fighting, when to suspect the word and when to trust the flight of proud Armenia. Bolanus it was who knew beforehand the perils of the route, Bolanus who sought the ridge that served the safety of the camp, Bolanus who measured^[31] out the fields and cleared the dangerous hindrances of torrent or forest, who fulfilled the mighty purposes of that revered chieftain, and alone of all availed to ​carry out his great commands. Already the barbarian land itself knew the hero well; his was the second crest in battle, his helm stood nearest to his chief’s. So were the Phrygians dismayed,^[32] and though it was the arms of Nemea they saw, and Cleonae’s bow that drove their ranks in rout, ay, though Alcides fought, yet feared they Telamon also. Learn, boy—for no stranger needst thou seek to teach thee the fair love of valour; let kindred renown inflame thee: others may seek a pattern in Decius or the returning of Camillus^[33]—learn thou the lesson of thy sire,^[34] in what might he entered Thule that sets a barrier to western waves,^[35] where Hyperion is ever weary, and bore the commands of Caesar, how powerfully he governed the thousand cities of lordly Asia in the allotted year, yet with justice tempering authority. Drink in with ready ear these stories, for these let thy kinsmen strive to win thy love, these precepts let thy comrades and thy father’s friends repeat.

And now thou art planning a journey to other lands, and art preparing to be gone with no sluggish stride; not yet have the signs of vigorous manhood crept about thy cheeks, blameless still is the tenour of thy life. Nor is thy father with thee: a cruel fate has taken him, he is dead, leaving two children without a guardian. He did not even take off the purple of boyhood from thy youthful arms, or put the white raiment about thy shoulders.^[36] Whom hath not unrestrained youth corrupted, and the too hasty freedom ​of the gown! even as a tree, when it knows not the knife, luxuriates in growth and wastes its fruitfulness in leaf? But beneath thy youthful breast are modesty and study of the Muse and a nature self-controlled; mirth too thou hast and honesty and a tranquil brow, and an elegance that stops short of luxury, and loyal devotion lavished on every side; the fortune of thy house has taught^[37] thee to give place to thy brother of equal age, to reverence thy sire and to forgive thy hapless mother.^[38] Could she bring herself to mix for thee the accursed cup of deadly juices, who by thy voice canst avert the bite of serpents, and by thy look soften the heart of any stepmother? Fain would I vex her shade, and by merited curses banish peace from her pyre: but thou, O best of youths, dost turn thy face,^[39] I see, and ponderest such words as these: “Spare the dust, I pray; ’twas destiny and the wrath of guilty Fates; that god was to blame, who looks too late into human hearts, nor checks upon the threshold the motions of evil and the unhallowed plottings of the mind. May that day perish from Time’s record, nor future generations believe it! Let us at least keep silence, and suffer the crimes of our own house to be buried deep in whelming darkness. He wreaked the penalty who hath care of those who are his, at whose word Loyalty hath returned and come on earth again, whom every sin doth fear.^[40] Sufficient for us and deserving of our tears is his vengeance. Nay, could we but implore the fierce Avengers, and keep Cer​berus from that timid shade, ay, more swiftly grant thy ghost the waters of forgetfulness!”

A blessing on thy heart, O youth! yet the greater grows thy mother’s crime. Not devotion only, but high courage also has been thy aim. Lately when thy friend grew pale at a false charge and unmerited ill-fame, and the Julian law awoke the Courts,^[41] and girt with her train of justices arose and shook her lightning-brand of chastity: thou, although without experience of trials or stern laws, but ever hidden in the silence of thy studious shade, yet didst take upon thee to avert his fears, and, thyself an unarmed recruit, to repel the bolts that threatened thy terror-stricken friend. Never before did Romulus and our Dardanian ancestor^[42] behold so young a combatant wage gowned warfare in mid-forum. The fathers were amazed at so brave a venture and at thy daring and even the innocent feared thee.^[43] In thy limbs too is the same vigour, and thy strength ever ready for valiant deeds is sufficient for thy courage and obedient to high behests. Myself I saw thee of late on Tiber’s bank, where the Tyrrhenian wave foams against Latian shallows, speeding on thy course, and with naked heel goading the flank of thy mettled steed, with threatening hand and visage:—as I speak truth, I stood aghast, and thought thee armed for battle—; so fair to see rode Ascanius on a Gaetulian horse a-hunting into his stepmother’s fields, brandishing Trojan shafts, and made hapless ​Elissa burn with passion for his sire; not otherwise did Troilus circling more nimbly elude the menacing steeds, or he whom as he wheeled round the turning-posts of Arcady^[44] in the dust of Thebes the Tyrian matrons beheld from their high towers with no unkindly eyes.^[45]

