The Thebaid
Page 45
amazed, and felt a cold dread in his heart,
just as Sicilian seashores must endure
the whiplash of the Libyan ocean’s swells.
Apollo filled the seer, who called for speed,
even as humble Creon grasped his knees
or tried to stop his mouth and silence him,
but Rumor was already carrying
the echoes of his prophecy through Thebes.
BOOK ∞≠ ≤∫π
Begin, then, Clio, and recount the spur628
that gives the youth delight in dying well
(for absent some divinity, the thought
would not occur to any). You preserve
our ancient past; you organize the ages!
Virtue, companion to the throne of Jove,
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from where she rarely ventures to the earth,
departed, joyfully, from heaven’s shores.
Either all-powerful Jove commanded her
to do so or she’d found a willing subject.
The stars of heaven, including those whose fires
she once raised to the poles, provided light
as she proceeded. Soon she touched the earth.
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She never took her gaze from heaven’s ether,
but she assumed a di√erent form, that of
foresightful Manto. She employed deception
to change her features so that what Tiresias
had said would be believed. The god subdued
her vigor and her terror and assumed
a softer grace, a little more adornment.
She set her sword aside and donned the clothes
that prophets wear. She let her dress descend
in loose folds and twined fillets through her hair
instead of laurel. Still, her lengthy stride,
her look of dignity, revealed the goddess,
• as when Omphale laughed at Hercules
when he had laid aside his lion’s skin:
he broke his timbrels, fumbled with his dista√,
and tried to wrap his shoulders in a mantle
made of Sidonian purple for a woman.
When she discovered you, Menoeceus, standing
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before the Dircean turret, you were slaying
Greeks by the open portals of your city,
ready for veneration and instruction.
You looked like Haemon fighting, but although
both are consanguineous, in all things brothers,
you were the greater man. Great heaps of dead
surrounded you, your every blow brought death,
≤∫∫ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
even before the goddess had arrived.
Your hands and weapons never paused; your mind
was busy, and the sphinx that topped your helmet
seemed to go crazy at the sight of blood.
It glittered, and your splattered bronze arms shone,
just as the goddess stopped your fighting hand
and held your sword hilt. ‘‘O magnanimous
youth, than whom Mars knows no one mightier
descended from the fighting seeds of Cadmus!
Leave these unworthy battles, for your strength
is meant for something other. Stars are calling.
Think higher; send your essence to the sky!
My father is excited. He runs wildly
around the altars, where the fires and fibers
confirm the message that Apollo sends—
one earthborn man must sacrifice for all.
Rumor sings this pronouncement, and the Cadmean
people believe in you, and they rejoice.
Attend the gods, and seize your noble fate.
Hurry, I pray, before you lose to Haemon!’’
She spoke, and he delayed, but meanwhile she
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softly assuaged his heart and intertwined
herself in silence through his inner being.
No cypress struck by lightning ever drank
infernal flames as quickly, root and branch,
as this young man absorbed divine possession:
he grew in passion and in love with death.
He watched in awe as Virtue left the earth:
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he recognized her by her walk and dress
and knew it was a goddess who ascended.
‘‘We will perform all things the gods command,
and not be slow,’’ he said, yet even in
retreat he stabbed a Pylian named Agreus
who scaled the ramparts, then walked on, and people
proclaimed him savior—king of peace, a god;
rejoicing, they filled him with noble fire
that overcame his weariness. Attendants
followed him breathless as he rushed to town
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BOOK ∞≠ ≤∫Ω
and tried to miss his apprehensive parents
when suddenly his father . . . and they both
stood still, their eyes downcast, and neither one
could speak, until the elder man began:
‘‘What new occasion brings you from the field
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where you were fighting? Is there something more
important you prepare? Tell me, my son,
why do your eyes avoid me? I implore you,
why is your gaze so wild, your face so stern
and pale? It’s clear you’ve heard the oracle.
‘‘I’m begging you, my son, by all my years
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and by the breasts of your long-su√ering mother,
do not believe Tiresias. Do deities
reveal the truth to old and wicked men
whose eyes are blind, whose punishment resembles
that of decrepit Oedipus? What if
the desperate king has instigated this?
What if it’s treachery and wicked fraud?
He envies our nobility, your virtue,
which we know passes that of other princes.
What we think heaven’s words may well be his.
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This is the king’s idea! Do not release
the reins of your hot soul; allow some time;
be hesitant! Haste handles all things badly.
Grant this concession to your parent, please,
or when you are a father, when gray hair
and age have streaked your temples, may you feel
the fear your unrestraint is causing me.
Do not deprive my household of its gods.
‘‘Do you feel sympathy for strangers’ children,
for other fathers? Pity, first, your own
family if you have any sense of honor.
This is true dignity, true piety.
The other brings small glory, light acclaim,
a reputation death will overshadow.
But do not think a father’s fear constrains you.
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Enter the battle; face Danaan lines;
surround yourself with their opposing swords.
≤Ω≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
I will not keep you; it will be enough
if sadly I may wash your trembling wounds
and cauterize your flowing blood with tears
and send you back—and send you back again—
to savage battle. Thebes would rather this!’’
