Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [79] “You too, father! why do you drown your sons? I have often made war against Bactrians, but Median Araxes never destroyed a Median army. Persian Euphrates never drowned his neighbours, the Persians. Often I have had war under the Tauros, but Cydnos never made his bosom the tomb of Cilicians in war. Tanais never arms icy petrified waters against the Sauromatans on his banks, but often attacked their enemies the Colchians with torrential war, and laid them low with his frozen armament. Eridanos was happier than you, in that he swallowed a foreigner, Phaethon in his flood, not one of his own people; he drowned no Gaul, he entombed no Celt, but brings wealth from his trees to the friends who live near him as he rolls along the brilliant amber gifts of the Heliades. Iberian Rhine does indeed attack his own sons, but as a judge, when he marks off the illicit offspring of his race and kills the stranger-brat; but you swallow up the lawful sons of your own perishing people — you drown no bastard blood. How dare you mingle with other rivers, with your Father Ocean himself and Tethys your mother, rolling down a flood of gore in bloody streams? Have some reverence, do not pollute Poseidon with dead bodies. Your river is worse than Bromios, his wands do not beat me so hard as your waves beat me!”

  [104] As he spoke, he received the last water, which brought him unhappy fate. The river was full of armour. The swollen bodies were floating in crowds: the helmet under way half visible, sinking little by little and crest trailing on the water, its owner lost. Leathern shields sailed along flat, tossing upon the waves in rows here and there, their long slings afloat like ships’ hawsers. Here a man is dragged down to the depths in his soaking garments by the weight of his corselet and his arms.

  [113] Dionysos would never have recalled his men from the battle, if he had not killed that whole army with his fleshpiercing wand, leaving only one to tell the news that all were dead. Thureus alone he left to be a godfearing witness of the victory.

  [117] But when Hera perceived the carnage and devastation of the Indians, she flew from heaven, and quickly along the path on high scored the air with windswift sole. In Anatolia she alighted, and drove Indian Hydaspes to stir up bloody strife against Dionysos.

  [122] When Eastern Ares of barbarian speech had bent the knee, then the company of Bacchoi was fashioning all sorts of machines of navigation and crossed the tranquil waves. The god led them in his landchariot, driving this makeshift vessel over the flood, while the panthers trod the water of Hydaspes without wetting a hoof. The armies made their voyage over a waveless river, one rowing a strong-bound Indian raft, one steering a skiff along the watery path, some native boat of networking fishermen which he had seized. Another played the mariner under strange pretences. He lashed together a number of logs with workmanlike knots, and made the timber roots and all serve as a freighter without rudder, without sail, without oars, asking no help from speed-the-ship Boreas — for he held his spear upright and plunged it under water into the deep pools: so navigated the spearpunting shipman of a watercrossing host. There was another new kind of navigation, and another sham boat, when one cut the waters, dry on a floating shield, with the sling for painter, and so pursued his shieldshaking course.

  [142] The cavalry also marched into the river; the horses swam with their feet while the riders sat on their backs. As the horse swam a wet journey with his agile feet, only his neck rose high and dry out of the water as he carried the rider aloft upon his flanks.

  [147] Next came the doughty footmen who had no boat. They filled swelling skins with artificial wind, and on these leathery bags crossed Indian Hydaspes, while the skins teeming with wind bore them along.

  [151] Now Parrhasian Pan crossed the surface of the calm river on his goat’s feet; Lycos guided the horses of the sea in his father’s fourhorse chariot unwetted; and Scelmis drove across the waveless river along with Damnameneus his brother. Some one else leapt on the back of a bull and made him march into the river quick as the wind, guiding him on his way with his crook, as the beast scored the quiet water with his hooves. The old Seilenoi went voyaging on the deep paddling Hydaspes with foot and hand.

  [162] Now old Hydaspes poured out a gushing cry, and shouted for help to a watery brother, as he uttered these menacing words from his manyfountained throat:

  [165] “Lazy brother, how long is your stream to crawl in silence? Rear your waves, and overwhelm Dionysos, that we may swallow his host of footmen under the waters! It is a disgrace for you and me when the warriors of Bromios pass through my flood with unwetted shoes. You also, Aiolos — grant me this boon, arm your stormy winds to be champions against my foes, to fight with the Satyrs, because their host has marched through the waters and made a highroad of Hydaspes for landchariots, because they drive a watery course through my stream! Arm your winds against my ferryman Lyaios! Let the Satyrs’ host be caught in the flood, let my river receive the chariot, let the charioteers be rolled in my flood, let the riders be swallowed in the mad waves! I will not suffer this unnatural passage to be unavenged: for both you and me it is a disgrace, when the warriors of Bromios have made a path for footmen and drivers high and dry!... I will destroy the water-traversing lions of Dionysos!