Come then—for thy Prince’s favour urges thee on, and thy brother leaves sure footprints for thy vows,—arise with valiant heart, and bethink thee of the camp and its manly cares. Mars and the Attic maid^[46] shall show thee the battle line, Castor shall teach thee to wheel thy horsemen, Quirinus^[47] to clash thy arms upon thy shoulders, Quirinus who suffered thee to make ring upon thy youthful neck the cloud-born shields and armour unstained with blood.

To what lands then, to which of Caesar’s worlds wilt thou go? Wilt thou swim Northern rivers and the broken waters of Rhine, or sweat in the hot fields of Libya? Wilt thou make Pannonian mountains tremble, and the Sauromatae that shift their dwelling? Shall sevenfold Danube hold thee, and Peuce that lies amid her lover’s shady streams?^[48] Or wilt thou tread the dust of Solyma,^[49] and the captive palm-groves of Idume, who not for herself did plant her fruitful orchards? But if the land that thy mighty parent curbed receive thee, how will savage Araxes thrill with joy! What glory will exalt the Caledonian plains! when some aged dweller in that bloodthirsty land tells thee:^[50] “Here was thy father wont to give ​justice, from this mound would he harangue his horsemen; watch-towers and strongholds in wide circuit did he set—dost thou see?—and drew a trench around these walls; these gifts, these weapons did he dedicate to the god of war—thou seest still their titles; this cuirass he himself put on at the battle’s summons, this one did he take from off the British king.” Such tales would Phoenix tell to Pyrrhus, as he planned victorious war against the Trojans, of Achilles whom he had never known.

Happy thou, Optatus, who trusting in thy supple youth shalt endure whatever road or rampart thou shalt approach, girt thyself also with the sword, perchance—so be the godhead of the Prince propitious—and the untiring comrade of thy bosom friend, even as was devoted Pylades, or Patroclus in the Dardan war. A union of hearts is yours; true affection is this, and I pray that it abide. For me, the years of vigour speed fast away; therefore with vows and prayers will I cheer thy spirit, and mine as well! But if I utter my wonted lament and the Roman fathers come to hear my song, I shall then feel thy loss, Crispinus, and my Achilles^[51] will look on every bench for thee in vain. But thou shalt return yet more renowned—not idly run the prophecies of the seers—and he who now admits thee to the eagles^[52] and the camp shall grant thee to accomplish all the degrees of rank, and to be surrounded by the rods of power, and to take thy seat on thy father’s curule chair.

But who is this that from Trojan Alba’s^[53] lofty hills, ​whence that present deity looks forth upon the walls of his own Rome hard by, enters outstripping Rumour, and with his news fills all thy house, Crispinus? Surely was I saying: “Not idly run the prophecies of the seers.” Lo! Caesar unbars for thee the mighty threshold of renown, and entrusts the sword of Ausonia to thy keeping. Forward, lad! having striven so far have strength for this great privilege, happy, who even now dost swear homage to thy mighty Chief, and to whom divine Germanicus doth give thy first sword! This is no lesser gift, than if the God of war himself bestowed on thee his strong eagles, and set his grim casque upon thy head. Go in good heart, and learn to merit yet higher honours!

Do thou thyself, most learned sire, vouchsafe me from Elysian springs a bitter potency in the music of grief, and the touch of an ill-omened lyre. For without thee I may not move the Delian grottoes, or awake Cirrha to wonted strains. All that Phoebus of late revealed in his Corycian bower,^[54] and Euhan upon the hills of Ismara,^[55] I have unlearnt. The fillets of Parnassus have dropped from my brow, and I have beheld in fear the deadly yew creep in among ​the ivy-leaves, and the trembling bay—ah! horror!—wither and die. Yet surely I am he who, loftily inspired, essayed to extol the deeds of great-hearted kings, and to raise my song to the height of Mars himself. Who has doomed my spirit to decay? Who has drawn a cold shroud of mist about my blighted heart, and drowned my inspiration? The goddesses stand dismayed around the bard, and with neither voice nor finger make sweet melody. Their queen herself sinks her head upon her silent lyre, as when after Orpheus’ loss she halted by thy stream, O Hebrus, and gazed at the troops of beasts that listened no more, and the woods that moved not since the strains were gone.

