by terror of her father and by shame.
Her mad screams filled the house; she bared her breast
and ran to face her father and confess.
Unmoved, he ordered what she too desired
(unspeakable, this punishment): dark death.
“Mindful, too late, of his debauchery,
596
Apollo sought atonement for the slain—
• a monster, born deep down in Acheron
where the Eumenides abide. Its face
and breast were of a woman, but a snake
rose from its head and cleaved its iron brow.
600
This foul plague hissed nonstop and walked at night.
It entered chambers, those where women nursed,
and snatched up babies. With its bloody teeth
it gobbled them and fattened on our grief.
“A hero—armed, courageous—named Coroebus
605
could stand no more, so he recruited men
of prowess who sought fame, not length of life.
Out of a gate where two roads parted came
the monster, fresh from recent devastation,
the body of a baby on each hip.
Her hooked hands held their organs in her grip,
and iron nails grew warm in tender hearts.
The soldier blocked her path. Coroebus had
his crowd of men surround their enemy
then drove his heavy sword through her hard heart
and turned its gleaming point to probe her life
in its deep refuge, sending Jupiter’s
monster back down to Jupiter’s abyss.
It was a joy to go and see, up close,
616
her dead, black eyes and all the excrements—
unspeakable—that poured out from her womb.
Her breast was stained by clots of blood.
“She had
destroyed our spirit. Even as they cheered,
the Argive young looked pale because they’d wept
so many tears. They pounded lifeless limbs
with cudgels (they sought solace for their sorrows—
a useless task) and knocked her pointed fangs
out of her jaws but could not calm their anger.
They say that night birds would not touch her body
624
and hungry packs of dogs went mad, unfed,
while anxious wolves with dry mouths stood and gaped.
“Apollo, in his fury at the fate
627
of his avenger’s death, rose up against
the sufferers, and from the shadowed heights
of twin-peaked Mount Parnassus, where he lay,
the savage god of Delos fired a plague
of arrows from his bow. He wasted fields.
He cast a cloak of pestilential fog
over the lofty roofs the Cyclops built.
Our dearest spirits fell. Death sheared the thread
632
of Destiny’s three sisters with his sword
and held our city hostage to hell’s fiends.
When our king sought the reason and asked why
• lightning fell leftward and the dog star Sirius
ruled the entire year, the holy lord
• Apollo, known as Paean, sent back word
that those who took his bloody monster’s life
must make atonement and be sacri.ced.
“Coroebus openly declared himself—
may his soul prosper through long centuries!
He merits life; he did not hide his deeds
¡¡Ó STATIUS, THE THEBAID
or tremble at the thought that death was near!
At Cirrha, at the temple gates, his anger
was sacred, and his words were fierce, roughhewn:
.” ‘I was not sent here, god of Thymbra. I
643
come not as suppliant before your shrine.
I have been driven here by my own sense
of virtue and propriety. Apollo,
I am the one who killed your short-lived horror,
the object of your poison-dripping skies,
black clouds, harsh days—a man unfairly sought.
If heaven now prefers fierce monsters’ lives
648
to those of common humans who may die
(expendable)—if gods are that severe,
why should the Argives suffer? It is I,
mighty divinity, and only I,
who owes his life to satisfy the fates.
Or does it do your heart more good to see
the desolation of our town, the light
of flames lit by our dwellers on the land?
Why should I stay your weapons and your hand
by speaking? Mothers wait, the .nal prayers
656
are said for me, and I do not deserve
your mercy. Seize your quiver; stretch your bow;
let its string sing; destroy this human soul,
but as I die, dispell the infestation
that hangs pale on the Inachus at Argos.’
“Only the brave .nd Fortune provident—
662
Latona’s ardent son was reverent.
Apollo gently granted this reward:
he yielded and he spared his life. The clouds
that showered evil from our skies were banished,
and you, Coroebus, left the gates of Phoebus,
who heard, to your astonishment, your prayer.
Our solemn feast recalls this blest event,
and every year this anniversary
commemorates the temple of Apollo.
“But who are you, whom chance has brought before
668
our altars? If I heard correctly, you’re
the right lord of the house of Calydon,
the son of Oeneus, Parthaon’s son.
And you—you come from Argos. It’s not late;
night offers time to talk. Why not explain?”
At once the Theban hero dropped his gaze
673
and stared down sadly at the earth. He looked
askance at Tydeus on his left. He felt
awkward and long was silent. Then he spoke:
“Religious services are not the place
for you to question me about my race,
my homeland, or the ancient origins
of blood that .ows through me: to my chagrin,
the subject does not suit this sacred day.
However, if you care to hear me groan,
my father’s line descends from Cadmus; home
is Mars’ own Thebes; my mother is Jocasta.”
Moved by his guest—he knew of him—Adrastus
681
asked him, “Why do you hide what’s known? We’ve heard
all this, for fame does not avoid the road
around Mycenae. Those who shiver in
the Arctic sun or drink the Ganges or
sail the dark, western ocean know your realm,
its rage, the eyes that saw impieties—
• those too who seek the Syrtes’ shifting shores.
Forget your father’s errors. Sigh no more!
Our blood has also not been scrupulous,
689
yet sins are not transmitted by descent.
