Prose translations by Wilfred E. Major

Publius Papinius Statius was a popular poet in the second half of the first century CE, born around 40 and dying around 95. Silvae literally means "forests" but the title refers to raw material, i.e., trees before they are cut down and carved. The poems themselves are occasional poems. This poem belongs to the category of ekphrasis, formal literary description.

4.6 (The Hercules Statuette Belonging to Novius Vindex)

By chance, when I was letting my troubles go, unburdening my heart

from Phoebus, while I chased a wandering path in the wide open downtown,

just as the day was dying, a dinner invitation from kindly Vindex

captured me. This dinner has slipped back into the depths of my mind and

(5) remains uneaten. For it was not the barbed jokes of the stomach

we consumed nor dishes sought from a distant sun

nor wines aged as long as our records in history.

So sad! those who feel better knowing how the pheasant bird

differs from the crane of Rhodope caught in winter, which goose

(10) has more liver, why a Tuscan boar is plumper than an Umbrian one,

where the cold, slippery shell-fish recline comfortably.

For us true love is sought from the center of Mt. Helicon, home of the Muses,

speech and cheerful jokes consume the wintry night

and persuade our eyes to put off soft sleep

(15) until Castor switched seats with his brother to see the new day from Elysium

and the Tithonian dawn laughed at what was now yesterday’s tables.

O that such a wonderful night could have a Tirynthian moon doubling its length!

a night to be chalked off with Erythraean pearl gems from Thetis’ sea

and to be recalled long in the future for being eternally divine!

(20) There and then a thousand types of bronze and ancient ivory

and wax with its lying shapes as if about to speak

I did learn of. For who has ever discerned with the eyes

of Vindex, determined to identify the old masters in the arts

and recapturing the sculptors of statues which have no labels?

(25)What bronzes kept brilliant Myron

up late nights, what marbles came to life at the hand of laboring

Praxitiles, what ivories were smoothed by the thumb of Phedias,

what was ordered to live and breathe in the furnaces of Polyclitus,

what lines across time confess their creator Apelles,

(30) this man will show you. For this, whenever he takes off his lyre,

is his passion. This love calls him from the Muses’ haunts.

Among these the divine guardian of his modest table,

the son of Amphytrio, Hercules, seized me with a strong passion

and my eyes were not satisfied with merely a long look at it.

(35) Such dignity in the work and within its bounds and borders

majesty! A very god, a god! He granted you a chance to see him,

sculptor Lysippus, appearing so small to you

but thought of as so huge! And although amazingly it stands

measuring less than a foot, nevertheless you may cry out,

(40) if you cast a glance over its limbs, "This is the breast that crushed

the ravaging lion of Nemea, these arms carried the destructive

club and broke the oars of the ship Argo!"

In such a small space such a deceptively huge form!

What control in the hand, what experience from the efforts of

(45) a learned craftsman to model an ornament in proportion for a table top

and still imagine such a colossus!

Such an object Telchines in the caves of Ida could never have done,

nor the dull giant Brontes, nor could Lemnian Vulcan, who forges weapons for gods,

have so playfully worked this mass of metal.

(50) No grim expression, out of place while feasts are served,

but the sort modest Molorchus enjoyed when serving Hercules in his home

or as Hercules’ lover Auge saw him in the groves of Alea.

The sort that when Hercules was released from his own funeral ashes on Mt. Oea to the stars,

he drank the divine nectar even as Juno was still hateful.

(55) With such a happy expression, as if with a joy from the bottom of his heart,

he rouses the banquet. He holds the flagging cups of his brother

Dionysus, but his other hand remembers his club. An austere seat

holds him up and a rock draped with the pelt of the Nemean lion.

The object’s life suits its sanctity. Alexander the Great saved it

(60) a place of respect at his happy tables

and he took it as his companion both east and west.

He happily held it before him with the very hand with which he

took away and restored kingly diadems, and ruined mighty cities.

Always from it he sought courage for the battle of the coming day.

(65) To it he told the story of the glorious battle plan and his victory,

whether he had deprived Bacchus of his followers in India

or had burst open the walls of Babylon with his mighty spear

or had run over the lands of Pelops and Pelasgian freedom

in war. From that great line of praise

(70) it is reported that he asked pardon only for conquering Thebes, Hercules’ birthplace.

Even he, when the Fates broke off his mighty activities,

once he had drunk the poisonous drink, in the gloomy cloud

of death he grew afraid of the changed faces in his dear divinity

and the sweating bronze figures at his last meal.

(75) Next this marvelous beauty was in the possession of king

Hannibal. To this strong god Hannibal poured honors

always, fierce, strong and arrogant with a treacherous sword

as Hannibal was. Covered with the blood of the Italian people,

attacking the homes of Romulus’ people with flames,

(80) it hated him, even when he set gifts of feasts and Bacchus,

and miserably did it go with those unholy armies

especially when it disturbed Hercules’ own citadels with sacriligious flame

and wrecked the innocent homes and temples of Saguntum

and the fury of righteousness siezed the people.

(85) After the death of this Sidonian leader, no plebeian house acquired

this bronze. It decorated parties of Sulla,

always accustomed to entering the shrines of famous families,

a happy marker of the lineage of the gods.

Now, too, if the gods have an itch to know human soul

(90) and character, no palatial court, Tirythian Hercules,

surrounds you, but the chaste and faultless

mind of your owner. He possesses an old-fashioned loyalty

and an unbreakable bond in friendship. Ever since youth,

Vestinus, equal to his great forbears, whom Vindex breathes in

(95) night and day, who lives in the embraces of his dear shadow of death, knows this.

A happy rest is therefore yours, Hercules, bravest of the gods.

You do not see the wars and fierce battles

but the lyre and chaplets and music-loving crowns of laurel.

Here he will sing to you solemnly the memory of how greatly

(100) you terrified the Trojan and Getic homes, how greatly snowy

Mt. Stymphalon and how greatly Mt. Erymanthon with its watery ridges;

how Geryon owner of the Iberian flock endured your might, and

the Mareotic judge of his sacred shrine;

how the gates of death fell open, conquered, and crashed

(105) at your feet; how the women of Libya and Scythia weep.

Neither the Macedonian ruler Alexander nor ever the barbarous

Hannibal nor the rough tongue of crude Sulla could

celebrate you in these ways. Certainly you, Lysippus,

author of the gift, would not prefer to be praised by anyone else’s eyes.