But thou, whether freed from the body thou soarest to the heights and reviewest the glittering realms and the elements of things, learning what is God, whence cometh fire, what orbit guides the sun, what cause makes Phoebe wane and has power to restore her hidden light, and dost continue the music of renowned Aratus^[56]; or whether in the secluded grassy meads of Lethe, among gatherings of heroes and spirits of the blest, thou dost attend the Maeonian and Ascraean sages,^[57] thyself no feebler shade, and makest music in thy turn and minglest thy song with theirs: O grant a voice and inspiration, father, to my great grief. For thrice^[58] has the moon journeyed o’er the heaven, and thrice displayed her countenance, and still beholds me sluggish, and my sadness unconsoled by any draught of Helicon; ever since thy pyre shed its red light upon my face, and with streaming eyes I gazed upon thy ashes, I have held cheap my poet’s art. Scarce do I for the first time free my mind for tasks like this, and (e’en now ​with failing hand and no tearless eye) essay to shake my silent sorrow from its torpor, leaning against the tomb in which thou dost rest at peace in our own fields,—those fields where after Aeneas’ death star-bright Ascanius set Alba upon Latian hills,^[59] in hatred of the plains that Phrygian blood had drenched, the royal dower of his ill-omened stepdame.^[60] Here in thy honour—nor softer is the fragrant breath of Sicanian crocus, nor the rare cinnamon that rich Sabaeans pluck thee, nor perfumed blossoms of Arabia—O thou who deservest full meed of holy offerings, do I make musical lament; ah! receive the groans and the anguish of thy son, and tears such as have been shed for but few fathers. Would it were my fortune, to build an altar to thy shade, a work that would match temples, to raise high the soaring fabric, higher than Cyclopean rock or the Pyramids’ bold masonry, and plant a mighty grove about thy tomb. There had I surpassed the tribute of the Sicilian sepulchre, and Nemea’s precinct and the rites of maimed Pelops.^[61] There no naked band of Grecian athletes would cleave the air with the Oebalian disk,^[62] no sweat of steeds would water the ground or hoof-beat ring upon the crumbling track; there would be but the choir of Phoebus, and I would duly sing thy praise, O father, and bind on thee the minstrel’s prize of leaves. I myself, as priest of the dead and of thy soul, would with moist eyes lead a mournful dirge, from which ​neither Cerberus with all his mouths nor Orpheus’ cruel bond could keep thee. There as I sang of thy goodness and thy deeds perchance thy love had deemed me not second to Homer’s mighty utterance, ay, would even fain hold me equal to Maro’s solemn chant.

^[63]Why does the mother who sits bereaved by her son’s still-glowing pile assail the gods and the Sisters’ brazen threads more bitterly than I? Why she who looks upon the flames that consume her youthful spouse, and breaks through the hands that stay her and the resisting crowd, to die, do they but suffer her, upon her husband’s blazing corpse? More fiercely even than theirs, perchance, does my reproach strike Tartarus and the gods;^[64] perchance even alien eyes find sorrow in the funeral train. Ay, not Nature only nor Affection have lent themselves to my grief for these sad rites: for to me, O father, thou wert cut off on manhood’s earliest threshold, and in the prime of life didst enter cruel Tartarus. For neither did the Marathonian maid lament Icarius’ death, that savage countrymen wrought, more sparingly than his mother mourned Astyanax hurled down from the Phrygian tower. Nay, Erigone stifled her sobs in the noose that took her life; but ​thou,^[65] when mighty Hector was dead, didst stoop to serve a Haemonian lord.

