by Nonnus
[169] The god lifting his head and spreading his chest, paddled his hand and cut the golden calm. The banks free of waves spirted up self-growing roses, the lily sprouted, the Seasons crowned the shores while Bacchos bathed, and the flowing locks of his dark hair were reddened in the sparkling stream.
[175] Once while hunting in the shady lurking wood he was delighted by the rosy form of a young comrade. For Ampelos was a merry boy who had grown up already on the Phrygian hills, a new sprout of the Loves. No dainty bloom was yet on a reddening chin, no down yet marked the snowy circles of his cheeks, the golden flower of youth: curling clusters of hair ran loose behind over his silvery-glistering shoulders, and floated in the whispering wind that lifted them with its breath. As the hair blew aside the neck showed above rising bare in the middle. Unshadowed light flashed from him, like the shining moon when she pierces a damp cloud and shows within it. From his rosy lips escaped a voice breathing honey. Spring itself shone from his limbs; where his silvery foot stept the meadow blushed with roses; if he turned his eyes, the gleam of the bright eyeballs as soft a s a cow’s eye was like the light of the full moon.
[193] Dionysos took him as playmate in his dainty sports. Then in admiration of his beauty he spoke to him as a man, artfully concealing his divine nature, and asked him: “What father begat you? What immortal womb brought you forth? Which of the Graces gave you birth? What handsome Apollo made you? Tell me, my friend, do not hide your kin. If you come another Eros, unwinged, without arrows, without quiver, which of the Blessed slept with Aphrodite and bred you? But indeed I Tremble to name Cypris as your mother, for I would not call Hephaistos or Ares your father. Of if you are the one they call Hermes come from the sky, show me your light wings, and the lively soles of your shoes. How is it you wear the hair uncut falling along your neck? Can you be Phoibos himself come to me without harp, without bow, Phoibos shaking the locks of his unshorn hair unbound! If Cronides begat me, and you are from a mortal stock, if you have the shortliving blood of the horned Satyrs, be king at my side, a mortal with a god; for your looks will not disgrace the heavenly blood of Lyaios. But why do I call you one of the creatures of a day? I recognize your blood even if you wish to hide it; Selene slept with Helios and brought you to birth wholly like the gracious Narcissos; for you have a like heavenly beauty, the image of horned Selene.”
[217] So he spoke, and the youth was delighted with his words, and proud that he surpassed the beauty of his young agemates by a more brilliant display. And in the mountain coppice if the boy made melody Bacchos listened with pleasure; no smile was on his face if the boy stayed away. If at his caperloving board a Satyr beat the drums with his hands and struck out his rattling tune, while they boy was away on stag-hunting quest, Bacchos refused the doubled sound so long as he was not there. If ever he lingered by the flowery stream of Pactolos, that he might bring himself sweeter water for the supper of his king, Bacchos was lashed with trouble so long as the boy stayed away.
[230] If he took up the bold hoboy, the instrument of Libyan Echo, and blew a light breath with swollen cheek, Bacchos thought he heard the Mygdonian flotist whom divine Hyagnis begat, who to his cost challenged Phoibos as he pressed the fingerholes on Athena’s double pipe. If he sat with the young man at one table, when the boy spoke he lent delighted ear, when he ceased, melancholy spread over his cheeks. If Ampelos, carried away by wild passion for high capers, twirled with dancing paces and joined hands with a sporting Satyr in the round, stepping across foot over foot, Bacchos looked on shaken with envious feeling. If he ever conversed with the Satyrs, if he joined with a yearsmate hunter to follow chase, Dionysos jealous held him back, lest another be struck like himself with a heartbewitching shaft, and now enslaved by love should seduce the fickle boy’s fancy and estrange the lovely youth from Lyaios, as a freshblooming boy might well charm a comrade of his own age.
[250] When Bacchos lifted his thyrsus against a maddened bear, or cast his stout fennel javelin-like at a lioness, he looked aside watchfully toward the west; for fear the deathbringing breath of Zephyros might blow again, as it did once before when the bitter blast killed a young man while it turned the hurtling quoit against Hyacinthos. He feared Cronides might suddenly appear over Tmolos as a love-bird on amorous wing unapproachable, carrying off the boy with harmless talons into the air, as once he did the Trojan boy to serve his cups. He feared also the lovestricken ruler of the sea, that as once he took up Tantalides in his golden car, so now he might drive a winged wagon coursing through the air and ravish Ampelos – the Earthshaker mad with love!
