Chapter XII: Preface (3)

pugnando dabitur; praestat victoria mundum. 15
sentiet ille meas tandem Saturnius iras,
cognoscet, quid Terra potest, si viribus ullis
vincor, si Cybele nobis meliora creavit!
cur nullus Telluris honos? cur semper acerbis
me damnis urgere solet? quae forma nocendi 20
defuit? hinc volucrem vivo sub pectore pascit
infelix Scythica fixus convalle Prometheus;
hinc Atlantis apex flammantia pondera fulcit
et per canitiem glacies asperrima durat.
quid dicam Tityon, cuius sub vulture saevo 25
viscera nascuntur gravibus certantia poenis?
sed vos, o tandem veniens exercitus ultor,
solvite Titanas vinclis, defendite matrem.
sunt freta, sunt montes: nostris ne parcite membris;
in Iovis exitium telum non esse recuso. 30
ite, precor, miscete polum, rescindite turres
sidereas. rapiat fulmen sceptrumque Typhoeus;
Enceladi iussis mare serviat; alter habenas
Aurorae pro Sole regat: te Delphica laurus
stringet, Porphyrion, Cirrhaeaque templa tenebis.” 35
His ubi consiliis animos elusit inanes,
iam credunt vicisse deos mediisque revinctum
Neptunum traxisse fretis; hic sternere Martem
cogitat, hic Phoebi laceros divellere crines;
hic sibi promittit Venerem speratque Dianae 40
coniugium castamque cupit violare Minervam.

* * * * *

Page 283

heaven: all that ye see is the prize of victory; win, and the universe is yours. At last shall Saturn’s son feel the weight of my wrath; shall recognize Earth’s power. What! can any force conquer me? Has Cybele born sons superior to mine? Why has Earth no honour? Why is she ever condemned to bitter loss? Has any form of injury passed me by? There hangs luckless Prometheus in yon Scythian vale, feeding the vulture on his living breast; yonder, Atlas supports the weight of the starry heavens upon his head, and his grey hair is frozen stiff with cruel cold. What need to tell of Tityus whose liver is ever renewed beneath the savage vulture’s beak, to contend with his heavy punishment? Up, army of avengers, the hour is come at last, free the Titans from their chains; defend your mother. Here are seas and mountains, limbs of my body, but care not for that. Use them as weapons. Never would I hesitate to be a weapon for the destruction of Jove. Go forth and conquer; throw heaven into confusion, tear down the towers of the sky. Let Typhoeus seize the thunderbolt and the sceptre; Enceladus, rule the sea, and another in place of the sun guide the reins of dawn’s coursers. Porphyrion, wreathe thou thy head with Delphi’s laurel and take Cirrha for thy sanctuary.”

This exhortation filled their minds with vain hopes. They think themselves already victors o’er the gods, imagine they have thrown Neptune into chains and dragged him a prisoner from Ocean’s bed. One thinks to lay Mars low, one to tear Phoebus’ locks from his head; one assigns Venus to himself, another anticipates in thought his marriage with Diana, and another is all aflame to do violence to chaste Minerva.

* * * * *

Page 284

Interea superos praenuntia convocat Iris.
qui fluvios, qui stagna colunt, cinguntur et ipsi
auxilio Manes; nec te, Proserpina, longe
umbrosae tenuere fores; rex ipse silentum 45
Lethaeo vehitur curru lucemque timentes
insolitam mirantur equi trepidoque volatu
spissas caeruleis tenebras e naribus efflant.
ac velut hostilis cum machina terruit urbem,
undique concurrunt arcem defendere cives: 50
haud secus omnigenis coeuntia numina turmis
ad patris venere domos. tum Iuppiter infit:
“O numquam peritura cohors, o debita semper
caelo progenies, nullis obnoxia fatis:
cernitis ut Tellus nostrum coniuret in orbem 55
prole nova dederitque alios interrita partus?
ergo, quot dederit natos, tot funera matri
reddamus: longo maneat per saecula luctu
tanto pro numero paribus damnata sepulcris.”
Iam tuba nimborum sonuit, iam signa ruendi 60
his Aether, his Terra dedit confusaque rursus
pro domino Natura timet. discrimina rerum
miscet turba potens: nunc insula deserit aequor,
nunc scopuli latuere mari. quot litora restant
nuda! quot antiquas mutarunt flumina ripas! 65
hic rotat Haemonium praeduris viribus Oeten;
hic iuga conixus manibus Pangaea coruscat;
hunc armat glacialis Athos; hoc Ossa movente
tollitur; his Rhodopen Hebri cum fonte revellit

* * * * *

Page 285

Meanwhile Iris, messenger of the gods, summons the immortal council. There come the deities of river and lake; the very ghosts were there in heaven’s defence. Hell’s shady portals could not hold Proserpine afar; the king of the silent himself advances in his Lethaean chariot. His horses fear the light which hitherto their astonished eyes have never looked upon and, swerving this way and that, they breathe forth thick vapour from their soot-black nostrils. As, when an enemy’s siege-engine affrights a town, the citizens run together from all sides to defend their citadel, so gods of all shapes and forms came together to protect their father’s home. Them Jove thus addressed: “Deathless army, whose dwelling-place is, and must ever be, the sky, ye whom no adverse fortune can ever harm, mark ye how Earth with her new children conspires against our kingdom and undismayed has given birth to another brood? Wherefore, for all the sons she bore, let us give back to their mother as many dead; let her mourning last through the ages as she weeps by as many graves as she now has children.”

The clouds echo the blast of heaven’s trumpets; on this side Heaven, on that Earth, sounds the attack. Once more Nature is thrown into confusion and fears for her lord. The puissant company of the giants confounds all differences between things; islands abandon the deep; mountains lie hidden in the sea. Many a river is left dry or has altered its ancient course. One giant brandishes Thessalian Oeta in his mighty hand, another gathers all his strength and hurls Pangaeus at the foe, Athos with his snows arms another; this one roots up Ossa, that tears out Rhodope and Hebrus’ source, dividing the

* * * * *

Page 286

et socias truncavit aquas summaque levatus 70
rupe Giganteos umeros inrorat Enipeus:
subsedit patulis Tellus sine culmine campis
in natos divisa suos.
Horrendus ubique
it fragor et pugnae spatium discriminat aër.
primus terrificum Mavors non segnis in agmen 75
Odrysios impellit equos, quibus ille Gelonos
sive Getas turbare solet: splendentior igni
aureus ardescit clipeus, galeamque nitentes
adrexere iubae. tum concitus ense Pelorum
transigit adverso, femorum qua fine volutus 80
duplex semifero conectitur ilibus anguis,
atque uno ternas animas interficit ictu.
tum super insultans avidus languentia curru
membra terit multumque rotae sparsere cruorem.
Occurrit pro fratre Mimas Lemnumque calentem 85
cum lare Vulcani spumantibus eruit undis
et prope torsisset, si non Mavortia cuspis
ante revelato cerebrum fudisset ab ore.
ille, viro toto moriens, serpentibus imis
vivit adhuc stridore ferox et parte rebelli 90
victorem post fata petit.
Tritonia virgo
prosilit ostendens rutila cum Gorgone pectus;
adspectu contenta suo non utitur hasta
(nam satis est vidisse semel) primumque furentem
longius in faciem saxi Pallanta reformat. 95
ille procul subitis fixus sine vulnere nodis
ut se letifero sensit durescere visu
(et steterat iam paene lapis) “quo vertimur?” inquit,

* * * * *

Page 287

waters that before were one; Enipeus, gathered up with its beetling crags, scatters its waters over yon giant’s shoulders: robbed of her mountains Earth sank into level plains, parted among her own sons.

On all sides a horrid din resounds and only the air divides the rival armies. First impetuous Mars urges against the horrid band his Thracian steeds that oft have driven in rout Getae or Geloni. Brighter than flame shines his golden shield, high towers the crest of his gleaming helmet. Dashing into the fray he first encounters Pelorus and transfixes him with his sword, where about the groin the two-bodied serpent unites with his own giant form, and thus with one blow puts an end to three lives. Exulting in his victory he drives his chariot over the dying giant’s limbs till the wheels ran red with blood.

Mimas ran forward to avenge his brother. He had torn Lemnos and with it Vulcan’s fiery house from out the foaming main, and was on the point of hurling it when Mars’ javelin prevented him, scattering the brain from his shattered skull. What was giant in him died, but the serpent legs still lived, and, hissing vengeance, sought to attack the victor after Mimas’ death.

Minerva rushed forward presenting her breast whereon glittered the Gorgon’s head. The sight of this, she knew, was enough: she needed not to use a spear. One look sufficed. Pallas drew no nearer, rage as he might, for he was the first to be changed into a rock. When, at a distance from his foe, without a wound, he found himself rooted to the ground, and felt the murderous visage turn him, little by little, to stone (and all but stone he was) he called out, “What is happening to me? What

