by Nonnus
[320] So spoke the maddened creature in words of sanity — and while she lamented, Autonoe spoke with a sorrowful voice of consolation:
[322] “I envy and desire your unhappiness, Agaue; for you kiss the sweet face of Pentheus, his lips and his dear eyes and the hair of your son. Sister, I think you happy, even if you the mother slew your own son. But I had no Actaion to mourn; his body was changed, and I wept over a fawn — instead of my son’s head I buried the long antlers of a changeling stag. It is a small consolation to you in your pain, that you have seen your dead son in no alien shape, no fawn’s fell, no unprofitable hoof, no horn you took up. I alone saw my son as a changeling corpse, I lamented an image of alien shape dappled and voiceless; I am called mother of a stag and not a son. But I pray to thee, prudish daughter of Zeus, glorify thy Phoibos the begetter of Aristaios my husband, and change my mortal shape to a deer — do grace to Apollo! Give unhappy Autonoe also as a prey to the same dogs as Actaion, or to your own hounds; let Cithairon see the mother torn by dogs even after the son, but when I am changed to the same horned shape as thy deer, yoke me not, unhappy, to thy car nor flog me fiercely with thy whip.
[344] “Farewell, tree of Pentheus, farewell pitiless Cithairon; farewell also ye fennels of mind-deluding Dionysos! Happy be thou, Phaethon men’s delight! Shine on the hills; show thy light both for Leto’s daughter and Dionysos! And if thou knowest how to destroy men also with thy rays, strike with thy pure fire Autonoe and Agaue. Be Pasiphae’s avenger, to plague with a laugh Harmonia’s mother Aphrodite.”
[352] She spoke; and Agaue childmurderer sorrowed yet more. The loving mother entombed the dead son whom she had slain, pouring a fountain of tears over her face, and the people built a goodly sepulchre.
[356] So they mourned in dejection; Lord Bacchos saw and pitied, and checked the dirge of the lamenting women, when he had mingled a medicine with honeysweet wine and passed it to each in turn as a drink to lull their troubles. He gave them the drink of forgetfulness, and when Cadmos lamented he soothed his sorrowful moans with healing words. He sent Autonoe and Agaue to their beds, and showed them oracles of god to tell of coming hope. Over the Illyrian country to the land of the Western sea he sped, and banished Harmonia with Cadmos her agemate, both wanderers, for whom creeping Time had in store a change into the shape of snaky stone.
[368] Then Bacchos with his Pans and Satyrs whipt up his lynxes, and went in gorgeous pomp to farfamed Athens.
BOOK XLVII
Come to the forty-seventh, in which is Perseus, and the death of Icarios, and Ariadne in her rich robes.
ALREADY Rumour was flitting up and down the city, announcing of herself that Dionysos of the grapes had come to visit Attica; and prolific Athens broke out into wild dancing for unresting Lyaios. Loud was the sound of revelling; crowds of citizens with forests of fluttering hands decked out the streets in hangings of many colours, and vineleaves which Bacchos made to grow wreathed themselves all over Athens. [The women hung mystic plates of iron over their breasts and bound them round their bodies:] the maidens danced and crowned their brows with flowers of ivy braided in Attic hair. Ilissos rolled round the city living water to glorify Dionysos; the banks of Cephisos echoed the Euian tune to the universal dance. The plant shot up from the bosom of the earth, grapes selfgrown with sweet fruit ripening reddened the olive-groves of Marathon. Trees whispered, meadows put forth in season roses of two colours with opening petals, the hills gave birth to the lily selfgrown. Athena’s pipes answered the Phrygian pipes, the Acharnian reed pressed by the fingers played its double ditty. The native Bacchant leaned her arm on the young Pactolian bride, and sounded a double harmony with deep note answering the Mygdonian girl, or held up the dancing nightly flame of double torches, for Zagreus born long ago and Dionysos lately born. The melodious-throated nightingale of Attica sang her varied notes in the chorus, remembering Itylos and Philomela busy at the loom; and the chattering bird of Zephyros twittered under the eaves, casting to the winds all memory of Tereus.
[34] No one in the city did not dance. Then Bacchos glad went to the house of Icarios, who excelled the other countrymen in planting new sorts of trees. The old gardener danced on his clownish feet when he saw Dionysos as his visitor, and entertained the lord of noble gardenvines at his frugal board. Erigone went to draw and mingle milk of the goats, but Bacchos checked her, and handed to the kindly old man skins full of curetrouble liquor. He took in his right hand and offered Icarios a cup of sweet fragrant wine, as he greeted him in friendly words:
[45] “Accept this gift, Sir, which Athens knows not. Sir, I deem you happy, for your fellow-citizens will celebrate you, proclaiming aloud that Icarios has found fame to obscure Celeos, and Erigone to outdo Metaneira. I rival Demeter of the olden days, because Deo too brought a gift, the harvest-corn, to another husbandman. Triptolemos discovered corn, you the winecheeked grape of my vintage. You alone rival Ganymedes in heaven, you more blessed than Triptolemos was before; for corn does not dissolve the sorrows that eat the heart, but the winebearing grape is the healer of human pain.”
