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Statius II
Prayers from the Thebaid.
Publius Papinius Statius (c. 40-95/96 CE)
Thebaid I.56-9 O Gods, who reign over the guilty souls and mean minded who serve in Tartaran punishments, and you dark depths of blackness, River Styx whom I see before me, and You, Tisiphone, to whom so often I pray, give your assent and favor my unnatural prayers. I.85-7 Grant, O Queen of the lowest depths of Tartarus, that I may see the evil I desire and a youthful mind soon will follow. I.643-5 Not am I sent by anyone, O Apollo of Thymbra, nor as a suppliant do I approach your shrine, conscious of my pious duties and the demands made of me by virtue has led me your way. I.694-6; 716-720 Pour wine on the altar’s fire as we sing our vows again and again to Leto’s son, the Preserver of our forefathers. Father Phoebus, whether it is the snowy slopes of Lycia or the thorny slopes of Patara that perpetually keep you busy, or if it pleases you to merge your golden hair in Castalia’s chaste moisture, … come now, remembering our hospitality, and bless once more the fertile fields of Juno, whether it is right to name you as the rosy Titan (Aurora), as in the Achaemenian rites, or whether it is better to name you Osiris the Fruit-bearer, or whether, as you are known beneath rocky shelters amid the Persian cavern, bending the reluctant horns to follow you, as Mithras. II.715-42 Proud, warlike Goddess, great honor and wisdom of Your Father, powerful in war are You, on whom the grim helmet is borne with its frightful decoration, speckled with the Gorgon’s blood that glows more violent with increasing rage, never has Mavors or Bellona with Her battle spear inspired more ardent calls to arms on the war trumpets than You. May You with Your nod accept this sacrificial offering. Whether You come from Mount Pandion to our rites by night, or from dancing happily in Ainian Itone, or from washing once more Your hair in the waters of Libyan Triton, or whether the winged axle of your war chariot, with its paired pure-bred horses carries you astride its beam, shouting aloud, now, to You, we dedicate the shattered spoils of virile men and their battered armour. Should I return to my Parthaonian fields, and upon being sighted Martian Pleuron should throw open wide her gates for me, then amid her hills, at the center of the city, I shall dedicate to you a golden temple, where it may be your pleasure to look upon Ionian storms, and where Achelous tosses about his flaxen hair to disturb the sea where it leaves behind the breakers of Echinades. In here will I display accounts of ancestral wars and the death-masks of great hearted kings, and affix the arms of the proud in the rotunda that I have returned with myself, taken at the cost of my own blood, and those, Tritonia, that you will grant when Thebes is captured. There a hundred Calydonian virgins will serve in devotions at your altar, shall duly twine the Actaean torches, and weave from Your chaste olive tree purple sacrificial fillets with snow white strands of wool. At nightly vigils an aged priestess will tend your altar’s fire, and never will she neglect to safeguard your modesty, attending in secret to the rites of your boudoir. To you in war, to you in peace, the first fruits of our labors shall be borne, without offence to Diana. III.471-96 Jupiter, God Almighty, You are, as we are so taught, He who imparts counsel to swift wings, and You who fills birds with foreknowledge of the future, and brings to light the omens and causes that lurk within the heavens, - not Cirrha can more surely vouchsafe the inspiration of her grotto, nor those Chaonian leaves that are famed to rustle at your bidding, Jupiter Dodona, in Molossian groves, though arid Hammon envy, and the Lycian oracle of Apollo contend in rivalry, and the Apis bull of the Nile, and Branhus, whose honor in Miletus is equal to his father Apollo’s, and Pan, whom the rustic neighbors hear nightly along the wave beaten shores of Pisa, beneath Lycainian shades. More enriched in mind is he, for whom You, O Dictaean Jupiter, announce Your will in the favoring flights of birds. Wondrous the reason, but once, long ago, this honour was given to the birds, whether from His heavenly hall the Creator Himself granted it, sowing into fertile fabric of Chaos the hidden Nature of new things; or whether birds first took flight on the winds after evolving from forms that were originally like our own; or because their flight to learn the truth takes them nearer to the purer poles of the sky, from where wickedness