Publius
Papinius Statius (45-96) was a poet belonging to the Sliver Age of Latin,
called so because the literature of that period could not match the literature
of the days of Cicero and Virgil. Of course the Romans writers of that Silver
Age did not define themselves as such: the term has been coined by the German
philologist W.S Teuffel in his book about the history of Roman literature
published in 1870 – dry but useful for its bibliographical details, as his wiki lemma says. Not an encouraging
remark for reading it, in my opinion at least.
Statius
- a native of Naples - moved to Rome for a career as poet and indeed he had
some success with his poems, but not the success he had hoped for and disappointed
he went back to Naples. The very fact that I am now writing this post proves that
he was a bit too pessimistic.
What has
remained of the works by Statius are two epic poems of which one unfinished and
a collection of occasional poems, the Silvae.
In the poem below our poet has already sleepless nights for a week (or pretended
to have for the sake of this poem) and is now addressing the god of sleep,
Sumnus, and prays him to pass by and give at least some sleep. The cause of
this insomnia is left open, which makes this poem intriguing.
Nowadays
Statius is little read outside academic circles but this has not always been
the case: Keats’ poem To Sleep clearly betrays influences by this poem:
O soft
embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and
benign,
Our
gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O
soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing
eyes,
Or wait
the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then
save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my
pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that
still lords
Its
strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal
the hushed Casket of my Soul.
And
though I am not sure whether Goethe had lines 3-6 in mind, the similarities are
striking in this poem:
Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh',
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest Du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.
Above all summits
it is calm.
In all the tree-tops
you feel
scarcely a breath;
The birds in the forest are silent,
just wait, soon
you will rest as well!
Statius, Silvae
5.4 Somnus.
Metrum: Hexameter
Crimine
quo merui, iuvenis placidissime divum,
quove
errore miser, donis ut solus egerem,
Somne,
tuis? tacet omne pecus volucresque feraeque
et
simulant fessos curvata cacumina somnos,
nec
trucibus fluviis idem sonus; occidit horror 5
aequoris,
et terris maria adclinata quiescunt.
septima
iam rediens Phoebe mihi respicit aegras
stare
genas; totidem Oetaeae Paphiaeque revisunt
lampades
et totiens nostros Tithonia questus
praeterit
et gelido spargit miserata flagello.
10
unde ego
sufficiam? non si mihi lumina mille,
quae
sacer alterna tantum statione tenebat
Argus et
haud umquam vigilabat corpore toto.
at nunc
heu! si aliquis longa sub nocte puellae
brachia
nexa tenens ultro te, Somne, repellit,
15
inde
veni; nec te totas infundere pennas
luminibus
compello meis - hoc turba precatur
laetior:
extremo me tange cacumine virgae,
sufficit,
aut leviter suspenso poplite transi.
crimine quo: through what crime
mereo merui meritum: to deserve
divum = divorum
donis ut = ut
donis
egeo egui (+ abl.): to need
pecus pecoris (n.): cattle
fera: wild animal
cacumen cucuminis (n.): top, peak, point
fessos sumnos: weary sleep, though of course not the sleep
is weary, but the culmina, The
transference of an adjective to a noun, while ir actually belongs to another
noun is called hypallage.
nec trucibus fluviis idem sonus: nor is there the same sound for
trux trucis: fierce, wild
occido occidi occasus: to fall down
horror: aequoris: i.e. the strong winds at sea (At night there
is less wind at sea.)
acclino: to lean on
Phoebe: the moon
aegras stare genas: that my ill eyes are gazing
Oetaeae
Paphiaeque lampades the lights of Oeta and Paphius, i.e. the evening star and
the morning star (the evening star was believed to rise from mount Oeta and
Paphus is a city on Cyprus, the island connected with Venus.
Thitonia: Aurora (Her lover was Tithonus.)
questus –us (m.): complaint
gelido spargit miserata flagello:
sprinkles (me) pitiful with her cool whip (i.e. the whip with which de
morning drives the stars away. The image of sprinkling is at first sight strange,
but what is meant here by the cool whip is the morning dew.)
sufficio suffeci suffectum: to endure (Note that in the last
line the verb is used in the meaning `to
be sufficient’ – a deliberate play with the various meanings.)
lumina
mille: In the oldest text, a fragment of a lost poem Aigimios, attributed to
Hesiod, Argos had only four eyes, but this rapidly increased in later
literature. Because of his many eyes Argos could easily close a couple for
sleep (haud umquam vigilabat corpore toto).
Argos was appointed by Hera to keep an eye on Io, a mistress of Zeus, who
turned her into a heifer in order to escape detection by Hera. Without success…
sacer Argos: Argos is sacred because he served Hera.
brachia nexa: embracing arms
ultro te: against your will
infundo infudi infusum: to pour upon
penna: feather
hoc turba precatur laetior: let a happier crowd pray for that
virga: twig
suspenso poplite: with the knee (poples poplitis, m.) raised
Here is
an audio version read by Kathleen Coleman. You need Quick time for the audio:
Translation by J. H. MOZLEY, M.A.
(1927)
TO SLEEP
O
youthful Sleep, gentlest of the gods, by what
crime or
error of mine have I deserved that I alone
should
lack thy bounty ? Silent are all the cattle,
and the
wild beasts and the birds, and the curved
mountain
summits have the semblance of weary
slumber,
nor do the raging torrents roar as they were
wont ;
the ruffled waves have sunk to rest, and the
sea
leans against earth's bosom and is still. Seven
times
now hath the returning moon beheld my fixed
and
ailing eyes ; so often have the lights of Oeta and
Paphos revisited me, so oft hath Tithonia passed by
my
groans, and pitying sprinkled me with her cool
whip. Ah
! how may I endure ? Not if I had the
thousand
eyes of sacred Argus, which he kept but
in
alternate watchfulness, nor ever waked in all his
frame at
once. But now — ah, me ! — if some lover
through
the long hours of night is clasping a girl's
entwining
arms, and of his own will drives thee from
him,
come thence, O Sleep ! nor do I bid thee shower
all the
influence of thy wings upon my eyes — that
be the
prayer of happier folk ! — touch me but with
thy
Avand's extremest tip — 'tis enough — or pass over
me with
lightly hovering step.