  [183] “Tell me, why was my river made a highway? Why does the Naiad in the watery depths of my flood hear whinnying, why does the horse’s hoof crush the fish’s back? I am ashamed to mingle with other rivers, when women cross me with unwetted shoes. Never have Indians been so bold as to scrape my streams with towering chariots, never has Deriades scored his father’s water with his huge equipage, seated on the nape of highcrested elephants!”

  [192] As he spoke, he curved his own stream, and leapt upon Bacchos with a volley of foaming surf. A storm of watery trumpets bellowed from the battling waves; the river moaned as it raised the water high, battling against the Satyrs. Amid the roaring tumult, the Bassarid in her rich garb shook the cymbals out of her hands, swung her feet round, shook off the yellow trusses of the stitched shoes from her paddling foot, while the windswept waves rose to the head of the swimming Bacchant and drenched her curling hair. Another overwhelmed threw off her soaking robes, and gave her fawnskins to the swelling water, as the mass of the curving stream rolled over her chest, black against the rosy nipple. A Satyr paddling the flood with his hands waggled his wet tail straight out through the water. Maron carried swiftly along by the rushing water, paddled the drunken feet of his old legs, and left in the waves his leather bottle full of delicious wine. The syrinx of Pan was floating on the surface and rolling of itself on the waves, tossed about beside the double pipes; the hair of shaggy Seilenos flowed over his neck and jumped about in rivalry.

  [215] The river moaned, dragging the mud in its rush and pouring its alien water yellow over the land, a challenge to watery war for Dionysos. The tumultuous flood, met by a counterblast of wind, piled up high as the clouds and soaked the air, as it leapt down upon Dionysos with foaming surf. Not so furiously roared the war-mad water of Simoeis, not so defiantly rushed Camandros to overwhelm Achilles with rolling flood, as then Hydaspes pursued the army of Bacchos.

  [225] Then Dionysos shouted to the river in rage: “why do you drive against the son of Zeus, you whose waters are fed by Zeus? If it be my pleasure, Rainy Zeus my father will dry up your flood. You, sprung from the clouds of Cronides my father, persecute the offspring of Cloudgatherer Zeus! Beware the stroke of my father’s thunderbolt of delivery, beware lest he raise against you the lightning which gave Bromios birth! Take care that you be not dubbed Heavyknee, like Asopos! Quiet your flood while I yet control my wrath. Your waters rise against fires, and you cannot endure one spark of the blazing thunderbolt.

  [236] “And if it is Asterie your wife that makes you so proud, because she has the blood of Hyperion’s heavenly kin, my father burnt with fire the bold son of Helios the fiery charioteer, when he drove the team through heaven; Hyperion dispenser of fire had to mourn his own son dead: he did not make war on my father for Phaethon’s sake, he did not lift fire against fire even if he is lord of fire. If your Oceanos makes you s
o haughty, consider Eridanos struck by the bolt of Zeus, your brother burnt with fire: a cruel sorrow it was for your watery ancestor, who is girdled by the world’s rim, who pours all those mighty streams of water to possess the earth, when he saw his own son burnt up and made no war on Olympos, nor contended with his flood against the firebarbed thunderbolt. Pray spare your waters awhile, or I may see you, Hydaspes, burnt up in fiery flames like Eridanos.”

  [252] These words made deeproaring Hydaspes more angry than ever, and he poured out his highswollen water in yet stronger waves. And now he would have engulfed the whole company of sobered Bacchants, had not Bacchos defended them. From a neighbouring coppice he pulled a firebearing stalk of fennel, and holding it towards the Dawn he warmed it at the sun; the combustible stalk conceived a spark in itself and brought forth a woodborn fire. Then he threw it into the stream. The river caught fire of this menacing torch, and the water boiled up against the banks; clouds of smoke went up scattering into the air from burning lotus and shrivelling galingale. Fire consumed the rushes; the reek of the sooty smoke curling in whirling circles intoxicated the heavenly vaults, and all the wood was blackened by the fragrant breezes of the smitten reeds.

  [267] The blaze spread to the deeps. Burning fishes hid themselves in the mud; the soaking slime kindled the wet and boiled, as the swimming spark of fire ran under water, and from the deep channels poured abroad a fiery smoke mixt with watery steam. Companies of Hydriads were driven naked from their homes under the waves, swift-footed, bare, unveiled. One Naiad, renouncing her native water now on fire, dived unveiled into the unfamiliar Ganges; another with dry limbs sought a home in noisy Indian Acesines; another Naiad nymph wandering over the mountains, a maiden unveiled and unshod, was received by Choaspes near Persia.

  [280] Oceanos also cried out against Dionysos in menacing words, pouring a watery roar from his manystream throat, and deluging the shores of the world with the flood of words which issued from his everlasting mouth like a fountain:

  [284] “O Tethys! agemate and bedmate of Oceanos, ancient as the world, nurse of commingled waters, selfborn, loving mother of children, what shall we do? Now Rainy Zeus blazes in arms against me and your children. Even as Asopos found the Father Zeus Cronion his destroyer, in the bastard shape of a bird, so Hydaspes has found Bacchos the son. Nay, I will bring my water against the lightnings of Zeus, and drown the fiery sun in my quenching flood, I will put out the stars of heaven! Cronion shall see me overwhelm Selene with my roaring streams. Under the region of the Bear, I will wash with my waters the ends of the axle and the dry track of the Wain. The heavenly Dolphin, which long ago swam in my deep sea, I will make to swim once more, and cover him with new seas. I will drag down from heaven the fiery Eridanos whose course is among the stars, and bring him back to a new home in the Celtic land: he shall be water again, and the sky shall be bare of the river of fire. The starry Fishes that swim on high I will pull into the sea and make them mine again, to swim in water instead of Olympos.

  [303] “Tethys, awake! We will drown the stars in water, that I may see the Bull, who once swam over a waveless sea, tossed on stormier waves in the paths of the waters after the bed of Europa. Selene herself, bullshaped and horned driver of cattle, may be angry to see my horned bullshaped form. I will travel high into the heaven, that I may behold Cepheus drenched and the Waggoner in soaking tunic, as Earthshaker once did when about Corinth soaking Ares once boldly shouted defiance of battle against the stars! I will swallow the shining Goat, the nurse of Zeus, and I will offer infinite water to the Waterman as a suitable gift!

  [316] “Get ready, Tethys, and you, O Sea! for Zeus has been delivered of a base son in bull shape, to destroy all rivers and all creatures together, all blameless: the thyrsus wand has slain the Indians, the torch has burnt Hydaspes!”

  [320] So he cried blustering in a flood of speech from his deep waves.

  BOOK XXIV

  The twenty-fourth has the infinite mourning of the Indians, and the shuttle and distaff of Aphrodite working at the loom.

  FATHER Zeus turned aside the menace of his angry son, for he massed the clouds and flung out a thunderclap; he stayed the flaming attack of Dionysos, and calmed the anger of boundless Ocean. Hera also made an infinite noise resound through the air, to restrain the wrath of Dionysos’s fiery power.

  [7] Then old Hydaspes held out a wet hand to merciful Bacchos, and appealed to the fiery son of Zeus in words that bubbled out of his lips:

  [10] “Spare me, Dionysos, the river fed from Zeus! Be gracious to my fertilizing waters! for your own goodly fruitage of grapes has grown up from water.

  I have sinned, Dionysos, nurseling of fire! for the gleam of your torches has proclaimed your divine lineage. But love for my children constrained me. To keep faith with Deriades my son I brought up my threatening surf, to help perishing Indians I rolled my waves.

  [18] “I am ashamed to appear before my father, because the murmuring stream which I draw is mingled with blood, and I pollute Poseidaon with clots of gore; this it was, only this that armed me to strive against Dionysos. By your father, protector of guests and suppliants, have mercy on Hydaspes, now hot and boiling with your fire!

  [24] “The Naiads flee from my stream: one dwells in a watery home at my source, one leaves the deep for the thicket, and stays with Hadryads in the woods; another migrates to the Indos, another escapes on dusty feet to hide among the thirsty rocks of Caucasos, or passing to Choaspes dwells in strange livers and in her father’s water no longer.

