The Thebaid
Page 16
enjoy your wife and children, I suppose,
while we say nothing and do not avenge
the pierced chest of great Tydeus or the ambush
that broke a treaty’s terms. If you would keep
the Greeks from waging hot war, go yourself
as legate to the enemy in Thebes.
Your garland will protect you. Can your words
really elicit, from unmeaning skies,
the hidden why and wherefore of the world?
BOOK ≥ πΩ
I pity gods above if they must pay
attention to our human chants and prayers.
‘‘Men of the world created gods from fear:
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yet you are safe here. Go ahead; act crazy—
but from when first the battle trumpets wail
to when we drink from helmets—from the Dirce,
from hostile Ismenos—I warn you, keep
your distance. Do not try to cross my craving
for trumpet calls and combat. Search no veins,
look at no birds. Do not defer the day
of war but keep your soft wool fillets and
your mad Apollo’s ravings. Stay away!
The augur will be me and those prepared
to join me in my own insanity.’’
Roars of approval thundered; a vast tumult
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soared to the stars, as when late winter winds
strengthen a stream in spate—ice uncongeals,
and mountains thaw; a river winds through fields,
but hills prevent its outflow; swirling floods
sweep away buildings, plowlands, men, and cattle,
until a dam, just smaller than a hill,
forms a retaining wall along the banks.
Night intervened. It stopped their bickering.
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–?–?–?–
Argia could, with equanimity,
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no longer bear her husband’s groans—a grief
her heart and soul shared—so she went—without
adornment, hair disheveled, mangled, cheeks
furrowed with tears—to her respected father’s
imposing palace, bearing, by her breast,
• little Thessander to his doting grandsire.
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It was late night, the hour before the sunrise—
the Great Bear, left alone in northern skies,
∫≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
envied the stars descending to the Ocean—
when she passed through the gates, and her great parent
embraced her.
‘‘Father, you know why I weep,
why I, without my mournful husband, seek
your threshold in the night. I should be silent
but come as suppliant because I lie
awake in anguish. I have not been sent.
I swear this by the gods of lawful marriage.
‘‘Ever since Hymen and unlucky Juno
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first moved the left-hand torch, my husband’s
tears and his moans have banished rest. Were I
a fearful tiger, were my heart as hard
as sea cli√s, I would crumble. You alone
have the ability, the sovereign power
to cure him. Father, give us war! See how
humbly your grandson lies, the child of exile.
One day, his birth will be his shame. O father,
remember your first welcome, how the heavens
witnessed your grasping of right hands. They sent
you Polynices, whom Apollo chose.
‘‘I am not raging with the hidden heat
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of Venus or a sinful marriage. I have cherished
your admonitions; I have feared your rule.
But how can I ignore this sad man’s grief ?
Can I be such a wild beast? Dearest father,
you do not know, you do not know how much
pure love a husband’s wretchedness arouses.
‘‘Now I am miserable. Now I request
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a harsh and joyless, sad and fearful gift,
but father, I may beg another present
when mournful daylight interrupts our kisses,
when the harsh call of trumpets orders soldiers
to march away and gold cheeks glitter fiercely.’’
Adrastus kissed her moist face. ‘‘Daughter, I
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never would blame you for complaining. Do
BOOK ≥ ∫∞
not be afraid. What you request deserves
approval, not denial. But the gods
have weighed my mind with myriad concerns.
Do not abandon hope for what you want,
but there are many fears, the slippery burden
of government. You will not weep in vain;
what you desire will happen—in due time.
Daughter, console your husband. Our delay
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is just, and not too high a price to pay.
Great preparations make us linger. They
are pathways to the war.’’
The dawn light broke.
Anxieties had roused him as he spoke.
–?–?–?–
BOOK 4 Thirst
The seven against Thebes: Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Hippomedon, Capaneus, Amphiaraus, and Parthenopaeus. Eriphyle receives Argia’s jewels. Atalanta pleads with her son. A woman seized by Bacchic frenzy warns Thebes to prepare. Eteocles consults Tiresias. His daughter Manto. The prophecy of Laius. The Argive army reaches Nemea. Drought. Hypsipyle neglects the baby Opheltes while bringing the Argives to the waters of Langia.
The third year Phoebus loosened wild west winds
and let spring days grow long and unconfined,
the feeble Council, pressured by the Fates,
at last allowed war’s miseries their place.
High over Argos, from Larissa’s fortress,
5
• Bellona first displayed a flame-red torch
then flung a beamlike spear from her right hand
that whistled through clear skies until it reached
the lofty Theban ramparts on the Dirce.
She entered camp and rattled like a squadron
9
among the men who gleamed in gold and iron.
She gave the marching soldiers swords, she clapped
the horses, and she called them to the gates.
Strong men become more strong when she aroused them;
even the timid felt a fleeting courage.
The forecast day had come. Flocks fell, as due,
13
in sacrifice to Mars and Jupiter,
the Thunderer, and augurers, who viewed
the entrails, showed their skill. They did not faint,
but feigned hope for the army. Now the children
mingled with wives, and parents crowded men
and stopped them at high doors. There was no end
of weeping. Shields and helmet crests were damp
with sad farewells. Whole households clung to soldiersBOOK
∂ ∫≥
in-arms and sighed, and some rejoiced to send
their kisses through closed helmets or to bend
crests of grim casques to their embrace.
