The Thebaid
Page 33
the chariot’s speed could hardly be discerned,
as when a winter windstorm, or the dry
decay of aging, loosens up the side
of some cloud-covered hill and makes a slide
of men and ancient oaks through bounded fields;
there terror reigns until the avalanche
weakens because it carves another valley
or intercepts a river in midstream.
Not otherwise the chariot, which bore
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the burden of a man and mighty god,
swerved here and there through blood. Apollo
handled both reins and weapons from his seat,
steadied his aim, deflected flying missiles,
and took the fortune from incoming spears.
They overthrew Menaleus, who walked,
and Antiphus, whose large horse was no help;
Aetion, born of a nymph of Helicon;
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disgraced Polites, who had killed his brother;
and Lampus, who had tried to stain the bed
of Manto, Phoebus’ prophetess: the god
himself attacked him with his sacred arrows.
Dead bodies made the horses shy and snort
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and scrape away the earth, and chariot tracks
carved furrows over limbs and filled with blood.
The heartless axle ground unconscious men,
and others, half-dead, wounded, saw it coming
but had no strength to move. The reins were slick
with gore; the chariot was soaked; blood clogged
the wheels; they had no solid place to stand,
and mangled entrails slowed the horses’ hooves.
Amphiaraus raged. He tore protruding
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weapons from heaps of bones and spears from bodies.
His chariot was pursued by shrieking ghosts.
≤≠≤ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
At last Apollo let his servant see
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his godhead, and he told him, ‘‘Use your life
to earn eternal fame. Death does not stop,
although he sees my presence: we are beaten.
You know the unkind Fates spin no more strands.
Enter Elysium, where you have been
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sought after and long promised. You need not
su√er the rule of Creon or lie naked
when his decree forbids your burial.’’
Amphiaraus answered while he paused
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a moment in the war: ‘‘Cyrrhaean father,
for some time I have sensed you sitting on
the axle of my trembling chariot
and known that I will perish. For how long
do you delay the doom pressed down on me?
I hear the flow of rapid Styx, the dark
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rivers of Dis, the triple howls of its
evil custodian. Take back the wreathe
with which you honored me; receive my laurels,
which Erebus does not permit. My last
request, if a departing seer may ask,
is this: I leave my lying household—my
impious wife—for you to punish, and
my son, whose madness ought to be excused.’’
Apollo hid his tears as he descended
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and sadly left the chariot. The horses
groaned, as when northwest winds raise storms that blind
and ships know they will perish if at night
• Castor and Pollux let their sister shine.
Now the earth fissured and began to split;
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it shuddered and the surface gaped and spit
burdensome dust clouds; subterranean murmurs
echoed along the fields. The cowering soldiers
thought it was war, the noise of distant battle,
but then another tremor knocked them over
and stunned their steeds. Ismenos’ banks gave way;
the stream flowed backward; walls and green hills swayed.
Anger decreased; men planted flexing spears
BOOK π ≤≠≥
into the earth, then wandered as they leaned
on quivering shafts. They met and were repulsed
by one another’s pallor, just as when
Bellona scorns the sea and lets ships battle:
even small tempests make men sheathe their swords,
as they expect the worst—shared fears bring peace—
as happened on this field of wavering war.
Did earth conceive from flames, go into labor,
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to then deliver mad winds, pent-up fury?
Did hidden springs consume worn, crumbling soil?
Did the machine of spinning heaven lean
its weight? Did Neptune’s trident move the seas
and burden distant shores with too much water?
Was all this noise a tribute to the prophet?
Perhaps the world gave warning to the brothers.
Behold, earth’s face revealed a deep, sheer chasm;
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stars feared the shadows, and the shadows stars.
The huge abyss engulfed Amphiaraus;
it swallowed up his horses as they crossed.
He did not drop his weapons or his reins,
but just so, steered his chariot to hell:
a last glimpse of the heavens, then he fell.
Earth groaned, then reunited, and there followed
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a softer, distant tremoring as fields
conjoined to keep Avernus from the sun.
–?–?–?–
BOOK 8 Savage Hunger
Amphiaraus in hell. Pluto’s complaint. Mourning among the Argives. Celebration in Thebes. Oedipus emerges. Thiodamas, the new seer, conducts an empty funeral for Amphiaraus. The seven gates of Thebes. Hypseus kills Menalcas. Other deaths. Tydeus excels, driving back Haemon. The death of Atys, betrothed to Ismene. Eteocles falls back. Tydeus gnaws the head of Melanippus.
Each ghost along the shores of Styx knew fear
when, suddenly, Amphiaraus, the seer,
flew over shadows through the house of death
and entered secret shrines beyond the tombs:
his body, steeds, and weapons seemed prodigious,
for he had come unseasoned by dark flames—
not burnt remains from some sad urn but hot
with sweating war, blood dripping from his shield,
and dirty with the dust of trampled fields.
The Fury had not purified him yet
9
with sprigs of yew, nor had Proserpina
marked his admittance to the crowds of dead
on her dark doorpost. His arrival took
the fatal dista√ by surprise, but when
the Parcae saw the augur, in their fright
they cut at once the threads that spun his life.
• Those in the safety of Elysium
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as well as those in distant, lower worlds—
blind regions weighed by strange shades, di√erent darkness—
warily sought the cause of this commotion.
Then burning swamps and dull lakes echoed groans,
and he who carries ghosts across the waves—
• the pallid furrower of waters—moaned
that Tartarus allowed a deep, new fissure
and let ghosts enter by a di√erent river.