I shall not bring to my father’s pyre that tribute of death-music which the swan when he knows his doom sends to the world beneath, nor the warning strains surpassing sweet that the Tyrrhenian^[66] winged maids chant to mariners from the fatal cliff: no sorrowful tongueless plaint of Philomela to her cruel sister: the minstrel knows them all too well. Who by the grave’s side has not recounted all the branches and all the amber tears of the Sun’s daughters, and Phrygia’s flinty rock, and him who dared make music against Phoebus, while Pallas rejoiced that the boxwood-pipe deceived him?*^[67] Nay, let Pity that has forgotten men,^[68] and Justice recalled to heaven, and Eloquence in either tongue bewail thee, and Pallas and the Heliconian train of minstrel Phoebus; those also whose toil it is to guide Aonian song in six-foot measures,^[69] and they who fit their strains to the Arcadian tortoise-shell,^[70] and find in the lyre their labour and renown, those whom ’neath every sky sublimest Wisdom counts in the sevenfold roll of Fame^[71]; they who in the dread buskin have thundered out the fury and the wickedness of kings, and told of the sun’s light hidden from the earth, and they whose joy it is to relax their powers in Thalia’s ​wantoning, or to maim of one foot the heroic tenor of their lay.^[72] For all measures in the broad path of eloquence did thy mind embrace, in all wert thou a master, whether it pleased thee to bind thy utterance in poesy, or to fling it wide in unfettered speech and rival the rainstorms by the unbridled torrent of thy words.

Lift up, Parthenope, lift up thy head half-buried from the dust that suddenly whelmed thee, lay thy tresses merged beneath the mountain’s exhalations upon the tomb of thy great departed son: than whom neither the Munychian towers^[73] nor learned Cyrene nor Sparta’s valiant spirit^[74] gave birth to aught more excellent. Wert thou lacking in lineage, humble and unrenowned, with nought of thine own race to show, his citizenship would prove thee Grecian and sprung from Euboea by ancestral blood. He, whene’er he celebrated the solemn quinquennial feast^[75] in famous verse, as often offered his temples to receive thy laurel-prize, surpassing the utterance of Pylian sage and Dulichian prince alike,^[76] and binding the likeness of either on his brow. No mean birth of blood obscure was thine, nor was thy family without distinction (though expenses straitened thy parents’ means); for it was in rich pomp that Infancy ​chose thee to lay by the purple garb^[77] given in honour of thy birth and the proud gold from off thy breast. Straightway at thy appearing the Aonian sisters favourably smiled, and Apollo even then my friend dipped thy boyish lyre and steeped thy lips in the sacred stream. Nor is thy country’s glory single, and the undecided contest of two lands leaves the place of thy origin in doubt. Grecian Hyele,^[78] where the drowsy steersman fell from the poop and passed a distressful vigil in the waves,—Hyele, made their own by Latian settlers, claims thee on the score of birth; but then mightier <Parthenope> proves thee hers by thy life’s long course—even so different cities with as many birth-places divide Maeonides^[79] among themselves, and prove their case every one; yet is he not the true scion of all, but the vast pride of a false claim puffs up the vanquished. There, while thou didst begin thy lays and offer thy greeting to life, straightway wert thou hurried into the contests of thy native festival that men can scarce sustain, so eager wert thou for praise and bold of wit. The Euboean folk stood amazed at thy youthful verse, and parents showed thee to their sons. Thereafter was thy voice frequent in combat, and at no solemn feast inglorious: not so often did green Therapnae applaud Castor’s victory upon the round course, or Pollux triumphant in the boxing-match. But if to ​win at home was easy, what a feat to gain Achaean prizes, shading thy temples now with the spray of Phoebus, now with Lerna’s grasses, now with the Athamantian pine,^[80] when Victory so often quailed for weariness, yet never missed thee or robbed thee of thy leaves, or touched another’s hair!

