Throughout this translation I have relied on clarity to determine what could and could not be brought across the linguistic barrier from Latin to English. The point of my using a regular iambic pentameter line is that it is easy to follow. (The word iamb is a Greek term for a two-syllable foot where the stress is on the second syllable; pent means five in Greek, and so pentameter refers to five metric feet, or units—in this case, five iambs, which comes to ten syllables per line.) Readers may generally rely on the regular stress on the even syllables to guide pronunciation of the Latin names that add so much to the sonority of Statius’s verse, particularly in the catalogs of armies that join with Argos (book 4), Thebes (book 7), and Athens (book 12). The Greek ending -eus has been something of a problem, since it should probably be pronounced as a single syllable but in English is often two syllables, as in Odysseus, Theseus, or Tydeus. Capaneus, a name woefully absent from English literature, considering the vibrancy of his character, is generally stressed on the penultimate syllable in this translation, as it is in Italian. The final e of proper names is usually pronounced. Occasionally a diaeresis indicates separate syllables, as when there might be confusion with a diphthong (e.g., Danaë). The stressed syllables in the following passage appear in small capitals to show the meter:
NEWS of the WAR brought MEN from CITIES IN
AeTOlia to HIM: it REACHED PyLEnë,
which SITS on CLIFFS, and PLEUron, WHERE the SIsters
of MEleAger WEEP, and CAlyDON . . . (4.101–4)
The first foot, or iamb, is the exception to the rule that the stress falls on the even syllables. A stress on the first syllable instead of the second gives the line a strong beginning, thereby assisting in the task of defining the verse line as a unit, something with a beginning, middle, and end. The real purpose of rhyme in English verse is not to jingle but to define the end of the line. I have therefore used rhyme whenever available, but also various types of assonance (matching vowel sounds) and consonance (similar consonants). Giving strength to the middle of the line is trickier. The best way is to be sure the line contains a verb, the strongest part of speech, but the middle of the line can also be strengthened by varying the pauses between syntactic units. These variations relieve the metric monotony that is the danger of regular verse stresses. I also try to rely on natural syntactic units, as modern poets do, who use the rhythms of everyday speech to define verse lines.
Some of my methodology derives from a course on Latin composition taught by the late Edward Bassett, who emphasized that Latin translation requires the full resources of English and that what may seem literal is not literal at all in a different idiom. The spelling of proper names generally follows Hill’s edition, but occasionally a more familiar form is used (e.g., Ischia for Inarime; Jocasta for Iocasta; Cyclops for the plural Cyclopes, which sounds awkward; Laconia for Lacon; Tyre for Tyros). For the convenience of modern readers I have supplied titles and prefatory summaries for each of the Thebaid’s twelve books.
The THEBAID
BOOK 1 Exile
Invocation. Oedipus curses his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and invokes the fury Tisiphone, who brings civil unrest to Thebes. Jupiter decrees the harsh fate of Argos and Thebes. Juno protests. Mercury descends. Polynices and Tydeus refuse to share one shelter. King Adrastus of Argos and his daughters. The oracle. Apollo’s monster and festival in Argos.
My mind takes Pierian fire. Fraternal strife
unfolds: unholy hatred, alternating reigns,
the criminality of Thebes. How far,
O goddesses, should I go? To the beginnings,
in Sidon, of the unholy race?
the rape? the rigor of Agenor’s law? to Cadmus,
Agenor’s son, who scrutinized the seas?
Events stretch back in time. Should I rehearse
the warriors the farmer’s plow unearthed,
his fear, unspeakable furrows of dark Mars?
Or, if I follow further: with what song
were Tyrian mountains moved by King Amphion
to form defensive walls? What was the source
of Bacchus’ hostile rage against his homeland?
What did fierce Juno do? At whom did maddened
Athamas bend his bow? Why did the mighty
Ionian not terrify the mother
who leaped into that ocean with Palaemon?
7
But here, at present, now I will permit
the groans of Cadmus to elapse, with his
prosperity. I will set my song this limit:
the horrors of the house of Oedipus.
15
Not yet dare I, inspired, praise Italian
ensigns of war or triumphs of the North,
how twice the Rhine has felt our yoke, how twice
Danube has known our laws; how the conspiring
• Dacians descended from their heights, and how
in early manhood Jove averted war.
Nor yet dare I praise you, o glorious
addition to the fame of Latium—timely
successor to your parent’s prodigies,
whom Rome would call her own—eternally.
