Fierce goads put unfair pressure on fierce steeds.
But there was more: the awesome prodigies
of heaven moved the armies to contend,
to interfere in that fraternal strife;
a silent murmur ran through either side.
–?–?–?–
• Piety had been sitting by herself,
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separate in heaven, for a long time now,
o√ended by both deities and humans.
She did not wear her customary garb
or shining face. Her hair had shed its ribbons,
and she wept over this fraternal strife
like the sad sister and uneasy mother
of those who fought. She also reprimanded
BOOK ∞∞ ≥∞Σ
Jove and the Parcae for their injuries
and wondered if she should leave heaven’s light
and enter Erebus, the halls of Styx.
She cried, ‘‘Queen Nature, why did you conceive
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me as an obstacle to men and gods
in their fierce rages? I am nothing now
among the nations, nor am I revered.
O, madness—men and dire Promethean arts!
Behold the race of mortals! Things were better
when sea and land were vacant, after Pyrrha!’’
She spoke, and looked for some way she could help.
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‘‘At least I am permitted to attempt;
even if unsuccessful, I will try!’’
She flew down from the poles, a streak of white
through dark clouds. Though the goddess was distressed,
as soon as she had settled on the ground
peace calmed the battle lines. Men felt their crimes.
Tears streaked their faces and ran down their breasts.
A silent horror overcame the brothers.
Piety wore feigned weapons, virile arms,
and called to these and those, ‘‘Now stop this! Cease!
Who has no brothers, sons, loved ones at home?
Is it not clear that heaven shows you pity?
Chance herself swerves, steeds stall, and weapons tumble!’’
She would have made them hesitate, had not
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savage Tisiphone observed her fraud
and, swift as heaven’s lightning, reappeared.
‘‘Why do you interfere with those who dare
to fight,’’ she clamored, ‘‘you who dedicate
yourself to peace? You idle goddess, this
field is our field! The day is ours! You come
too late here to defend destructive Thebes!
Where did you hide when Bacchus called for war,
when orgies made the mothers rage in arms?
Where were you idling when the snake of Mars
drank foul streams, Cadmus plowed, the beaten Sphinx
≥∞Π STATIUS, THE THEBAID
expired, when Oedipus met Laius, when
he wed Jocasta by my torch and fire?’’
With hissing hydras and her outstretched flame
492
the Fury drove her back, and Piety
avoided her and hid her eyes, ashamed.
She drew her drooping cloak around her face
and fled, but would complain to Jove the Great.
–?–?–?–
Anger grew hotter, provocation stronger.
497
Arms pleased and armies turned. They wished to watch.
Foul deeds commenced. Eteocles, the king,
was faithless. He prepared his weapons,
worried a deadly spear would strike him first,
but failed to land his blow. The golden shield
of Polynices caught along its rim
the spear that he had tried to aim dead center.
It was the exile’s turn. His deadly prayer
503
rang clear, ‘‘O gods whom blinded Oedipus
successfully petitioned to ignite
crimes and impieties, the gift I ask
is not improper: let me expiate
my violence by using this same sword
to rend my breast, as long as I can grasp
the scepter he’ll abandon when he leaves
and bears away his grief, a lesser ghost!’’
His fast spear flew between the rider’s thigh
510
and his steed’s spine—it could have killed them both—
but disappointed Polynices’ prayer:
the rider was unhurt—his flexed knee spared
him injury—although the spear point sliced
a slanting wound across his charger’s side.
The swift steed fled, scorned his tight reins, and drew
an arc of blood along the reddening field.
The exiled one rejoiced, for he believed—
as did the terrified Eteocles—
BOOK ∞∞ ≥∞π
the blood spores were his brother’s; he released
his reins and blindly struck the wounded charger.
Reins, hands, and weapons mingled. Both steeds stumbled
and fell; their legs were tangled up and jumbled,
like ships the cloudy south wind blows together
that break their oars and intertwine their stays;
they fight against the dark, the storm, themselves,
and then they sink, together, in the deep.
Such was their duel. They strove without design;
524
they showed no art, so mighty was their anger.
They saw candescent hatred through their helmets
and scrutinized each other, steely-eyed.
There was no space between them; their swords meshed,
theirs hand conjoined, and they were fiercely driven
by one another’s pantings, just as if
they heard shrill bugles and the sound of horns.
As when rash anger drives two thrashing boars
530
together, and their backs upsurge with bristles,
flames tremble in their eyes and their hooked teeth
and crescent tusks resound. A hunter watches
the battle from a nearby rock and blanches;
he silences his hounds. The boars clash madly.
Their wounds are not yet deadly, but blood flows.
Impiety, but no need—yet—for Furies,
536
who stood, instead, and watched in admiration,
jealous of men whose rage surpassed their own.
Each brother sought—and loved—the other’s blood,
and each ignored his own. At last the exile,
whose rage was stronger and who thought his cause
had greater justice, rushed, and he struck deep:
he shoved his sword inside his brother’s body
where tapered links of steel exposed his groin.
Pain did not triumph, but the king knew fear,
felt cold steel, and withdrew behind his shield.
Soon his limbs weakened; soon he understood
his wound’s extent and, feeling ill, breathed hard.
His enemy, however, did not spare him,
even as he drew back, but loudly taunted:
≥∞∫ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
‘‘Where are you going, brother? Are you leaving?
Your reign has left you languid, full of sleep,
worn out from too much quiet. You have ruled
under long shadows. But observe my limbs,
hardened by scarcity and lean from exile.
Learn not to trust in fortune but to fight!’’
And so those wretches dueled. A little life
552
was yet remaining in the evil king, but he
was weary; he could not stand up much longer,
yet even as he died, he planned a final
fraud—so he fell. Cithaeron h
eard the roar.
His brother, thinking he had won, upraised
his palms to heaven: ‘‘All is well! My vows
are heard! His eyes are heavy and I see
death swimming in his face. Somebody, quickly,
while he has vision, take away his scepter.
Remove the signs of rank that crown his hair.’’
He spoke, and he moved forward, and his armor—
he even wished to strip his brother’s armor,
as if to ornament his homeland’s altars.
Eteocles, however, still had strength—
562
enough to satisfy his rage and vengeance—
and when he felt the other lean above him,
he raised his sword in secret, supplemented
his failing force with hate and—pleased by his
destiny—stabbed his brother through the heart.
Then Polynices: ‘‘Are you living? Does
568
your hatred still survive? O, treacherous!
Can you not find a quiet place to rest?
• Then come with me to shadows! If judge Minos
still guards the Cnosian urn and punishes
kings, I will claim my contract!’’ Nothing further.
He fell. His heavy armor smote his brother.
Go, gruesome souls! Pollute funereal574
Tartarus with your deaths and consummate
your punishment in hell. You Stygian goddesses,
spare men from evil. May this single day
have seen su≈cient horrors for all ages
BOOK ∞∞ ≥∞Ω
and for all countries. May its memory
of criminality not reach the future.
May kings alone be conscious of this strife!
–?–?–?–
The father of this infamy emerged,
580
the battle done, from deep and gloomy shadows.
He stood half dead before his dreadful door,
his hair and beard begrimed with ancient gore.
Sti√ tresses veiled his head, which Furies haunted.
Filth marked the traces of his sunken sockets.
His left side was uplifted by his daughter,
his right leaned on his sta√. It was as if
• the sailor of the stagnant stream Avernus,
weary of ghosts, should seek the upper regions
and agitate the pale stars and the sun.
His strength would weaken in the air of heaven
and many shadows would remain on shore,
since no one ferries them. In just this manner
Oedipus sought the field when he emerged.
He told his mournful daughter, ‘‘Lead me to
594
my sons, I pray, and lay their father’s hands
on their remains!’’ Antigone delayed,
uncertain what would happen. Chariots,
dead carrion, and weapons blocked their way
and slowed them as they clung to one another.
Old steps move slow. The guide—poor woman!—struggled.
She shouted out to tell him she had found
599
the objects of their search; he hurled himself—
an old man, speechless—over cold limbs, corpses.
He wallowed, moaning, on their bloody wounds
and took some time to find the words that followed.
He drew o√ helmets, sought their hidden faces.
His sighs, at long last, ceased. The old man spoke:
‘‘My mind takes pity. Is this piety,
605
after so long, that strikes me? Does my heart
feel clemency? You, Nature, have defeated
≥≤≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
a saddened parent. Dried wounds bathe in tears.
My hands, which knew impiety, strike flesh,
and I lament. Accept due o√erings
for your unholy dyings—and my cruelties.
It is not given me to recognize
my sons, to frame fit speeches. Tell me, woman,
which am I holding? How can one as savage
as I conduct their funerals and rites?
I wish I had my eyes to wrack once more,
614
to tear my visage, as I did before.
Too sad, too just, that evil prayers, a parent’s
curses against his children, should be heard.
Which of the gods attended me and caught
my words and passed them over to the Fates?
Madness herself and War were moving forces:
my father and my mother and my kingdom,
my fallen eyes! But I myself did nothing—
I swear it by dark hell, which comforts me,
and by my daughter’s undeserved despair!
O, may I die and enter Dis with honor!
May Laius not be angry, not avoid me.
Aye, me! What tangled brothers do I trace?
What wounds? I pray, unclasp your hands. Divide
your hostile grips, my sons. Embrace your father!’’
A death wish seized the old man as he mourned.
He sought the means in secret, but his daughter
had cautiously removed her brothers’ weapons.
Oedipus raved. ‘‘Where are the instruments
of death? Are they encased inside the bodies?
Alas, the Furies!’’ As he spoke, his feeble
companion lifted him, and she suppressed
her sorrow while rejoicing that he wept.
–?–?–?–
Meanwhile, the queen, Jocasta—when the duel
634
between her sons raised clamor and brought terror—
removed a sad memorial, the sword
of scepter-bearing Laius, from its shrine.
Cursing the gods, her bed of infamy,
BOOK ∞∞ ≥≤∞
the ghost of her first husband, her son’s madness,
she struggled but she summoned up her strength
and pushed the sword blade through her leaning breast.
The blow burst her old veins, and her sad bed
640
was cleansed of its impieties by blood.
Ismene fell and covered her thin body.
Where the wound spurted, she let down her hair,
• she wept, and she attended, like Erigone,
sad daughter of Icarius, who mourned
her father in the woods of Marathon
where he was slaughtered: when that daughter cried
su≈ciently, she started to untie
her girdle, picked a strong bough, looked to die.
–?–?–?–
Now Fortune, happy to have foiled the hopes
648
of those two princes, with malignant hand
transferred the scepter and Amphion’s realm
elsewhere—to Creon, who held rights from Cadmus.
This was the outcome of that useless war:
The Thebaid Page 49