He held Menoeceus, grasped his hands and shoulders,
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but neither words nor weeping moved the youth’s
devotion to the gods, who showed him how
to use a small deceit to calm his father
and turn aside his fears: ‘‘You are mistaken,
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good father, and uselessly afraid; no warnings
or raving prophet’s words or empty dreams
solicit me. Let shrewd Tiresias
chant to his daughter and himself; his son
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cause no anxiety, no more than would
the presence of Apollo, should he rise
from some deep shrine to seize me with his frenzy.
It is the serious condition of
my brother, whom I love, that causes me
so suddenly to come back to the city.
Haemon is wounded. An Inachian spear
makes him cry out for me. . . . Hardly managed . . .
between two lines . . . there in the dust of battle . . .
Argives already dragging him . . . but I . . .
am late. Be satisfied. Go and revive
his spirits . . . and tell those who carry him
to take care, bear him lightly. I must now
find skillful Aetion, who can sew wounds closed
and tend the deadly gashes where blood flows.’’
He left his words unfinished, and he fled.
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A dark cloud seized the mind and heart of Creon.
His piety was torn, his fears discordant.
The Fates—the Parcae—forced him to believe.
–?–?–?–
But meanwhile armies that had earlier
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poured from the broken portals—cavalry,
platoons of infantry, and chariots
BOOK ∞≠ ≤Ω∞
whose wheels and horses overran the dead—
were turned back by the strength of Capaneus.
He was the one who made high towers fall
by pounding them with whirling slings and stones;
he battered battle lines; he smoked in blood;
he opened ugly wounds with flying missiles.
His twisting arm upwhirled his javelins,
and there were no high gables on the roofs
where his spears did not penetrate their targets
and fall back to the ground perfused with gore.
The Peloponnesians now no longer thought
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Parthenopaeus, Amphiaraus,
Hippomedon, or Tydeus was deceased;
they thought those souls had joined inside one body,
that of their comrade, who was everywhere.
Not age or form or beauty roused his mercy.
He killed those who surrendered or who fought.
No one opposed him; no one tried his fortune.
They shuddered at the madman’s distant weapons,
his helmet’s visor, and his awful crest.
–?–?–?–
Pious Menoeceus, though, stood on the walls,
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in a selected spot. His face seemed holy,
his presence more august than usual,
as if he had been suddenly sent down
from heaven to earth. He took his helmet o√,
so he was manifest, so he was known,
and gazed at this disharmony of men.
He drew attention from the noise of war
and then commanded silence on the field:
‘‘You warrior divinities and Phoebus
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Apollo, you who let me die with glory!
Make Thebes, for which I sacrifice, rejoice
that I shall pay her ransom with my blood,
for I am prodigal! Reverse the war!
Dash coward fugitives on captive Lerna!
Let Father Inachus spurn shameful sons
≤Ω≤ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
who run away with spears stuck in their backs,
but let my death restore our Tyrian temples,
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our children, houses, countrysides, and wives!
If I, your sacrificial victim, please you;
if I have heard, with calm ears, your seer’s words;
take me as payment for the debts of Thebes
and pacify the father I deceived!’’
He spoke. With one blow of his shining sword
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he summoned his long-sought, distinguished soul,
which languished in its narrow, mournful prison.
Blood stained the towers and sanctified the walls.
He hurled himself, still with his sword imbedded,
into the armies, and he tried to fall
over the savage Argives, but while his
soul sought the highest stars and stood before
Jove to receive a crown, his body was
borne slowly down by Piety and Virtue.
The Tantalids retreated in respect.
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The others soon recovered and rejoiced
to bear the man’s remains inside their walls.
Long lines of young men raised him on their shoulders
and praised him more than Cadmus and Amphion,
the city’s founders. After they sang hymns
they draped spring flowers and wreathes around his limbs
and placed his body in his family tomb
where they adored it, then resumed the war
as soon as their devotions were completed.
No longer angry, Creon now lamented
his sadness, and his wife lamented too:
‘‘O noble son, was it for this appeasement—
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to sacrifice yourself for savage Thebes—
that I, like some poor mother, bore and raised you?
Am I oppressed by some impiety?
Who else is so detested by the gods?
The sons I bore did not reenter me
in monstrous copulation, nor do I
mourn that I gave my son sons. But then, so?
BOOK ∞≠ ≤Ω≥
Look at Jocasta! She has seen her children
be princes—kings!—while we must sacrifice
our pledges to the war, so that the sons
of Oedipus can alternate their rule.
Father of Lightning, are you pleased? But why
do I complain of gods and men? It’s you,
savage Menoeceus, you who most of all
hurry me, in my wretchedness, toward death.
What made you want to die? What sacred frenzy
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entered your mind? What child did I conceive?
What evil, so unlike me, did I bear?
You are descended from the war god’s dragon—
from those sad souls, whose hearts knew Mars too well,
who grew up from the ground—not from mypeople!
Unbidden, on your own, you killed yourself
despite the opposition of the Fates.
You interrupt the shadows that lament.
We were alarmed by armored Capaneus
and fierce Danaans, but it was your sword—
which in a fit of madness I once gave you—
and this, your hand, that should have caused concern.
See how his blade is buried in his throat?
No Greek can push a weapon in so deep.’’
Her moans accompanied her words, as she
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voiced her unhappiness and turned away