Dare to be different. Let your good deeds
redeem your people. But the frozen bear
grows faint; the beam-pole of the Northern Wain
slopes down and back. Pour wine upon the hearth,
and let us sing again, and yet again,
hymns to Latona’s son, who has preserved us:
“Our father Phoebus! Either Lycia’s
• snow-covered mountains or Patara’s thorns
696
are your resort, or you for pleasure bathe
your gold hair in Castalia’s sacred dew,
or you inhabit Thymb
ra, in the Troad—
¡Ü¡Ç STATIUS, THE THEBAID
where, it is said, nobody thanked you when
you shouldered building blocks of Phrygian stone.
700
Perhaps you take your pleasure on Mount Cynthus,
whose shades extend across Aegean seas,
there where Latona brought you forth on Delos,
the island with no .xed locality.
Your long bow bends, your long-range arrows rend
your savage enemies. You have been given
eternal youth by parents in the heavens.
You can predict the Parcae’s violence,
what pleases Jove, what destiny will send,
which years bring death, who’ll suffer war, and when
scepters may change, as comets may portend.
• You played the lyre to vanquish Marsyas.
709
You stretched the earthborn Tityus
beside the river Styx. You terrorized
the mighty Python and the Theban mother,
proud victims of your quiver. Avenging you,
gloomy Megaera buried Phlegyas
inside a hollow rock, where he inclines
eternally at table. There he starves,
tormented by a wicked feast, because
his pride and loathing overcame his hunger.
“O guardian of hospitality,
716
attend the right-hand side of Juno’s fields;
be present, love us, make us fortunate—
whether, as in the rituals of Persia,
we call you rose-red Titan, or we say
O bountiful Osiris, or you shape
yourself as he who twists the horns of bulls
• in Perses’ rocky caverns—holy Mithras!”
–.–.–.–
BOOK 2 Ambush
The ghost of Laius. Celebration of Bacchus at Thebes. Eteocles’ nightmare. Marriage negotiations in Argos. Weddings of Argia and Deipyle. An evil omen. The fatal necklace of Harmonia. Polynices frets about exile. Tydeus insults Eteocles, who plots an ambush. Two brothers (sons of Ide) die one death. A memorial to Athena.
Now, the winged son of Maia—Mercury—
returned through ice and dark to terminate
his mission for great Jove. Unmoving clouds
impeded progress. Vapors bogged him down.
No gentle zephyrs eased his steps through foul
smoke from the noiseless underworld. Here, Styx
curved round the fields nine times, and there, opposed,
torrents of fire debarred the traveler’s road.
A trembling ghost—old Laius—followed slowly,
7
wounded by the unholy sword of one
of his own breed who’d pierced his breath of life
more than hilt-high and first enraged the Furies.
A sta√ sustained his steps as he proceeded.
Dry thickets, ghost-filled fields, and rusted trees
12
stared in astonishment, and Earth herself
marveled at god and ghost as they returned.
The blue-black bile of envy (even among
14
those shadows who had lost the light) was not
wanting: before the others, there stood one—
ill-willed and sinister—ready to curse
the gods for his distress. His life’s last years
had burdened him; he could not stomach joy.
‘‘Walk on!’’ he cried, ‘‘you lucky man, whatever
19
the reason you are called, whether at Jove’s
command, or that the great Erinys sends
≤∫ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
you to the daylight, or Thessalian witches
are mad to make you leave your secret tomb!
You are about to see a better sight,
the sun death left behind, pure streams and springs
and earth’s green fields, but you’ll be sadder when
you enter, once again, this shadowed world!’’
They were seen, too, by Cerberus—the bane
26
of those who enter hell—who, curled beneath
a hidden threshold, raised his heads and gaped;
his jutting black neck swelled; he would have thrown
the bones that lay along the ground had not
the god, with wand of Lethe, calmed him down
and closed his iron eyes with triple sleep.
There is a cove the Greeks call Taenaros
32
from whose sea sprays the fearful height Malea
lifts skyward till its peak admits no sight.
Its summit stands serene, sublime above
the winds and rain. There weary stars recline.
Its shadow floats at sea, and long lines reach
the deepest waters when day’s light declines.
Taenaros curves its coast: its inner bay
43
absorbs the breakers that it dare not face.
Here Neptune steers his weary steeds to harbor,
weak from Aegean whirlpools. First their hooves
scrape up the sand, but then they disappear
into the sea, like fish. It’s said pale shadows
follow deserted pathways to this place
and fill infernal Jove’s vast halls with death.
If what Arcadian peasants say is true,
shrieks can be heard; the groans of punishment;
crowds of dark figures hurrying; the shouts
and wars of the Eumenides: these sound
till noon; and Death’s three-headed watchman howls
and drives the listening farmers from their plows.
This was the place, then, where the winged god,
55
heavy with clouds and soot, found heaven’s light.
He wiped the deep-earth’s shadow o√ his face
BOOK ≤ ≤Ω
and drew in breaths of life-restoring air,
then flew in silence over fields and cities
under Arcturus and the demimoon.
Sleep led the steeds of Night, solicitous
before the deity; he yielded him
a portion of the sky to show respect.
The ghost flew lower than the god and gazed
63
down on the hills of Cirrha, on his birthplace,
and Phocis, which his own dead corpse pollutes.
When he reached Thebes, he sighed and stood before
the threshold of his son, the home he’d known.
He lingered, not entering, and Laius grew
uneasy when he saw there, propped against
a lofty column, yokes that had been his,
his blood-stained chariot. He almost turned—
the Thunderer’s commands could not restrain him,
nor the Arcadian’s wand, whose breath gives life.
• That day, it happened, was the Bacchanalia.
71
It was established when the Thunderer’s well-known
lightning bolt hastened, tender Euhius, your birth.
The Thebaid Page 8