[56] Such were the words he spoke, as he offered a handsome cup full of mindawakening wine to the hospitable old man. The old hardworking gardener drank, and drank again, with desire insatiable for the dewy trickling drops. His girl poured no more milk, but reached him cup after cup of wine until her father was drunken; and when at last he had taken enough of that table spread with cups, the gardener skipt about with changing step, staggering and rolling sideways, and struck up the Euian chant of Zagreus for Dionysos. Then the plantloving god presented to the old countryman Euian shoots of vine in return for his hospitable table, and the Lord taught him the art of making them grow, by breaking and ditching and curving the shoots round into the soil.
[70] So the industrious old gardener passed on to other countrymen the gifts of Bromios with their vintage of grapes, and taught them how to plant and care for the viny growth of Dionysos; he poured into his rustic mixer streams of wine inexhaustible, and cheered the hearts of banqueters with cup after cup, releasing the fragrant liquid from his wineskins. Many a one would compliment Erigone’s father with grateful words as he drank the sweet liquor of mind-awakening wine:
[78] “Tell us, gaffer, how you found on earth the nectar of Olympos? This golden water never came from Cephisos, this honeysweet treasure was not brought from the Naiads! For our fountains do not bubble up honey-streams like this, the river Ilissos does not run in such a purple flood. This is no drink from the plantloving bee, which quickest of all brings satiety to mortal man. This is another kind of water, sweeter than sweet honey; this is no national draught born from the Athenian olive. You have a drink richer than milk which ever keeps its taste, mingled with drops of honey-posset. If the rosyarm Seasons have learnt to distil a drink for mortals from all the flowercups that grow in our gardens, I would call this a spring-time beverage of Adonis or Cythereia, the sweetsmelling dew of roses! A strange drink yours, which dissolves trouble! for it has scattered my cares wandering in the winds of heaven.
[95] “Can it be that immortal Hebe has given you this gift from heaven? Can it be that Athena your city holder has provided this? Who has stolen the mixing-bowl from the sky, from which Ganymedes mixes the liquor and ladles out a cup for Zeus and the immortals? O more blessed than hospitable Celeos, can it be you also have yourself entertained some gracious Olympian who dwells in the heavens? I believe some other god came in mirth to visit your roof, and gave this drink to our country in friendship for your hospitable table, as Deo gave us corn!”
[104] Thus he spoke, admiring the delicious drink; and from his lips rang out a stream of rustic song in sweet madness.
[106] So the countrymen quaffed cup after cup, and made a wild revel over the wine which dazed their wits. Their eyes rolled, their pale cheeks grew red — for they drank their liquor neat, their peasant-breasts grew hot, their heads grew heavy with the drink, the veins were swollen upon their foreheads. The bosom of the earth shook before their
eyes, the trees danced and the mountains skipt. Men fell on their backs rolling helplessly over the ground, full of the unfamiliar wine with its slippery drops.
[116] Then the company of countrymen driven by murderous infatuation charged upon poor Icarios in maniac fury, as if the wine were mixt with a deceiving drug — one holding an iron poleaxe, one with a shovel for a weapon in his hands, one holding the cornreaping sickle, another raising an immense block of stone, while another, beside himself, brandished a cudgel in his hand — all striking the old man: one came near with a goad and pierced his body with its fleshcutting spike.
[125] The unhappy old industrious gardener thus beaten with blows fell to the ground, then leaping upon the table upset the mixing-bowl and rolled half-dead in the flood of ruddy wine: his head sank under the shower of blows from the countrymen, and drops of his red blood mingled with the red wine. Now next-door to death he stammered out these words:
[132] “The wine of my Bromios, the comfort of human care, that sweet one is pitiless against me alone! It has given a merry heart to all men, and it has brought fate to Icarios. The sweet one is no friend to Erigone, for Dionysos who mourns not has made my girl to mourn.”
[137] Before he could finish his words, fate came first and stayed his voice: there he lay dead with eyes wide open, far from his modest daughter. His murderers heavy with wine slumbered careless on the bare ground like dead men. When they awoke, they mourned aloud for him they had unwittingly slain, and in their right mind now they carried his body on their shoulders up to a woody ridge, and washed his wounds in the abundant waters of a mountain brook. So they who had slain buried him they had slain in their senseless fury, the same murderous hands buried the body which they had lately torn.