* * * * *

Page 288

“quae serpit per membra silex? qui torpor inertem
marmorea me peste ligat?” vix pauca locutus, 100
quod timuit, iam totus erat; saevusque Damastor,
ad depellendos iaculum cum quaereret hostes,
germani rigidum misit pro rupe cadaver.
Hic vero interitum fratris miratus Echion
inscius, auctorem dum vult temptare nocendo, 105
te, Dea, respexit, solam quam cernere nulli
bis licuit. meruit sublata audacia poenas
et didicit cum morte deam. sed turbidus ira
Palleneus, oculis aversa tuentibus atrox,
ingreditur caecasque manus in Pallada tendit. 110
hunc mucrone ferit dea comminus; ac simul angues
Gorgoneo riguere gelu corpusque per unum
pars moritur ferro, partes periere videndo.
Ecce autem medium spiris delapsus in aequor
Porphyrion trepidam conatur rumpere Delon, 115
scilicet ad superos ut torqueat improbus axes.
horruit Aegaeus; stagnantibus exilit antris
longaevo cum patre Thetis desertaque mansit
regia Neptuni famulis veneranda profundis.
exclamant placidae Cynthi de vertice Nymphae, 120
Nymphae, quae rudibus Phoebum docuere sagittis
errantes agitare feras primumque gementi
Latonae struxere torum, cum lumina caeli
parturiens geminis ornaret fetibus orbem.
implorat Paeana suum conterrita Delos 125
auxiliumque rogat: “si te gratissima fudit

* * * * *

Page 289

is this ice that creeps o’er all my limbs? What is this numbness that holds me prisoner in these marble fetters?” Scarce had he uttered these few words when he was what he feared, and savage Damastor, seeking a weapon wherewith to repel the foe, hurled at them in place of a rock his brother’s stony corpse.

Then Echion, marvelling, all ignorant, at his brother’s death, even as he seeks to assail the author of the deed, turned his gaze upon thee, goddess, whom alone no man may see twice. Beaten audacity well deserved its punishment and in death he learned to know the goddess. But Palleneus, mad with anger, turning his eyes aside, rushed at Minerva, striking at her with undirected sword. Nigh at hand the goddess smote him with her sword, and at the same time the snakes froze at the Gorgon’s glance, so that of one body a part was killed by a weapon and a part by a mere look.

Impious Porphyrion, carried by his serpents into the middle of the sea, tries to uproot trembling Delos, wishing to hurl it at the sky. The Aegean was affrighted; Thetis and her agèd sire fled from their watery caverns; the palace of Neptune, regarded with awe by all the denizens of the deep, lay deserted. The summit of Cynthus rang with the cries of the gentle nymphs who had taught Phoebus’ unpractised hand to shoot at the wandering beasts with his bow, they who first had prepared the bed for weeping Latona when, in labour with the lights of heaven, she blessed the world with twin offspring. Delos in terror called her lord Phoebus to help her and begged him for aid. “In remembrance of the

* * * * *

Page 290

in nostros Latona sinus, succurre precanti.
en iterum convulsa feror.”

* * * * *

Page 291

time when Latona entrusted thine infant life to my care, help me who thus call upon thee. Behold, once more they seek to uproot me.…”[118]

[118] Like the _De raptu Proserpinae_, the _Gigantomachia_ was
probably never completed. S. Jerome in his commentary on Isaiah
(viii. 27) quotes from a _Gigantomachia_, not giving the name of
its author. It is possible that the lines, which do not occur in
Claudian’s poem as we possess it, belong to a final portion which
has been lost. But it is more likely that they come from some other
poet’s work and that the abrupt end of Claudian’s poem is due not
to loss but to the poet’s sudden death.

* * * * *

Page 292

DE RAPTU PROSERPINAE

LIBRI PRIMI

PRAEFATIO

(XXXII.)

Inventa secuit primus qui nave profundum
et rudibus remis sollicitavit aquas,
qui dubiis ausus committere flatibus alnum
quas natura negat praebuit arte vias:
tranquillis primum trepidus se credidit undis 5
litora securo tramite summa legens;
mox longos temptare sinus et linquere terras
et leni coepit pandere vela Noto.
ast ubi paulatim praeceps audacia crevit
cordaque languentem dedidicere metum, 10
iam vagus inrumpit pelagus caelumque secutus
Aegaeas hiemes Ioniumque domat.

LIBER PRIMUS

(XXXIII.)

Inferni raptoris equos adflataque curru
sidera Taenario caligantesque profundae
Iunonis thalamos audaci promere cantu

* * * * *

Page 293

RAPE OF PROSERPINE

BOOK I

PREFACE

(XXXII.)

He who first made a ship and clave therewith the deep, troubling the waters with roughly hewn oars, who first dared trust his alder-bark to the uncertain winds and who by his skill devised a way forbidden of nature, fearfully at the first essayed smooth seas, hugging the shore in an unadventurous course. But soon he began to attempt the crossing of broad bays, to leave the land and spread his canvas to the gentle south wind; and, as little by little his growing courage led him on, and as his heart forgot numbing fear, sailing now at large, he burst upon the open sea and, with the signs of heaven to guide him, passed triumphant through the storms of the Aegean and the Ionian main.