is banished, and rarely do they alight on the earth; all this, Highest Father of the Gods and of the earth, is already known by You. May You allow that, guided by the skies, we shall have foreknowledge of the assembly of Argive forces and their initial movements in the fight ahead. If the Fates have resolved for the Lernaean spear to pierce the Echionian gates, then grant us signs and thunder on the left. Then let every bird in the heavens resound with his or her arcane language in confirmation. If, though, You prohibit this, then weave delays and on the right disguise the day’s abyss with winged creatures. IV.32-8 Now for me, primordial Fame and arcane Vetustas of the deepest antiquity and of the most distant future, in whose care is placed the memory of leaders and the stories of their lives, and you, too, Calliope, O Queen of the sacred grove of song, lend a hand in the telling, upon your lofty lyre soften the tales of armies advancing into war under the inspiration of Gradivus, and of cities stripped of their people, for none other are so inspired by drawing a draught from your fountain. IV.383-404 Almighty Father of Nysa, who long has passed from loving your ancestral rites in distant India, who now is swiftly borne beneath the frozen North to shake warlike Ismara with your thyrsus, you, Bacchus, who now urges the grapevines to overgrow the realm of Lycurgus, or you who is swelling the Ganges and the Red Sea, to the farthest Eastern lands, rushing forward and shouting in triumph, or who from the springs of Hermus rises forth golden, but we, your progeny, have had to lay aside such arms that do you honor at festivals, instead to bear war and tears, alarm and similar horrors, the burdens of unjust reigns. Rather than speak to you once more of the monstrous acts of these leaders and of their vulgar progeny, rather would I have you carry me across the eternally frozen lands beyond the Caucasus Mountains where Amazons howl out their war cries. Behold, you press me hard, Bacchus. Far different from the frenzy I had sworn to you, I saw the clash of two bulls, both alike in honor and sharing one lineage, butting heads and locking their horns in fierce combat and both perish in their shared wrath. You are the worse evil. You depart. Guilty are you who pray that he alone should gain possession of ancestral pastures and hills whose ownership is shared with others. Evil one, born of the wretched, so much has warfare and bloodshed brought you; now another leader holds your glades and pastures. IV.473-87 Abodes of Tartarus and formidable realm of incessant Death, and you, most cruel of the (three) Brothers, to whom the Manes are given to serve, and for whom the damned are enslaved as an eternal punishment in the deepest regions of the world, unlock the way to the silent places at whose door I now knock, and open the way into the empty void of stern Persephone. In the darkness of the night call forth the multitude of souls from their graves, and may the Ferryman return across the river Styx with a full barge. Carry them along a single course, may there not be another path by which the Manes might return into the light. Daughter of Perseis Hecate and powerful cloud-wrapped Arcadian virgin, lead the pious to Elysium in a separate assembly. But for those who died guilty of an offense, who in Erebus are most in number, as they are most numerous in the bloodline of Cadmus, O Tisiphone, leader on their day of judgement, three times cast them out, leading the way with a writhing snake in one hand and a flaming bough of yew in the other, and do not let those shades, in need of light, be turned aside from meeting their destruction at the mouths of Cerebus. IV.501-3 I bear witness, O Goddess, for whom we fill this fire (with whole-burnt offerings) and to whom with our left hand we yield the wine of this drinking cup into an open pit in the earth, no longer can I abide with your delays. IV.649-51 Tell us, O Phoebus, who would have bent their rage, who might cause their delay, and in midcourse turn them astray. IV.746-64 Potent Goddess of sacred groves - for by your noble appearance and modesty I think you are not born of mortals - beneath a starry sky delighting, no need have you to search for water; come quickly then to help your neighbors. Whether Diana, who is mighty with the bow and Latona’s daughter, has sent you from Her chaste company to the bridal chamber, or whether a lapse for humble love has drawn you from the stars above to make you fertile, for the Arbiter among the Gods is Himself not new to Argive wedding