Granted that stars seek narrow paths, that heaven’s
bright region tempts you, free from strikes of lightning,
the northern winds, and Pleiades; and granted
that he himself, the charioteer of fiery
horses—Apollo—with his radiance
may crown and garland you; or Jupiter
cede you an equal portion of the cosmos:
yet may you be content to govern men,
rule sea and land, and not to seek the stars.
24
There will be time. Your deeds will be my theme
when I am touched by keener Pierian fire.
For now, another subject suits my lyre:
Aonia arms; two tyrants crave the fatal
scepter of office; hatred does not expire
at death—flames strive anew within the pyres—
unburied kings lack graves, reciprocal
slaughter drains cities. Dirce’s dark-blue waters
are stained by Lernaean blood, and Thetis trembles
as the Ismenos, which usually streams
along dry banks, brings heaps of dead to sea.
32
Clio, which demigod is suitable
for my beginning? Is it Tydeus,
whose rage is measureless? Could it be he
for whom earth gaped, the bay-leafed seer? I’m pressed
by wild Hippomedon, who turned his enemy,
the river—did it by killing men. The wars
the wild Arcadian waged should prompt laments,
and dreadful Capaneus calls for song.
41
–•–•–•–
His eyes had seen impieties. His right
hand racked them. Oedipus, disgraced, now lies
condemned to endless night, yet he survives.
He favors shadows, deep interiors;
he keeps his household gods from heaven’s light,
while days—on constant wing—afflict his mind,
and Dirae—furies of remorse—his heart.
46
His vacant eyes upturned, the wretch displays
his punishment and misery. His blood-
stained hands strike empty depths. Voice hoarse, he prays:
53
“You gods who govern guilt, the spirits damned
to narrow Tartarus! and you, black Styx,
whose shadowy depths I see: acknowledge me!
Favor, perverse Tisiphone, my prayer;
you know my call. If I have ever merited
favor; if when my mother’s womb dropped me
you nurtured me, and healed my transfixed feet;
if then I sought my future in the fens
of Cirrha, spread beneath twin summits, when
I could have lived content with Polybus,
• and his untruth; i
f then a man of years,
a king, impeded me where three roads meet
in Phocis, and I split the trembling face
of that old fool, while searching for my father;
if you instructed me and gave me skill
• to solve the riddle of the wicked Sphinx;
if I knew passion and delirium
and marriage and my mother’s moans, and spent
many unmentionable nights, engendering
children for you, as you well know, until
my fingers tore my eyes out in revenge
and dropped them on my mother’s prostrate form—
Listen! I want what is worthwhile, the sort
of thing you make your madmen pray you for!
56
64
“I have lost sight. I miss the power of rule.
My sons leave me unguided, unconsoled,
and suffering. It does not matter how
they were born. They show insolence. They hurt me!
Made lords by my demise, they mock my darkness.
They hate to hear their father whine. Am I
pernicious? And the father of the gods
sees all this and ignores it? You, at least,
offer appropriate revenge. O spin
consummate punishment for my descendants!
74
“Put on the blood-soaked diadem my reddened
fingers tore off—a father’s prayer incites you—
then introduce yourself between those brothers.
May war annihilate their bond of kinship!
Queen of the depths of Tartarus, grant me
the wickedness I want to see: young minds,
not slow, will follow. Now, divinity,
appear! You’ll recognize my progeny!”
82
–•–•–•–
He spoke these words, and the cruel goddess turned
her hardened gaze his way. By chance she had
let down her hair and sat beside Cocytos—
the inhospitable, infernal river—
to let her serpents drink the sulfur waters.
She started up with meteoric speed
like lightning from the dreary shores and moved
through ghosts across dark plains where shadows swarmed.
The lifeless multitudes made way, afraid
to strike against their mistress, as she sought
the gates of Taenaros, a threshold none
may trespass twice. Day sensed her presence. Night
proffered dark clouds that dimmed his horses’ light.
88
Far off steep Atlas shuddered, and his shoulders
shifted the weight of heaven. She emerged
deep in Malea’s vale with sudden force
and set out on the road she knew to Thebes.
There was no faster way to travel, nor did she
prefer to be in Tartarus, her home.
A garland of a hundred serpents shaded
her dreadful face. Her eyes, set deep, emitted
an iron light, as when Thessalian magic
reddens the moon’s descent through phantom clouds.
She was suffused with spreading pestilence.
Corrupt blood puffed her skin. Her black mouth spewed hot vapors, which spread famine and diseases and distant drought and epidemic death.
