The Thebaid
Page 46
servants who would console her. Her companions
took her inside her chamber, where she sat,
her face torn by her fingernails, ignoring
daylight or anyone who spoke, and she
stared at the ground and never moved her face.
She had no power of speech—her mind was lost—
like a fierce tigress when her cubs are captured
who lies down in a cave in Scythia
alone and licks the warm stones where they lay;
her rage abates; her fierce and hungry face
holds still when flocks and cattle pass before her.
Why should she feed to nurse? for where are they
who look for her, to whom she brings such prey?
–?–?–?–
≤Ω∂ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
So far—arms, trumpets, swords, and wounds. But now827
comes Capaneus, seeking heavens’ stars.
Dare with me, goddesses. My task demands
a greater fury from Aonian groves.
Did deepest night inflict that rage of his,
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and did the Stygian sisters join his ranks
and give him the idea of fighting Jove?
Or was it his excessive strength, desire
for glory and the fame of dying well,
the fact that good beginnings make bad endings,
or godlike anger, which attracts us mortals?
Now Capaneus scorns the world’s a√airs,
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and he grows weary of the constant slaughter.
His missiles and the weapons of the Greeks
have long since been exhausted. His right hand
is heavy, and he turns his face to heaven,
measuring lofty roofs with his fierce gaze.
He finds a road that leads him through the air,
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a set of countless steps that twin trees flank.
He waves a branching torch of brilliant flame
that makes him seem a terror from afar;
his armor glows, and one light bathes his shield.
‘‘This ladder will conduct my strength to Thebes,
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my means to climb the tower Menoeceus stained.
I will discover if Apollo’s false,
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and I will learn the truth of prophecies.’’
He spoke, then climbed with alternating steps
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and bragged about the wall that he had captured,
just like the Titans, when the heavens saw
those twin sons of Aloeus as they piled
earth with impiety to view the gods,
and Ossa touched the trembling Thunderer
even before huge Pelion had been added.
Then, on the brink of doom, the stunned defenders—
as if Bellona brought her bloody torch
BOOK ∞≠ ≤ΩΣ
to raze the city’s towers to the ground,
or in some final rite of expiation—
hurled mighty rocks from every building’s roof,
• threw beams, whirled thongs and Balearic slings.
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What use are flying javelins or spears?
They rotate siege machines, work catapults,
but no barrage of weapons, front or back,
slows him. He hangs above thin air and takes
deliberate steps as if on level ground,
just as a river’s constant flood and current
presses the strong points of an aging bridge
until it wears its stones and moves its stakes,
and—sensing that—resurges even harder,
with greater waves that agitate and tug
the ailing structure, till the rapid stream
tears away every fastening and breathes
openly, the victor, unimpeded.
When he is silhouetted high above
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the turrets he so long has sought, he towers
over the trembling city and surveys
the Thebans, whom his giant shadow frightens.
He then proclaims, to their astonishment:
‘‘Are these the worthless walls Amphion built—
the walls that followed his unwarlike chants
according to the ancient Theban fable
told shamelessly for simpletons? How hard
a task to ruin walls built by a lyre?’’
He shouts his insults and with hand and foot
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fiercely destroys the mortar work and layers
of masonry that block him. Stone supports
slip under trembling houses. Bridges crumble.
He redeploys the pieces he dislodges,
hurls broken fragments down on homes and temples
and breaks its own high walls to wreck the city.
Argive and Tyrian divinities
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by now had circled Jupiter, complaining.
The Father, fair to each, observed their anger
≤ΩΠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
and zeal increase before him. Meanwhile others’
presence restrained them. Bacchus moaned that his
mother-in-law was watching, and he glanced
sideways to catch his father’s eye, then said,
‘‘Where is that savage hand, the flaming cradle
where I was born and, lo! the lightning bolts,
the lightning bolts!’’ Apollo groaned for those
homes he himself had prophesied. Unhappy
Hercules valued Thebes and Argos too:
he strung his bow, but he remained uncertain.
Swift Perseus bewailed his mother’s Argos.
Venus mourned for the people of Harmonia.
She stood far from her husband, whom she feared,
and looked at Mars with silent irritation.
Tritonia boldly blamed the Theban gods.
Unspeaking Juno writhed in frenzied silence.
None of this yet disturbed the peace of Jove,
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and then their quarrel quieted because
bold Capaneus clamored from the heights:
‘‘Where are you deities of frightened Thebes?
Where are the lazy sons of this cursed earth,
Bacchus and Hercules? I would not bother
to challenge lesser gods. Who is more worthy
than you are to descend and fight with me?
The ashes and the tomb of Semele
are in my power. Do something! Let me feel
the force of all your lightning, Jupiter!
Or is your thunder only strong enough
to frighten little girls and burn the towers
of Cadmus, whom you made your son-in-law?’’
His words provoked resentment in the gods,
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but Jove laughed at the madman, and he shook
his mass of holy hair. ‘‘What hope,’’ he asked,
?’’can men have when proud giants fought at Phlegra?
Must you too be destroyed?’’ The madding crowd
pressured the slowly moving god, demanding
weapons of vengeance. His unhappy wife
did not obstruct him now. She did not dare.
BOOK ∞≠ ≤Ωπ
No signal had been given, but the royal
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castle in heaven thundered. Rain clouds gathered,
although there was no wind, and darkness fell.
