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The balls are wounded with the piercing ray,
And dusky vapours rise, and intercept the day.
So just recovering from the shades of night,

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Your swimming eyes are drunk with sudden light, Strange phantoms dance around, and skim before your sight:

"Then, sir, be cautious, nor too rashly deem;

Heaven knows how seldom things are what they seem!

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Consult your reason, and you soon shall find
'Twas you were jealous, not your wife unkind:
Jove ne'er spoke oracle more true than this,
None judge so wrong as those who think amiss."
With that she leaped into her lord's embrace,
With well-dissembled virtue in her face.
He hugged her close, and kissed her o'er and o'er,
Disturbed with doubts and jealousies no more:
Both pleased and blessed, renewed their mutual vows,
A fruitful wife, and a believing spouse.

Thus ends our tale, whose moral next to make,
Let all wise husbands hence example take;

And pray, to crown the pleasure of their lives,
To be so well deluded by their wives.

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THE FIRST BOOK OF

STATIUS HIS THEBAIS.

TRANSLATED IN THE YEAR 1703

The First Book of the Thebais of Statius was published in 1712, in Lintot's Miscellany. Pope had tried his hand at translating part of Statius before he was twelve years of age; and his efforts were revised by his early friend Henry Cromwell, so mysteriously described by Gay in Alexander Pope his safe return from Troy as "honest hatless Cromwell, with red breeches." Papinius Statius, born at Naples about 50 A.D. was the most popular poet

of the Flavian epoch, and besides his epics, the Thebais (in 12 books) and the Achilleis (in 2), wrote the Sylva (5 books of occasional pieces). Of his Thebais, said to have been founded on the Greek poem by Antimachus, a criticism will be found in Merivale's Romans under the Empire, chap. Ixiv., where it is designated as perhaps the most perfect in form and arrangement of ancient epics, but confused in its general effect from want of breadth and largeness of treatment.

ARGUMENT.

Edipus King of Thebes having by mistake slain his father Laius, and married his mother Jocasta, put out his own eyes, and resigned the realm to his sons Eteocles and Polynices. Being neglected by them, he makes his prayer to the fury Tisiphone, to sow debate betwixt the brothers. They agree at last to reign singly, each a year by turns, and the first lot is obtained by Eteocles. Jupiter, in a council of the gods, declares his resolution of punishing the Thebans, and Argives also, by means of a marriage betwixt Polynices and one of the daughters of Adrastus, King of Argus. Juno opposes, but to no effect; and Mercury is sent on a message to the shades, to the ghost of Laius, who is to appear to Eteocles, and provoke him to break the agreement. Polynices, in the meantime, departs from Thebes by night, is overtaken by a storm, and arrives at Argos; where he meets with Tydeus, who had fled from Calydon, having killed his brother. Adrastus entertains them, having received an oracle from Apollo that his daughter should be married to a boar and a lion, which he understands to be meant of these strangers by whom the hides of those beasts were worn, and who arrived at the time when he kept an annual feast in honour of that god. The rise of this solemnity he relates to his guests, the loves of Phoebus and Psamathe, and the story of Chorobus. He inquires, and is made acquainted with that descent and quality: The sacrifice is renewed, and the book concludes with a Hymn to Apollo.

The translator hopes he needs not apologise for his choice of this piece, which was made almost in his childhood. But finding the version better than he expected, he gave it some correction a few years afterwards.

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FRATERNAL rage the guilty Thebes alarms,
The 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 its early times,

Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree,

And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea?
How with the serpent's teeth he sowed the soil,
And reaped an iron harvest of his toil;
Or how from joining stones the city sprung,
While to his harp divine Amphion sung?
Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,
Whose fatal rage the unhappy Monarch found ?
The sire against the son his arrows drew,
O'er the wide fields the furious mother flew,
And while her arms a second hope contain,
Sprung from the rocks, and plunged into the main.
But waive whate'er to Cadmus may belong,

And fix, O muse! the barrier of thy song

At Edipus-from his disasters trace
The long confusions of his guilty race:

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Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing,

And mighty Cæsar's conquering eagles sing;

How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood,

While Dacian mountains streamed with barbarous blood;
Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,
And stretched his empire to the frozen pole;
Oh, long before, with early valour strove

In youthful arms to assert the cause of Jove.
And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame,
Increase of glory to the Latian name !
Oh bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,

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Scarce seemed her stature of a cubit's height;
But swelled to larger size, the more I gazed,
Till to the roof her towering front she raised.
With her, the temple every moment grew,
And ampler vistas opened to my view :
Upward the columns shoot, the roofs ascend,
And arches widen, and long aisles extend.
Such was her form as ancient bards have told,
Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold;
A thousand busy tongues the goddess bears,
And thousand open eyes, and thousand listening ears.
Beneath, in order ranged, the tuneful nine

(Her virgin handmaids) still attend the shrine:
With eyes on fame for ever fixed, they sing;

For fame they raise the voice, and tune the string ;
With time's first birth began the heavenly lays,
And last, eternal, through the length of days.
Around these wonders as I cast a look,
The trumpet sounded, and the temple shook,
And all the nations, summoned at the call,
From different quarters fill the crowded hall :

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Of various tongues the mingled sounds were heard; 280
In various garbs promiscuous throngs appeared;

Thick as the bees, that with the spring renew
Their flowery toils, and sip the fragrant dew,
When the winged colonies first tempt the sky,
O'er dusky fields and shaded waters fly,

Or settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield,
And a low murmur runs along the field.
Millions of suppliant crowds the shrine attend,
And all degrees before the goddess bend;
The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage,
And boasting youth, and narrative old age.

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Their pleas were different, their request the same:
For good and bad alike are fond of fame.

Some she disgraced, and some with honours crowned; Unlike successes equal merits found.

Thus her blind sister, fickle fortune, reigns,

And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.

First at the shrine the learned world appear,

And to the goddess thus prefer their prayer.

"Long have we sought to instruct and please mankind, With studies pale, with midnight vigils blind;

But thanked by few, rewarded yet by none,

We here appeal, to thy superior throne:
On wit and learning the just prize bestow,
For fame is all we must expect below."

The goddess heard, and bade the muses raise
The golden trumpet of eternal praise:
From pole to pole the winds diffuse the sound,
That fills the circuit of the world around;
Not all at once, as thunder breaks the cloud;
The notes at first were rather sweet than loud:
By just degrees they every moment rise,
Fill the wide earth, and gain upon the skies.
At every breath were balmy odours shed,
Which still grew sweeter as they wider spread;
Less fragrant scents the unfolding rose exhales,
Or spices breathing in Arabian gales.

Next these the good and just, an awful train,
Thus on their knees address the sacred fane.
'Since living virtue is with envy cursed,
And the best men are treated like the worst,
Do thou, just goddess, call our merits forth,

And give each deed the exact intrinsic worth."
"Not with bare justice shall your act be crowned"

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