by Nonnus
[48] “No, Father Zeus, I have a different errand of my own. I came not to concern myself with others’ troubles, warlike Indians and Indianslaying Dionysos, but I hasten to visit the blazing court of the East near to Helios. For Eros is on the wing beside the waters of Tethys, struck with passion for Rhodope Ocean’s daughter, and he has renounced his matchmaking! So the order of the universe is out of joint, life is worthless when wedlock is gone. I have been to summon him, and here I am on the way back. For you know I am called the Lady of Wedlock, because my hands hold the accomplishment of childbirth.”
[59] So she spoke aloud, and her consort glowing made reply:
[60] “Beloved bride, let quarrels be! Let my proud Dionysos cut down root and branch those Indians who will have no Bacchos, and goodbye to him! But let a bridebed receive us both! Not for any mate, neither mortal woman nor goddess, was I ever so charmed in soul at the touch of the cestus; no, not even when I had Teygete Atlas’s daughter, from whose bed was born Lacedaimon the ancient prince — not so did I love Niobe, the daughter of primeval Phoroneus beside Lerna — not so did I love Inachos’s Io, the wandering heifer, from whom beside the Nile came the line begun by Epaphos and primeval Ceroessa — not so did I desire the Paphian, for whose sake I dropt seed in the furrow of the plowland and begat the Centaurs, as I now feel sweet desire for you! And so you shoot your own husband with Cyprian shafts, being the Lady of Wedlock and queen of creation!”
[76] He spoke, and assembling with a whirl golden clouds like a wall, he arched them eddying above like a round covering dome. It was something in the shape of a bridal chamber, so contrived that the purple manicoloured bow of heavenly Iris was then round it like a crown. Thus there was a natural covering for the loves of Zeus and his fairarmed bride as they mated there in the open hills, and there was the shape of a couch self-formed to serve their need.
[83] While they communed under the sweet canon of gracious marriage, Earth unfolded her teeming perfumes and crowned the marriage bed with lovely flowers: there sprouted Cicilian saffron, there grew bindweed, and wrapt his male leaves about the female plant by his side, as though breathing desire, and himself a dainty mate in the world of flowers. So the double growth adorned the bed of the pair, covering Zeus with saffron and Hera his wife with bindweed; lovely iris leaping upon anemone portrayed by a meaning silence the sharp love of Zeus. No immortal then beheld the shaded bed of the divine ones, not the Nymphs of the neighbourhood, not Phaethon allseeing, not even the soft eye of Selene herself saw that imperishable bed; for the couch was covered with thick shady clouds round about, and Sleep the servant of the Loves had charmed the eyes of Zeus.
[98] While Zeus slept delicately charmed among the flowers, holding his wife in his arms on that bed unseen, the Fury of many shapes wandering among the hills armed herself against Dionysos by Hera’s commands. She made a great rattling over Lyaios’s eyes, loudly cracking her snaky whip; she shook her head, and a deadly hiss issued from her quivering serpent-hair, terrible, and fountains of poison drenched the rocky wilderness.... At times, again, she showed a face like some mid beast; a mad and awful lion with thick bristles upon his neck, threatening Dionysos with bloody gape.
[110] Then Artemis saw Bacchos caught in a fit of mind-marauding madness, and would have driven the madness away, but Hera with heavy noise aloft cast a burning brand at her and scared her off. The mistress of the hunt gave way in anger to her stepmother. But she did protect maddened Bacchos a little; she held back her wild beasts with threatenings, and shackled the hunting dogs, fastening straps round and round their necks that they should not hurt the flesh of delirious Dionysos.
[119] Now Megaira black in her infernal robe went back into the darkness, and sent out many spectral visions to Lyaios. Showers of poison-drops were shot upon the head of Bromios and big fat sparks; ever in his ears was the whistling sound of the hellish whip which robbed him of his senses.
[125] Thus tormented in the lonely forest, Dionysos paced the pathless mountains with wandering foot, shaken by terrible pantings. Like a mad bull, he dashed his horns against the rocks, and a harsh bellow came from his maddened throat. Echo left Pan and mimicked his tune no more, but bellowed an ugly sound in frenzied tone, repeating the wild noise of Dionysos. He swift as the storm chased the dappled deer and shaggy lionesses, plying his highland hunt. No lion so bold as to come near him; the bear appalled and scared hid in a secret cave, fearing the menacing madness of Lyaios, hearing the sound of the god in her rough ears. With pitiless thyrsus he cut through long pythons lying on a stone and gently licking him: he shook the rocks with long-pointed horn: he killed troops of lions, unyielding beasts but now seeking mercy: he rooted up trees from the fruitful soil, he chased the Hadryads, he volleyed the cliffs and drove the Naiad nymphs out of the river homeless. Bassarids went scattering and would not come within touch of Lyaios, Satyrs shivered and hid in the sea; they would not come near him, dazed at the threatening onset, lest he dash at them letting out that outlandish roar, spitting snowy foam, the witness of madness.
