Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [309] Beside Ocythoos, Acmon with brilliant helmet moved his restless circling feet in knowing leaps. He fought unshakable like the hammerbeaten anvil of his name, holding a Corybantic shield, which had often held in its hollow baby Zeus asleep among the mountains: yes, a little cave once was the home of Zeus, where that sacred goat played the nurse to him with her milky udder for a makeshift, and cleverly let him suck the strange milk, when the noise of shaken shields resounded beaten on the back with tumbling steel to hide the little child with their clanging. Their help allowed Rheia to wrap up that stone of deceit, and gave it to Cronos for a meal in place of Cronides.

  [303] Sharpsighted Idaios entered the revels of war, that dancer of battle turning his intricate steps, incessantly shaken with the mad passion for Indian carnage.

  [306] Melisseus also scared all the dusky host with boldness unshaken. True to his name,” he imitated the bee up in arms with her terrible sting. Morrheus hurled a hurtling stone against the quick Curetian who faced him, but he missed Melisseus, he missed him — for it is not seemly that a Corybant should be killed with a millstone.

  [324] So the dancers of cruel war fought all together as one. Round the car of Deriades they gathered in a ring of shields, beating their armour, and surrounded the tower in rhythmic battle and shieldbearing dance. And the noise mounted through the air to the palace of Zeus, and the fairfooted Seasons trembled at the turmoil of both armies.

  BOOK XXIX

  In the twenty-ninth, Ares retreats from the battle, being urged to another wedding by Cythereia.

  WHEN Hera saw the companies of Indians being destroyed, she threw on proud Deriades courage invincible. The terrible king felt the pride of an intenser ardour for strife. He went about through the whole black army rank by rank, pouring forth his frenzied voice among the forefighters, and rallying all the fugitive host back into the fray, changing one man’s mind by gentle words, one by threats. He grew bolder still, and the Indians themselves recovered and rushed into battle at the summons of their king. Then farshooting Morrheus cut through the whole body of Satyrs: now he discharged a cloud of arrows through the air from his backbending bow against his adversaries; now he cast his furious spear again and again, and disordered the horned generation of Seilenoi.

  [15] Longhaired Hymenaios fought swinging his sword, out of reach on the back of his Thessalian horse, and cut down black Indians with his rosy hand. He blazed in radiance: you might see him in the midst of the Indians, like the bright morning star against ugly darkness. He drove the enemy to flight, since for his beauty’s sake Dionysos inspired him fighting with strength divine.

  [22] And Iobacchos was glad when he saw him a champion in the battle; he would not have chosen Cronion’s lightning for ally in his war rather than the ashplant of Hymenaios. If he drove his colt into the throng of escaping Indians, Dionysos flicked the neck of his motley wild beasts, and brought up his car to the horse; he kept close to the youth, and took him as his boy, as Phoibos with Atymnios. He was always to be seen by his side, and desired the youth to notice him as lovely and valiant at once; in the conflict he touched the clouds with pride to be Hymenaios’s comrade in arms. One thing only incensed him, that the boy’s father was earthborn Phlegyas and not Cronides. He was always near him, like a father guarding his son, for fear that some farshooter might let fly an arrow and hit the boy: as the shafts came, he held out his right hand to protect Hymenaios as with a shield. He encouraged the young champion with such words as these:

  [39] “Shoot your shot, dear boy, and Ares will cease to rage! Your beauty was the shot which hit Bacchos, whose arrows bring down the Giants. Shoot Deriades also with your shots, that foolish king of our enemies, that enemy of God; that men may say, ‘Hymenaios hit two marks with one arrow, the body of Deriades and the heart of Dionysos!’”

  [45] At this speech of Bromios, the lovely farshooter Hymenaios attacked the battle with more vigour than before; and Dionysos enamoured, rejoicing in him, rushed in with more fury and scattered the whole black nation out and out. One who saw Dionysos like a merciless tornado in the field, piercing Indian heads insatiate with his arrows, said something like this to avaricious Melaneus:

  [52] “Archer, where is your bow, where are your windswift arrows? Women in dainty dress are shooting their arrows at us! Come, aim a shot at shortlived Dionysos! Let not the legend of his Olympian name mislead you. Never fear Bacchos, who has in him the mortal blood of a quickfated father, and lies when he calls himself son of Zeus. Here — let fly your shot, and if you can hit the mark, accept infinite gifts from our wealthy king, if he sees Dionysos, Thyone’s haughty son, brought down by your shaft and laid on a pyre. One shot would finish all our troubles. Pray to both — stretch out your hands to the Water and pray to Mother Earth, and with truthful lips vow to both sacrifice after victory; at the altar let bullshaped Hydaspes hold a hornstrong bull, and let black Earth receive a black ram.”

