DUST, WATER AND SWEAT: THE STATIAN PUER 205
and his hair shines fairer than tawny gold. Nor yet is his first youth
changing with new down, the lights in his eyes are tranquil and much of
his mother is in his face: like Apollo the hunter when he returns from
Lycia and quits his fierce quiver for the quill. (tr. Shackleton Bailey
2003)Achilles’ portrait is built upon a fascinating set of contrasts, following
the topoi of the child-hero and the puer delicatus pattern. The puer’s
heroic appearance is a great motive of worry for his timida mater,
unable by now to hug her son, who has become too tall and heavy
(Ach. 1.173 iam grauis amplexu iamque aequus uertice matri): in the
meantime the helpless child she had entrusted to Chiron has grown up
(1.159 maior), reaching his mother’s height, and covered in sweat and
dust looks even more imposing. In a line which recalls epic feats
(1.159 ille aderat multo sudore et puluere maior), sweat and dust con-
stitute a heroic and ennobling element for young Achilles, not so
much an aesthetic decoration increasing the puer’s delicate charm as
with Parthenopaeus. This line, emphatically closed in a strong hyper-
baton by the word maior, through chiasmus and alliteration helps to
increase the espressive range and the character’s stature (multo sudore
et puluere maior).
But the elements rendering Achilles a seductive ephebe surprise
even the reader, who had been expecting a magnus Achilles, the young
symbol for heroism and virility: this puer Achilles, boy-hero, am-
biguus in looks and disposition,^30 is a mixture of uis festina (Ach.
1.148) and physical strength, feminine sweetness and charm. His ten-
der face (1.161 dulcis adhuc uisu) shines with grace, on his snow-
white cheeks ‘swims’ a purple fire (1.161 niueo natat ignis in ore) and
the first signs of lanugo are about to appear; his look is calm; he
closely resembles his mother (1.164–5 tranquillaeque faces oculis et
plurima uultu / mater inest).
While sweat and dust dignify the splendid Achilles’ captivating
image with a sort of epic disguise, another puer, Valerius Flaccus’
30 Cf. Mendelsohn 1990, 295–308; La Penna 2000, 156–62.