Those men
who even now were pleased by swords, by death
itself—their anger broke, they wavered, and
they groaned, like those about to take a long
24
voyage at sea: south winds are in the sails,
the anchors weighed. A√ectionate women ring
their arms around their sailors’ necks; they cling;
their eyes are wet, and kisses cloud them—or
the thick sea fog. At last, when left behind,
they stand upon a rock and watch the sweet
sight of the linen sails departing, grieved<
br />
that winds from their own country so increase.
• Hidden Antiquity, you ancient Rumors,32
show me the kings I must remember, for
my task is to give length to lives. And you,
queen of the chanting grove, Calliope,
lift up your lyre and play: what men did Mars,
what armies did he move? how many cities
depopulate? When I sip from your streams,
my mind (and no man’s more) is never higher.
The king was sad and sick. Cares weighed him down.
38
The years were leaving him. Among the troops
who cheered him on he marched, although reluctant,
content to wear his sword and let his soldiers
carry his armor after. His swift steeds
were tended by a groom beneath the gates;
• his favorite horse, Arion, fought the reins.
Larissa sent him men in arms as did
• the mountain town Prosymna; Phlius, rich
44
in cattle; Media, renowned for herds;
and Neris, which Charadrus frightens as
it foams through its long valley; then Cleonae,
a town of towers, set on a vast protuberance;
• and Thyrea, where Spartan blood will fall.
∫∂ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
Those who remember where the king was born,
49
and how he left, now join him: men who tend
Drepanum’s rocky fields or olive trees
• in Sicyon, and those the quiet stream
lazy Langia washes, or Elisson,
which winds along recurving riverbanks.
This river has an awful privilege;
53
• they say its gloomy waters cleanse the Stygian
Eumenides—the Furies—when they raze
Mycenae’s evil roofs or homes in Thrace
or Theban dwellings and then bathe their snakes
(which sputter when they drink from Phlegethon)
and wash their faces. Then the river flees.
The venom of the serpents leaves black pools.
Corinth, where Ino solaces herself
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with plaintive songs, accompanied the king.
Its harbor, Cenchreus, sent men: that is where
• the river that inspires poets flows,
formed by the foot of Pegasus, and where
the Isthmos fends o√ deep and sloping seas.
Three thousand joined Adrastus and rejoiced.
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Some were adept at whirling woven slings
that circle through the air in unseen rings;
some carried heavy javelins; some chose
oak staves slow flames had hardened. Customs di√ered.
Equally venerated for his years
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and his authority the king advanced
• like some great bull who wanders through the fields
he has long owned. His neck hangs loose, his power
has faded, yet he leads. The younger bulls
have no desire for combat, not when they
can see horns maimed from fighting and the huge
swellings of scars that run across his trunk.
His son-in-law, the Dircean Polynices,
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followed, his standards close to King Adrastus.
War favored him; his cohorts tuned their rage
to his demands, and volunteers from Thebes,
BOOK ∂ ∫Σ
his native country, joined him, whether drawn
to help an exile whose distress augments
their loyalty, or they preferred that princes
rotate their power, or they convinced themselves
• his grievances were just. Adrastus gave
his son-in-law the rule of Aegion,
Arene, and the wealth of Troezen, which
was ruled by ancestors of Theseus,
because it would have been inglorious
if he led meager ranks or if he felt
the loss of public o≈ces at home.
He wore the very clothes, the man was armed
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the same way he had been that winter night
when, fated, he became a guest. The hide
of a Teumesian lion draped his spine,
his double-pointed javelins gleamed brightly,
and on the handle of his wounding sword
• a sphinx rose by his side—a fearful sight.
Already in his hopes and in his prayers
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he ruled his realm and dreamed he put his arms
around his mother and his faithful sisters,
but then he saw Argia leaning, frantic,
high in a distant tower where she attracted
her husband’s gaze and turned his thoughts from Thebes.
Look here! Among his men was thunderous
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Tydeus. He marched before his homeland army.
His wounds had healed. The first blasts of the horns
of war brought him delight—like a slick snake
the warm sun coaxes from deep earth, whose youth
renews, whose old scales shed. His menace lies
green in the grass; his mouth produces venom
when some poor peasant wanders much too close.
News of the war brought men from cities in
• Aetolia to him: it reached Pylene,
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• which sits on cli√s, and Pleuron, where the sisters
of Meleager weep, and Calydon,
a hilltown, and Olenos, whose god Jove
∫Π STATIUS, THE THEBAID
challenges that of Ida, and the port
of Chalcis, which receives Ionic seas,
• and the grim-visaged river Hercules
polluted when he wrestled. Even now
it hardly dares to lift its mangled face;
down in the depths it weeps, its head submerged
inside green caverns, while its riverbanks
sicken, inhaling dust. Each soldier held
a bronze-ribbed shield before his chest, a set
of fearsome, heavy javelins in hand,
and helmets decked by Mars, their native god.
Select youths ringed the meritorious son
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of Oeneus, who displayed his wounds like honors
and reveled in the thought of war. His rage
and menace were no less than that displayed
by Polynices, and, indeed, there may
have been some doubt for whom the troops engaged.
Peloponnesian recruits composed
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a mightier battalion, men who hoed
your stream banks, Lyrcius, and plowed your shores,
o Inachus—you who have precedence
• among Achaean rivers. No other torrent
leaves Persean lands with so much violence
when it has drunk the rainy Pleiades
or in the sign of Taurus swells with foam