by Nonnus
[118] “Who has hurt my dear Paphian? Let me take arms in hand and fight all the world! If my mother is in distress, let me stretch my allvanquishing bowstring against even Cronion, to make him once more a mad ravishing love-bird, an eagle, or a bull swimming the sea! Or if Pallas has provoked her, if Crookshank has hurt her by lighting the bright torch of the Cecropian light, I will fight them both, Hephaistos and Athena! Or if Archeress hareslaver moves her to anger, I will draw the fiery Olympian sword of Orion to prick Artemis and drive her out of the sky! (Or if it is Hermes) I will carry off with me Maia’s son on my wings, and let him call useless Peitho in vain to his help. Or I will leave my arrows and the fiery belt of my quiver, I will lash Phoibos a willing victim with cords of laurel leaves, holding him bound in a belt of speaking iris. Indeed I fear not the strength of Envalios, it will not weary me to flog Ares when he is shackled by the delightful cestus. The two luminaries I will drag down from heaven to be drudges in Paphos, and give my mother for a servant Phaethon with Clymene, Selene with Endymion, that all may know that I vanquish all things!”
[140] He spoke, and straight through the air he plied his feet, and reached the dwelling of eager Aphrodite long before Aglaia with his pair of whirring wings.
[143] His mother with serene countenance took him into her embrace, and threw one happy arm round her boy, lifting him on her knees, a welcome burden. He sat there while she kissed the boy’s lips and eyes: then she touched his mindcharming bow, and handled the quiver, and pretending to breathe anger, spoke these delusive words:
[149] My dear child, you have forgotten Phaethon and Cythereia! Pasiphae no longer wants the bull’s love. Helios mocks at me, and arms the offspring of Astris, the warrior Deriades his own daughter’s son, to destroy the Bassarids of womanmad Dionysos and to rout the love-stricken Satyrs of Bromios. But it has provoked me more than all, that battlestirring Ares in mortal shape, with Enyo by his side, without regard for his old love of Aphrodite, has armed himself against Dionysos at Hera’s bidding and supports the Indian king. Now then, on this field Ares is for Deriades — then you fight for Lyaios. He has a spear, you have a stronger bow, before which bend the knee Zeus the Highest and furious Ares and Hermes the lawgiver; even that Archer Apollo fears your bow. If you will give a boon to your Foamborn, fight for the Bassarids and our Dionysos. Go I pray, to the Eastern clime and let no one catch you — go to the Indian plain, where there is a handmaid of Lyaios amongst the Bacchants, more excellent than her yearsmates, named Chalcomede, who loves the maiden state — but if you should see Chalcomede and Cypris both together in Libanos, you cannot tell which was Aphrodite, my dear boy! Go to that place and help Dionysos ranging the wilds, by shooting Morrheus for the beauty of Chalcomedeia. I will give you a worthy prize for your shooting, a wellmade Lemnian chaplet, like the rays of fiery Helios. Shoot a sweet arrow, and you will do a grace both to Cypris and to Dionysos; honour my bridesmaid bird of love and yours, the herald of lifelong wedding and happy hearts!”
So spoke the goddess; and Eros Mildly leapt from his mother’s lap and took up his bow, slung the allvanquishing quiver about his little shoulder, and sailed away on his Mings through the air; round Cerne he turned his flight opposite the rays of morning, smiling that he had set afire that great charioteer of the heavenly car with his little darts, and the light of the loves had conquered the light of Helios. Soon he was moving in the midst of the Indian host, and laid his bow against the neck of Chalcomedeia, aiming the shaft round her rosy cheek, and sent it into the heart of Morrheus. Then paddling his way with the double beat of his floating wings he mounted to the starry barriers of his father, leaving the Indian transfixed with the fiery shaft.
[195] Now Morrheus moved lovesick this way and that way, struck by the arrow of desire, wherever the maiden went; the sword he lifted was tame, his spear hung idle, his bold spirit was lashed by the cestus of love, he turned his enamoured gaze all about and moved his eyes at the bidding of Cypris, uncomforted.