[151] Now Deriades with exceeding great boldness attacked the Bacchant women, while Dionysos was being shaken at the command of Hera. As when the sea bellowing with the rush of wintry surge, unnavigable, is driven wildly by contrary winds, and floods the soaking air with waves mountain-high: the blasts have parted the stern-hawsers in the pitiless assault of the billows, the violent wind has tangled up the canvas with its breath and made a cloak of girdling sails round the bending mast, the yard is askew, the sailors in despair have thrown hope to the sea — so the Indian Ares threw into confusion the whole Bacchic army.
[162] Then came a struggle out of all order, then came an unequal fight, a one-sided struggle; for brazen Ares came back unwearied to awaken the conflict. He took the form of the champion Modaios, more than all others unsated with battle, whose joy was joyless carnage, whom bloodshed pleased better than banquets. On the shield he bore the graven image of Medusa with her bush of hair, like the viperine tresses of the Gorgon’s head, and he was equal to Deriades, of the same colour. So then Ares took on Modaios’s terrible shape and the copy of his unsmiling face, his curly hair and the blazon of his shield, and furiously raging rushed amid the fray to scatter the people, giving courage to his warriors. With one voice the Indians fearlessly roared their warcry, now Bacchos was not there, and deathly Ares shouted as loud as nine thousand, with Discord moving by his side to support him; in the battle he placed Rout and Terror to wait upon Deriades. So the army of Dionysos, absent in the wilderness, was driven pellmell by Deriades, and his comrade Ares, and the slumber of Zeus.
[181] So the mingled battalions fighting with one common ardour girded the whole company of Bassarids with a ring of steel; many were slain by one slayer in their flight, smitten by swords. O ye Muses of Homer! Tell me who died, who fell to the spear of Deriades! Aibialos and Thyamis, Ormenios and Opheltes, Criasos Argasides, Telebes and Lyctian Antheus, Thronios and Aretos, Moleneus with his ashplant and Comarcos in his might — a host were laid out dead one upon another by the spear of Deriades. They fell as they were slain, one stretched out on the ground; one swam in the water enduring trouble amid the waves; one drowned in the sea hard by, whom Arabian Nereus buried in the waves newly wounded by the pursuing spear; another ran over the hills with stormswift sole fleeing his fate; another left the lance planted in the middle of his back and crawled into the heart of the bushes, longing for absent Dionysos to save him.
[199] Proud Echelaos fell, and was left unburied, crushed by the manbreaking rock from gigantic Morrheus: he was a Cyprian, with the down fresh around his cheeks. He lay then like a palm spire with a head of leaves; but in the battle he rushed about shaking his torch, a tender lad with uncropt hair, until he was struck on the top of the hip, where nature had fitted the axle in the cup of the thigh to grow together with the flesh of his body. He died holding the mystic pine still alight, and in his convulsions burnt his head to ashes with his own torch, setting fire to the braided hair with
the smoking brand. Then Morrheus triumphed over him and mocked him:
[210] “Boy, you must be a stranger to the land which is called your nurse — Echelaos lad, you have belied your birth as a Cyprian! You are not sprung from Pygmalion, to whom Cypris gave a long course of life and many years. Ares the bridegroom of your Paphian did not save you. Your Cythcreia did not grant you infinite circles of revolving years and a car that stumbled not, that you might escape your fate on that fatefending waggon, as you ever drove a kneeheavy run of mules! — Wrong! you do come from Cyprus. Fate caught you also quick when Ares vanquished you just like Myrrha’s son.”
