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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476010" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Thebais - Book One - part IV</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">For by the black infernal Styx I swear, <br>(That dreadful oath which binds the thunderer) <br>‘Tis fixed; th’ irrevocable doom of Jove; <br>No force can bend me, no persuasion move. <br>haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air;<br>Go, mount the winds, and to the shades repair; <br>Bid hell’s black monarch my commands obey, <br>And give up Laius to the realms of day, <br>Whose ghost yet shiv’ring on Cocytus’ sand, <br>Expects its passage to thc further strand:<br>Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear <br>These pleasing orders to the tyrant’s ear; <br>That from his exiled brother, swelled with pride <br>Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride, <br>Almighty Jove commands him to detain <br>The promised empire, and alternate reign: <br>Be this the cause of more than mortal hate: <br>The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate.” <br>The god obeys, and to his feet applies <br>Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies.<br>His ample hat his beamy locks o’erspread, <br>And veiled the starry glories of his head. <br>He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly, <br>Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye; <br>That drives the dead to dark Tartarcan coasts,<br>Or back to life compels the wand’ring ghosts. <br>Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of May <br>Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way; <br>Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight, <br>Now springs aloft, and tow’rs th’ ethereal height; <br>Then wheeling down the steep of heav’n he flies, <br>And draws a radiant circle o’er the skies. <br>Meantime the banished Polynices roves <br>(his Thebes abandoned through th’ Aonian groves, <br>While future realms his wand’ring thoughts delight, <br>His daily vision and his dream by night; <br>Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye, <br>From whence he sees his absent brother fly, <br>With transport views the airy rule his own, <br>And swells on an imaginary throne. <br>Fain would he cast a tedious age away, <br>And live out all in one triumphant day. <br>He chides the lazy progress of the sun, <br>And bids the year with swifter motion run. <br>With anxious hopes his craving mind is tost,<br>And all his joys in length of wishes lost. <br>The hero then resolves his course to bend <br>Where ancient Danaus’ fruitful fields extend, <br>And famed Mycene’s lofty towers ascend, <br>(Where late the sun did Atreus’ crimes detest, <br>And disappeared in horror of the feast.) <br>And now by chance, by fate, or furies led, <br>From Bacehus’ consecrated caves he fled, <br>Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons sound, <br>And Pentheus’ blood enriched the rising ground. <br>Then sees Cithaeron tow’ring o’er the plain, <br>And thence declining gently to the main. <br>Next to the bounds of Nisus’ realm repairs, <br>Where treach’rous Scylla cut the purple hairs : <br>The hanging cliffs of Sciron’s rock explores, <br>And hears the murmurs of the diff’rent shores: <br>Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas, <br>And stately Corinth’s pleasing site surveys. <br>‘Twas now the time when Phœbus yields to night, <br>And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light, <br>Wide o’er the world in solemn pomp she drew <br>Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew; <br>All birds and beasts lie hushed; sleep steals away <br>The wild desires of men, and toils of day, <br>And brings, descending through the silent air,<br>A sweet forgetfulness of human care. <br>Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay, <br>Promise the skies the bright return of day; <br>No faint reflections of the distant light <br>Streak with long gleams the scatt’ring shades of night: <br>From the damp earth impervious vapours rise, <br>Encrease the darkness, and involve the skies. <br>At once the rushing winds with roaring sound <br>Burst from th’ Æolian caves, and rend the ground, <br>With equal rage their airy quarrel try, <br>And win by turns the kingdom of the sky: <br>But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds <br>The heav’ns, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds, <br>From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours, <br>Which the cold north congeals to haily show’rs.