688
his menaces diminished; anger cooled;
but then he steeled himself and grimly smiled,
pretending: ‘‘Was our warning insu≈cient
notice to beaten Argos? Once again
an enemy arrives to breach our walls.
Fine, let them come. But following the war,
let there be no complaints when those who fall
su√er our law.’’ He spoke, but he could see
dust cloud the sky and hide the peaks of Tyre.
He grew pale, discomposed, yet ordered men
to arm and he himself demanded weapons.
Nevertheless, he saw Menoeceus weeping
and Furies crowd his courtyard and the Greeks
rejoicing to ascend their funeral pyres.
Why should he go on living? Why should Thebes
now lose the peace that cost her so much blood?
Infantry seized the weapons they had hung
as trophies for their household gods; their breasts
were covered by cracked shields; their casques lacked crests;
their spears were still not clean of human gore;
steeds were disheveled; ramparts insecure.
The walls had fallen on each side of town;
the Thebans had exhausted their defenses.
Not much remained where Capaneus fought.
The soldiers were too pale and sick to kiss
their wives or children one last time, nor did
their shattered parents o√er any prayers.
But Theseus, the leader of the Greeks,
709
saw brilliant sunlight shine through broken clouds
and armor glinting in the dawn’s first rays.
He swooped along the field and raced beneath
the walls where bodies lay, while deep inside
his helmet he breathed dust and pestilence,
foul vapors from the corpses he deplored,
yet felt the flames of righteous wrath for war.
BOOK ∞≤ ≥Σ∞
Creon refused to let his army wage
715
war on the fallen bodies of Danaans
a second time. Was his choice virtuous
or did he so desire to drink fresh blood
that he preferred new fields for mangled slaughter?
Bellona led each army di√erently.
720
The Theban side was soundless; trumpets silent;
their swords hung low; the army seemed fatigued;
their right hands loosed the looped ends of their slings,
and men whose gashes still poured blood gave ground.
Then the Cecropian princes lost their ardor:
their threats grew timid; their just rage declined,
just as winds weaken if their fury finds
no hindering trees. Waves die without a shore.
Theseus, the sea-born hero, raised his spear
730
of Marathonian oak; its gruesome shadow
fell on the enemy; its bright tip flashed
and filled the field, as when the god of war
• drives his Edonian chariot along
the slopes of Haemus, bearing Death and Rout
on his swift axle. Just so, pallid Terror
harried Agenor’s sons; they fled in panic,
but Theseus scorned to follow fugitives;
his sword did not find dignity in slaughter,
though other great men gorge themselves
by killing common soldiers, just as dogs
and wolves who have no honor take delight
in fearful, prostrate prey. Yet, anger stokes
great lions: Theseus killed Olenius
and Lamyrus—the first as he plucked arrows
up from his quiver and the second as
he raised the vicious burden of a boulder.
Three spears destroyed the three sons of Alcetus
from far o√. They had trusted in their prowess,
but Phyleus took a spear point through the chest,
then Helops’s teeth bit iron, then the shoulder
of Iapyx felt the third. Next Theseus sought
Haemon, who towered above his chariot,
drawn by four horses. He released his fierce
≥Σ≤ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
weapon of war, and it made Haemon swerve.
It struck two steeds from far and would have pierced
another but the cart’s pole interfered.
Thereafter Creon was the only one
752
Theseus pursued. He shouted out a vow
and saw him in the frontlines of the battle
urging his soldiers, prodding them in vain.
All of his comrades fled as Creon sought
to turn them back; by contrast Theseus
ordered his men to halt, to trust the gods
and his right hand. Finally Creon realized
everyone hated him. He paused, prepared
for one last fit of rage and lethal fury:
he took heart from the thought that he would die.
‘‘You do not fight the half-moon shields of women,’’
761
he cried, ‘‘nor face a band of virgins. Men
battle in blood here. We slew mighty Tydeus,
furious Hippomedon, and sent the soul
of Capaneus hellward. What rash fury
makes you do battle here and intervene?
Those you avenge are dead. Have you not seen?’’
He spoke and hurled a deadly spear that fixed,
harmless, in Theseus’s shield rim. Aegeus’s son
laughed at his words and e√ort; like a nightmare,
he then prepared his great shaft, bound with iron,
for one huge thrust, but not before he cried
these proud words: ‘‘Argive ghosts, to whom I give
this victim, open Tartarus and Chaos.
Warn the Eumenides. I send you Creon!’’
He spoke. His trembling weapon cleaved the wind
773
and entered where the myriad links of mail
formed Creon’s hauberk. His unholy blood
poured through a thousand crevices. He died,
and when he fell, his eyes were open wide.
Theseus stood over him and solemnly
778
removed his armor, saying, ‘‘Should not corpses
BOOK ∞≤ ≥Σ≥
receive the flames that righteousness requires?
Should not the vanquished have their burial?
Enter the place of gruesome punishments:
I swear we will perform your final rites!’’
–?–?–?–
The banners of the loyal armies met;
782
the soldiers intermingled; they agreed
to peace, now, on that battlefield, and Theseus
became the city’s guest; men prayed that he
would dignify their homes and enter Thebes.
The victor did not scorn his enemies
but glorified their households with his presence.
Ogygian maids and matrons celebrated,
• as when the Ganges, worn by wars and Bacchus,
praises the orgies that have made her drunk.
The clamoring of women reached the stars
on Dirce’s shadowy, opposing heights,
and the Pelasgian matrons hurried down
• like raving Thyiades who gather for
a drunken orgy. You would think they sought,
or had committed, some impiety.
They wept from happiness, shed tears of joy.
As sounds of mourning guided them along,
crowds drew them here and there, first to great Theseus,
then toward Creon, then to their deceased.
–?–?–?–
So many corpses, commoners and princes;
so many moans
; so many mighty deeds.
I could not count them, even should some god
open my spirit to a hundred tales:
how bold Evadne looked for signs of lightning
on mighty Capaneus and lay down,
undone, beside the fires that she loved;
how the grim spouse of Tydeus made excuses,
lying beside him, kissing his rough corpse;
how Argia tells her sister her sad vigils,
≥Σ∂ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
• and how the Erymanthian mother moaned
for Parthenopaeus, the Arcadian,
who, drained of blood, still never lost his looks:
Parthenopaeus, the Arcadian,
whom either army mourned with equal force.
Not if Apollo filled me with new furor
could I recount these things. After so long
at sea, my little vessel reaches port.
Will you, myThebaid, endure for ages,
survive your author, and be read? Twelve years
I spent, preoccupied, but surely Fame
already comes to you, though young, and carves
a friendly path to guide you to the future.
Caesar, magnanimous, has deigned to know you.
Italy’s schoolrooms teach you, and the young
memorize passages. So thrive, I pray,
but do not envy the divineAeneid.
Follow well back. Always adore her traces.
If any envy clouds you, it will fade;
when I am gone due honor will be paid.
–?–?–?–
Notes
Line numbers refer to the Latin text. Met. = Ovid, Metamorphoses
Book 1. Exile
1.20:Dacians Conquered by Domitian (“Jove” at 1.22), the emperor under whom Statius wrote, they inhabited an area roughly that of modern Romania.
1.63:and his untruth The untruth of Polybus was his misrepresentation of himself as Oedipus’s natural father.
1.66:the wicked Sphinx A beast with the head of a woman and the body of a winged lion, the Sphinx terrorized Thebes at the behest of Juno by asking all travelers who approached the city the following question: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening? All who could not correctly respond to the question were killed on the spot. Oedipus finally provided the answer to the riddle (“Man,” represented in childhood, adulthood, and old age), prompting the Sphinx to throw herself from a cliff in despair. The people of Thebes made him king out of gratitude.
1.130:companions disagree Boccaccio adapts Statius’s sentiment in describing the conflict between Palaemon and Arcite (see Teseida 5.13).
1.165:savage one Eteocles
1.184:battle lines of brothers The Spartoi, or sown men, who grew out of the earth when Cadmus sowed the dragon’s teeth
1.221:Phaëthon Apollo, the god of the sun, permitted his son to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, but the youth lost control of the horses and plummeted out of control toward the earth. Jupiter killed Phaëthon with a flash of lightning to prevent catastrophe. See Met. 1 and 2.
1.230:women A reference to the mountain revels of Theban women devoted to Bacchus (see the story of Pentheus in Met. 3.700–733)
1.262:Or level Sparta? Mycenae and Sparta, along with Argos, were cities on the Peloponnesian peninsula that Juno identifies as her favorites (see Iliad 4.50). Samos was an island in the Aegean Sea that housed a large temple to the goddess.
1.264:Mareotic Copts The Copts were devotees of the goddess Isis. Mareotis was a district in northern Egypt.
1.272:Alpheus seeks Arethusa Arethusa tells how she escaped underground to Sicily to avoid the attentions of Alpheus, a hunter and Peloponnesian river, who pursued her across the sea to the island of Ortygia (Met. 5.577ff.).
1.278:Mount Ida, Crete Where the nymphs raised Jupiter (cf. Met. 4.293; Aeneid 12.412)
1.297:Lethe The river of forgetfulness in Hades. All souls who drank from it would forget their former lives (cf. Aeneid 6.705).
1.303:Atlas’s grandson Mercury
1.333:Scironic cliffs In Megaris, on the Isthmus of Corinth. Scyllawas the daughter of Nisus,
≥∑∑
≥∑∏ NOTES TO PAGES ∞≥ – ≤≥
king of Megara. She betrayed her father by cutting off his precious lock of purple hair, the absence of which assured his death (Met. 8.8ff.).
1.347:Aeolus King of the winds, who held dominion over the lesser winds: Zephyrus, Auster, Boreas, and Eurus (cf. Met. 1.64ff.)
1.382:Larissa Fortress that dominated the skyline of Argos, whose ruins are still visible
1.402:brother’s death Tydeus was banished from Calydon for the murder of his brother Olenias (some say his uncle); see Pausanias 1.8.5.
1.420:Rhipaean Mountains in northern Scythia, source of the Don
1.453:I left the Acheloian fields Tydeus alludes to the great hunt for the Calydonian boar. The Achelous is the largest river in Greece, bordering Acarnania and Aetolia.
1.475–77:loyalty The pairs mentioned are models of friendship in Roman poetry. Pylades was Orestes’ cousin and companion; each young man was willing to sacrifice his life for the other (see Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris). Pirithoüs was the son of Ixion and king of the Lapithae, mythical inhabitants of the mountains in Thessaly. Pirithoüs raided Attica, but King Theseus held off his attack. The two became friends and together took part in many adventures (cf. Met. 8.302).
1.487:Cleonae Another reference to Hercules’ first labor. Cleonae was a town in Argolis near Nemea; Teumessus was a mountain outside of Thebes, where the young Hercules killed the lion of Cithaeron (see Met. 6.417).
1.490:Calydonian boar Tydeus’s older half brother Meleager organized the hunt for the Calydonian boar. The skin of the boar was originally awarded to Atalanta (mother of Parthenopaeus), who was the first hunter to strike the boar (see Met. 8.426).
1.543–51:Cast images Medusa, the Gorgon whose looks turned all who gazed on her to stone, beheaded by Perseus. Ganymede, another misfit and victim, was a beautiful young man whom Zeus, in the form of an eagle, carried away up to Mount Olympus to serve as cupbearer to the gods.
1.561:I’ll explain Adrastus’s narrative—an explanation for the Apollonian holiday in progress—centers on the actions that the Argive hero Coroebus took in rescuing his people from a plague inflicted on them by Apollo. A delaying tactic typical of Adrastus, the story serves as a parable by which Polynices and Tydeus may learn the dangers of rushing into conflict. Statius’s dramatic irony recalls Homer’s, when the brilliant orator Nestor fails to persuade Agamemnon not to offend Achilles in book 1 of the Iliad. Here another elder statesmen fails to persuade young men to restrain themselves. In its length and complexity, Adrastus’s apologue also recalls the speech of Phoenix to Achilles in the ninth book of the Iliad.1.562:The Python The holy beast of Delphi, formerly called Pytho. Phoebus killed it on the Bay of Cirrha, on the Corinthian Gulf, south of Delphi (see Met. 1.438).
1.597:Acheron A river of the underworld whose name is used as a metonymy (the part for the whole) for the entire underworld
1.635:dog star The presence of the star Sirius, prominent in late summer, implies that the plague brings great heat and drought.
1.636:Paean An epithet meaning “healer” or “helper” (Met. 14.720); used ironically by Statius, if not by Adrastus. Apollo is often a troubled figure in myths, less successful than one imagines him, less morally grounded, as when he fails to score with Daphne,
NOTES TO PAGES ≤∂ – ≥≥ ≥∑π
or loses his son Phaëthon (Met. 1–2), or, here, punishes innocent people. He has some of the ruthlessness of a king’s son as early as the first book of the Iliad.1.643:Thymbra City in the region of Troas famous for its temple to Apollo (cf. Aeneid 3.85)
1.687:Syrtes’ Two dangerous sandbanks on the northern shores of Africa (the Greater and Lesser Syrtes of modern Libya)
1.696:Patara’s Site, in Lycia, of an oracle of Apol
lo that only spoke in the winter
1.709:Marsyas A satyr who was skilled at playing the flute. He challenged Apollo to a musical contest and lost; he was flayed alive and transformed into a river. The examples of Apollo’s victories (1.709–15) are ironic, since the objects of the god’s wrath were helpless to defend themselves. See Met. 6, where other subaltern figures suffer at the hands of the gods.
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