[264] He had a sweet dream on his dreambreeding bed, beheld the shadowy phantom of a counterfeit shape and whispered loving words to the mocking vision of the boy. If his passionate gaze saw any blemish, this appeared lovely to lovesick Dionysos, even more dear than the whole young body; if the end of the tail which grew on him hung slack by his loins, this was sweeter than honey to Bacchos. Matted hair on an unkempt head even so gave more pleasure to his impassioned gaze. By day he was charmed to be with him; when night came he was troubled to part from him, when he no longer heard the familiar voice enchanting his hears, as he slept in the grotto of Rheia mother of mighty sons.
[278] A Satyr saw the boy, and enchanted with his divine beauty he whispered, concealing his words – “Allfriendly Persuasion, manager of the human heart! Grant only that this lovely boy be gracious to me! If I can have him to play with me like Bacchos, I wish not to be translated into the sky, I would not be a god – not Phaëthon the light of mankind, I covert not the nectar, I want no ambrosia! I care nothing, if Ampelos loves me, even if Cronion hates me!”
[287] So much he said to himself in envious tone, hugging the lovepoison in his heart, drunk with the magic potion of adoration. But Euios himself, periced by the sting of the young man’s sweetness, smiled as he cried out to Cronides his father, another unhappy lover:
[292] “Grant one grace to me the lover, O Phrygian Zeus! When I was a little one, Rheia who is still my nurse told me that you gave lightning to Zagreus, the first Dionysos, before he could speak plain – gave him your fiery lance and rattling thunder and showers of rain out of the sky, and he was another Rainy Zeus while yet a babbling baby! But I do not ask the heavenly fire of your lightning, nor the cloud, nor the thunderclap. If it please you, give fiery Hephaistos the spark of your thunderbolt; let Ares have a corselet of your clouds to cover his chest with; give the pouring rainshower of Zeus as largess to Hermaon; let Apollo, if you will, wield his father’s lightning. My ambition is not so high, dear father! I am springheel Dionysos! A fine thing it would be for me to wield Semele’s manikin lightning! The sparks of thunderbolt that killed my mother are no pleasure to me. Maionia is my dwelling-place; what is the sky to Dionysos? My Satyr’s beauty is dearer to me than Olympos. Tell me, father, do not hide it, swear by your own young friend – when you were an Eagle, when you picked up the boy on the slopes of Teucrian Ida with greedy gentle claw, and brought him to heaven, had the clown such beauty as this, when you made him one of the heavenly table still smelling of the byre? Forgive me, Father Longwing! Don’t talk to me of your Trojan winepourer, the servant of your cups. Lovely Ampelos outshines Ganymedes, he has a brilliancy in his countenance more radiant – the Tmolian beasts the Idaian! There are plenty more beautiful lads in troops – court them all if you like, and leave one boy to Lyaios!”
[321] So he spoke, shaken by the sting of desire. Not Apollo in the thick Magnesian woods, when he was herdsman to Admetos and tended his cattle, was pierced by the sweet sting of love for a winsome boy, as Bacchos rejoiced in heart sporting with the youth. Both played in the woods together, now throwing the thyrsus to travel through the air, now on some unshaded flat, or again they tramped the rocks hunting the hillbred lion’s cubs. Sometimes alone on a deserted bank, they played on the sands of a pebbly river and had a wrestling-bout in friendly sport; no tripod was their prize, no flowergraven cauldron lay ready for the victory, no horses from the grass, but a double pipe
of love with clearsounding notes. It was a delightsome strife for both, for mad Love stood between them, a winged Hermes in the Ring, wreathing a lovegarland of daffodil and iris.
