There is, in fact, no limit in these poems to Statius' luxuriance in far-fetched and often obscure mythological allusions. In spite, however, of such cardinal defects as these, the Silvae present a brilliant though superficial picture of the cultured society of the day and contain much that is pretty, and something that is poetic.[585] Take, for instance, the poem in which the poet writes to console Atedius Melior for the death of his favourite Glaucias, a puer delicatus. The work is hopelessly clever and hopelessly insincere. Statius exaggerates at once the charms of the dead boy and the grief of Atedius and himself. But at the conclusion he works up an old commonplace into a very pretty piece of verse. He has been describing the reception of Glaucias in the underworld (ii. 1. 208):
hic finis rapto! quin tu iam vulnera sedas et tollis mersum luctu caput? omnia functa aut moritura vides: obeunt noctesque diesque astraque, nee solidis prodest sua machina terris. nam populos, mortale genus, plebisque caducae quis fleat interitus? hos bella, hos aequora poscunt; his amor exitio, furor his et saeva cupido, ut sileam morbos; hos ora rigentia Brumae, illos implacido letalis Sirius igni, hos manet imbrifero pallens Autumnus hiatu. quicquid init ortus, finem timet. ibimus omnes, ibimus: immensis urnam quatit Aeacus ulnis. ast hic quem gemimus, felix hominesque deosque et dubios casus et caecae lubrica vitae effugit, immunis fatis. non ille rogavit, non timuit meruitve mori: nos anxia plebes, nos miseri, quibus unde dies suprema, quis aevi exitus incertum, quibus instet fulmen ab astris, quae nubes fatale sonet.
Such is the rest thy lost darling has won. Come, soothe thine anguish and lift up thy head that droops with woe. Thou seest all things dead or soon to die. Day and night and stars all pass away, nor shall its massive fabric save the world from destruction. As for the tribes of earth, this mortal race, and the death of multitudes all doomed to pass away, why bewail them? Some war, some ocean, demands for its prey: some die of love, others of madness, others of fierce desire, to say naught of pestilence: some winter's freezing breath, others the baleful Sirius' cruel fire, others again pale autumn, gaping with rainy maw, awaits for doom: all that hath birth must tremble before death: we all must go, must go: Aeacus shakes the urn of fate in his vast arms. But this child, whom we bewail, is happy, and has escaped the power of men and gods, the strokes of chance, and the slippery paths of our dark life: fate cannot touch him: he did not ask, nor fear, nor deserve to die. But we poor anxious rabble, we miserable men, know not whence our last day shall come, what shall be the end of life, for whom the thunderbolt shall bring death from the starry sky, nor what cloud shall roar forth our doom.
There is nothing great about such work, but it is a neat and elegant treatment of a familiar theme, while the phrase non ille rogavit, non timuit meruitve mori has a pathos worthy of a better cause.[586] Far more suited, however, to the genius of Statius, with its lack of inspiration, its marvellous polish, and its love of minutiae, are the descriptions of villas, temples, baths, and works of art in which he so frequently indulges. The poem on the statuette of Hercules (ii. 6) is a wonder of cunning craftsmanship, the poems on the baths of Etruscus, the villa of Vopiscus at Tibur, and of Pollius at Surrentum, for all their exaggeration and affectation, reveal a genuine love for the beauties of art and nature. It is true that he shows a preference for nature trimmed by the hand of man, but his pleasure is genuine and its expression often delicate. Who would not delight to live in a house such as Pollius had built at Sorrento (ii. 2. 45)?—
haec domus ortus aspicit et Phoebi tenerum iubar; illa cadentem detinet exactamque negat dimittere lucem, cum iam fessa dies et in aequora montis opaci umbra cadit vitreoque natant praetoria ponto. haec pelagi clamore fremunt, haec tecta sonoros ignorant fluctus terraeque silentia malunt. * * * * * quid mille revolvam culmina visendique vices? sua cuique voluptas atque omni proprium thalamo mare, transque iacentem Nerea diversis servit sua terra fenestris.
One chamber looks to the east and the young beam of Phoebus; one stays him as he falls and will not part with the expiring light, when the day is outworn and the shadow of the dark mount falls athwart the deep, and the great castle swims reflected in the glassy sea. These chambers are full of the sound of ocean, those know not the roaring waves, but rather love the silence of the land…. Why should I recount thy thousand roofs and every varied view? Each has a joy that is its own: each chamber has its own sea, and each several window its own tract of land seen across the sea beneath.
We cannot, perhaps, share his enthusiasm in the minute description that follows of the coloured marbles used in the decoration of the house, and his panegyric of Pollius leaves us cold, but we quit the poem with a pleasant impression of the Bay of Naples and of the poet who loved it so well. It recalls in its way the charming, if over-elaborate and exaggerated, landscapes of the younger Pliny in his letters on the source of the Clitumnus and on his Tuscan and Laurentine villas.[587] But it is in two poems of a very different kind that the Silvae reach their high-water mark. The Genethliacon Lucani, despite its artificial form and the literary conventions with which it is overloaded, reveals a genuine enthusiasm for the dead poet, and is couched in language of the utmost grace and verse of extraordinary melody; the hendecasyllables of Statius lack the poignant vigour of the Catullan hendecasyllables, but they have a music of their own which is scarcely less remarkable.[588] The lament of Calliope for her lost nursling will hold its own with anything of a similar kind produced by the Silver Age (ii 7. 88):
'o saevae nimium gravesque Parcae! o numquam data longa fata summis! cur plus, ardua, casibus patetis? cur saeva vice magna non senescunt? sic natum Nasamonii Tonantis post ortus obitusque fulminatos angusto Babylon premit sepulcro. sic fixum Paridis manu trementis Peliden Thetis horruit cadentem. sic ripis ego murmurantis Hebri non mutum caput Orpheos sequebar sic et tu (rabidi nefas tyranni!) iussus praecipitem subire Lethen, dum pugnas canis arduaque voce das solatia grandibus sepulcris, (o dirum scelus! o scelus!) tacebis.' sic fata est leviterque decidentes abrasit lacrimas nitente plectro.
'Ah! fates severe and all too cruel! O life that for our noblest ne'er is long! Why are earth's loftiest most prone to fall? Why by hard fate do her great ones ne'er grow old? Even so the Nasamonian Thunderer's son like lightning rose, like lightning passed away, and now is laid in a narrow tomb at Babylon. So Thetis shuddered, when the son of Peleus fell transfixed by Paris' coward hand. So I, too, by the banks of murmuring Hebrus followed the head of Orpheus that could not cease from song. So now must thou—out on the mad tyrant's crime!—go down untimely to the wave of Lethe, and while thou singest of war and with lofty strain givest comfort to the sepulchres of the mighty,—O infamy, O monstrous infamy!—art doomed to sudden silence.' So spake she, and with gleaming quill wiped away the tears that gently fell.
But more beautiful as pure poetry, and indeed unique in Latin, is the well-known invocation to Sleep (v. 4):