Hence came it that thou wert trusted with the fond hopes of parents, and under thy guidance noble youths were ruled, and learnt the ways and the prowess of men of old—the fate of Troy, Ulysses’ tardy return, what power has Maeonides to describe in song the battles and steeds of heroes, how the bards of Ascra and of Sicily^[81] enriched the faithful husbandmen, the law that sways the recurrent, winding rhythms of Pindar’s lyre, Ibycus who besought the birds,^[82] Alcman whose strains warlike Amyclae sang, proud Stesichorus, and bold Sappho^[83] who feared not Leucas, but took the heroic leap, and all others whom the harp has deemed worthy. Skilled wert thou to expound the songs of Battus’ son,^[84] and the dark ways and straitened speech of Lycophron, and Sophron’s tangled mazes and the hidden thought of subtle Corinna. But why speak I of lesser names? Thou wert wont to bear an equal yoke with Homer,^[85] and match his hexameters in prose, nor ever be outdistanced and fail to keep his pace. What wonder if they left their own land and sought thee, all whom Lucania sent and the acres of stern Daunus,^[86] and the home that Venus bewailed and the land that Alcides ​slighted, and the maiden who from Sorrento’s height watches the Tyrrhenian deep, and the hill above the nearer bay^[87] marked by the trumpet and the oar,^[88] those too whom Cyme sent, once a stranger to her Ausonian home,^[89] and the haven of Dicarchus and Baiae’s shore, where pants the fire deep-mingled with the midmost waves and the smothered conflagrations keep their dwellings? So from every side came the folk to Avernus’ rocks and the dark grotto of the Sibyl, to ask their questions, while she sang of the wrath of heaven and the doings of the Fates, no vain prophet even though she foiled Apollo.^[90] Soon dost thou educate the Roman youth and the chieftains that shall be, and firmly leadest them in the footsteps of their sires. Under thy care grew the Dardanian overseer of the hidden fire,^[91] who conceals the mysterious theft of Diomede, and from thee while a boy did he learn the rite: thou didst approve the Salii, and teach them their weapons’ use and show to the augurs the sure foreknowledge of the air; thou didst tell to whom belongs the privilege of unfolding the Chalcidic oracle, and why the hair of the Phrygian flamen is concealed; and the girt-up Luperci sorely feared thy blows.^[92]

​And now of that company one perchance gives laws to Eastern races, another quells Iberian tribes, another at Zeugma^[93] sets bounds to the Achaemenian Persian; these curb the rich peoples of Asia, those the lands of Pontus, these by peaceable authority declare pure justice in the courts, those hold loyal watch and ward in camps; thou art the source of their renown. In moulding youthful minds neither Nestor nor Phoenix, guide of his untamed foster-child, had striven with thee, nor Chiron, who with far different strains subdued the heart of Aeacides, fain to hear the bugles and the blast of horns.^[94]

Whilst thus thou wert busy, of a sudden civil Strife^[95] raised her torch on the Tarpeian mount, and stirred Phlegraean combats.^[96] The Capitol glows with impious fire, and Latian cohorts showed the fury of the Gauls. Scarce had the flame abated, still burnt that funeral pyre of gods, when thou undismayed, eagerly forestalling the brands themselves, didst chant with pious voice a solace for the shrines destroyed and lament the captured thunderbolts. The Roman chieftains and Caesar, heaven’s avenger, marvel, and from the midst of the blaze the Sire of the gods gives sign of favour. And already was it thy purpose to bewail in pious chant the conflagration of Vesuvius, and expend thy tears on the ruin of thy native land, when the Father caught up the mountain from the earth and lifted it to the skies, then hurled it far and wide upon the hapless cities.^[97]

I too, when I knocked at the groves of song and ​the glens of Boeotia, and claimed myself thy offspring, was given entrance by the goddesses; for it was not only sky and sea and land that thou didst give me, the due and wonted gift of parents, but this glory of the lyre, such as it is, and thou first taughtest me no common utterance, and to hope for fame even in the tomb. What was thy pride, so oft as I charmed the Latian fathers with my song, while thou wert present, a happy witness of thy own bounty! What confusion of delight and tears was thine, of hope and loving fear and modest joy! That was indeed thy day, the glory as much thine as mine! Such is the father that beholds his son upon Olympian sand, he strikes each blow himself more mightily, deeper in his heart’s depth does he receive the stroke; ’tis he whom the crowded tiers are watching, he on whom the Achaeans gaze, while his eyes grow dim with the whirling dust, and he prays to die so but the prize be grasped. Alas! that in thy sight I bore only native chaplets on my brow,^[98] and only Ceres’ gift of the Chalcidic wreath.^[99] How proud hadst thou been, scarce had thy Dardan estate of Alba held thee, if through me thou hadst won a garland given by Caesar’s hand! What strength had that day ministered to thee, what relief to thy old age! For in that the oak and olive together did not press my brow, and the hoped-for prize eluded me—ah! how gladly hadst thou received the Tarpeian Father’s unattainable reward!^[100] Under thy guidance my Thebaid followed the footsteps of ancient bards; thou didst teach me to give vigour ​to my song, to describe heroic deeds and modes of war and the setting of the scene. Without thee my course wavers and runs uncertainly, and mist shrouds the sails of my lonely craft. Nor was it I alone thy bountiful love did cherish: such wert thou too toward thy spouse. Thou knewest the torches of but one wedlock: one passion alone inspired thee. Assuredly I cannot separate my mother from thy cold tomb: there doth she feel and know thy presence, she sees thee, and morn and eve salutes thy grave, as other women in feigned loyalty attend on Pharian or Mygdonian grief, and bewail an alien death.^[101]