[201] But the girl cunningly deceived the Indian chieftain, as if desiring him, yet it was only a false pretence of love that she modelled; and yet Morrheus touched heaven soaring in vain hope, for he thought she had in her heart a wound of maiden love like his own. Shallow man! he forgot his looks, and sought to charm a girl in her right mind with his black body. The girl had good sport in her playful tricks, showed herself near him and teased the lovesick man. She told her enemy how the knees of that unwedded Nymph fled swift on the breeze, how she ran once from Phoibos quick as the north wind, how she planted her maiden foot by the flood of a longwinding river, by the quick stream of Orontes, when the earth opened beside the wide mouth of a marsh and received the hunted girl into her compassionate bosom.
[216] At this tale of hers Morrheus jumped for joy — one thing only annoyed him, that the god never caught Daphne when she was pursued, that Apollo never ravished her. He called Phoibos a sluggard, and always blamed Earth for swallowing the girl before she knew marriage. Trembling with the sweet fire, he feared that Chalcomede also like Daphne might be in love with maidenhood, feared In might see her fleeing and chase her in vain, wasting his pains on desire unattainable like Apollo.
[225] But when night came up and sent the battle to rest, Chaleomede traversed lonely wooded heights seeking traces of distracted Dionysos. She bore no tambours then, no Euian cymbals of Rheia, she performed no mystic rite for unsleeping Lyaios; but downcast and touching not the dance, she kept silence with those lips so unused to silence, understanding the malady of Saviour Dionysos.
[233] With timid steps went Morrheus, slow and hesitating, as he watched the nymph with glances that returned again and again, and blamed Phaethon for all his speed; but his mind was keeping company with Chalcomede. In distress, he softened his voice to womanish love-prattle, as the arrow of nightly love quivered beneath his heart:
[239] “Bow and arrows of Ares, I have done with you; for another shaft and a better constrains me, the arrow of desire! I have done with you, quiver! The cestus-strap has conquered my shieldsling. No more I equip a fighting hand against Bassarids. The gods of my nation, Water and Earth, I will leave, and set up altars both to Cypris and Dionysos; I will throw away the brazen spear of Enyalios and Athena. No more will I arm me with fiery torches, for love’s torch has quenched the torch of Enyalios the weakling: I am hit by another and hotter fire. Would I were a Satyr, one womanmad, that I might dance among Bassarids, that I might rest my hand on Chaleomedeia’s shoulder and encircle her neck with love’s tight bond! May Dionysos drag the minister of Deriades to Phrygia under the yoke of slavery! May wealthy Maionia receive me as her settler instead of my native land! I want to leave Caucasosa and dwell in Tmolos; let me throw off my ancient name of Indian and be called Lydian, let me bow my neck to Dionysos as the slave of love. Let Pactolos carry me — what care I for the Hydaspes of my homeland? Let Chalcomede’s sweet home possess me. Cypris and Bacchos have joined forces and overwhelmed the goodsons of Deriades with their volleys, that men may say—’ The cestus killed Morrheus, the thyrsus Orontes.’”
[262] Such was his outcry. He melted in the resounding flood of care when he thought of Chalcomede: for in the darkness the sparks of the loves are always hotter. For already the cone of cloudless dark, leaping up with its unconscious moving shade, had covered everything together in one trembling quietude. No wayfarer walked through the Indian city; no working-woman touched her familiar craft, nor beside the distaff-loving lamp did the moving spindle go round of itself under her hands, dangled unresting by the dancing pull of the thread. No, the industrious drudge slept with heavy head beside the wakeful lamp. A snake had crawled in quietly and lay where it fell; the head caught the tail, then it tightened up the length of its backbone in sleep on its belly. A towering elephant by the neighbouring wall enjoyed his sleep upright, leaning his back against a tree.
[280] Then alone, sleepless, noiseless, Morrheus hurriedly left Cheirobië sleeping alone in her chamber, and crept round and round in distress wit
h ever-returning feet. Once when at war near the Tauros among the Cilicians, he had heard the lore of an old sage, and learnt of the sting of starry loves in the heavens. Surveying therefore the heavenly domain spread abroad in the skies, he noticed Europa’s bridegroom, the Olympian Bull; then he turned his wandering eye to the polar region, and observed Callisto and the restless course of the Waggon, and recognized that the female received a female bedfellow, who was disguised under the false likeness of the Archeress with limbs unrecognizable. Rising over the Bull he saw Myrtilos, the fire-breathing Charioteer, because he once helped a marriage, at the race for Hippodameia, and made a counterfeit peg of rounded wax, so that Pelops got his marriage. Near Cassiepeia he saw that Eagle spreading his wings who bedded with Aigina, and wished for such another delusive device, that he might himself undo the maidenhead of unwedded Chalcomede. Then with unsleeping gaze he began to speak:
[301] “I have heard how Zeus the Ruler on High once took the shape of a Satyr, and wooed the maiden Antiope under a deceitful shape, in the mock love of a dancing bridal. I wish I had such a shape myself, to dance unrecognized into the host of horned Satyrs and to enjoy the bed of wineloving Chalcomede. I know, Cythereia, why you are angry with the sons of India; as neighbours of the Sun your arrows plague them, you have not yet forgotten how your captivity was discovered by those nets. Phaethon was not my father — why do you plague me, Aphrodite? Bullgazer Pasiphae was no mother of mine, Ariadne no sister. O ye rocks, utter your stony voice! Chalcomede I desire, and she denies! Away my quiver, away with you, my murderous bow and windswift arrows! Ares did not save me when Aprodite took up arms: little Love has vanquished me, whom proud Bacchos could not kill!”
