and nearly 500 lines are devoted to the fortunes, past and present, of
Hypsipyle. She relates the crime of the Lemnian women in murdering their
menfolk, the consequences to herself of having surreptitiously saved her
father, and the visit of Jason in the Argo. Statius here trespasses on
the subject of Valerius Flaccus’s _Argonautica_; and it may be noted that
while in the _Thebaid_ Hypsipyle states that she was forced into a union
with Jason, Valerius represents her as attracted into an amour by Jason’s
looks.
The child Archemorus has been all this time left unattended, and another
digression describes the venomous serpent which attacks him. Cries “like
half-completed words in dreams” (_qualia non totas peragunt insomnia
uoces_) are heard, and on her return the errant nurse finds the child
dead. Against the furious anger of its father she is protected by the
grateful Argives.
Book VI. The epic interest is considerably less in a book concerned first
with the building of a funeral pyre and cremation of the child, and
then with an elaborate account of the games in its honour—chariot-race,
foot-race (“running,” remarks the poet, “is a useful accomplishment in
war, if success fails one!”) quoits, boxing and wrestling.