  [31] “Destroy not my canes, the growth of my streams, which grow up to support the shoots and grapes of your vine! Do not the reeds tied together carry your well-watered fruit? Burn not my reeds, which make your Mygdonian hoboys, or your musical Athena may reproach you one day: she who invented the Libyan double pipes, to imitate with their tootle the voices of the Gorgons’ grim heads. Spare the harmonious tune of the pans-pipes which guides your own mystic song! Cease wasting the river stream with your fennel, when the stream of the river makes your fennels to grow!

  [43] “The stream you have crossed is no stranger to your name; for I have washed another Dionysos in my bath, with the same name as the younger Bromios, when Cronion entrusted Zagreus to the care of my nursing nymphs; why, you have the whole shape of Zagreus. Grant this favour then, although so long after, to him from whom you are sprung; for you came from the heart of that firstborn Dionysos, so celebrated. Respect the water of your Lamos who cherished your childhood; remember Maionia your own country, for Hydaspes is brother of your charming Pactolos. Grant now this one boon to all these rivers, my brothers, and withdraw your flame. Burn not with fire my watery stream, for the watery fire of your Zeus, the lightning, came out of water! Calm your anger, because I fall at your knees: see, I have smoothed my flood into peaceful prayer! If Typhoeus in rebellion had bent his bold neck and submitted, your father Zeus, Lord in the highest, would have checked his lightning, his overwhelming threat would have been cast aside and forgotten.”

  [62] When he had ended, Dionysos drew back his torch. A wind from the north began to ruffle the waters with winter’s lash, bringing bleak airs and cooling the firestruck stream of the river, and honoured Helios and Bacchos and Zeus together by quenching the unquenchable divine fire of the surf.

  [68] While Bacchos was still crossing the waters of Hydaspes, Deriades with the courage of Ares armed the Indians for a vast effort of battle, as a Battledown of his name should do. He posted his companies beside the river, that the warriors might repel by force the Bacchoi as they still climbed up. Nor did the allseeing eye of Zeus fail to see him: quickly he swooped down from Heaven to hold a shield before Dionysos. With Zeus came all the gods who dwell in Olympos, one after another, in a flying leap, to help their own.

  [77] Zeus as once before by the river Asopos, for the sake of Aigina’s bed, sailed now as an eagle flying high; and like a bird of prey caught up Aiacos in gentle talons, and carried him to the Indian land for battle with Deriades. Apollo the f
ather saved Aristaios the son from the broad gulf, riding brilliant in his car drawn by the bane-averting swans; for he remembered the bower of lionslaying Cyrene. Hermes Longwing caught up and held his own child, the son of Penelope, hornstrong hairy Pan. Urania saved Hymenaios from destruction, because he had the same name as her own creative son, and scored the airy paths like a moving star, to please Dionysos, her brother of the grapes. Calliope lifted Oiagros upon her shoulders. Hephaistos took care of his sons the Cabeiroi, and caught up both, like a flying firebrand. Pallas Athena the Attic goddess saved Erechtheus the Indians’ bane, the citizen of god-founded Athens. All the denizens of Olympos who cared for their beloved oaks, rescued Hadryad nymphs; and most especially laurel-Apollo appeared and saved the laurel-nymphs; and Leto his mother stood by her son and helped them, for she still honoured the tree which helped her childbirth. The company of Bassarids and the ivycrowned women were saved from the roaring turmoil of the deeps, by the daughters of Cydnos, the river that loved the West Wind, since they knew the ways of the floating waters; these his father had given to Bacchos for victory in the Indian War, Naiads well skilled in warfare, whom Cilician Typhoeus had taught battle while he was fighting against Cronion.

  [109] The whole host followed, but where all pressed forward, Euios was in front, cutting the stream in his highland car and never wetting the axle. The Satyrs attended his passage, and with them Bacchant women and Pans passed through the water; but far quicker than the rest came the Telchines behind their seabred horses, driving their father’s car, firmly based on the sea, and they kept close to Dionysos as he sped along. Others were behind, thronging over the ford, but they came up the bank by another road unseen where a god led: for there was an eagle full in view, gently flapping its wings, Zeus, who led them through the mountains, while he carried his son Aiacos aloft with gentle talons traversing the high path of the air.