A stiff robe bristled down her back, fastened
by blue points down her breast. (Prosperpina
herself and Atropos design her styles.)
Her mad hands flailed. One waved a funeral flame,
one whipped a living serpent in the air.
98
105
She halted where Cithaeron’s towering heights
and ruined fortress loom. Her dripping tresses
of vibrant serpents seethed and screamed and hissed,
sending her warning to surrounding cities,
from sea to sea, reechoing through Greece.
From high Parnassus to the swift Eurotas
the sound was heard. It hurdled into Oete’s
precarious ascents. The Isthmos repulsed—
but barely—swelling waves. Palaemon, who
rode on a dolphin’s arching back, was saved
by Ino, who protected her own son.
114
Headlong the goddess to the palace roof
descended and assumed her place, and fog
infected all at once the household gods
of Cadmus. Passion struck the brothers, made
them frantic; their majestic souls went mad.
Pleasure turned sick with envy. Fear bred hate.
123
The consequence was savage lust for power
that could not tolerate successive rule
or revolution of authority,
for it is sweet to be alone and first, but shared
• dominion makes companions disagree.
It happens when a farmer leads a pair
of chosen oxen from a savage herd
and puts them to the plow. Indignant, they—
whose necks farm implements have not yet pressed
into their brawny shoulders with long toil—
pull in divergent ways with equal force,
stretching and weakening their chains, as they
confound the furrowed soil with wavering rows.
Not otherwise, the stubborn brothers strove.
127
131
The two agreed to alternate exile
and office year by year. Their unsound law
decreed the end of their good fortune, since
the one who wields the scepter will be pressed
by that rash treaty and his new successor.
138
Such was fraternal piety; such then
the only way to stop dissent, nor would
peace last until a second term begins.
142
Nor yet, in Thebes, were laquearia—
panels of coffered ceilings—rich with gold
and marble from Greek mines whose patterns glow
in atria—immense halls—built to hold
crowds of petitioners; nor yet did kings
sleep undisturbed unless armed guards attended.
No sullen sentries changed watch; no one served
jeweled cups of wine or sullied gold at meals.
The brothers went to war for power alone;
they fought to win a kingdom that had nothing.
144
Now, when it was uncertain who would rule
the waste lands of the narrow Dirce River
and lord it on the lowly throne of Tyre,
undone were civil laws, divine decrees,
morality, and decency. 152
155
How far
you bitter men, did you intend to take
your violence? What if the zodiac
of heaven felt your criminal attack
from pole to pole?—the path on which the sun
gains prospect as it travels from the East
till it sets westward in Iberia,
touching remote lands with slant influence,
where north winds freeze, or wet south winds blow fire.
What if the wealth of Phrygia and Tyre
were massed together, making one empire?
A foul land and cursed walls aroused your hate.
To take the place of Oedipus you paid
with deep distraction!
161
Lots were cast. The fate
of Polynices was, he had to wait
for his preferment.
164
? Now, you savage one,
what kind of day was it, when you alone,
free in your palace, knew you were the law,
that others were inferior to you,
and no head rose but yours? And yet, already,
murmuring spread imperceptibly
a
mong Echion commoners. They stood
apart from princes, unattended, and—
as people do—preferred the one whose turn
awaited. One of them—his mind intent
on trouble, base and venomous, loathe to bend
to uncontrollable authority—
found words to speak: “Does our Ogygian
community deserve this fate? this cruel
vicissitude? this constant change in those
whom we must fear? By alternating rule,
the sharers toy with our town’s destiny.
They leave us to the whims of fortune. Am
I to comply with exiles who take turns?
Mighty Creator! Lord of gods and men,
is this what you and your companions want:
that the old curse of Thebes continue? It
started when Cadmus—on command—pursued
the massive, beautiful Sidonian bull
across the sea to where he founded, in
Boeotian fields, an exile’s realm. There earth
• opened, and battle lines of brothers grew
and fought, bequeathing their posterity
a legacy, a warning. Watch him, stiff
with pride, his face stern; he stares, menacing.
His power grows dangerous, now that his brother
has been removed. His look spells danger. His
disdain oppresses everyone. Will he
ever return to private life? By contrast,
his brother flatters those who ask for favors.
He speaks urbanely. What is fair, he wants.
And why not? He has company—we’re it:
a worthless bunch. Ripe for catastrophe. Ready
to follow anyone. Now one commands,
while one forewarns, just like contrary winds—
first freezing Boreas, then cloudy Eurus.
They lash the sails. The fortune of our ship
The Thebaid Page 5
