Silvae II.1 (Mozley): Glaucias, the Favourite of Atedius Melior

How can I begin to console thee, Melior, for thy foster-son untimely taken? How can I heartlessly sing before the pyre, while the ashes are still aglow? The lamentable wound gapes wide with sundered veins, and the dangerous path of the great gash lies open. Even while I relentlessly compose my spells and healing words, thou dost prefer to beat the breast and cry aloud, and hatest my lyre and turnest away with deaf ear. Untimely is my song: sooner would a despoiled lioness or tigress robbed of her cubs give ear to me. Not if the triple chant of the Sicilian maidens were wafted hither, or the harp that beasts and woodlands understood, would they soothe thy distracted wailing. Demented Grief hath his stand in thy heart; at a touch thy breast heaves and sobs.

Have thy fill of bitterness: none forbids thee. Overcome, by giving it rein, the malady of thy distress. At last is thy luxury of weeping sated? At last art thou wearied out and deignest to hear a friend’s entreaty? Now shall I sing? Lo! even in my mouth my song is choked with sobs, the words are blotted by falling tears. For I myself led forth with thee the solemn line of sable mourners and the boyish bier, a crime for the City to behold; I saw the cruel heaps of incense doomed to destruction and the soul wailing above its own corpse; thee too, as thou didst break through sobbing fathers and mothers that would stay thee, and didst embrace the pyre and prepare to swallow the flames, could I scarce restrain, thy comrade in like case, and offended by restraining. And now, alas! a bard of evil, my fillets unbound and the glory departed from my brow, I reverse my lyre and beat my breast with thee; but be assuaged, I pray thee, and suffer me as partner of thy mourning, if I have so deserved and shared thy sorrow. In the very hour of calamity fathers have heard my voice; by the very pyre have I sung solace to prostrate mothers and loving children—ay, to myself also, when swooning beside kindred flames I mourned, O Nature, what a father! Nor do I sternly forbid thee to lament; nay, let us mingle our tears and weep together.

Long have I sought distractedly, beloved boy, a worthy approach and prelude to thy praises. Here thy boyhood, standing on life’s threshold, calls me, there thy beauty, there a modesty beyond thy years and honour and probity too ripe for thy tender age. Ah! where is that fair complexion flushed by the glow of health, those starry orbs whose glance is radiant with heaven’s light, where the chaste composure of that low brow, the artless curls above and the soft line of lovely hair? Where is the mouth that prattled with fond complainings, those kisses redolent, as he clung, of vernal blossoms, his tears mingled with smiles, and his accents steeped in Hybla’s honey? A serpent would hush its hissing and cruel stepdames be fain to do his bidding. Nothing false do I add to his true beauty. Alas! that milk-white throat! those arms that were ever about his master’s neck! Where now is that not far distant hope of coming manhood, the longed-for glory of his cheeks, that beard that thou oft didst swear by? The remorseless hour and Time the enemy have swept all to ashes: to us is left but to remember. Who will beguile thy thoughts with the merry chatter thou didst love? who will allay thy cares and brooding mind? Who will appease thee when incensed with angry passion and storming at the serving-folk, and divert thee from thy fury to himself? Who, when the feast is begun and the wine poured out, will snatch it away e’en from thy lips and confound all things in delightful rapine? Who will climb on thy couch in the morning and whisper thee awake, and clasping thee tight delay thy going, and from the very gate recall thee to his kisses? Who will be the first to meet thee on thy return, and leap to thy kiss and thy embrace, and put his tiny arms about thy shoulders? Mute is the house, I vow, and lonely the hearth; desolation is in the chambers and a drear silence at the board.

