Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [285] So they escaped and turned their way back to the forest in the lonely hills. One slew a herd of bulls with skinpiercing thyrsus, and soiled her hands in the gore, tearing the rough bull’s hide with her fingernails. Another cut to pieces a flock of sheep with bloody twigs, not tearing their soft wool; another killed goats, and all were dyed with bloody streams of gore from the slaughtered herd. Another snatched from the father a three year child, and set it upon her shoulder untrembling, unshaken, unbound, balancing the boy in the winds’ charge — there he sat laughing, never falling in the dust. The boy asked the Bacchant for milk, thinking it was his mother, and pawed her breast — and milky drops ran of themselves to the breasts of the unwedded maiden, she opened her hairy wrap for the hungry boy, and offered a newly flowing teat to his childish lips; so a virgin stilled the boy with an unfamiliar drink. Many forced away newborn cubs from a shaggy chested lioness and nursed them. Another struck the thirsty soil with the point of a thyrsus; the top of the hill split at once, and the hard rock poured out purple wine of itself, or with a tap on the rock fountains of milk ran out of themselves in white streams. Another threw a snake at an oak; the snake coiled round the tree, and turned into moving ivy running round girdling the trunk, just as snakes run their coils round and round. A Satyr rushed along carrying a snarling beast, a dangerous tiger which sat on his back, which for all its wild nature did not touch the bearer. One old Seilenos dragged a boar by the snout and threw the tusked swine up in the air for fun. Another with stormy leaps of his feet in a moment mounted upon a camel’s neck; and one jumped on a bull and rode on his back.

  [323] So much for the mountains; but in music-builded Thebes, Bacchos manifested many wonders to all the people. The women danced wildly with staggering feet... with foaming lips. All Thebes was shaken, and sparks of fire shot up from the streets; all the foundations quaked, the immovable gates of the mansions bellowed as if they had throats like a bull; even the unshaken building rumbled in confusion, as if giving voice with a stone trumpet of its own.

  [332] Yet Dionysos did not abate his wrath. He sent his divine voice into the sky as far as the seven orbits of the stars, bellowing with his own throat like a mad bull. He pursued frenzied Pentheus with his witnesses, the fires, and filled the whole house with the blaze. Tongues of fire danced gleaming over the walls right and left with showers of burning sparks; over the king’s brilliant robes and the seapurple stuff about his chest ran spirals of fire which did not burn his garments. Separate streaks of fire went in hot leaps from foot to middleback, across his loins to the top of his backbone and round his neck ran the travelling flashes: often the divine light spat sparks that did not burn on the splendid bed of the earthborn king, the fire dancing about at random. Pentheus seeing this fire moving about of itself roared aloud and called his slaves to help, to bring saving water to drench the place with protective torrents and quench the burning flames. And the rounded cisterns were emptied, bared of water, the fountain of the river great as it was, dried up when those thousands of vessels were dipt in the water. Their trouble was useless, the water did no good, wet floods poured on the fire only made its flames grow hotter still; there was a sound as of the echoing bellow of many bulls under that roof, and the palace of Pentheus resounded with internal thunders.

  BOOK XLVI

  See also the forty-sixth, where you will find the head of Pentheus and Agauë murdering her son.

  As soon as Pentheus, that audacious king, understood that the fetters of iron had dropt of themselves from the prisoners’ hands, and the Mainads were rushing abroad to the mountain forest, as soon as he knew the crafty plan of unseen Dionysos, restless at once he swelled with violent wrath. Then he saw him returned there, with wreaths of the usual ivy about his head, and the long locks of hair flowing in unkempt trails over his shoulders, and blustered out these wild words from his frenzied throat —