<br>From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud, <br>And broken lightnings flash from ev’ry cloud. <br>Now smoaks with show’rs the misty mountain-ground, <br>And floated fields lie undistinguished round. <br>Th’ Inachian streams with headlong fury run, <br>And Erasmus rolls a deluge on: <br>The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds, <br>And spreads its ancient poisons o’er the grounds: <br>Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play, <br>Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away:<br>Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn, <br>Are whirled in air, and on the winds are borne: <br>The storm the dark Lycæan groves displayed, <br>And first to light exposed the sacred shade. <br>Th’ intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky,<br>Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly, <br>And views astonished, from the hills afar, <br>The floods descending, and the wat’ry war,’ <br>That, driv’n by storms, and pouring o’er the plain, <br>Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main. <br>Through the brown horrors of the night he fled, <br>Nor knows, amazed, what doubtful path to tread; <br>His brother’s image to his mind appears, <br>Inflames his heart with rage, and wings his feet with fears. <br>So fares a sailor on the stormy main,<br>When clouds conceal Boötes’ golden warn, <br>When not a star its friendly lustre keeps, <br>Nor trembling Cynthia glimmers on the deeps; <br>He dreads the rocks, and shoals, and seas, and skies, <br>While thunder roars, and lightning round him flies. <br>Thus strove the chief, on every side distressed, <br>Thus still his courage, with his toils increased; <br>With his broad shield opposed, he forced his way <br>Through thickest woods, and roused the beasts of prey, <br>Till he beheld, where from Larissa’s height <br>The shelving walls reflect a glancing light: <br>Thither with haste the Theban hero flies; <br>On this side Lerna’s pois’nous water lies, <br>On that Prosymna’s grove and temple rise : <br>lie passed the gates, which then unguarded lay,<br>And to the regal palace bent his way; <br>On the cold marble, spent with toil, he lies, <br>And waits till pleasing slumbers seal his eyes. <br>Adrastus here his happy people sways, <br>Blest with calm peace in his declining days; <br>By both his parents of descent divine, <br>Great Jove and Phœbus graced his noble line: <br>Heaven had not crowned his wishes with a son, <br>But two fair daughters heired his state and throne. <br>To him Apollo (wondrous to relate ! <br>But who can pierce into the depths of fate?) <br>Had sung-“Expect thy sons on Argos’ shore, <br>“A yellow lion and a bristly boar.” <br>This long revolved in his paternal breast, <br>Sate heavy on his heart, and broke his rest; <br>This, great Amphiaraus, lay hid from thee, <br>Though skilled in fate, and dark futurity. <br>The father’s care and prophet’s art were vain, <br>For thus did the predicting god ordain. <br>Lo hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand <br>Had slain his brother, leaves his native land, <br>And seized with horror in the shades of night, <br>Through the thick deserts headlong urged his flight: <br>Now by the fury of the tempest driv’n, <br>He seeks a shelter from th’ inclement heav’n, <br>Till, led by fate, the Theban’s steps he treads, <br>And to fair Argos’ open court succeeds. <br>When thus the chiefs from diff’rent lands resort <br>T’ Adrastus’ realms, and hospitable court; <br>The king surveys his guests with curious eyes, <br>And views their arms and habit with surprise. <br>A lion’s yellow skin the Theban wears, <br>horrid his mane, and rough with curling hairs; <br>Such once employed Alcides’ youthful toils, <br>Ere yet adorned with Nemea’s dreadful spoils. <br>A boar’s stiff hide, of Calydonian breed, <br>Œnides’ manly shoulders overspread. <br>Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood, <br>Alive, the pride and terror of the wood. <br>Struck with the sight, and fixed in deep amaze, <br>The King th’ accomplished oracle surveys, <br>Reveres Apollo’s vocal caves, and owns <br>The guiding godhead, and his future sons. <br>O’er all his bosom secret transports reign, <br>And a glad horror shoots through ev’ry vein. <br>To heav’n he lifts his hands, erects his sight, <br>And thus invokes the silent queen of night. <br>“Goddess of shades, beneath whose gloomy reign <br>You spangled arch glows with the starry train: <br>You who the cares of heav’n and earth allay, <br>Till nature quickened by th’ inspiring ray <br>Wakes to new vigour with the rising day: <br>Oh thou who freest me from my doubtful state, <br>Long lost aid wildered in the maze of fate ! <br>Be present still, oh goddess ! in our aid; <br>Proceed, and firms those omens thou hast made. <br>We to thy name our annual rites will pay, <br>And on thy altars sacrifices lay; <br>The sable flock shall fall beneath the stroke, <br>And fill thy temples with a grateful smoke. <br>Hail, faithful Tripos ! hail, ye dark abodes <br>Of awful Phœbus: I confess the gods!” <br>Thus, seized with sacred fear, the monarch prayed; <br>Then to his inner court the guests conveyed; <br>Where yet thin fumes from dying sparks arise, <br>And dust yet white upon each altar lies, <br>The relics of a former sacrifice.</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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(That dreadful oath which binds the thunderer) 
‘Tis fixed; th’ irrevocable doom of Jove; 
No force can bend me, no persuasion move. 
haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air;
Go, mount the winds, ..."></div>
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