[221] As he spoke the words, shakespear Morrheus thrust again at the footmen. He caught waddling Bilithos and killed Denthis, cut off the head of Erigbolos the dancer and put the Phrygian warriors to flight with farcast spear. Sebeus he brought down with a jagged stone; he chased Actaion and the company of Thebans, and killed Eubotes, who dwelt in the Cadmeian country, a companion of Actaion. One common shriek arose as a multitude fleeing before the infinite might of Deriades in utter rout slipt into the meshes of one common fate, dying in heaps under the blows of one man and his murderous destroying steel, falling over each other and lying in rows on the bloodstained dust — Crimisos Himaleon Phrasios Thargelos Iaon: Coilon tumbled among them slain, Cyes rolled over in bloody death a corpse. The carnage was infinite: the steel cut them down, the thirsty soil accepted this foreign shower of war’s torrents, and gladly bathed in the enemies’ blood.
[240] There was panic in the army of Bacchos. The footmen were shaken and ran, the horsemen checked their jewelled bridles to flee and escape. So one made for the hills and into a cave in the rocks, one crept into the bushes on the hillside and sat hidden under the leaves, one entered the cave of lions, another the den of a savage bear, one slunk over a high cliff and traversed the uplands with hillranging feet. A Bacchant passed by the lair of a wild beast with a litter, and trod the uplands with timid shoe; now she wanted no longer a lion’s rocky den, but she found a harbourage of weak deer in her craven mood — for she had changed her former heart into a deer’s heart instead of a lioness. One of the stormswift Satyrs was running like the quick winds, unshod, with frightened foot, to escape the impious weight of Deriades’ threats. An old Seilenos wandered scouring the cliffs. Often he sank with stumbling feet upon heavy knees, and fell to the ground and covered his face with dirt; then he lifted his hairy form again, but instead of fighting he hid among the hills, and with difficulty kept clear of helmeted Morrheus with his spear. The spear of Euios, the thyrsus, he was obliged to throw away for the peaceful winds to take care of. Erechtheus retired slowly with reluctant feet, turning again and again his round eyes backwards, for he was ashamed to think of Athena the warlike patron of his city. Aristaios hit by an arrow in the left shoulder, unwillingly refused to take further part in Mainad battle on behalf of Bacchos. Melisseus was avoiding the company of spearbold Corybants; he was pierced through his hairy chest and the Erythraian spear had gone through the nipple. The grim merciless Cyclopians hastened to flee discomfited with quick foot, and with them Phaunos also fled from the Indian battle though unshaken. An ancient Parrhasian Pan, himself a runaway, led to flight the whole horned company, and with silent feet plunged into the shadowy forest, that restless Echo might not see him escaping over the hills and mock him and call him coward.
[281] Now the leaders had slunk away, all but Aiacos, who was left there alone in the battle fighting on, though he needed the presence of unconquered Dionysos. Nevertheless there he stayed. The Nymphs from the rocks had hidden in the deep hall of some Naiad; these joined the nymphs of Hydaspes, those fled to neighbouring Indos and lodged in his waters, others went to the Sydros, others washed off the fresh gore in the Ganges — these were many, they came in herds to the watery channels, and the silverfoot Naiad stood at her hospitable door to welcome them into the watery retreat of her virginal palace. Others hid under the shady branches of a Hamadryad or slipt into open holes in the trees. Many Bassarids were beside the watersprings near the rock shedding fountains of tears; and the deep fountain itself, filled with the showers of tears newly shed upon her sorrowful countenance, grew all dark lamenting the heavy mourning of nevermourning Dionysos.
BOOK XXXIII
In the thirty-third, furious Love masters Morrheus, and sets him aflame for the beauty of Chalcomedeia.
BUT Bacchos himself, rushed away kneequick like a horned bull, carried in long leaps by his wandering feet, puffing deadly breath in the flood of his frenzied madness.
[4] One of the swiftshoe Graces was gathering the shoots of the fragrant reeds in the Erythraian garden, in order to mix the flowing juice of Assyrian oil with Indian flowers in the steaming cauldrons of Paphos, and make ointment for her Lady. While she plucked all manner of dew-wet plants she gazed all round the place; and there in a forest not far off she saw the madness of Lyaios her father.” She wept for sorrow and tender affection, and tore her cheeks with her nails in mourning. Then she saw the Satyrs scurrying from battle; she distinguished Codone and Gigarto, dead too soon, lying on the dust unburied; she pitied Chaleomede fleeing with stormswift shoe from the blade of furious Morrheus — and indeed she was shaken with jealousy of the rosy-check maiden, for fear she might win the day with radiant Aphrodite.
[21] Sorrowing she returned to heaven, but she hid her grief for Lyaios her father in mournful silence. Pallor displaced the bloom on her rounded cheek, and dimmed the bright radiance of her face.