• You would have thought that Iapetus released
• his Stygian chains or captive Ischia
or Aetna rose to heaven’s convex vaults.
The gods were too ashamed to show their fear,
but when they saw the warrior bestride
the dizzy height and madly call for battle,
they wondered if Jove’s lightning would su≈ce.
They watched in admiration. High above
&nbs
p; the gables of Ogygian battlements
strange sounds were heard in heaven. Skies grew dark.
Unseeing Capaneus gripped the walls
and said, as often as the clashing clouds
caused lightning, ‘‘These are fires to use in Thebes!
These will renew my oak torch, which grows weak!’’
Jove’s lightning hit him full strength as he spoke.
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The clouds absorbed his crest; his shield’s boss dropped;
his limbs ignited; those who watched retreated:
his burning corpse might fall on any spot.
Nevertheless he stayed and breathed his last
while facing toward the stars and leaned his smoking
body against the walls that he detested.
His earthly members fell. His soul departed.
Had Capaneus lost his strength more slowly,
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he might have hoped to feel a second bolt.
–?–?–?–
BOOK 11 Piety
Capaneus lies dead. Thebans counterattack. Megaera assists Tisiphone. Argia’s effigy prompts Polynices. Eteocles sacrifices, rebukes Creon. Jocasta berates Eteocles. Antigone addresses Polynices from the walls. Adrastus departs. Piety descends, in vain. The brothers die. Oedipus emerges. Creon, named king of Thebes, forbids burial for the enemy. Antigone intervenes to save Oedipus from exile.
After the evil strength and mighty heart
of Capaneus failed, and he expired;
after he felt that lightning bolt, as fires
of vengeance blazed beside him, and he fell
earthward and carved a path that scarred the walls,
Jove’s conquering right hand calmed the roiling world;
his nod brought earth and heaven back to order.
The gods congratulated his achievement,
as when he stopped the weary fight in Phlegra
• or topped Enceladus with smoking Aetna.
8
The dead man lay on earth. He clung to fragments
of broken turret, scowling as he left
the world the memory of his great prowess
and deeds the Thunderer himself admired.
As far as Tityos (the ravisher
of Phoebus’s mother) stretches in Avernus—
where vultures bristle when those birds emerge
from his deep chest and watch his members lying
huge and his liver grow to make their food—
so, where he landed, he encumbered earth
and seared the hostile field, which smelled of sulphur.
Thebans relaxed at last. The hidden masses
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surged from the temples, having ceased their vows
and final lamentations. Mothers now
felt brave enough to set their children down.
BOOK ∞∞ ≤ΩΩ
The pale Achaeans, in disorganized
21
retreat, saw something scarier than hostile
armies or deadly swords. Before their eyes
they saw the wrath of Jove. They felt their armor
burn and their helmets thunder. In their fear
and trembling, they believe that Jupiter
himself pursued them, blocking flight with fire.
To take advantage of the heavens’ tumult,
the army of Agenor was deployed,
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as when a lion snaps his heavy jaws
on undefeated leaders of the herds
along Massylian plains, then turns away
contented. Growling bears come forward; greedy
wolves show their presence and ignobly—tamely—
suck on the wounds of someone else’s prey.
Eurymedon, a rustic, ventured forward;
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his armor bristled; he bore country weapons.
A son of Pan, he had inherited
his aptness to promote disturbances.
Alatreus was his boy and mirrored him,
but his exertions overpassed his years,
despite his tender youth. Both men were blessed,
but he who had begotten was the happier.
It was not easy to distinguish whose
armor rang louder or whose spear flew faster.
The palisades were packed by fleeing soldiers.
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O Mars, what alterations you produce!
The Thebans, who once scaled their city’s walls,
were now attacking to defend the town.
Like south winds blowing, like the clouds returning,
first this field then the other surged like tides
whose white swirls strip then bury oceansides.
The young Tirynthians, whose armor copied
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that of their kinsman Hercules, were dying
everywhere, while in heaven he was mourning
to see their clubs and quivers, which matched his.
He watched blood stain their Nemean lion skins.
≥≠≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
The herald Enyeus held a slender trumpet
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and manned an Argive watchtower’s iron summit.
He was exposed to view, and as he signaled
his su√ering companions to retreat
(persuading them to seek their camp’s protection),
an arrow flew obliquely through the sky
and pinned the player’s left hand to his ear,
and there it hung. His soul fled through thin air.
His cold lips hushed. Only his trumpet blared.
–?–?–?–
Tisiphone had done her wicked deeds
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and now was growing weary of both armies.
She wished to end the war, to kill both brothers,
but would not trust herself with such a task
unless she could convince Megaera, her
beloved sister and her sister’s serpents
to instigate the pair to join in battle.
She therefore hastened to a distant valley
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and stuck her Stygian sword blade in the soil.
She murmured to the earth the name of her
not present, and—an unmistakable
sign to the Stygian kingdom—lifted up
the king snake on her forehead. It—the prince
of her cerulean tresses—gave long hisses
whose sound brought instant horror to the land,
to seas and skies, and made the Father reach
yet once again to seize his Aetnean fires.
Megaera heard the summons. She, by chance,
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stood by her parent and by all in Dis
who honored Capaneus and gave his
distinguished shade some water from the Styx.
The ponderous earth broke open. Ghosts rejoiced.
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Megaera all at once stood under heaven,
and daylight lessened to the same extent
as shadows in the underworld grew dim.
Her hideous sister seized upon her hand,