beds, look with favor upon a tired army on the march. We determined that Thebes deserves to be destroyed with the sword brought forward, but now severe drought makes us no longer war-like, it bends our hearts, ands weakens us into idleness. Grant drink to those who are weary, whether you hold a babbling brook or stagnant pool. This will bring no shame or desecration to your place. Winds, you now are asked along with Jove for rain, may you refresh our virile and bellicose hearts and replenish our lifeless spirits. Thus with favoring skies may this burden to you thrive with rain laden clouds. Only Jupiter may grant that we will return with plunder, but if so, O Goddess, war gained riches we will pile as offerings of thanks to you. For your sanctuary, Goddess, a great altar we will build, and wash it in the blood of numerous Boeotian cattle to repay your kindness. IV.825-43 Nemea, queen of verdant forests by far, chosen abode of Jove, not even during Hercules’ labors were you harsh, when he throttled the furious monster’s hairy neck and drew the last breath from the lion’s swollen body. May this suffice, as far as your rage has opposed your people’s ventures thus far. And you, O horned one, whom all the sun-filled days together could not tame, liberal dispenser of ever flowing streams, cheerfully swelling her river, from whichever mountain spring you unleash cool, refreshing water. But not in fact for you does the retreating Winter pour forth remote snows now melted, nor does the rainbow pour back what waters you carry off from other springs, nor gives way to gloomy Corus, grown pregnant in the northwest with storm clouds, but on your own you rush down and none are fated to exceed you. Neither Apollo’s river Ladon, Xanthus, or both threatening Spercheus and Lycormas of Centaur fame are superior to you. In times of peace, in times beneath the clouds of war, at the monthly feast I shall celebrate you, next to Jupiter alone in honour. May you gladly accept the trophies of a victorious army and once more may your streams willingly host our soldiers, bent and weary, and recognize those warriors you once did save. VI 197-201 Faithless Jupiter, once I vowed these golden locks to You, accepting before I spoke that I would be bound by our pact, if at the same time You would grant me to offer my youthful son’s manhood at Your temple. But far from that, Your priest would not confirm Your agreement to our pact, and instead my prayers condemned him. Then may his shade, who is worthier than You, receive them. VI 296-300 Tell us, O Phoebus, the famous names of their master, tell us the names of the horses themselves. Never before were such swift footed steeds, well bred and noble, drawn up for battle, just as dense flocks of birds may swiftly clash together or Aeolus decree furious winds to contest on a single shore. VI 633-37 Goddess, divine power of woodland groves, to you and to your honour, these locks of my hair are owed, and by the vow made to you also comes this wrong. If my mother or I merited your good assistance in the hunt, I ask you not allow me to go to Thebes under foreboding signs, nor allow Arcadia to plunge into so much shame. VII 93-103 Grant, little one, that this day will be celebrated at many of your triennial feasts. May wounded Pelops not prefer to visit Arcadian altars, or knock on Elean temples with his ivory arm. May the prosperous serpent not prefer to glide beneath Castalian altars or in the shadows of Lechaeum pine groves. Child, you are refused by us to enter mournful Avernus; we, who now speed to join with our comrades in arms, instead commit your solemn rites of mourning to the eternal stars. But if you will grant us to overturn the Boeotian houses by the sword, then a great altar in your honour we will set up and a god you will become, and not only in the Inachian cities shall your cultus be celebrated, but also captured Thebes shall swear by your name. VII 628-31 Come now, Pierian sisters, not of distant foreign lands do we ask you to reveal, reply instead about your own Aonia’s battles. For you have seen first hand when nearby Helicon quaked with Martial song and Tyrrhenian trumpet blasts announced civil war. VII 730-35 O Asope, liberal dispenser of rich Aonian waters, distinguished still further for the ashes of Giants, lend your power to this right arm. Your own son and his oaken spear, nurtured in your waters, ask this of you. If you contested against the Father of the Gods, then it is possible that I may scorn Phoebus. All his armour I will submerge in your springs along with somber sacrificial