160 RUURD R. NAUTA
of his addressee, but also to get the better of his own emotions, in
order to be able to begin.^48 Of course, he has been beginning from the
start (3 ordiar), and in not being able to begin has begun, and has in
fact already absolved the introduction, so that he may now pass
straight to the laudation, which he does by again stressing the diffi-
culty of beginning: for a long time he has been searching for a begin-
ning of his praises (36–7 laudum ... primordia). He is torn in different
directions because he has known the boy so well, and in what follows
he makes it clear that his praises stem from his own observation. This
again shows his familiarity with Melior, as does the following part on
Glaucias’ illness, death and burial, about which Statius reports as an
eyewitness. And so he may turn the consolation into a partial self-
consolation, writing of Glaucias “him whom we bemoan” (220 hic
quem gemimus).
In the other consolatory poems in Book 2, which are considerably
briefer, friendship and poetry are variously present. Silvae 2.4 is again
written for Atedius Melior, and mourns the death of his favourite par-
rot. This poem may be called a parody (as long as one does not take
the term to imply criticism of what is parodied):^49 the poet starts off
with apostrophe to the bird, challenges the tradition (9–10 cedat ...
uulgi / fabula), and assumes a ceremonial role by instructing the other
birds to sing a dirge. But he also recalls that but yesterday he had
watched the parrot at play at Melior’s board (4–7), and thus he not
only advertises his friendship with Melior, but also provides a fittingly
light-hearted symposiastic context.^50
After the imperial poem 2.5, follows the consolation to Flavius
Ursus on the loss of a slave boy, where, as in the similar poem to
Melior, Statius presents himself both as a singer (29, 50) and an eye-
witness (21, 30), but in accordance with the less ambitious character
of this composition, does not greatly develop these motifs. In the
birthday-poem for Lucan’s widow Argentaria Polla, which closes the
book, Statius writes mainly as a poet singing (19) of another poet (us-
48 This inability to begin singing is even more drawn out in the self-consolations in
Book 5 (5.3 and 5.5), because there Statius the consoler is also himself the mourner;
cf. Gibson 2006a: xlvi–l.
49 Cf. van Dam 1984, 336–40.
50 Such a context is also present in some of Statius’ descriptive poems (see below,
162 on 1.5, and 170–1 on 4.6), and indeed, as in those poems, Statius here celebrates a
special, ‘distinctive’ possession of his addressee.