  [68] With these words he persuaded Melaneus the archer, a man with a passion for mindbeguiling riches. Silently he took off the cap of his quiver and chose a long arrow; then drew back the bowstring as he knew how to do, until the bow was rounded by a backward pull of his hand: he brought the deadly oxgut close to his breast till the steel point touched the bow, and the shaft sped straight — but Zeus made it swerve aside from Dionysos, and the winged arrow pierced the bloodbathed thigh of garlanded Hymenaios.

  [78] But Dionysos failed not to see the arrow swerve aside, as it flew whizzing by, quick as the cruel breeze. But he softened the force of the flying shaft, and made of little avail the deadly longshot of Melaneus; the Paphian too brushed away the barbs of the shaft, in grace to a sister’s love of Dionysos her brother, and kept the shot just out of the flesh, as when a mother drives off a vagrant fly from her sleeping child, fanning his face with a corner of her robe.

  [87] Hymenaios came close to Bacchos, and showed him the angry wound on his reddened thigh. An adorable tear dropt under his brows, that he might make sure of the helping right arm of Dionysos his protector: he wanted a physician to save his life. Then Dionysos caught Hymenaios’s white arm and helped him up into his car; he took him away from the tumult of battle, and made him sit down on the ground in the shade of an oak not far off, heavy and drooping his head. As Apollo bemoaned Hyacinthos, struck by the quoit which brought him quick death, and reproached the blast of the West Wind’s jealous gale, so Dionysos often tore his hair and lamented for Hymenaios with those unweeping eyes. When he saw the barbs of the arrow outside the flesh, he was glad and took courage, and just touching the white-red wound with gentle hands, he drew out the arrow-point from the reddened thigh. Then seeing the tears of the sorrowful boy he was angry with Ares and Melaneus both. He wiped off the sweat from sweet Hymenaios, he said reproachfully under his breath: menaios! Would he had killed all the warriors whom I have armed, and left me this one unwounded! What pain troubles me if a Cabeiros is slain in battle? When could a Satyr’s wound excite Bacchos, when, I ask! Let the grapewreathed Seilenos fall, let a swarm of Bassarids be scattered, so long as I see the boy alone unhurt. If Aristaios fell — forgive me, illustrious Archer! what should I care for one who calls the travail of his bee better than the drops of my precious vintage! I seem to be destined never to be without sorrow for some boy, now I seem likely to be in mourning again for the loss of this one. What heavy spite has attacked both! If I dare to say so, Hera looked with jealous eye on Bacchos and the young reaper of the blackskin nation; to spite the young man and enamoured Lyaios, she armed furious Ares to shoot Hymenaios with an arrow, disguised unknown under an Indian shape, that she might plague the mind of Lyaios deep in love. Well, I will assail this false Melaneus, aiming a bloodthirsty shot or casting a lance, that I may exact the price due for lovely Hymenaios. If you die, Hymenaios, I will leave this war unfinished, I will retreat from the battle and lift my thyrsus no longer. I will leave all my enemies alive, when I have mown down one fellow, Melaneus your slayer. Not Deriades killed you, even if he hates me.
Ungentle Ares has assailed another gentle Adonis after the bold son of Myrrha — forgive me, Cythereia! He assailed him and touched his rosy flesh, now once more the blood of all the Loves has trickled from a thigh on the ground. O be gracious to your Dionysos in his passion! Send me here Phoibos our brother, who knows the art of healing all pains, and he will make the boy whole.

  [141] “But stay, my voice! Leave Phoibos undisturbed in Olympos, or I may provoke him by recalling the wound of his beloved Hyacinthos. Send me Paieon, if it be your pleasure: let him come; he has no part in desire, he is alien to the Loves. This is a new kind of wound I have seen. On the battlefield a man is struck in the flank with a spear and the red blood runs, another has a sword-wound in the hand, another is shot in the side or through the ear; but when Hymenaios got his death-wound, I was struck to the heart with Hymenaios.”