Why should I tell of thy frank, yet earnest nature? thy loving heart, thy contempt of gain, thy care for honour, thy passion for the right? and yet again, when it pleased thee to relax, of the charm of thy converse? of thy mind that knew no age? For these deserts of thine the ruling providence of the gods has granted thee renown and kindly fame, and saved thee from the sadness of any blow. Thou art taken, father, not lacking years, nor overburdened; ten spaces of five years hast thou added to three lustres. But grief and affection suffer me not to count thy days, O thou who wert worthy to surpass the Pylian^[102] bounds of life and equal a Priam’s age, worthy to see me too as old! But the gate of death was not dark for thee: gentle was thy passing, nor did a tardy end fore-ordain thy frame in senile dissolution to the ever-threatening grave, but a tranquil unconsciousness and death that counterfeited slumber set free thy soul, and bore thee to Tartarus under the false semblance of repose. Ah! what groans I uttered then! my friends saw me with anxiety, my mother saw me and rejoiced to recognize her son. What ​lamentation did I make! Pardon me, O shades; father, I may say it with truth: thou wouldst not have wept more for me! Happy was he who grasped his sire with ineffectual arms; ay, he would fain have snatched him away, though set in Elysium, and carried him once more through Danaan darkness:^[103] and when he made essay and strove to walk with living steps to the underworld, the aged priestess of Diana, goddess of the dead, conducted him. Even so a lesser cause brought the Odrysian lyre to sluggish Avernus: so was it with Admetus in the land of Thessaly.^[104] If one day brought back the shade of Protesilaus,^[105] why should thy harp or mine, O father, win no request of the underworld? Might I but touch the face of my sire, might I but grasp his hand with mine, let any law that will o’ertake me!

But do ye, O monarchs of the dead and thou, Ennean Juno,^[106] if ye approve my prayer, send far away the Furies’ brands and snaky locks! Let the warder of the gate make no fierce barking, let distant vales conceal the Centaurs and Hydra’s multitude and Scylla’s monstrous horde, and, scattering the throng,—let the ferryman of the dead invite to the bank the aged shade, and lay him gently to rest amid the grasses. Go, spirits of the blest and troops of Grecian bards, shower Lethaean garlands on the illustrious soul, and point him to the grove where no Fury disturbs, where there is day like ours and air most like to the air of heaven. Thence mayst thou pass to where the better gate of horn o’ercomes the envious ivory,^[107] and in the semblance of a dream teach me what thou wert ever wont to teach. Even so ​the gentle Nymph ordained for Numa^[108] in the Arician grot the sacred rites for his observing, so—as the Ausonians believe—had Scipio nightly visions full of Latian Jove, so too was Sulla not without Apollo.^[109]

O youthful Sleep, gentlest of the gods, by what crime or error of mine have I deserved that I alone should lack thy bounty? Silent are all the cattle, and the wild beasts and the birds, and the curved mountain summits have the semblance of weary slumber, nor do the raging torrents roar as they were wont; the ruffled waves have sunk to rest, and the sea leans against earth’s bosom and is still. Seven times now hath the returning moon beheld my fixed and ailing eyes; so often have the lights of Oeta and Paphos^[110] revisited me, so oft hath Tithonia passed by my groans, and pitying sprinkled me with her cool whip.^[111] Ah! how may I endure? Not if I had the thousand eyes of sacred^[112] Argus, which he kept but in alternate watchfulness, nor ever waked in all his frame at once. But now—ah, me!—if some lover through the long hours of night is clasping a girl’s entwining arms, and of his own will drives thee from him, come thence, O Sleep! nor do I bid thee shower all the influence of thy wings upon my eyes—that be the prayer of happier folk!—touch me but with thy wand’s extremest tip—’tis enough—or pass over me with lightly hovering step.

