when Jupiter pours water on his daughter.
And there were those that swift Asterion
circled around, as does the Erasinus,
which washes grain from the Dryopians
in Epirus, and those who tend the fields
of Epidaurus, where the hillsides suit
the grapes of Bacchus, not the grains of Ceres,
• whose temple is in Sicily, at Enna.
Hard-to-reach Dyme sent assistance; Pylos,
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Neleus’s city, dense battalions: Pylos
• was not yet famous, for though Nestor had
su≈cient youth in middle age, he would
not join a doomed campaign. These, then, the troops
BOOK ∂ ∫π
whom tall Hippomedon preceded and
filled with a passion for his fortitude.
His head shook his brass helmet, crested by
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three tiers of snow-white plumage; iron mail
beneath his armor rubbed his sides; a flamebright
orb was on his torso and displayed,
• in living gold, the night of Danaus,
whose fifty guilty daughters’ chambers blaze
dark with the wedding torches of the Furies.
This wickedness incites their father’s praise—
he witnesses their swords through bloody doorways.
Down from the citadel of Pallas on
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a Nemean charger came Hippomedon.
• War terrified his steed. Its flying shadow
covered the field and stirred long plumes of dust.
• Not otherwise Hylaeus speeds—half-man,
half-horse—through forests from his mountain cave,
• shaping with both his chests an open path
that frightens Ossa. Fearful cattle, beasts
that cause fear, fall. Even his brothers feel
his terror till he takes a giant leap,
dives in the waters of the Peneus,
and dams the mighty river with his body.
What mortal voice is competent to count
145
the numbers of his weapons, powers, peoples?
Tiryns, the town of Hercules, responded.
She was not barren of brave men or less
productive since when her great son won fame,
but inactivity decayed her fortune;
she had no capital to finance strength.
From empty fields a lonely citizen
might point at towers the sweat of Cyclops built.
Nevertheless, she sent three hundred men
to war—so strong they seemed more numerous.
Their heads and shoulders bore bu√ lion skins,
the marker of their tribe. They were equipped
with pinewood stakes and inexhaustible
quivers containing sheaves of javelins.
∫∫ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
Their spears lacked straps; they could not buy bright swords,
but they sang hymns to Hercules, the god
who cleared the world of monsters and who heard
• their song on leafy Oete, far away.
Nemea sent a retinue, as did
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the sacred vineyards of Cleonae, where
• Molorchus lived. His dwelling won renown
for welcoming the god whose arms appear
depicted on its willow doors, while in
its small-scale fields you might see where he set
his club down, and the holm oak where he leaned
his unstrung bow, and where his elbow left
traces of his existence on the earth.
–?–?–?–
Viewing the war a head above the others
165
came Capaneus, who upheld hides torn
from four unmastered oxen and the weight
of heavy layers of sti√ bronze on his shield,
• which showed a branching, triple-headed Hydra,
recently slaughtered, rigid. Living snakes
shone in relief, engraved in textured silver,
while other features, by a hidden art
of working tawny gold, in death turned dark.
Slow Lerna’s steel-blue river rimmed the scene.
His vast expanse of chest and spacious sides
173
were kept protected by a corselet tied
together by uncountable steel joints,
a rugged vest—no woman’s work—and on
the top part of his shining helmet stood
a giant. No one else could launch his spear
of smooth-shaved cypress with its point of steel.
• The troops assigned to his command were born
178
in ample, lush Amphigenia or
flat Messene or mountainous Ithome,
Thryon or Aepy, in the highest hills,
Helos or Pteleon or Dorion,
BOOK ∂ ∫Ω
which mourns for Thamyris, the Getic bard.
• This Thamyris believed he could surpass
the learned Muses of Aonia,
but he was quickly silenced and condemned
never to sing or play his harp again,
for who can face divinities and scorn them?
He had not heard about Apollo’s contest
with Marsyas, which made Celaenas famous
where Phoebus hung the Satyr up to die.
–?–?–?–
By now the fortunetelling prophet’s mind
187
was weakening from pressure. He indeed
foresaw disasters, read distressing signs,
but Atropos herself took arms against
his hesitation and she overthrew
• the god in him. The ruses of his wife
had not abated, and forbidden gold
already flashed and glittered in his home.
The Fates had warned Amphiaraus that
192
this gold would kill him, and his wicked wife
knew it. Here is the horror then, that she
loved frippery and not her husband’s life.
She wore what she had wrangled from Argia
in order to assert her eminence.
Argia saw that if Amphiaraus,
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the hero blessed with foresight, did not join
the expedition, then morale would su√er
among the men who bore the weight of war,
so she was willing to divest the sacred
bosom her husband Polynices loved.
She did not mourn the loss of ornaments,
but said, ‘‘The times are not appropriate
200
for me to wear bright jewels. Why should I dress
my wretched beauty while you march away?
People feel waves of fear—they are the ones
I must beguile. My hair shall be undone
and sweep across their altars. Certainly
Ω≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
it would be reprehensible for me
to wear the dowry of Harmonia,
her wealth in gold, when your face is concealed
inside a threatening helmet and the steel
you wear reverberates. And it may be
206
more fitting and more glorious for me
to outdress other Argive wives when my
husband becomes a king, when he is safe,
and I fill temples with thanksgiving choirs.
Let Eriphyle wear what she desires
and frolic while her prophet husband fights!’’