  [151] He spoke, and shivered as his eye glanced aside and saw the wound of charming Hymenaios. Gently fingering the twicolour white and red of the wounded thigh, he twined about it the plant of Euios, and gave the boy new life with his healing ivy, sprinkling Hymenaios with the wholesome wine. As the quickworking figjuice that curdles milk in a trice, mixes with the white liquid and takes away its wet, when a goatherd prepares to compress the stuff in the shape of a cheese-basket on a round mat, so quickly he made the bleeding wound whole by Phoibos’s art; and the young man sound and whole began fighting again, after a touch of the healing hand of Dionysos. Again he rounded his bow and drew an airflying long-shot upon the mark; he took aim at Melaneus who shot the arrow, and dealt him a wound in revenge with his own arrow.

  [167] Now the boy rushed boldly forward. He followed Lyaios, and never fell behind Bacchos now, striking and striking the enemy. As the shadowy shape follow’s a man, moving inanimate, marching close beside him without a mark on it, as it goes with him when he runs, stands when he stands, sits beside him when he sits, and at table shares the meal with an image of hands: so the boy kept beside Bacchos the winegod as he went. And Dionysos rested not in his fighting: nay, he ran a man through the middle and spitted him on his thyrsus, lifted him high aloft upright, and holding the Indian up in the airy ways displayed him to jealous Hera.

  [179] That divine warrior also played his part, Autonoe’s farshooting bridegroom, as befitted his three names, Aristaios the divine, Agreus the hunter wellskilled in war, Nomios the fighting herdsman cudgel in hand. He held his bow in the conflict, like his bowfamous sire, full of the pre-eminent courage of his archeress mother, Cyrene daughter of Hypseus in the olden time. Fearless Agreus hunted one mad enemy like a wild beast and took him prisoner. With experienced hand he hurled a heavy stone for the death of his adversaries, as if he were crushing and pounding the melting travail of the fat olive; he scattered his proud enemies with his favourite bull-roarer, swinging the bronze plate which he used to whirl when he scattered the maddened stings of the swarming bees.

  [193] Two firestrong citizens of Samothrace also ran wild, sons of Lemnian Cabeiro; their eyes flashed out their own natural sparks, which came from the red smoky flame of their father Hephaistos. They rode in a car of adamant; a pair of colts beat the dust with rattling hooves of brass, and they sent out a dry whinnying from their throats. These father Hephaistos had made with his inimitable art, breathing defiant fire between their teeth, like the pair of brazenfoot bulls which he made for Aietes the redoubtable ruler of the Colchians, with hot collars and burning pole. Eurymedon drove and guided the fiery mouths of the ironfoot steeds with a fiery bridle; in his right hand he held a Lemnian spear made on his father’s anvil, and by his wellmade thigh hung a flashing sword — if a man picked up a small stone in his fingertips and struck it against the firegrained surface of the sharp blade, sparks flashed of themselves from the steel. Alcon grasped a fiery bolt in one hand, and swung about a festal torch of Hecate from his own country.

  [215] The Dictaian Corybants joined battle, shaking the plumes of their highcrested helmets, rushing madly into the fray. Their naked swords rang on their beaten shields in emulation, along with resounding leaps; they imitated the rhythm of the dance-at-arms with quick circling movements of their feet, a revel in the battlefield. The Indian nation was ravaged by the steel of those mountaineer herdsmen, the Curetes. Many a man fell headlong into the dust when he heard the bellow of the heavydumping oxhides.

  [225] The Bassarid lifted her leafy weapon of war, and cast: from that Bacchos-hating generation many men’s heads were brought low by the woman’s thyrsus. Leneus cut off the peak of a hill to arm himself, and raising the crested rock with a hairy hand, he hurled the jagged mass at his adversaries. The Bacchant women shouted their warcry around, and viny arrows were whirled by the hands of ivy- bearing women. Then Eupetale wove a lay for Ares and Dionysos, and attacking cast the piercing ivy, which smashed the steel with leaves of the vine, and destroyed the Indian nation with clusters of leaves.

  [237] Grapelover Terpsichore danced about in the turmoil, sweeping off clouds of enemies with manbreaking thyrsus, and swinging round the double plates of the heavyresounding cymbals. Not so loud was the bang of the heavy thumping rattle of Heracles, when he drove away the Stymphalian birds, as the noise Terpsichore made, when she drove away the Indian army with the battledin of her dance.