[317] Such were the vain cries of lovesick Morrheus through the night. Nor did the wing of sweet bewildering Sleep give rest to loveshy Chalcomede; for she longed to die, being in terror of mad Morrheus — she feared the hot man might bind her in forced wedlock while Bacchos was far away. She turned her step in the night to the Erythraian sea, and cried out to the deaf waves:
[324] “Melis, I call you happy! for you unacquainted with love once threw yourself of your own free will over and over into the sea, and so escaped the bed of womanmad Damnamcecus. I call your chaste lot happy. For Aphrodite daughter of the brine armed the maddened bridegroom against you, and the sea guarded you even though it was the Paphian’s mother: you died in the waves a virgin still; O may the water of the sea cover Chalcomede also, willing enough, while she is still unacquainted with the marriage that Morrheus desires; that I may be called a new loveshy Britomartis, whom once the sea received and returned to the land, where she rejected the bodily love of Minos. Earthshaker enamoured did not affright me, as he did the chaste Asterie, whom he hunted to and fro in the sea, riding restless before the changing wind, until Apollo rooted her in the waves immovable. Receive me, O sea, receive me in your hospitable breast! Receive me like Melis; receive me also, a later Dritomartis, refusing marriage, that I may escape Morrheus and your Aphrodite; pity Chalcomede, O saviour of maidens!”
[346] So in her distracted mind she cried aloud by the neighbouring sea; and she would have thrown herself rolling headlong into the waves, but Thetis gave her help, to please Dionysos. She changed her shape, and stood before Chalcomedeia in the form of a Bacchant woman with comfortable words:
[351] “Courage, Chalcomede! fear not the bed of Morrheus. You have in me a lucky omen of your untouched maidenhead, bringing witness that no marriage shall come near your bed. I am Thetis, like you an enemy of marriage. I love maidenhood, as Chalcomede herself; yet Father Zeus drove me from heaven and would have dragged me into marriage, but that old Prometheus stopt his desires, by prophesying that I should bear a son stronger than Cronion; he wished that Thetis’s boy should not some time overpower his father and drive out Cronides as high Zeus drove out Cronos. Be astute, and save us! For if you contrive your own death, without learning what marriage is without a bridegroom, the wild Indian will destroy the whole company of Bassarids. No, you must delude him, and you will save from death your army, which is now in flight while Dionysos is under the lash. Just pretend an unreal desire for love. Then if Morrheus should drag you to bed while you refuse marriage, you need no helper against Cypris, for you have a huge serpent to protect and save your girdle. After the Indian War, Dionysos will take your Serpent and place him in the shining circle of the stars, an everlasting herald of your untouched maidenhood, near his own brilliant Crown, when he completes the great starry sign of Cydonian Ariadne; and your serpent shall be equal to the northern Serpent, and shine upon mortals along with shining Ophiuchos. By and by you shall praise Thetis of the sea, when you espy your fiery star shining along with Selene. Have no fear about marriage. No bedfellow shall loose the firm knot of your maidenhood: I swear it by Dionysos, who has touched my board, I swear it by your thyrsus, and by Aphrodite of the sea.”
[383] She ended her consolation; and then hid the girl in a cloud, that the guards might not see her, or some spy walking cunningly in the night with secret foot, or some bold goatherd womanmad, and drag the maiden in the evening to a wayside wedding.
BOOK XXXIV
In the thirty-fourth, Deriades attacks and massacres the Bacchant women within the walls.
THE girl passed over the hills in her quickmoving step, until she silently passed into the woody uplands; nor did Thetis herself linger upon the shore, but she too returned to the weedy hall of her father Nereus.
[5] Morrheus already had enough of staring through the cloudless heaven and watching the circling stars; and he spoke, lashing his spirit with cares:
[8] “My mind moves unsteadily every way. No one counsel guides me, no one resolve; wishes throng round me in crowds, and I cannot fulfil one of them. Shall I kill Chalcomedeia, my beloved? Then what can I do, that she too may not kill me with longing, after her fate? Or shall I leave her alive and unwounded, and drag the girl openly into marriage? But in my heart I fear Deriades and pity Cheirobië. I will never kill the girl; if I strike her down, how can I live when I see the girl no more? I am in pain when I am without Chalcomede for one hour.”
[19] So Morrheus went raving and pondering vainly many plans, boiling with the pangs of his desire-struck imagination.
[21] As he walked alone on the bank, wandering up and down and forgetful of his bride left alone in her bed, bold Hyssacos his trusty guardian, wide awake, saw him. He was shrewd enough to recognize the secret sting of some undivined love, so he began to ask crafty questions and spoke in beguiling words, as follows:
[27] “Why have you left your bed and your sleeping bride to wander about in the dark, fearless Morrheus? Has Deriades affrighted you with a threat? Is Cheirobie angry with you in a jealous temper, and thinks you in love with some captive Bacchant? For when women see their partners wild with love, they are always jealous of some secret intrigue. Perhaps that allvanquishing braggart Desire has been aiming at you bridal sparks from his unresting quiver! Do you want one of the Bassarids, perhaps? As I hear, there are three Graces, the dancers of Orchomenos, handmaids of Phoibos — but Lyaios the danceweaver has whole rows of Graces three hundred strong, one of whom shines pre-eminent above all, as Selene herself quenches the light of the stars with her brighter beams when she scatters her shimmering around. And she arms herself with two shots on one count — the arrow of her beauty and the steel of her spear. She is a helmeted Pasithea, whom the Bacchants name Chaleomede: — but I will call her Silverfoot Artemis or Goldenshield Athena.”
[48] When he had said this, he fell silent; and lovesick Morrheus drawing his brows together answered with shamefast lips:
[50] “Certainly Dionysos dived into the waves of the sea for fear of Lycurgos, and armed the Nereids in the bosom of the deep, and out of the brine he brought against Ares his own sister, Aphrodite of the brine: instead of the fragrant dress for a bridegift he gave her a steel corselet to wear, instead of the cestus he gave her a spear of bronze; he changed her name, and Aphrodite armed became Chalcomede.
She is in the company of the Bassarids, and I have two to fight, without knowing it — both Cypris and Dionysos. Why do I vainly lift my valiant spear? Yield, my point! If the Paphian has conquered the master of the thunderbolt, if she vanquishes the king of battles with her spark, if she has burnt up flaming Phaethon with a fire greater than his own and harasses the fiery one, what could I do with steel? Tell me some device to help against Cyprogeneia. Shall I wound Eros? but how shall I catch that winged one? Shall I lift a spear? Fire is his weapon. Shall I draw the sword? He has an arrow, and his arrow is fire kindling my heart.
[69] “Often I have been wounded in the field; but wounded, some physician has made me whole by his lifesaving art, by laying an allheal flower on the wound of my body. Hyssacos, hide it not, tell me what varied store of balsams can I apply in my heart to cure the wound of love! To my adversaries I am always bold; but when I see Chalcomede before me, my sharp point grows womanish. I fear not Dionysos, but I shrink before a woman, for she shoots bright shafts from her lovesmit countenance and pierces me with her beauty. I cannot aim my bow then. So I have seen one of the Nereids. If I dare say it, either Thetis or Galateia is fighting beside Dionysos!”
[81] He spoke; and moving on the tips of his toes, slowly and carefully, so as not to awaken his sleeping wife in the night, he entered his chamber again. Far from the black bosom of his bride he turned his eves away, and wished that Chalcomede might stand shining before him and dawn appear. Chafing with love he fell on his sad couch; and his watchful guardian Hyssacos, longing for quiet rest, fell asleep once more on his oxhide shield.
[89] While Morrheus slumbered, the vision of a dream came flying from the deluding gates of ivory to cajole him, and uttered a comforting but deceitful speech:
