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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476007" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Thebais - Book One - part I</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes’ alarms, <br>Th’ alternate reign destroyed by impious arms, <br>Demand our song; a sacred fury fires <br>My ravished breast, and all the muse inspires. <br>O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes <br>From the dire nation in its early times, <br>Europa’s rape, Agenor’s stern decree, <br>And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea? <br>How with the serpent’s teeth he sowed the soil, <br>And reaped an iron harvest of his toil? <br>Or how from joining stones the city sprung, <br>While to his harp divine Amphion sung? <br>Or shall I Juno’s hate to Thebes resound, <br>Whose fatal rage th’ unhappy monarch found? <br>The sire against the son his arrows drew,<br>O’er the wide fields the furious mother flew, <br>And while her arms a second hope contain, <br>Sprung from the rocks and plunged into the main. <br>But waive whate’er to Cadmus may belong, <br>And fix, O muse ! the barrier of thy song <br>At Œdipus: from his disasters trace <br>The long confusions of his guilty race: <br>Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing, <br>And mighty Cæsar’s conqu’ring eagles sing; <br>How twice he tamed proud Ister’s rapid flood, <br>While Dacian mountains streamed with barb’rous blood; <br>Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll, <br>And stretched his empire to the frozen pole; <br>Or long before, with early valour, strove, <br>In youthful arms, t’ assert the cause of Jove.’ <br>And thou, great heir of all thy father’s fame, <br>Increase of glory to the Latian name, <br>Oh ! bless thy Rome with an eternal reign, <br>Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain. <br>What though the stars contract their heav’nly space,<br>And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee place; <br>Though all the skies, ambitious of thy sway, <br>Conspire to court thee from our world away; <br>Though Phœbus longs to mix his rays with thine, <br>And in thy glories more serenely shine; <br>Though Jove himself no less content would be <br>To part his throne and share his heaven with thee <br>Yet stay, great Cæsar ! and vouchsafe to reign <br>O’er the wide earth, and o’er the wat’ry main, <br>Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,<br>And people heav’n with Roman deities. <br>The time will come, when a diviner flame <br>Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar’s fame: <br>Meanwhile permit, that my preluding muse <br>In Theban wars an humbler theme may chuse: <br>Of furious hate surviving death, she sings, <br>A fatal throne to two contending kings, <br>And fun’ral flames that, parting wide in air, <br>Express the discord of the souls they bear : <br>Of towns dispeopled, and the wand’ring ghosts <br>Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts; <br>When Dirce’s fountain blushed with Grecian blood, <br>And Thetis, near Ismenos’ swelling flood, <br>With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep, <br>In heaps, his slaughtered sons into the deep. <br>What hero, Clie ! wilt thou first relate? <br>The rage of Tydeus, or the prophet’s fate? <br>Or how, with hills of slain on ev’ry side, <br>Hippomedon repelled the hostile tide <br>Or how the youth with ev’ry grace adorned <br>Untimely fell, to be for ever mourned? <br>Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend, <br>And sing with horror his prodigious end. <br>Now wretched Œdipus, deprived of sight, <br>Led a long death in everlasting night; <br>But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray <br>Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day, <br>The clear reflecting mind presents his sin <br>In frightful views, and makes it day within; <br>Returning thoughts in endless circles roll, <br>And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul: <br>The wretch then lifted to th’ unpitying skies <br>Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes, <br>Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook, <br>‘While from his breast these dreadful accents broke. <br>“Ye gods ! that o’er the gloomy regions reign, <br>Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain; <br>Thou, sable Styx ! whose livid streams are rolled <br>Through dreary coasts, which I though blind behold: <br>Tisiphone, that oft hast heard my pray’r, <br>Assist, if Œdipus deserve thy care ! <br>If you received me from Jocasta’s womb, <br>And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come: <br>If leaving Polybus, I took my way, <br>To Cirrha’s temple on that fatal day, <br>When by the son the trembling father died, <br>Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide: <br>If I the Sphinx’s riddles durst explain, <br>Taught by thyself to win the promised reign: <br>If wretched I, by baleful furies led,<br>With monstrous mixture stained my mother’s bed, <br>For hell and thee begot an impious brood, <br>And with full lust those horrid joys renewed; <br>Then se1f-condemned to shades of endless night, <br>Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight: <br>If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire. <br>Oh hear ! and aid the vengeance I require, <br>My sons their old, unhappy sire despise, <br>Spoiled of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes; <br>Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn, <br>Whilst these exalt their sceptres o’er my urn; <br>These sons, ye gods ! who with flagitious pride <br>Insult my darkness, and my groans deride. <br>Art thou a father, unregarding Jove ! <br>And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above? <br>Thou fury, then some lasting curse entail, <br>Which o’er their children’s children shall prevail : <br>Place on their heads that crown distained with gore, <br>Which these dire hands from my slain father tore; <br>Go ! and a parent’s heavy curses bear; <br>Break all the bonds of nature, and. prepare <br>Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war. <br>Give them to dare, what I might wish to see <br>Blind as I am, some glorious villainy ! <br>Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands, <br>Their ready guilt preventing thy commands: <br>Couldst thou some great, proportioned mischief frame, <br>They’d prove the father from whose loins they came.” <br>The fury heard, while on Cocytus’ brink <br>Her snakes untied, sulphureous waters drink; <br>But at the summons rolled her eyes around, <br>And snatched the starting serpents from the ground. <br>Not half so swiftly shoots along in air <br>The gliding lightning, or descending star. <br>Through crowds of airy shades she winged her flight, <br>And dark dominions of the silent night; <br>Swift as she passed the flitting ghosts withdrew, <br>And the pale spectres trembled at her view: <br>To th’ iron gates of Tænarus she flies, <br>There spreads her dusky pinions to the skies. <br>The day beheld, and sick’ning at the sight, <br>Yelled her fair glories in the shades of night. <br>Affrighted Atlas, on the distant shore, <br>Trembled, and shook the heav’ns and gods he bore. <br>Now from beneath Malea’s airy height <br>Aloft she sprung, and steered to Thebes her flight; <br>With eager speed the well-known journey took, <br>Nor here regrets the hell she late forsook. <br>A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade, <br>A hundred serpents guard her horrid head, <br>In her sunk eye-balls dreadful meteors glow:’ <br>Such rays from Phœbe’s bloody circle flow, <br>When lab’ring with strong charms, she shoots from high <br>A fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky. <br>Blood stained her cheeks, and from her mouth there came tie<br>Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame: <br>From ev’ry blast of her contagious breath <br>Famine and drought proceed, and plagues, and death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Pablius+Papinius+Statius">Pablius Papinius Statius</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476007" data-title="Thebais - Book One - part I de Pablius Papinius Statius" data-description="Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes’ alarms, 
Th’ alternate reign destroyed by impious arms, 
Demand our song; a sacred fury fires 
My ravished breast, and all the muse inspires. 
O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes 
From the dire nation in..."></div>
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