  [243] Trygie with limping knee was left behind the company last of all, her feet frozen with fear. Not one of the Seilenoi kept beside her; but they left her there alone frightened, without a helper. She held out her hands to Maron the hard drinker, but Maron would have nothing to do with the old woman because she only hindered the dances of winegreedy Corybants and Satyrs: he did nothing but pray to the gods to let the silly old hag fall before the spear of Deriades.

  [251] Calyce also fought by the side of Dionysos, mad with fury. But Oinone ran to the front, and danced in the staggering steps of drunkenness. Her knees were weary and heavy in the struggle, the tippling girl’s soaking locks were swinging about her head.

  [256] The din was deafening; with emulous tumult Astraeis chased Staphyle, Celaineus chased Calyce. Shakespear Morrheus drove off a company of Seilenoi, beating them with his poleaxe: at one shout of the driver Astraios was shaken, Maron fled, Leneus collapsed, the three sons of shaggyhaired Seilenos, who himself sprang up out of mother earth unbegotten and self-delivered; and Doryclos scared away the charming Lycaste....

  [264] These the god helped, and besprinkled the womens fresh wounds with healing drugs. Unveiled Gorge he saved, when wounded in the foot by a hostile spear, wrapping the foot in a bandage of vine-leaves. He staunched the newly-flowing ichor of Eupetale with wine, and stayed the stream of blood from Staphyle with a charm, healed Myrto’s wounded hand with myrtle, saved Calybe’s life by pulling the arrow out of her shoulder, and pouring the draught of the winepress on the bleeding wound; he ended the pain of Nyse’s just-wounded face by smearing her cheeks on both sides with white chalk. With tearless eyes he mourned over Lycaste.

  [276] But after he had soothed the pains of the Bassarids by his art, Dionysos thyrsus-mad fought with still greater fury. One wild Bassarid, possessed by the throes of sense-robbing madness, was harrying the Indians in the conflict, for thy honour, O Lydian god! and from the Bacchant’s hair shone a spontaneous flame about her neck, which burnt her not.

  [282] Yet another swarm of sturdy champions was soon stirred up by the sound of the drooling pipes which gathered the army to war, and the loverattle Corybants beating their hands on both sides of the rounded skin, the tinkling cymbals, the syrinx of Pan with its changeable sweet notes tuning up for battle. The enemy ranks answered with tumultuous noise, showers of winged arrows came whizzing through the air: twanged the bow, banged the stone, bellowed the trumpet.

  [291] But as soon as they came to the ford, where Hydaspes rolling along had reddened his white water with drunken streams, then Bacchos shouted from his deep-roaring throat as loud as the horrid clamour which comes from the throat of a swarm of nine thousand men roaring together as one. The Indians could not stand; restless t
hey fled away, and crouched some in the yellow stream, some on the land. The army of Bacchos divided, slaying the enemy both on land and in the Hydaspes, panting with dry thirst, at the time when day has reached the middle of the earth, and a heated wayfarer trembles under the midday lash of blazing Helios.

  [302] Then the vinegod challenged the Indian king, and poured a menacing speech from his furious throat:

  [304] “What is there to fear? If the Indian chieftain claims descent from a river, I have my blood from heaven! Overweening Deriades is as much less than Lyaios, as Hydaspes is less than Zeus! If it be my pleasure, I can rise to the clouds; if it be my pleasure, my shot will go straight to the Moon! If you are proud because you have a hornstrong shape, fight if you can a duel with horned Dionysos.”

  [311] As he spoke, the warriors roared and gnashed their teeth: man vied with man in fighting by the side of Dionysos. A friendly Pan fought with his goatsfeet: with a sharp stroke of his pointed hoof he tore all down the hollow flank of archer Melaneus and laid open his belly; this was his revenge for the wound of Hymenaios, to relieve the firesealed agony of Dionysos mourning with tearless eyes.

  [319] Madly Iobacchos rushed into the fray; he lengthened his tall body until he reached the clouds and grasped Olympos with his hands, near neighbour to the sky, standing firm on earth and touching heaven with his head.

  [323] So they fought, until the evening star came on them and razed the foundations of the Indian massacre. Then at Rheia’s nod a deceitful vision stood by Ares, painting fantastic pictures in his sleep, and spoke thus in shadowy counterfeit shape: