Chapter XXXVII: Book I: Statius makes a dull start with frigid professions of ignorance

as to where in the Theban story he should begin, and with equally frigid flattery of Domitian. The requisite note of gloom is struck in the fiendish prayer of the self-blinded Oedipus to the Fury Tisiphone that she should estrange his sons Eteocles and Polynices, and ensure discord through Eteocles’s refusal to keep his promise of letting his brother reign for a year in his stead at Thebes. Sharing none of Lucan’s objections to divine interference in epic action, the poet describes a council of Gods attended by Demigods, Rivers and Winds at which ruinous war between Thebes and Argos is ordained. Polynices, the prince exiled from Thebes, reaches Argos and during a terrific storm fights with another stranger to the land, Tydeus, for shelter by the palace door. The two combatants are received by King Adrastus, become fast friends, and are recognized by their host as the Lion (Polynices) and the Boar (Tydeus), destined to be his sons-in-law. At a royal banquet they see the two princesses, their future brides:

The face of men was new to them and set
Them blushing; and together red and white
Coursed o’er their glowing cheeks; their modest eyes
Turned to their venerable sire once more.[1387]

The king’s tale of the dealings of Apollo with Argos owing to the death of the God’s child is a digression.