  [10] “I like you for sending that swindler Teiresias to me! Your seer cannot deceive my mind. Tell all that to someone else. How could goddess Rheia refuse her breast to Zeus her own son, and yet nurse the son of Thyone? Ask the cave in the rock of Dicte with its flashing helmets, ask the Corybants too, where little Zeus used to play, when he sucked the nourishing pap of goat Amaltheia and grew strong in spirit, but never drank Rheia’s milk. You also have a touch of your deceitful mother. Semele was a liar, and Cronides burnt her with his thunders: take care that Cronides does not crush you like your mother. I too have no share of barbaric race in me. I am sprung from primeval Ismenos, not from watery Hydaspes; I know nothing of Deriades, my name is not Lycurgos. Now leave the streams of Dirce and take your Satyrs and mad Bacchants with you; use your thyrsus, if you like, to kill another and a younger Orontes among the Assyrians. You are no Olympian offspring of Cronion: for the lightnings cry aloud the shame of your perishing mother, the thunders are witnesses of her illicit bed. Zeus of the Rains burnt not Danae after the bed; he carried Europa, the sister of my Cadmos, and kept her unshaken — he did not drown her in the sea. I know that fire from heaven consumed the babe unborn along with the burning mother, and released the bastard fruit of this scorching delivery half-formed: if it did not destroy the babe, because you are innocent of your mother’s furtive love of an earthly bedfellow, I believe it as you declare, and unwillingly I will call you son of heavenly Zeus and one not burnt up by the thunder. Now tell me in your turn, and bear true witness: when did their father Zeus ever produce Ares or Apollo from his thigh? If you have in you the blood of Zeus, migrate to the vault of Olympos and live in heaven, leave to Pentheus his native Thebes. You should find another tale to fit the case, something plausible, and mix with your cunning imposture persuasion to enchant the mind — that Cronides brought you forth from his prolific brow as usual. Perhaps it would not be quite so incredible a story that he produced Bacchos too like Pallas from that unwedded brow. I would wish if you had been of the Olympian breed, yes if only Cronion Lord on High had got you, that I might hunt the offspring of Zeus and conquer Dionysos, I, called the son of Echion!”

  [52] At these words the god was indignant, and replied, concealing the weight of a fatal threat deep in his heart:

  [54] “I admire the Celtic land with its barbarous law, where the Rhine tests the pure birth of a young baby: he is judge of a doubtful birth, and knows how to detect the bastard offspring of unknown blood. But my appeal is not to the insignificant stream of that river called Rhine, but I have heralds more trustworthy than rivers, in the thunderbolts. Seek no better testimony than the lightning, Pentheus. The Gaul believes the water, do you believe the testifying fire. I need not the earthly palace of Pentheus; the home of Dionysos is his father’s heaven. If there were a choice between earth and starry Olympos, tell me I ask, which could you call better yourself, sevenzone heaven or the land of sevengate Thebes? I need not the earthly palace of Pentheus!

  [69] “Only respect the honeydripping bloom of my fruit, do not despise the drink of Dionysos and his vine. War not against Bromios the slayer of Indians, but only one woman, fight if you can only with one manbreaking Bacchant! Perhaps the prophetic Fates named you well, to foreshow your death. No wonder that Pentheus having the earthborn breed of his ancestor sprung from the soil, should suffer the direful fate of the Giants. No wonder that Bacchos too, having the Olympian breed of his race, should play the part of Zeus his giantslaying father. Ask Teiresias who it is you are defying; ask Pytho who it is that slept with Semele, who it is begat Thyone’s child.

  [81] “And if you are willing to learn the mysteries of dancedelighting Bacchos, put off your royal robes, Pentheus, condescend to wear the garments of a woman and become the woman Agaue, and let not the women escape you when you hunt them. Or if your hand draws the bow to slay wild beasts, Cadmos will praise you when you join your mother in the hunt. Alone, rival Bacchos, and if it be lawful, the Archeress, that I may call you a new Actaion lionslayer. Put off these arms. My women slay steel-armed warriors with their bare hands; if they conquer with unarmed female onset you
clad in armour, which of your people would praise a man outworn in a battle with women? The Bassarid fears no feathered shaft, she flees no spear. No — be crafty and secret, disguise your aspect that none may know, and you shall see all the mysteries of dancewreaving Dionysos.”

  [97] Thus he persuaded Pentheus, since he lashed the man’s mind, and shook him, in the clutches of throbbing madness and distraction.... Mene also helped Bromios, attacking Pentheus with her divine scourge; the frenzied reckless fury of distracting Selene joining in displayed many a phantom shape to maddened Pentheus, and made the dread son of Echion forget his earlier intent, while she deafened his confused ears with the bray of her divine avenging trumpet, and she terrified the man.

  [106] Pentheus entered the house goaded to madness with a desire to see the secrets of Bacchos’s congregation. He opened the scented coffers, where lay the women’s garments dyed in purple of the Sidonian sea. He donned the embroidered robe of Agaue, bound Autonoe’s veil over his locks, laced his royal breast in a rounded handwork, passed his feet into women’s shoes; he took a thyrsus in hand, and as he walked after the Bacchants a broidered smock trailed behind his hunting heel.

  [116] With mimicking feet Pentheus twirled in the dance, full of sweet madness; he rattled the ground with sidelong boot, darting one foot away from another. Unmanning his two hands he shook them in alternate beats, like a dancing woman at play; as drumming a double tune on the two plates of the cymbals, he loosed his long hair to float on the breezes of heaven and struck up a Euian melody of Lydia. You might fairly say you saw a wild Bacchant woman madly rollicking. Yes, and he saw two suns and two cities of Thebes; he thought he could hold a gatehouse of sevengate Thebes, hoisting it upon his untiring shoulders.”