[339] Both stood forward as love’s athletes. They joined their palms garlandwise over each other’s back, packed at the waist with a knot of the hands, squeezed the ribs tight with the muscles of their two forearms, lifted each other from the ground alternately. Bacchos was in heaven amid this honeysweet wrestling, and love gave him a double joy, lifting and lifted . . . Ampelos enclosed the wrist of Bromios in his palm, then joining hands and tightening that intruding grip interlaced his fingers and brought them together in a double knot, squeezing the right hand of willing Dionysos. Next Bacchos ran his two hands round the young man’s waist squeezing his body with a loving grip, and lifted Ampelos high; but the other kicked Bromios neatly behind the knee; and Euios laughing merrily at the blow from his young comrade’s tender foot, let himself fall on his back in the dust. Thus while Bacchos lay willingly on the ground the boy sat across his naked belly, and Bacchos in delight lay stretched at full length on the ground sustaining the sweet burden on his paunch. Now raising on of his legs he set the sole of the foot firmly upon the sand and raised his overturned back; but he showed mercy in his strength, as with a rival movement of a reluctant hand he dislodged the beloved burden. The young man, no novice at the game, turned sideways and rested his elbow on the ground, then jumped across on his adversary’s back, then over his flanks with a foot behind one knee and another set on the other ankle he encircled the waist with a double bond and squeezed the ribs and pressed flat and straight out the lifted leg under his knee. Both rolled in the dust, and the sweat poured out to tell that they were tired.
[373] Thus Dionysos was conquered with his own consent, like his father as an athlete, who was conquered at last though invincible: for mighty Zeus himself, wrestling with Heracles beside the Alpheios, bent willing knees and fell of his own accord.
[378] Se ended the playful bout: the young man held out a happy hand and lifted his prize, the double pipes. He cleansed the sweat from his limbs in the river and washed off the damp dust; as he bathed, a pleasant brightness shone from the sweating skin.
[383] After the victory in wrestling strongi’thelimb, Bacchos did not cease his games with his young comrade, but proposed a windswift contest of footrunning. To bring in other fleet wooers of the game for love, he offered for the first, Cybelid Rheia’s instruments as a prize, bronzeplated cymbals and the speckled skins of fawns. The second prize for victory was Pan’s comrade, – panspipes sweet utterance, and a resounding tomtom in a heavy bronze frame. For the third in his games, Dionysos offered ruddy sand from the river so ready and willing.
[393] Then Bromios measured the ground for the furlong race. He measured the stretch between the two ends of the course, and set up a tall stake in the ground, ten palms high, to make the finish of the race; at the other end he raised and planted a thyrsus on the river-bank to show the turning-point. Then he urged the Satyrs to go in and win.
[399] Springheel Lyaios cried his summons aloud, and first up leapt windfoot Leneus, then on either side of him highstepping Cissos and charming Ampelos stood up. They stood in a row, confident in the quick soles of their straightfaring feet. Cissos flew with stormy movement of his feet just skimming the top of the ground as he touched it. Leneus was running behind him quick as the winds of heaven and warming the back of the sprinter with his breath, close behind the leader, and he touched footstep with footstep on the dust as it dropped, with following feet: the space between them both was no more than the rod leaves open before the bosom of a girl working at the loom, close to the firm breast. Ampelos came third and last. Dionysos saw them out of the corner of his eye, and melted with jealousy that the two competitors should be in front, afraid they might win and Ampelos come in behind them; so the god helped him, breathed strength into him, and made the boy swifter than the spinning gale. Then Cissos, first of the two in the race, striving so hard for the prize, stumbled over a wet place on the shore, slipt and fell in the sandy slush; Leneus had to check the course of his feet, and his knees lost their swing: so both competitors were passed and Ampelos carried off the victory.
[425] The old Seilenoi shouted Euoi! amazed at the victory of the youth. He received the first prize with soft hair flowing, Leneus took the second full of envy, for he understood the jealous trick of Lyaios and his passion; Cissos eyed his comrades with look abashed, as he held out his hand for the last prize discontented.
BOOK XI
See the eleventh, and you will find lovely Ampelos carried off by the manslaying robber bull.