BOOK ∫ ≤≠Σ
It chanced the lord of Erebus was then
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throned in the castle of his dismal realm,
where he required his subjects to confess
the crimes they had committed when alive.
He pities nothing human, blames each shade.
Furies surround him, varied ranks of Death.
Harsh Punishments clank outstretched ch
ains. The Fates
• turn thumbs round to condemn the souls they gather—
so arduous their task!—but moderate
Minos, beside him, urges better justice,
restrains the bloody king. There, standing by,
swollen with tears and flames, are Phlegethon,
Cocytos, and the river Styx, who knows
the gods’ false oaths. But then the stars appeared,
and all the upper world fell out of joint
and Pluto felt an unaccustomed fear.
The joyous light o√ended him. He spoke:
‘‘What ruin in the sky inflicts upon
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Avernus this detestable, bright ether?
Who rends the shadows, gives the silent ones
cause to remember life? What brings this threat?
Which brother fights me? I defy him. Let
divisions that distinguish all things perish!
Who would be better pleased with that? I’ve served
the world of harmful things since I was tossed
down from high heaven after having lost
• our third encounter. Nor do I possess it,
for it is open to the influence
of baleful stars. Should he who rules Olympus
• examine my a√airs?—the rattling chains
of giants, his father whom I punish,
those Titans who would tempt the heights of heaven?
‘‘Why does that vicious god prohibit me
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from bearing my sad leisure, my harsh quiet?
Why won’t he let me loathe the light I lost?
I’ll open every region, if he wishes:
my Stygian firmament will shade the sun.
I will not send Arcadian Mercury
≤≠Π STATIUS, THE THEBAID
back to the skies: why should he alternate
• between two realms? And I will bar both sons
• of Tyndareus. Why torture Ixion
on the consuming wheel? Why do my waves
not wait for Tantalus? Must I see Chaos
desanctified by living visitors?
• Bold Pirithous rashly tempted me,
and Theseus, his daring friend’s sworn brother,
and Hercules, for whom iron gates were silent
when he removed their guardian, Cerberus!
?’’Even the Thracian bard’s laments shamed hell:
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I saw myself whom he seduced with song.
He drew foul tears from the Eumenides
and made the Sisters spin new threads of life.
My plight was similar, but bound by strict,
tough laws I scarcely dared a single trip
• to steal my wife from fields in Sicily.
They said it was unlawful, and at once
an unjust proclamation came from Jove:
six months spent with her mother, six with me.
‘‘But why should I go on? Tisiphone,
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proceed! Avenge this seat of Tartarus!
If ever you have shown harsh, monstrous forms,
bring forth a prodigy—unusual,
enormous, terrible, as yet unseen
by heaven. Stun me! Be the Sisters’ envy!
Then make the brothers alternate their strokes
in savage battle. Let this be the first
moment prophetic of my wrath. Next let
a dreadful man behave like some wild beast
and chew the head of his opponent. Let
another keep the dead from funeral flames
so that their naked corpses foul the air!
Let the fierce Thunderer enjoy such scenes,
but lest their strife o√end my realm alone,
search for a man who will assault the gods,
someone whose smoking shield will parry fires
of lightning and repel the wrath of Jove.
BOOK ∫ ≤≠π
I won’t have anyone fear black hell less
than piling Pelion on the leaves of Ossa!’’
His dismal kingdom was already trembling
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when he stopped speaking, and the violence
that racked his and the pressing world above
was no less than when Jove’s gaze bends the heavens
and makes the poles that bear the stars incline.
‘‘But what should be your fate for falling through
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the void to these forbidden zones?’’ he said,
threatening the one who, now on foot, drew near,
his armor disappearing, hard to see,
though even as his visage grew obscure,
he yet showed badges of an augur’s honor.
Vanishing ribbon twists adorned his brow,
and he retained a withered olive branch.
‘‘If I may be permitted, if the right
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of speech is not withheld from holy ghosts,
o Terminator of all human lives,
(but also, since I formerly descried
the cause and origins of things, o my
Creator!) ease your threats and quarreling heart;
do not spend wrath on one who fears your laws!
‘‘I am not Hercules, who sought his prey;
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I do not set my heart on such a√airs,
and by these marks I wear, you may believe
I do not seek illicit love in Lethe.
There’s no need for Proserpina to fear
my chariot or Cerberus to flee
and seek his cave. I am the prophet who
is best acquainted with Apollo’s altars,
and I swear by the emptiness of Chaos
(for what good, here, to swear an oath by Phoebus?)
no crime has made me su√er my new fate;
no lack of merit lost me nurturing daylight.
The urn of the Dictaean judge knows this;
Minos is able to assess the truth.
≤≠∫ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
Betrayed by my wife’s plots and love of gold
I joined the Argive army—my right hand
sent you these recent ghosts, this swarm of shades—
but I was not deceived; I knew my fate.
A sudden whirlwind out of your black night
singled me out from thousands in the fight
and even now my spirit feels appalled.
What was my state of mind as I was falling
endlessly through the hollowness of earth,
revolving through concealing airs? Ay, me!
Nothing that’s mine remains for friends or country!
Uncaptured by the Thebans, I won’t see
the roofs of Lerna, nor my ashes be
transported to my father, dazed by grief.
I was compelled to come, a wretched person,
unwept by family, without a flame
or mound for burial, my only mourner.
Those steeds avail me nothing; uncomplaining,
I will become a shade, forget my tripods,