Woe is me! for with no hallowed words can I begin, hateful now as I am to Castalia’s vocal streams and detested of Phoebus. What rites of yours, Pierian sisters, what altars have I violated? Speak; after the punishment let the crime be known. Have I set foot in some untrodden grove? or drunk from a forbidden spring? what fault, what error so great that I am atoning? Lo! as with dying arms he clings to my heart, ay, to my very soul, my child is torn away: no child of my own blood, or bearing my name or features; his sire I was not, but look upon my woe and my livid cheeks, and give credence, O ye bereaved, to my lament: for verily bereaved am I. Let fathers come hither, and mothers with open bosom; and let her endure to behold these ashes and this crime, whoever with tottering step has borne her sons to the grave in her own arms beneath full breasts, and beaten a teeming bosom, and quenched with her milk the glowing embers; whoever has plunged into the fire a lad still marked with the bloom of tender youth, and seen the cruel flames creep over the fresh down of the dead boy—let him come and grow weary with me in alternate wailing; his tears will be outdone, and thou wilt feel shame, O Nature. So fierce am I, so senseless in my grief. And while I thus strive, now when thirty days are past, leaning against the tomb I turn my mourning ​into verse, and contrive discordant strains, and words that are but sobs; the power of my lyre is awake, its spirit brooks not silence. But no wonted bays are on my head, no chaplet’s glory on my brow. Behold, the yew-sprays wither on my hair, and the lamentable cypress-leaves exclude the cheerful ivy, nor do I strike the chords with quill of ivory, but with errant fingers tear distractedly my uncertain harp. I delight, ay, alas! delight to pour forth hateful strains, and to lay bare my wretched grief in random utterance. Is such my desert? Must the gods behold me thus with the garb and music of woe? Must Thebes and young Achilles^[113] be put to shame? Will calm utterance flow nevermore from my lips? Yet I am he who was able—how many a time!—to soothe by appeasing words the pain of mother and of sire, and the sorrow of bereavement; I, the gentle consoler of the afflicted, whose voice was heard in the hour of untimely death by spirits departing, I now am at a loss, and seek healing hands and remedies, ay, the most powerful, for my wounds. Now is the time, my friends, whose streaming eyes and pierced breasts I stanched; bring me succour, pay your debt of frenzied gratitude. Doubtless when I in sad strains <bewailed> your losses <one among you spake> rebuking: “Thou who dost grieve for others’ loss, preserve thy ill-omened tears, and keep thy melancholy song.” ’Twas true: exhausted are my powers, I have no store of speech, my mind can find nought to match so great a blow; too feeble is all my music, ​no word but is unworthy. Forgive me, lad: ’tis thou dost cloud my mind with sorrow. Ah! verily hard of heart was Thracian Orpheus, if he found a song that pleased him when he saw the wound of his dear spouse, and Apollo, if holding the corpse of Linus^[114] in his arms he was not mute! Too violent am I called perchance and greedy of woe, and extravagant beyond due measure in my weeping? Who art thou that blamest my groans and tears? Ah! too happy he, and heartless, and ignorant, Fortune, of thy law, who dares to set conditions to lamentation, or adjudge the bounds of grief! Alas! mourning incites to mourn: sooner wilt thou check the rivers that hurry past their banks or stay devouring fire than forbid the sorrowful to lament. Yet let him learn, that severe judge, whoe’er he be, my wound and my complaint.

No chattering favourite was it, bought from a Pharian vessel, no infant skilled in the repartee of his native Nile, with over-ready tongue and impudent wit, that won my heart; mine was he, mine indeed. When he lay on the ground, a new-born babe, I saw him, and with a natal ode I welcomed his anointing,^[115] and as with tremulous wailing he claimed his new heritage of air, I set him among living souls. What more did his own parents give? Nay, another birth I gave thee, little one, and thy liberty while yet at the breast, though yet thou didst laugh ungrateful at my gift. Hasty my love may have been, yet with good reason so, lest even a day be lost to so tiny a freedom. And shall I not then all unkempt hurl my reproaches at the gods and at unjust Tartarus? Shall ​I not mourn for thee, dear lad? Whilst thou didst live, I desired no sons, thou wert my first-born and from thy very birth I bound thee to myself and made thee truly mine; I taught thee sounds and words, and soothed thy complainings and thy hidden hurts, and as thou didst crawl on the ground, I stooped and lifted thee to my kisses, and lovingly in my bosom lulled to sleep thy drooping eyes,^[116] and bade sweet slumber take thee. My name was thy first speech, my play thy infant happiness, and my countenance was the source of all thy joy. . . .