my right-hand’s scepter, and my brow’s proud crown—
your gifts, which bring your father little joy.
At least the sad ghost of Eteocles will see
you king . . . will see you king.’’ As he was speaking,
he stripped away his crown and dropped his sta√,
then violent, enraged, began again:
‘‘Let Argives call me savage and unkind
to bar their dead from burning, but not you.
I wish I could preserve their corpses whole
and chase their souls from heaven and from hell.
I would find savage beasts and taloned birds
and lead them to those princes’ impious members.
But they will be resolved into a dew,
99
there where they lie, by time and Mother Earth.
So I repeat, and say it once again:
let no one dare give fire or final rites
to these Pelasgians, for the punishment
is death. That person will increase their number.
I swear this by the gods and great Menoeceus.’’
He spoke, then comrades took him to his palace.
–?–?–?–
Meanwhile, drawn on by rumors, a sad band
105
• of miserable women—widows, grieving mothers—
≥≥≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
left empty Argos. These Inachians
behaved like captive slaves. Each had her own
disfigurements, but all looked desolate.
Their hair hung down their breasts; their gowns were girded;
their faces lacerated by their nails;
their soft arms swollen by lamenting blows.
The queen of this black crew of maddened women
111
was widowed Argia, whom her sad retainers
helped to resume her journey when she stumbled.
She did not seek her father or a kingdom.
Her sole fidelity, the only name
she called, was Polynices, her beloved,
for whom she left Mycenae to inhabit
Cadmus’s ill-starred city on the Dirce.
Deipyle, not yielding to her sister,
came next and led a muster of Lernaean
and Calydonian women to attend
the funeral of Tydeus. She had heard,
poor girl, the news of his impiety,
his wicked mouthfuls, but ignored it all.
Dead was her husband, and her love misspent.
After her, bitter—also pitiable—
121
Nealce duly mourned Hippomedon;
then came Amphiaraus’s evil wife,
who had to build, alas, an empty pyre.
The final line of mourners walked behind
the comrade of Manaelian Diana—
Parthenopaeus’ mother—now bereft,
and sad Evadne, wife of Capaneus.
The former grieved and mourned her bold son’s deeds.
The latter, mindful of her mighty husband,
wept fiercely, and she blamed the stars in heaven.
Hecate observed them from Lycaean groves
129
and followed them, lamenting. Ino (now
• the Theban mother called Leucothea)
wept as they made their way past either sea.
Although she also mourned Proserpina,
• the Eleusin Ceres mourned the wanderers
BOOK ∞≤ ≥≥∞
who moved at night. She showed them secret fires,
and Juno, Saturn’s daughter, guided them
but veiled their travels lest her people block
their movements and their enterprise be stopped,
which promised so much glory. She, moreover,
bid Iris tend the princes’ lifeless bodies
and soak their rotting limbs with secret dews
and medicines ambrosial to preserve
their quality, to keep them undiminished
as they awaited flames and funeral pyres.
Behold, Ornytus, filthy in his face,
140
pale from a gaping gash (his friends had gone,
and he was burdened by that recent wound),
timid and furtive, made his struggling way
on secret paths, upheld by half a spear.
He did not need to ask; the cause was clear
why he now found his solitude disturbed.
The sole Lernaeans now who still remained
were anxious women. He spoke words of warning:
‘‘What pathways do you follow, wretched ladies?
149
Do you seek bones and ashes of dead husbands?
A sentinel of shades stands vigilant
and counts unburied bodies for the king.
Those who approach to weep are driven back.
Only wild beasts and birds may venture closer.
Will even-handed Creon sympathize
with your lamentings? You may sooner pray
• before the evil altars of Busiris,
• the famished horses of the Odrysae,
or the divinities of Sicily!
I know him: he will seize you, suppliants,
and have you killed, not on your husband’s bodies,
but far away from dear departed shades.
You should proceed now, while the road is safe:
160
return to Lerna. There fix empty names
on vacant sepulchers. Call missing ghosts
to hollow tombs. Or you may go implore
Athenian assistance. They say Theseus
is coming back from Thrace, a conqueror,
≥≥≤ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
favored by fortune. Creon must be forced
by war and arms to follow human customs!’’
And so he spoke. Tears welled among the women.
166
Their zeal and forward impetus was halted.
A single paleness froze in all their faces,
as when the Hyrcanian tigress’ hungry roar
floats over gentle heifers, and the herd
agitates at the sound. Each feels great terror.
Whom will she seize? Whose backs will feed her hunger?
Instantly disagreements of opinion
173
flared up for di√erent reasons. Some
wished to confront proud Creon there in Thebes;
some wished to test Athenian clemency.
The last choice, that for cowards, was retreat.
A sudden and unusual desire
177
for action took Argia at this moment.
Her plan was di≈cult, most dangerous,
but great need made her disregard her sex.
She would confront the kingdom’s wicked law,
something no Thracian woman would attempt
• nor any daughter from the snows of Phasis,
even surrounded by unmarried cohorts.
She skillfully constructed a deceit
to separate herself from faithful friends.
She was contemptuous of life, made bold
by long laments as she prepared to face
the bloody king and cruel divinities.
Her Polynices stood before her eyes,
187
no other than himself in every guise:
now as a guest before a trembling girl;
now promising her wedlock at the altar;
now a kind husband; now a warrior,
sadly embracing her; now gazing back
from the last portal’s threshold. But no image
captured her mind more frequently than that
of him, bewildered, on the field of blood,
stripped of his armor, searching for his pyre.
BOOK ∞≤ ≥≥≥
Her mind was driven mad by her distress,
and her chaste passion made her court her death.
/> She turned to her Pelasgian companions
and said, ‘‘Solicit the Athenians;
go seek the ones who arm at Marathon.
196
May Fortune grant your pious labors favor.
But let me, who alone has caused our ruin,
penetrate the Ogygian city-state
and be the first to feel the tyrant’s thunder.
I will not strike—unheard—the fierce town’s gates.
My husband’s sisters live there, and their mother.
I will not go unrecognized through Thebes.
So do not stay my steps, for something powerful,
some heartfelt omen, draws me toward that town.’’
She spoke no further, and she chose Menoetes
204
(her guardian, who once instructed her
on modesty and maidenhood) to walk
with her, alone. Though inexperienced,
ignorant of the countryside, she hurried
along the path on which Ornytus traveled,
away from her companions in distress.
When she was far enough away, she cried,
‘‘How could I wait for Theseus to make
his slow decision while in hostile fields
you waste away so sadly? Will his captains
or righteous haruspex accede to war?
Meanwhile your body rots! Is it not better
that my own limbs should feel hooked claws of birds?
My loyal husband, if among the shadows
214
you still have feelings, you must be complaining
to Stygian gods that I am late, uncaring.
Whether by chance you lie exposed or buried,
the blame is mine. Is there no strength in sorrow?
Is there no death? Is Creon not unkind?
Ornytus, give me strength to carry on!’’
She spoke, then sped across Megarian fields.
219
Those she encountered pointed out the way
≥≥∂ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
and shivered at her misery, afraid.
Her face was fierce, her heart calm, as she passed.
No sounds upset her. Overwhelming danger
soothed her who frightened others whom she met,
• as when the mountain Dindyma resounds
in Phrygia, at night, with lamentations,
as she herself, the goddess, drives a woman,
the raving leader of the celebrations
among the pines where Simois begins,
to mutilate herself—gives her the knife
• and marks her with a crown of woolen twists.
Titan—the sun, the father—had by now
228
hidden his chariot of fire in
Hesperian waters, to emerge again
from other oceans, yet Argia’s grief
made her oblivious of heavy hardships
and unaware of evening. Gloomy fields
were nothing terrible, nor did she stop
her search past fallen trees, on pathless rocks,
through secret forests that are dark by day,
across new plowlands drained by hidden ditches,
and over rivers. She moved on, unharmed,
past sleeping beasts, foul caves of bristling monsters.
Menoetes felt ashamed to walk more slowly,
and he admired the pace of his frail pupil,
so forceful were her courage and her grief.
What homes of men and animals did she
239
not rattle with her sighs? How often did
she lose her way or wander from the solace
of her companion’s torch, as freezing shadows
muΔed its flame? But now the ridge of Pentheus
arose before the weary travelers.
It sides stretched broadly when Menoetes, panting,
nearly exhausted, thus began to speak:
‘‘If hope is not deceived by what we’ve done,
246
I think, Argia, we cannot be far
from the Ogygian dwellings and the bodies
that lie unburied, for the air is foul.
BOOK ∞≤ ≥≥Σ
It moves in fetid waves from somewhere near,
and birds of prey are circling in the skies.
The soil is bloody, and the walls not distant.
See their long shadows stretch across the field,
the dying lights that flicker from the watchtowers?
The town is close.’’ The night itself was silent.
The sole lights in the dark and gloom were stars.
Argia raised her hand toward town and shivered:
255
‘‘O Thebes, which I once longed for, now so hostile—
and yet, if you return my husband’s corpse
undamaged, you may also be my solace.
See how I am arrayed, how I am bruised
on my first visitation to your precincts—
wife of the son of mighty Oedipus.
My prayers are not impertinent: I want
only to mourn and burn my husband’s body.
Give him to me, I beg you—he who was
an exile and defeated in this war,
whom you deny his own paternal soil.
O Polynices, come to me, I pray—
if ghosts may take on form and spirits
wander when they abandon carnal substance,
show me the way to reach you! Guide me to
yourself, if I am worthy!’’ So she spoke,
and, entering a nearby country cottage,
renewed the dying fires of her torch
and wildly ran again through grisly fields
like childless Ceres on the stones of Aetna,
who shone her brilliant torchlight on the slopes
of Sicily and through Ausonia
• and traced the furrows of that dark conveyor
whose carriage left wide wheel ruts in the dust:
• Enceladus himself reechoed her
mad lamentations; he emitted flames
to light her way; the rivers, forests, seas,
and clouds called out ‘‘Persephone’’; only
her Stygian husband’s hall maintained its silence.
Argia’s faithful mentor must remind her,
278
in her excitement, to remember Creon,
≥≥Π STATIUS, THE THEBAID
to dip her torch, to move more furtively.
The queen—who even now through all the towns
of Argos was revered, the lofty goal
of suitors, and the great hope of her race—
moved through the deadly night, alone, unguided,
among her enemies. She made her way
through heaps of armor, over blood-slick grass,
and she was not afraid of flying groups
of ghosts or shades or spirits that bemoaned
their missing limbs. Her sightless steps ignored
The Thebaid Page 51