What wonder if thy good foster-father honours thee with so grand a funeral? thou wert to thy lord the peaceful haven of his old age, thou wert now his delight, now the sweet object of his care. No outlandish revolving stage turned thee about, no slave-boy wert thou amid Egyptian wares, to utter studied jests and well-conned speeches, and by impudent tricks to seek and slowly win a master. Here was thy home, here wast thou born, both thy parents have long been loved in their master’s house, and for thy joy were they freed, lest thou shouldst complain of thy birth. Nay, no sooner wert thou taken from the womb, when thy lord exultantly raised thee, and as thy first cry greeted the shining stars appointed thee for his own and held thee close in his bosom and deemed himself thy sire. May the sanctities of parents forgive my words, and do thou suffer me, O Nature, to whom it is given to hallow the earliest ties between soul and soul throughout the world: bonds of blood and lineage are not all; often do alien or adopted children creep further into our hearts than our own kindred. Of necessity we beget sons, of our pleasure do we choose them. Thus by his winning ways the half-beast Chiron supplanted Haemonian Peleus in young Achilles’ favour. Nor did the aged Peleus accompany his son to the fight at Troy, but ’twas Phoenix that stirred not from his pupil’s side. Far off Evander prayed for Pallas’ victorious return, but faithful Acoetes watched the combat. And when his sire for idleness came not from the shining stars, wave-wandering Dictys tended the winged Perseus. Why should I speak of mothers surpassed in their affection by foster-nurses? Why of thee, O Bacchus, who when a treacherous doom had laid thy mother in ashes nestled more securely in Ino’s bosom? And when Ilia, fearing her sire no more, reigned a queen in Tuscan waters, Romulus was burdening Acca’s arms. I have seen myself shoots grafted on another tree grow higher than their own. And already had thy will and purpose, Melior, made thee his sire, though not yet his charm and goodness; nevertheless thou didst love the words even now mingled with his utterance, and his rude infant cries and tears.

He, like a flower that is doomed to perish at the first breath of the South wind, yet with reckless daring lifts high its head in the lush meadow, young as he was had early surpassed his peers in pride of step and countenance, and had far outstripped his years. Did he stand with limbs bent in the locked wrestling-bout, you would have deemed him born of an Amyclaean mother; Apollo would soon have exchanged for him the son of Oebalus, Alcides had bartered Hylas; if in Grecian dress he declaimed the Attic speech of fluent Menander, Thalia would have rejoiced and praised his accents, and in wanton mood have disordered his comely locks with a rosy garland; or if he recited the old Maeonian and the toils of Troy, or the mishaps and slow returning of Ulysses, his very father, his very teachers were amazed at his understanding. Truly did Lachesis touch his cradle with ill-omened hand, and Envy clasped the babe and held him in her bosom: the one fondled his cheeks and luxuriant curls, the other taught him his skill and inspired those words over which we now make moan. His rising years, though infancy still was near, had begun to draw level with the toils of Hercules; yet already was he firm of stride, and his height outstripped his dress, and the garments seemed to shrink upon the lad, for what garments, what apparel did not thy kindly lord hasten to procure thee? He constrained not thy breast in a narrow tunic, nor cramped thy shoulders in a straitening cloak; nor did he drape thee in large, ill-fitting folds, but ever suiting the raiment to thy years now garbed thee in scarlet, now in grass-green clothing, now in the soft blush of purple, or rejoiced to kindle the flash of gems upon thy fingers; unfailing was thy attendant train, unfailing were his gifts; the bordered robe alone was lacking to thy modest beauty.

Such was the fortune of that house. Suddenly Fate lifted her hand to strike. Wherefore, O goddess, dost thou banefully unsheathe those cruel talons? Doth not his beauty move thee, or his piteous tender age? Fierce Procne would not have had the heart to rend him for her lord, nor would the savage Colchian have persisted in her cruel ire, even though he had been the son of Aeolian Creusa; from him would grim Athamas have turned aside his maddened bow; Ulysses though hating Hector’s ashes and Troy full sore would have wept to hurl him from the Phrygian towers. ’Tis the seventh day, and already those eyes are dull and cold, and Juno of the underworld hath clasped him and seized in her hand the lock of hair. Yet he, though the Fates press hard upon his frail life, beholds thee with his dying vision and murmurs thy name with faltering tongue; to thee he gasps out the last breath from his exhausted frame, thee alone he remembers, thy cry alone he hears, for thee his lips are moved and his last words spoken, as he bids thee not to mourn and consoles thy grief. Yet we thank thee, O Fate, that no lingering death devoured his boyish charm as he lay, that he went inviolate to the shades, just as he was, without touch of harm upon his body.