[25] Cypris, the lover of Adonis, saw Pasithea downcast, and understood the grief heralded by her silent face; then she addressed to her these comforting words:
[28] “Dear girl, what trouble has changed your looks? Maiden, what has made you lose your ruddy looks? Who has quenched the gleams of springtime from your face? The silvery sheen shines no longer upon your skin, your eyes no longer laugh as before. Come now, tell me your anxieties. Are you plagued by my son, perhaps? Are you in love with some herdsman, among the mountains, struck with desire, like Selene? Has Eros perhaps flicked you also with the cestus, like Dawn once before? — Ah, I know why your cheeks are pale: shadowy Sleep, the vagabond, woos you as a bridegroom woos a maid! I will not compel you if you are unwilling; I will not join Sleep the blackskin to Pasithea the lily white!”
[41] When Aphrodite had said this, the Charis weeping replied:
[42] “O mother of the Loves! O sower of life in the everlasting universe! No herdsman troubles me, no bold desire of Sleep. I am no lovesick Dawn or Selene. No, I am tormented by the afflictions of Lyaios my father, driven about in terror by the Furies. He is your brother — protect Dionysos if you can!”
[48] Then she recounted all her father’s afflictions to her mistress, and the countless ranks of Bassarids that Morrheus had killed, and all the fugitive host of Satyrs, even Dionysos lashed with the fury’s whip, and wailing Gigarto gasping on the ground, and Codone gone before her season: with shame she described the sorrows and beauty of Chalcomedeia.
[55] Then sweetsmiling Aphrodite put off the wonted laugh from her radiant rosy face, and told her messenger Aglaia to call Eros her son, that swift airy flyer, that guide to the fruitful increase of the human race.
[60] The Charis moved her footsteps, and turned her face this way and that way over earth and sea and sky, if somewhere she might find the restless track of Eros — for he beats his wings everywhere circling the four separate regions of the universe.
[64] She found him on the golden top of Olympos, shooting the nectar-drops from a cup. Beside him stood Hymenaios, his fairhaired playfellow in the dainty game. He had put up as a prize for the victor something clever made by his haughty mother Urania, who knew all the courses of the stars, a revolving globe like the speckled form of Argos; winged Eros had taken and put up a round golden necklace which belonged to his mother sea-born Aphrodite, a shining glorious work of art, as a prize of victory. A large silver basin stood for their game, and the shooting mark before them was a statue of Hebe shown
in the middle pouring the wine. The umpire in the game was adorable Ganymedes, cupbearer of Cronides, holding the garland. Lots were cast for the shots of unmixed wine, with varied movements of the fingers: these they held out, these they pressed upon the root of the hand closely joined together. A charming match it was between them.
[81] Daintyhair Hymenaios drew the first try. He took the cup, and shot the flying nectar-drop high in the air over the basin; but he offered no prayer then to his mother the Muse: darting from the cup the dew went scattering high through the air, but the leaping drops turned aside and swerving fell back about the face of the statue so as to touch the top of the head without a sound. Second, crafty Eros took hold of the lovely cup in a masterly way, and secretly in his heart prayed to Cyprogeneia; then with a steady eye on the mark, he shot the liquid into the distance — the dewy nectar went straight, unswerving, and curved round until it fell from the air upon the forehead above the temple with a loud plop. The elegant statue rang, and the basin echoed the sound of victory for the golden son of Cyprogeneia. Ganymedes laughing handed the dainty garland to Eros. Quickly he picked up the beautiful necklace and lifted the globe, and kept the two prizes of their cleverdrop game. Bold Eros went skipping and dancing for joy and turned a somersault, and tried often to pull his rival’s hands from his sorrowful face.
[105] Now Aglaia stood by him, and she received the prizes from the hands of the prince of heart’s delight. She beckoned the boy aside, and with silence their only witness, she whispered into his ear the artful message of her intriguing mistress:
[109] “Allvanquisher unvanquished, preserver of life co-eval with the universe, make haste! Cythereia is in distress. None of her attendants has remained with her; Charis has gone, Peitho has vanished, Pothos the inconstant has left her; she had none to send but me. She needs your invincible quiver!”
[114] No sooner had she spoken, than Eros wanted to know all about it; for all young people, when they hear only the beginning of a story, are eager to hear the end. So he rattled out with that unbridled tongue of his —
