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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476008" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Thebais - Book One - part II</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A robe obscene was o’er her shoulders thrown, <br>A dress by fates and furies worn alone. us <br>She tossed her meagre arms; her better hand’ <br>In waving circles whirled a fun’ral brand: <br>A serpent from her left was seen to rear <br>His flaming crest, and lash the yielding air. <br>But when the fury took her stand on high, too <br>Where vast Oitheron’s top salutes the sky, <br>A hiss from all the snaky tire went round: <br>The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound, <br>And through th’ Aobaian cities send the sound. <br>Œte, with high Parnassus, heard the voice; <br>Eurotas’ banks remurmured to the noise;. <br>Again Leucothea shook at these alarms, <br>And pressed Palæmon closer in her arms. <br>Headlong from thence the glowing fury springs, <br>And o’er the Theban palace spreads her wings, <br>Once more invades the guilty dome, and shrouds <br>Its bright pavilions in a veil of clouds. <br>Straight with the rage of all their race possessed <br>Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest, <br>And all their furies wake within their breast.<br>Their tortured minds repining envy tears, <br>And hate, engendered by suspicious fears; <br>And sacred thirst of sway; and all the ties <br>Of nature broke; and royal perjuries; <br>And impotent desire to reign alone,<br>That scorns the dull reversion of a throne; <br>Each would the sweets of sov’reign rule devour, <br>While discord waits upon divided power. <br>As stubborn steers by brawny plowmen broke, <br>And joined reluctant to the galling yoke,<br>Alike disdain with servile necks to bear <br>Th’ unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share, <br>But rend the reins, and bound a diff’rent way, <br>And all the furrows in confusion lay: <br>Such was the discord of the royal pair,<br>Whom fury drove precipitate to war. <br>In vain the chiefs contrived a specious way, <br>To govern Thebes by their alternate sway: <br>Unjust decree ! while this enjoys the state, <br>That mourns in exile his unequal fate,<br>And the short monarch of a hasty year <br>Foresees with anguish his returning heir. <br>Thus did the league their impious arms restrain, <br>But scarce subsisted to the second reign. <br>Yet then, no proud aspiring piles were raised,<br>No fretted roofs with polished metals blazed; <br>No laboured columns in long order placed, <br>No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced; <br>No nightly bands in glitt’ring armour wait <br>Before the sleepless tyrant’s guarded gate;<br>No chargers then were wrought in burnished gold, <br>Nor silver vases took the forming mold; <br>Nor gems on bowls embossed were seen to shine, <br>Blaze on the brims, and sparkle in the wine. <br>Say, wretched rivals ! what provokes your rage? <br>Say, to what end your impious arms engage? <br>Not all bright Phœbus views in early morn, <br>Or when his ev’ning beams the west adorn, <br>When the south glows with his meridian ray, <br>And the cold north receives a fainter day;<br>For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice, <br>Were all those realms the guilty victor’s prize ! <br>But fortune now (the lots of empire thrown) <br>Decrees to proud Eteocles the crown: <br>What joys, oh tyrant ! swelled thy soul that day, <br>When all were slaves thou couldst around survey, <br>Pleased to behold unbounded power thy own, <br>And singly fill a feared and envied throne ! <br>But the vile vulgar, ever discontent, <br>Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent;<br>Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state, <br>And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate; <br>New lords they madly make, then tamely bear, <br>And softly curse tile tyrants whom they fear. <br>And one of those who groan beneath the sway <br>Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey, <br>(Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spite <br>With scandal armed, th’ ignoble mind’s delight,) <br>Exclaimed-“ O Thebes ! for thee what fates remain, <br>What woes attend this inauspicious reign? <br>Must we, alas ! our doubtful necks prepare, <br>Each haughty master’s yoke by turns to bear, <br>And still to change whom changed we still must fear? <br>These now control a wretched people’s fate, <br>These can divide, and these reverse the state:<br>Ev’n fortune rules no more !-O servile land, <br>Where exiled tyrants still by turns command. <br>Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove ! <br>Is this th’ eternal doom decreed above? <br>On thy own offspring hast thou fixed this fate,<br>From the first birth of our unhappy state; <br>When banished Cadmus, wand’ring o’er the main, <br>For lost Europa searched the world in vain, <br>And fated in Bœotian fields to found <br>A rising empire on a foreign ground, <br>First raised our walls on that ill-omened plain, <br>Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain? <br>What lofty looks th’ unrivalled monarch bears ! <br>How all the tyrant in his face appears ! <br>What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow !<br>Gods ! how his eyes with threat’ning ardour glow ! <br>Can this imperious lord forget to reign, <br>Quit all his state, descend, and serve again? <br>Yet, who, before, mere popularly bowed? <br>Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd?<br>Patient of right, familiar in the throne? <br>What wonder then? he was not then alone. <br>O wretched we, a vile, submissive train, <br>Fortune’s tame fools, and slaves in ev’ry reign ! <br>As when two winds with rival force contend,<br>This way and that, the wav’ring sails they bend, <br>While freezing Boreas, and black Eurus blow, <br>Now here, now there, tho reeling vessel throw: <br>Thus on each side, alas ! our tott’ring state <br>Feels all the fury of resistless fate, <br>And doubtful still, and still distracted stands, <br>While that prince threatens, and while this commands.” <br>And now th’ almighty father of the gods <br>Convenes a council in the blest abodes: <br>Far in the bright recesses of the skies,<br>high o’er the rolling heav’ns, a mansion lies, <br>Whence, far below, the gods at once survey <br>The realms of rising and declining day,<br>And all lii’ extended space of earth, and air, and sea. <br>Full in the midst, and on a starry throne, <br>The majesty of heav’n superior shone; <br>Serene he looked, and gave an awful nod, <br>And all the trembling spheres confessed the god. <br>At Jove’s assent the deities around <br>In solemn state the consistory crowned.<br>Next a long order of inferior pow’rs <br>Ascend from hills, and plains, and shady bow’rs; <br>Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow; <br>And those that give the wand’ring winds to blow: <br>Here all their rage, and ev’n their murmurs cease, <br>And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace. <br>A shining synod of majestic gods <br>Gilds with new lustre the divine abodes; <br>Heav’n seems improved with a superior ray, <br>And the bright arch reflects a double day.<br>The monarch then his solemn silence broke, <br>The still creation listened while he spoke, <br>Each sacred accent bears eternal weight, <br>And each irrevocable word is fate. <br>“How long shall man the wrath of heav’n defy,<br>And force unwilling vengeance from the sky!</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=476008" data-title="Thebais - Book One - part II de Pablius Papinius Statius" data-description="A robe obscene was o’er her shoulders thrown, 
A dress by fates and furies worn alone. us 
She tossed her meagre arms; her better hand’ 
In waving circles whirled a fun’ral brand: 
A serpent from her left was seen to rear 
His flaming crest,..."></div>
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