fillets taken from the augur’s head. VII 779-88 Once, Cirrhaean father, you settled upon the trembling pair of horses yoked to my doomed chariot. Why so great an honour for their misfortune? Why do you continue to delay the death threatens me? Already I hear the rapid coursing of Styx and the black rivers of Dis and the threefold guardian at the abyss. Accept the honours placed on my head, accept these laurels, that would be wrongful of me to take down to Erebus. Now my last words before I depart, if any gratitude I owe to your prophet, O Phoebus, I commend my home and family shrines to You, and leave to You the punishment of my faithless wife and my beautiful son’s impassioned furor. VIII 90-94 If it is right and lawful for the holy shades to explain themselves in this place, O great Surveyor of all men, but to me, you who know the causes and principles of our actions, and who is a Father to me and Savior as well, I pray, lessen your resolve against me and still your angry heart, do not think worthy of your wrath one who is but a man and who fears your laws. VIII 303-38 O eternal Creatrix of gods and men, who animates forest and stream with soul, and joins seeds of life together throughout the world, and you bear the stones of Pyrrha that were enlivened into men by the hand of Prometheus. Hungry men you were first to give nourishment with a variety of foods. You encircle and carry the sea within you. Under your power are the gentleness of domesticated herds and the ferocity of wild beasts and the repose from flight of birds. Firm and immobile, unsetting power of the earth suspended in the vacuum of space, you are the center around which the rapid heavens revolve. All the heavenly bodies, in chariots of fire, wheel about you, O center of the universe, indivisible from the Great Brotherhood of the Gods. Therefore are you the Bountiful who nourishes so many nations, and at the same time so many high cities and so many noble peoples. You provide yourself and all the world as one, from above and below. You carry without effort to yourself Atlas, who toils to hold up the celestial field of stars. We alone do you refuse to carry. Do we weigh you down, Goddess? For what unwitting wrong, I pray, must we atone? That we would so soon come here as a small band of strangers from distant Inachian shores? It is unworthy of you, most beneficial Goddess, to set limits by such cruel means on every side against all that is human merely by birth, against people who everywhere are your own. May you then abide with and bear arms for all alike. I pray you allow that those warriors who spend their last breathe in the battle will have their souls return once more into the heavens. Do not so suddenly carry us off to our tomb and take the breath from our body. Do not be in such haste; soon enough we will come as all do when you lead them along the path that all must travel. Only listen to our pleas and keep a level plain for the Pelasgians and do not hasten the swift Fates. And you, dear to the Gods, not by any hand or Sidonian sword were you dispatched, but mighty Nature opened Her heart to you, entombing you for your merits in Cirrha’s chasm, welcoming you in Her loving embrace. May you joyously grant, I pray, that I may come to know you in my prayers, that you may council me on the heavens and give true warnings from your prophetic altars, and that you may teach me what you are prepared to reveal to people. I will perform your rites of divination, and in Apollo’s absence I will call be your prophet and upon your divine spirit for visions. That distant place to which you hurry is, to me, more potent than all the shrines of Delos and Cirrha, better by far than the sanctuary of any other shrine. IX 315—18 Come now, learned Sisters, kindly allow me to know what great labor sank Hippomedonton beneath the swelling waves, and why Ismenos was roused into battle? IX 548-50 Come to my aid, o right arm of mine, you alone are with me in battle and an inescapable power. I call on you, to you alone can I pray in my contempt of what is allotted by the Fates and the Gods above. IX 608-35 Virgin Goddess of the sacred groves, whose unkind banners and fierce battle cries I follow, scorning my sex in a manner unlike the Greeks. Not the throngs in Colchis or the assembled Amazons cherish your sacred rites more than I. If ever did I not boldly enter Bacchic revelries of the night and, although disgraced unseen in the bedroom, nevertheless I did not bear with joy the smooth shaft of the thyrsus or the soft sacks, and even after I married, though my virgin purity was soiled, in my heart of hearts I remained a virgin huntress. I took no care to hide my fault from You in some secret cave, but held out my son to You, confessed my shame and trembling laid him at Your feet. He was not of degenerate blood, not weak or mild, but straight away he crawled to my bow and as a babe cried for my arrow. For him I pray – whose fate causes me these restless nights and threatening dreams – for him, who now audaciously goes too boldly off to war, I pray to You that I may seen him victorious, or, if I pray for too much, grant at least that I may see him once more. In this let him perspire and bear Your arms. Suppress the ill-boding omens. What foreign Maenades, what Theban gods, I ask You, Diana of the sacred Delian grove, hold power in our forest? Leave me! Deep within my heart – may the augury be in vain – why, deep within my heart, do I see such dire omens in this mighty oak? If what worrisome dreams are sent me in my sleep truly presage the future, I pray, merciful Dictynna, by Your mother’s labors and Your brother’s glory, with all Your arrows pierce deeply this unhappy womb, and let him first hear of his wretched mother’s death. X 67-69 Look, O Juno, upon the sacrilegious citadel of the Cadmean whore, and cast asunder that rebel mound. O Queen of Heaven, who rules the stars circling about the northern pole, with another thunderbolt, for You have the power, drive out Thebes as well. X 337-45 To You, Phoebus Apollo, go these spoils, prizes of the night, taken from distinguished nobles, not yet washed clean of their blood. I trust that truly I have offered You an acceptable sacrifice. I, Your faithful priest and defender of Your sacred tripod against uncivilized enemies, commit these to You. If I have not disgraced Your traditional rites and strictly kept Your rule, come often to me, think me worthy to often enter into my thoughts and seize my mind. Although now crude honors are offered You, - these broken arms stained with blood of honorable men, - if ever, Paean, You will grant the return of my native home and the temples I long for, God of Lycia, remember my vows, and however many rich gifts and as many bulls as I have promised, demand they be fulfilled. X 360-70 By these wandering stars I swear, by the shade of my leader, who is to me a divine power, that like the depth of my grief so is my deep resolve. Once my mind was downcast in mournful search of my friend, but now I shall lead the way, Cynthia, mistress of arcane mysteries of the night. If Your divine power, as they assert, is threefold and You descend into the forest each time with a different appearance, it was he who recently was Your companion, and whose honor was nurtured in Your sacred grove. At least consider now to lend me Your aid, for it is this boy, Diana, for whom I search. X 680--81 I follow You, whichever of the Gods have called to me, and will not tarry to go. X 762-73 Gods of War, and You, O Phoebus, who grant me so great a death, grant to Thebes the joys for which I have striven and all that I have bought with my blood. Recall the dogs of war and force upon captive Lerna the disgraced remnants of their army; let Inachus turn as a father from disgraced sons from those he encouraged, whose cowardly backs are now pierced with arrows. By my death return to the Tyrians their temples, their fields, their wives and children. If You are pleased to accept myself as a sacrifice, if I heard the prophet’s advice without terrified ears, and Thebes has not yet been exhausted from what I believe to be their fate, then reward Amphion’s city, I pray, in stead of my house, and reconcile them to my father whom I deceived. XI 504-8 O Gods, not in vain do You seek to put out the flames of shameful wickedness and thereby blinded Oedipus. I call upon You not to condemn my prayers. With this same hand will I atone and cut open this chest with the very same sword of my wicked act. Then in death may it come to me to possess this scepter and may my rival carry to the grave with him the sorrow of knowing his shade shall ever after serve under me as an inferior. XI 576-79 O Stygian goddesses, spare now all mankind of this evil. In all the lands and in every age may this one day alone see such wicked slaughter, may future generations forget its monstrous infamy, and may kings alone be reminded of this battle. XII 771-73 Argive spirits, to whom this victim I offer, open wide the chasm into Tartarus, prepare the avenging Eumenides to come forth. Behold, Creon |
Courtyard
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