The contest was done. The lovely lad exulting in his sportloving victory, skipt about with Bacchos his yearsmate playfellow, and moved his circling legs in gambolling turns. He threw his white right arm about Dionysos; and when Iobacchos saw him jumping about so proud of his two victories, he said to him affectionately:
[7] “Hurry now – have another try, dear boy, after winning that race and after your land action; try a third match, swim against your comrade Bacchos and see if you can beat him! You had the best of it, Ampelos, in wrestling with me on the sands; now show yourself more agile than Dionysos in the rivers! Leave the playful Satyrs to their skippings and come quick again by yourself to a third match. If you win both by land and water, I will crown your lovely hair with a double garland for two victories over Dionysos the unconquerable.
[17] “This lovely stream suits you, suits the beauty of your limbs alone, that there may be a double Ampelos cutting the goldgleaming flood with golden palm; while you stretch naked limbs for victory, all the Pactolian water shall adorn your beauty. Phaëthon himself shoots his rosy beams on Oceanos; grant an equal Olympian glory to this river: you too give your brightness to Pactolos, that Ampelos may be seen rising like Phosphoros. Both are radiant, this river with its red metal, and you with your limbs; in the deep riches of his flood let him receive this youth also with the same colour on his skin; let him mix beauty with beauty, that I may cry to the Satyrs - `How came rose to rose? How is ruddy flesh and sparkling water mingled into one radiant light?’
[32] “Would that the river Eridanos were here also, dear boy, where are the richrolling tears of the Heliades: then I would wash your limbs with amber and gold together. But since I live very far from the western river, I will visit the city of Alybe close at hand, where the Geudis has a white stream of precious water, that when you come bathed out of river Pactolos, Ampelos, I may make you shine with silvery water too. Let the other Satyrs see to wideflowing Hermos, for he has no golden springs. But you are the only golden boy, and you shall have the golden water.”
[43] Thus speaking, he plunged into the water; Ampelos rose from the ground and joined Lyaios, and a jolly course the two had, zigzag from point to point of the opulent river. The god winning this watery race swam steadily through the water, pushing his bare breast against the stream, moving his feet and paddling with his hands, and so scored the undisturbed surface of the smooth treasury of riches. Now his boy-comrade’s course ran beside his own, now he shot past him carefully, just so much as to leave Ampelos still a near neighbour to Bacchos in the way; sometimes he let his hands go round and round as if tired by the water, and willingly yielded quicknee the victory to the other swimmer.
[56] Leaving the river stream, Ampelos repaired to the shelter of the woods, lifting a proud neck for his victory in the river. He bound his head with a cluster of vipers, like Lyaios’s terrible wreath of snakes. Often seeing the dappleback tunic of Bromios, he put over his limbs a spotted dress in imitation, and pushed his light foot into a purple buskin, and threw a speckled robe on his body. When he saw Iobacchos in a car driving panthers about the hills, he showed off exultantly his gambols with rockloving beasts; now mounting the shaggy back of woodland bear, he pulled back the ruff of the grim hurrying beast; now on the hairy neck of a lion he gave it the whip; now he drove an unbridled tiger with delight, seated immovable hi
gh on the striped back.
[71] When Dionysos saw him, he warned him gently, adding friendly prophetic words to console him as the voice of pity issued from reproving lips: “Where are your riding, dear boy? Why so fond of the forest? Stay by me when I hunt, and hunt with Dionysos; when Lyaios touches the feast, join in his feasting, and share my revels when I stir the Satyrs to revel. I am not troubled about the panther or the jaws of the wild bear; you need not fear the wild mouth of the mountainranging lioness – fear only the horns of the pitiless bull.”
[81] So he warned bold Ampelos in compassion: the youth heard the words with his ears, but the mind within him was still at play.
[83] Then came a great portent to doting Dionysos, showing that Ampelos had not logn to live: for a horned dragon covered with scales rose from the rocks, carrying across his back a tender young fawn; he crept over the steps, and threw it upon the altar tumbling and rolling helpless and gored with his horrible horn. The hillranging fawn screamed a shrill note as its wandering spirit flew away. A stream of blood reddened the stone altar with bloody dew like so much trickling wine, harbinger of the libation that should follow. When Euois saw the crawling horned robber with the fawn, he knew that a horned creature would destroy the thoughtless youth. He mingled a laugh with his mourning; his thought was uncertain and divided in two, his heart cleft in halves, as he groaned for the youth so near to death, and laughed for the delectable wine.
