Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes’ alarms,
Th’ 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 th’ 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 Odipus: from his disasters trace
The long confusions of his guilty race:
Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing,
And mighty C
(Pablius Papinius Statius)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Sons Poems, Anger Poems, Cities PoemsBased on Keywords: cadmus, deduce, waive, agenor, odipus