  [128] Round him the people assembled in a ring, climbing one on a round tump of earth, one conspicuous high on a rock, while a third rested an arm over the shoulder of a neighbour and raised his foot on tiptoe above the ground: here one made for some lump sticking out of the earth, another was on a projecting bastion, another watched with slanting eye from the towering ramparts; another hugging a round pillar swarmed up with the flat of his feet, and watched Pentheus waving his thyrsus and fluttering his veil and leaping in the throes of madness.

  [139] Already he had gone round the walls of Thebes while the portals of the seven gates opened on selfmoving pivots, already he had passed the soft waters of dragonfeeding Dirce before the city, with his hair blowing on the wind; and beating mad feet in the circling dance he followed his course behind the vinegod.

  [145] But when he came to the place where the trees were, and the dances and rites of the congregation of Bromios, where also was the hunting of their prickets by the unshod Bassarids, then vinegod Bacchos was glad, and espied in the mountain forest an ancient fir-tree tall as the neighbouring rock, which cast a shade with its bushy leaves over the cloudhigh hills. With unflinching hand he seized the top of the tree and dragged it down, down to the ground. Pentheus lay along the ground [and Bacchos let go] the soaring spire, Pentheus clung to the tree that carried him on high, grasped the branches with his hands as they were borne aloft, and whirling his legs about this way and that way restlessly, moved lightly like a dancer.

  [158] Then came the dancing-hours for the Bassarids. They called to one another and tucked up their robes and threw on the fawnskins. Hillranging Agaue shouted aloud with foam on her lips —

  [162] “Autonoe, let us make haste to the dance of Lyaios, where the hillranging voice of the familiar pipe is heard, that I may recite the song that Euios loves, that I may learn who first will lead the dance for Dionysos, who will beat whom in doing worship to Lyaios! You’re late, you slack dancer, Ino has got there before us! She is no longer an exile in the sea, but here she too comes running from the brine with Melicertes the seafarer, she has come to defend hunted Dionysos, lest impious Pentheus overwhelm Lyaios. Mystics, to the mountains! Ismenian Bacchants, here! Let us celebrate our rites, and match the Lydian Bassarids with rival dances, that some one may say — Mainad Agaue has beaten Mygdonian Mimallon!”

  [176] As the words were spoken, she saw sitting high in a tree, like a savage lion — the mother saw her impious son. She pointed him out to the frenzied Bacchants gathering there, and in the voice of a maniac called her own human son a wild beast. The women thronged round him girdlewise as he sat amid the leaves; they embraced the trunk with a ring of skilful hands and tried to throw down the tree with Pentheus in it — but Agaue threw her two arms about the trunk, and with earthshaking heave pulled the tree up from its base, roots and all. The tree fell to the ground, and Cithairon was bare. Pentheus the audacious king shot through the air of himself with a dancing leap, rolling and tumbling like a diver. At that moment the madness left him which Dionysos had sent to confuse his mind, and he recovered his senses again. He saw fate near him on the earth, and cried in lamentable tones:

  [192] “Cover me, Hamadryad Nymphs! Let not Agaue my loving mother destroy her son with her own hands! O my mother, cruel mother, cease from this heartless frenzy! How can you call me your son a wild beast? Where is my shaggy chest? Where is my roaring voice? Do you not know me any longer whom you nursed, do not you see any longer? Who has robbed you of sense and sight? Farewell, Cithairon, farewell these mountains and trees! Be happy, Thebes, be happy you too, Agaue my dear mother and my murderer! See this chin with its young beard, see the shape of a man — I am no lion; no wild beast is what you see. Spare the fruit of your womb, pitiless one, spare your breasts. Pentheus is before you, your nursling. Silence, my voice, keep your tale to yourself, Agaue will not hear! But if you kill me to please Dionysos, let no other destroy your son, unhappy one, let not your son be destroyed by the alien hands of Bassarids.”

  [209] Such was his prayer, and Agaue heard him not; but the terrible women attacked him with one accord; as he rolled in the dust, one pulled on his legs, one seized his right arm and wrenched it out at the joint, Autonoe dragged opposite at the left; his deluded mother set her foot on his chest, and cut through that daring neck as he lay with sharp thyrsus — then ran nimbleknee with frenzied joy in his murder, and displayed the bloody head to unwelcoming Cadmos. Triumphant in the capture of a lion, as she thought, she cried out these words of madness:

  [221] “Blessed Cadmos, more blessed now I call you! For in the mountains Artemis has seen Agaue triumphant with no weapon in her hands; and even if she is queen of the hunt, she must hide her jealousy of your lionslaying daughter. The Dryads also wondered at my work. And the father of our Harmonia, armed with his familiar lance, brazen Ares, wondered full of pride at your child without a spear, casting a thyrsus and destroying lions. Pray call the king on your throne, Cadmos, call Pentheus here, that with envious eyes he may see the beastslaying sweat of a weak woman!