That was the way the fatal jewelry reached211
the home of Eriphyle, where it sowed
the seeds of powerful impieties
and made the Fury named Tisiphone
laugh loudly and rejoice in destiny.
Amphiaraus drove Taenarian steeds
213
&nbs
p; engendered by the Centaur Cyllarus
in secret, so that Castor did not know
the ill-matched intercourse that bred those foals.
He wore Parnassian woolen bands to show
his status as a prophet: olives wigged
his helmet, and white, narrow ribbons twined
and twisted through his purple-colored crest.
His hands were busy with his horses’ reins,
220
and trembling iron javelins fenced his chariot.
He threatened, like a comet in the distance;
his bright shield showed the Python Phoebus killed.
• Troops joined him from Amyclae, where Apollo
is worshiped, and from Pylos and Malea,
which careful ships avoid, and Caryae,
whose hymns provoke Diana’s praise, and Pharis,
and Cytherean Messe, which breeds doves.
A hard band from the stream of swans, Eurotas,
descended in a phalanx from Taygetus.
Mercury (born Arcadian) had trained
228
these men in blood and dust, provoked their stark
BOOK ∂ Ω∞
aggression, and instilled them with his rage.
He sti√ened their resolve and made it sacred
to die with honor. Young men wept if one
should die in battle, but the mother would
accept a funeral wreath. The fate that they
encouraged for their children pleased the parents.
Their javelins had double thongs; their reins
sat in their hands; their backs were unrestrained;
they wore broad, rough wool mantles, and
• swan feathers peaked their helmets, nor were they
236
the only ones to serve Amphiaraus:
Elis, which spreads across a hill, had sent
a company, and so had lowland Pisa,
whose people swim your yellow streams, Alpheus,
which flow to Sicily but never take—
however long the journey—sea-wave taint.
Uncountable the chariots that churned
241
the worn-out plowlands, and the horses tamed
for war. The widespread glory of the race
survived the broken axles and the foul
customs of Oenomaus. Foaming bits
rattled the horses’ teeth, and white saliva
bedewed the sandy soil their footfalls furrowed.
–?–?–?–
Parthenopaeus, inexperienced
246
and young: you also led Arcadians—
you were so eager to achieve renown.
• His mother did not know it yet—or he
249
would not have been allowed to go—for she
(wild Atalanta) with her bow was then,
by chance, establishing the peace in distant
woodlands and chill Lycaeus. Now, her son
was handsomer of face than anyone
who sallied to the hazards of the war,
and he was spirited. Would he had aged
till he was stronger! He ignited flames
in every forest nymph and river goddess
Ω≤ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
or deity residing in a valley.
They say Diana—even she—forgave
256
her follower when in Maenalian shades
she saw the young man’s light steps skim the grass.
She gave him Cretan weapons and a quiver
of Amyclaean arrows for his shoulder.
He ripened with a daring love for war,
260
hot to hear horns and weapons, to befoul
his blond hair with the dust of battle, to
capture a rival’s horse and ride it home.
The groves grew tedious; he felt ashamed
his arrows did not yet know human blood.
He shone with flaming purple, fiery gold:
265
Iberian embroidery made folds
along his flowing tunic, and his shield,
unsuited to the wars, displayed his mother’s
• battles in Calydonia. His bow
• rang fiercely on his left. Cydonean arrows
rattled the quiver hanging down his back,
set with pale amber, bright with eastern jasper.
Accustomed to outracing startled stags,
271
his horn-foot horse was now amazed to feel
twin lynx-hide blankets and the extra weight
the young armed hero carried as he rode,
high on his horse—a sight!—with cheeks of rose.
A loyal army was delivered by
275
that ancient people, the Arcadians—
said to be older than the stars and moon,
and born from rigid tree trunks in the woods
when earth first saw the prints of human feet
and felt amazement in the times before
cities or fields or houses or the ways
of married life. Oak trees and laurel trees
bore tender children, and the ash produced
both shade and babies, and the wild ash dropped
young infants it had carried. It is said
that Titan’s alternation with the shades
BOOK ∂ Ω≥
of night perplexed these people, who pursued
the setting sun, afraid of losing light.
Farms on Maenalos lacked inhabitants, and forests
284
• on Mount Parthenius were emptied. Rhipe
and Stratie, Enispe with its winds,
• sent men to war. Not Tegea or Cyllene—
home to a god and fortunate—stood idle,
nor did Minerva’s forest temple at
Alea, nor rapid Clitor, nor the one
named Ladon—who, o Pythian, was almost
father-in-law to you—nor bright Lampia,
• on ridges white with snow, nor Pheneos,
believed to send the Styx to darkest Dis.
• Azan came too, whose howling mobs could rival
292
those on Mount Ida, and the countryside
of Sicily that pleased the quiver-bearing
Thunderer, bringing laughter to Amores
(divinities of Love); and cattle-rich
Orchomenus was there, and Cynosura,
a town where savage animals abounded.
The fields of Aepy and the peaks of Psophis
were emptied by identical desires,
• as were the mountains Hercules made famous
by feats of strength: boar-bearing Erymanthos
and tintinnabulous-in-bronze Stymphalos.
These, then, were the Arcadians: one race,
299
but made distinct by di√erent traditions.
Some bent the lower stems of Paphian myrtle;
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