Quoted By:
<span class="mu-b">Observing these deeds from his cosmic height, the nations stained
with first bloodshed, the Sower of Stars commands the Marcher
be summoned posthaste. And Mars, who had just destroyed
Getic cities and slaughtered howling Bistonês, was
with dizzying speed racing his team up the slopes of sky,
tossing the lightning-crested gleam of his helmet, his armor
golden, grim and alive with horrific, monstrous figures;
Heaven’s dome thunders, the blood-colored light of his shield glows
ruby-red, its disk rivals and strikes the sun from afar.
Jupiter, seeing Mars still puffing from his Sarmathian
labors, his heart flooded with all the storm-bursts of war:
“As you are, my lad, just as you’ve come to me, set out
for Argos, your sword reeking, your self in a cloud of wrath.
Let them snap their indolent reins and, loathing all else,
yearn for you as they plunge in headlong, pledging to you their
hearts and hands. Sweep the reluctant on, break their treaties!
To you we gave it, yours the right to arouse war lust
in the Gods themselves – even in my dear Peace. I’ve now sown
seeds of conflict; Tydeus returns, reporting brazen
outrage, a ruler’s crime, and (primary source of vile war)
treacherous ambush – which he, and with his own arms, has avenged.
Make them believe!”
“Now, You, High Gods, who trace your bloodlines to me:
strive neither to fight in hatred against me nor to sway
me with pleas. Fate and the Sisters’ dismal spindle have thus
sworn to me. This day, appointed for war since the world
began, lies waiting and these nations were born for this battle.
But, if you object to my making this generation pay
for crimes of old, to my punishing these dire grandsons, then,
by this eternal citadel, by my entempled mind,
and by Elysian springs awesome even to me, I swear
with my own hand I’ll shake Thebes off her foundations and shatter
her walls, strew Inachian rooftops with towers torn
from the ground – or else, with my downpours, I’ll sweep them all
into the sky-blue waves, though Juno herself, toiling amidst
the turmoil, should wrap her dear temple and hills in her arms…”</span>
- Book III, Statius’ Thebaid
Zeus’ words to Ares, following Tydeus’ ambush by Thebans
Translation by Jane Wilson Joyce
