Sec. I d.C.
VALERIO FLACCO, Le Argonautiche, III, 256-285; VII, 301-304.
Testo tratto da: Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, traduzione di Mozley J. H., Londra 1934
III, 256-285
But lo! the dawn began to scatter its first rays upon the harbour, and the white grew the towers (O horror!) which they knew. “Ye gods of the sea, “ exclaimed Tiphys from the amazed ranks, “how have ye condemned my heart to a deadly sleep! Alas, for my comrades’ fearful deeds that fill the shore!”. But they can neither utter a groan nor lift their guilty eyes; freezing horror binds their strengthless limbs; even as the Bacchanal pales at the sight of the hair and sad face of Pentheus, when the god has withdrawn from the frenzy-driven mother’s troop, and the horns of the slain bull fade away. Nor less do the aged folk, pouring forth toward the shore, turn terror-struck to flight, when they behold the friendly band. With right hand outstretched Jason exclaims: “Whom do ye flee? Would indeed that in this carnage I and mine had rather fallen! A god, ay, a god in his cruelty embroiled us thus. Alas, we are the Minyae, we are these ye befriended. And why delay we the sad honours of the pyre?”.
Then the mourners rush wildly upon the dense heaps of bloodless slain; among the high-piled corpses of the heroes a mother recognises her woven work, a wife her gift. Along the winding shores all heaven is filled with their lamentation. Some clutch at faint breathings and wounds yet bubbling loud, some, all too late, chose eyelids with their hands. But when in the midst of the heaps the king’s pale corpse was found, than as though the rest of the sad lament were voiceless, even so loud are the cries of servants and of mothers, so do the whole multitude turn toward him alone. The Minyae, weeping and sick at heart, stand round about, bewailing the awful deed and the stroke of the Aesonian spear, and console their prince in his unhappy lot.
vv. VII, 301-304
Even as angry Bacchus leaves Pentheus in Echion’s hall, his fillets stained with the moisture from his horns, while he, full of the god, suddenly seizes, poor fool, his mother’s shameful raiment and timbrels and womanly spears.