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Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

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Hesione replies:<br />

FLAVIAN EPIC<br />

non ego digna malis, inquit; suprema parentum<br />

dona uides, ostro scopulos auroque frequentes.<br />

nos Hi felix quondam genus, inuida donee<br />

Laomedonteos fugeret Fortuna penates.<br />

principio morbi caeloque exacta sereno 475<br />

temperies, arsere rogis certantibus agri,<br />

turn subitus fragor et fluctus Idaea mouentes<br />

cum stabulis nemora. ecce repens consurgere ponto<br />

belua, monstrum ingens; hanc tu nee monribus ullis<br />

nee nostro metire man. primaeua furenti 480<br />

huic manus amplexus inter planctusque parentum<br />

deditur. hoc sortes, hoc corniger imperat Hammon,<br />

uirgineam damnare animam sortitaque Lethen<br />

corpora; crudelis scopulis me destinat urna.<br />

uerum o iam redeunt Phrygibus si numina, tuque 4 8 5<br />

ille ades auguriis promisse et sorte deorum,<br />

iam cui c<strong>and</strong>entes uotiuo in gramine pascit<br />

cornipedes genitor, nostrae stata dona salutis,<br />

adnue meque, precor, defectaque Pergama monstris<br />

eripe, namque potes: neque enim tarn lata uidebam 490<br />

pectora Neptunus muros cum iungeret astris<br />

nee tales umeros pharetramque gerebat Apollo. (471—92)<br />

/ am undeserving of such misfortunes, she said. You are looking at my parents' final<br />

gifts to me — rocks laden with purple <strong>and</strong> gold. We are scions of Ilus: once our race<br />

was blessed, till envious Fortune ab<strong>and</strong>oned the halls of Laomedon. At first came<br />

plague; fair weather departed from the peaceful heaven. The fields were ablate with<br />

a riot of funeral pyres. Then, suddenly, there was a thundering; waves shook the<br />

groves of Ida where beasts have their lairs. Straightway a vast <strong>and</strong> hideous monster<br />

emerged from the sea: you could not tell its si^e by comparison with any rocky pile,<br />

nor by our ocean. A youthful b<strong>and</strong> was sacrificed to its frenzy, torn from the embraces,<br />

the lamentations of their parents. This was the comm<strong>and</strong> of the lot, this of horned<br />

Hammon: that a girl's life <strong>and</strong> body chosen by lot should be condemned to death.<br />

I it was that the savage urn doomed to the rocks. And yet, oh, if heaven s favour has<br />

returned to the Phrygians, if you have come as augury <strong>and</strong> divine lot foretold, if you<br />

are he for whom my father is at this moment pasturing white horses in the promised<br />

field, the fixed reward for my salvation, consent — save me, save Troy ravaged by<br />

monsters, for yours is the power to do so: for I have never beheld so broad a breast,<br />

not even while Neptune bound our walls to the stars — no, not even Apollo had such<br />

shoulders, such a quiver.<br />

For a maiden in dire distress, Hesione's speech is surprisingly bathetic. It is<br />

plain enough that Valerius has eschewed rhetorical exaggeration, favouring<br />

brevity <strong>and</strong> reticence. The yearning for classical purity has, however, led him<br />

to stale aridity. The generally short sentences are not clear <strong>and</strong> concise but<br />

584<br />

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

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