Togail na Tebe = The Thebiad of Statius : the Irish text

THE THEBAIDgreat warlike shield was a dense wood of hard spears plantedtogether, when he used to shake them off. A helmet for thathero's head was no advantage against the hard well-aimed stoneswhich the Thebans continued to throw at him from every quarter,till he was crimson with the gore of his head. Again, mail wasno protection for that hero against the multitude of arrows swiftfrom the string going through it, so that the pierced breast andsides of that strong soldier became red torrents. And in theglance which he glanced past him at the hosts, he saw Minerva,the goddess of wisdom, warding off some of those weapons fromhim.That, he thought, was a great aid and help.But yet it was no protection for him against disaster, for athick-shafted wide-socketed spear coursed through the battleunto him, past the edge of his shield, and struck mto. thebreast of that veteran, to wit, the son of the king of Calydon,so that it split and dissolved his heart in his breast ; and alsoit was not known who had made that cast, owing to themultitude of the weapons and the density of the host, till thepuissant man and veteran, Tydeus, glanced the way whence thespear had come to him, and he recognised in the thick of thehost the man who had thrown it, to wit, Melanippus, son ofAstacis. And when he had recognised him in the distance, hetook the spear from the hand of the man who was next himself,to wit, Hopleus, a Greek; and he delivered a valorous manlycast, weak though he was, so that it passed to Melanippus,through his chest and through his heart.Then the Greeks at once approached Tydeus, and broughthim with them to one side of the battle, and they placed twovery strong purple shields about him there, to wit, on each sideof him a shield. And this is what they said to him, that hewould recover from that wound. And at the same time thatthey said that, they were in heavy sorrow and great despondency.But Tydeus, son of the comely king of Calydon, himself perceivedthe symptoms of death approaching him, and this iswhat he said :" Have compassion on me, O Greeks," said he," and it is not my restoration to my fatherland or my burial213