Why should I tell of the funeral rites, the gifts flung prodigally to the flames, the melancholy pomp of the blazing pyre? How thou didst heap the purples high on the sad pile, how Cilician blooms and gifts of Indian herbs, and juices of Arabia and Palestine and Egypt steeped the hair that was to burn? Fain would Melior bring all without stinting, and consume whole fortunes in loathing of his wealth laid desolate; but the grudging fire avails not, and the puny flames are too few to burn the gifts. Awe lays hold upon my heart. O Melior, once so calm, how distraught wert thou in that deadly hour beside the pyre, how I feared thee! Was that the merry, kindly face we knew? Whence that frenzy, those merciless hands, those spasms of wild grief as thou liest prostrate on the ground shunning the cruel light, or fiercely tearest thy clothes and bosom, straining the dear face to thee and kissing the cold lips? The father and sorrowing mother of the dead one were there, but on thee they gazed awe-stricken—what wonder? All the people mourned the deadly blow, and crowds escorted thee on the Flaminian road across the Mulvian bridge, while an innocent child is given over to the angry flames, and both by his age and by his beauty wins their tears. Such was Palaemon, when his mother flung herself on him as he lay shipwrecked and cast up from the sea in the Isthmian haven; such too Opheltes, whom the serpent tore as he played in the snake-haunted grass of Lerna, when the greedy fire consumed him.

But lay aside thy fears, and be no more in dread of threatening Death: Cerberus with triple jaws will not bark at him, no Sister will terrify him with flames and towering hydras; nay, even the grim sailor of the greedy boat will draw nearer to the barren shores and fire-scorched bank, that the boy’s embarking may be easy.

What message brings the son of Cyllene, waving a glad wand? Can there be aught of joy in so terrible a time? Well did the lad know the likeness and lofty countenance of noble Blaesus, for often had he seen thee at home twining fresh garlands and pressing that image to thy breast. And when he recognized him among the Ausonian nobles and the lineage of Quirinus pacing the shores of Lethe’s stream, he silently drew near and first walked beside him timidly and plucked at his garment’s edge, then followed him more boldly, for as he more boldly plucked the other spurned him not, but thought him an unknown scion of his house. Soon when he knew that the boy was the darling and favourite of a friend so rare, the solace for his lost Blaesus, he raised him from the ground and fastened him about his mighty shoulders, and a long while carried him rejoicing upon his arm, and offered him such gifts as kindly Elysium bears, sterile boughs and songless birds and pale flowers with bruised blossoms. Nor does he forbid him to remember thee, but fondly blends heart with heart, and takes part in turn in the affection of the lad.

It is the end: he is lost to thee. Wilt thou not now assuage thy pain and lift thy grief-sunken head? All that thou seest is dead or doomed to die; nights and days perish, and the stars, nor does the frame of the solid earth avail her. Our race is of mortal kind, and who should bewail the passing of folk whose end is sure? War claims some, the ocean others; some are victims of love, of madness, or fell desire; these winter’s freezing breath awaits, those the fierce heat of deadly Sirius, others pale Autumn with rain-bringing jaws. All that hath had beginning fears its end. Doomed are we all, ay, doomed: for shades innumerable doth Aeacus shake his urn. But he whom we mourn is happy: gods and men hath he escaped, and doubtful chance and the dangers of our dark life: he is beyond the will of Fate. He prayed not, nor feared nor deserved to die; but we, poor anxious creatures, miserable folk, we know not whence our death shall come, what our life’s end shall be, from what quarter the thunderbolt threatens, what cloud utters the sound of doom. Do these thoughts not move thee? But thou shalt be moved, and willingly. Come hither, Glaucias, who alone canst obtain all thou dost ask; leave that dark threshold, for neither the ferryman nor the comrade of the cruel beast bars the way to innocent souls; soothe thou his heart and forbid his tears to flow; make his nights glad with thy sweet converse and thy living countenance. Tell him thou art not dead, and hasten to commend to him—for thou canst—thy unhappy parents and thy sister left forlorn.