  [232] “ This way, my men, hang up this head as a votive offering of my victory on the gatehouse of Cadmos. Sister Ino never killed a beast like this! Look here Autonoe, and bow your neck to Agaue! For you have never won glory like mine — the still famous victory of lionslaying Cyrene, mother of your Aristaios and your own goodmother, has been put to shame by mine!”

  [239] While she spoke, she lifted her dear burden; but Cadmos hearing the distracted boasts of his exulting daughter, answered in mourning voice and mingled his tears with his words:

  [242] “Ah, what a beast you have brought down, Agaue my child, one with human reason! What a beast you have brought down, one which your own womb brought forth! What a beast you have brought down, one that Echion begat! Look upon your lion, one that Cadmos lifted upon his nursing arm when he was still a little tot, held in his joyful arms. Look upon your lion, one that your mother Harmonia often caught up and held to your suckling breast. You search for your son to see your work: how can I call Pentheus, when you hold him in your hands? How can I call your son, whom you have killed in ignorance? Look at your beast, and you will recognize your son.

  [252] “O Dionysos! A fine return you bring to Cadmos who reared you! Fine bridal gi
fts Cronion gave me with Harmonia! They are worthy of Ares and heavenly Aphrodite. Ino is in the sea, Semele was burnt by Cronion, Autonoe mourns her horned son, and Agaue — what misery for Agaue! She has killed her only son, her own son untimely; and my Polydoros wanders in sorrow, a banished man. Alone I am left, in a living death. Who will be my refuge, now Pentheus is dead and Polydoros gone? What foreign city will receive me? Curse you, Cithairon! You have slain those two who should cherish Cadmos in old age: Pentheus is with you, dead, Actaion is buried in your soil.”

  [265] When Cadmos had ended, ancient Cithairon groaned from his springs and poured forth tears in fountains; the trees lamented, the Naiad Nymphs chanted dirges. Dionysos was abashed before the hoary head of Cadmos and his lamentations; mingling a tear with a smile on that untroubled countenance, he gave reason back to Agaue and made her sane once more, that she might mourn for Pentheus.

  [271] The mother, herself again with eyes that she could trust, stood awhile rigid and voiceless. Then seeing the head of Pentheus dead she threw herself down, and rolled in helpless misery on the ground smearing the dust on her hair. She tore the shaggy skins from her breast and threw down the goblets of Bromios’s company, scoring her chest and the cleft between her bare breasts with red scratches. She kissed her son’s eyes and his pallid cheeks, and the charming locks of his bloodstained hair; then with bitter lamentation she spoke:

  [283] “Cruel Dionysos, insatiable persecutor of your family! Give me back my former madness — for a worse madness possesses me now in my sanity. Give me back that delirium, that I may call my son a wild beast once more. I thought I had struck a beast — I hold a head newly cut from the neck, but no lions head, it is Pentheus! Autonoe is happy for all her heavy tears, for she mourned Actaion dead, and the mother slew not her son. I alone have become a childmurderer. Ino slew not Melicertes or Learchos, Ino my banished sister, but the father destroyed the son he had begotten. How unhappy I am! Zeus slept with Semele only that I might mourn Pentheus; Zeus the father childed Dionysos from his own thigh, only to destroy the whole family of Cadmos. May Dionysos forgive me, he has destroyed the whole race of Cadmos. Now may even Apollo strike his harp again as before, as at the marriage feast where the gods were guests, as by Harmonia’s bed, as in the bridechamber of my father Cadmos, let him twangle one dirge for Autonoe and Agaue both, and chant loudly of Actaion and Pentheus so quickly to perish. What medicine is there for my sorrow, O my dearest boy? I have never lifted the marriage torch at your wedding; I have never heard the bridal hymn for your wedded love. What son of yours can I see to comfort me? Would that some other, some Bacchant, had destroyed you, not allwretched Agaue! Blame not your frenzied mother, illfated Pentheus, blame Bacchos rather — Agaue is innocent! My hands, dear lad, are dripping with the dew from your shorn neck, the blood from your head has incarnadined all the robe of the mother who shed it. Yes, I beseech you, give me the cup of Bromios; for instead of wine I will pour the blood of my Pentheus as a libation to Dionysos. For you, untimely dead, I will build amid my tears a tomb with my own hands. I will lay in the earth your headless body; and on your monument I will carve these words: ‘Wayfarer, I am the body of Pentheus; the cherishing womb of Agaue brought me forth, and the murdering hand of Agaue slew her son.’”