[148] The soul of Icarios floated like smoke to the room of Erigone. It was a light phantom in mortal shape, the shadowy vision of a dream, like a man newly slain; the wretched ghost wore a tunic with marks that betrayed the unexplained murder, red with blood and dirty with dust, torn to rags by blows on blows of beating steel. The phantom stretched out its hands and came close to the girl, and pointed out the wounds on the newly mangled limbs for her to see. The maiden shrieked in this melancholy dream, when she saw so many wounds on that head, when the poor thing saw the blood which had lately poured from that red throat. And the shade of her father spoke these words to his sorrowing child:
[161] “Wake, poor creature, go and seek your father! Wake, and search for my drunken murderers! I am your much-afflicted father, whom the savage country folk have destroyed because of wine with cold steel. I call you happy, my child; your father was killed, but you heard not the smashing of my beaten head, you saw not the hoary hair stained with gore, the body new-mangled panting on the ground, you saw not the clubs that killed your father. No: Providence kept you far away from your father, and guarded your eyes that they might not see the death of a murdered sire. Look at my clothes, red with blood! For yesterday country people drunken with cup after cup of wine and dribbling the unfamiliar juice of Bacchos, thronged about me. As the steel tore me, I called on the shepherds, and they heard not my voice: only Echo heard the noise of me and followed with answering tones, and mourned your father with a copy of my lamentable words. Never now will you lift your crook in the midst of the woodlands and go to the meadows and flowery pasture along with a rustic husband, feeding your flock; never will you handle your hoe to work about the trees and bring water along the channels to make the garden grow. Yet be not too greedy with my honeydripping fruit, but weep for me your father low fallen in death. I shall see you living as an orphan and knowing nothing of marriage.”
[187] So spoke the vision of the dream, and then flew away. But the girl awaking tore her rose-red cheeks, and mourning scored her firm breasts with her finger-nails, and tore long locks of hair from the roots; then seeing the cattle still standing by her on the rock, the sorrowful maiden cried in a voice of lamentation:
[193] “Where is the body of Icarios? Tell me, beloved hills! Tell me my father’s fate, ye bulls that knew him well! Who were the murderers of my father slain? Where has my darling father gone? Is he wandering over the countryside, staying with the countrymen and teaching a neighbour to plant the young shoots of his fair vintage, or is he the guest of some pastoral gardener and sharing his feast? Tell his mourning daughter, and I will endure till he come. If my father is still alive, I will live with my parent again and water the plants of his garden: but if my father is dead and plants trees no more, I will face death like his over his dead body.”
[205] So she spoke, and ran with swift knee up into the mountain forest, seeking the tracks of her father newly slain. But to her questions no goatherd was bold to reply, no herdsman of cattle in the woodlands pitied the maiden or pointed to a faint trace of her father still unheard-of, no ancient shepherd showed her the body of Icarios, but she wandered in vain. At last a gardener found her and told the sad news in a sorrowful voice, and showed the tomb to her father lately slain.
[214] When the maiden heard it, she was distracted but with sober madness: she plucked the hair from her head and laid it upon the beloved tomb, a maiden unveiled, unshod, drenching her clothes with selfshed showers of ever-flowing tears. Speechless for a time, Erigone kept her lips sealed with silence; the dog the companion of Erigone shared her feelings, he whimpered and howled by the side of his mourning mistress, sorrowing with her sorrow. Wildly she ran up to a tall tree: she tied upon it a rope with a noose fast about her neck and hung herself high in the air, twisting in self-sought agonies with her two twitching feet. So she died, and had a willing fate; her dog ran round and round the girl with sorrowful howls, a dumb animal dropping tears of sympathy from his eyes.
[229] The dog would not leave his mistress alone, unguarded, but there he stayed by the tree, and chased off the preying beasts, panther or lion. Then wayfarers passed, and he showed with mute gestures the unwedded maid hanging in the tree with a noose about her neck. Full of pity they came up to the tree on tiptoe, and took down dog knew what they did, and helped them, scratching and scattering the surface of the soil with sharp claws and grubbing with clever feet. So the wayfarers buried the body but lately dead, and they went away on their business quickfoot with a weight of sorrow under their hearts one and all. But the dog remained near the tomb alone, for love of Erigone, and there he died of his own free will.
[246] Father Zeus had pity, and he placed Erigone in the company of the stars near the Lion’s back. The rustic maid holds an ear of corn; for she did not wish to carry the red grapes which had been her father’s death. And Zeus brought old Icarios into the starspangled sky to move beside his daughter, and called him Bootes, the Plowman, shining bright, and touching the Wain of the Arcadian Bear. The Dog he made also a fiery constellation chasing the Hare, in that part where the starry image of seafaring Argo voyages round the circle of Olympos.
[256] Such is the fiction of the Achaian story, mingling as usual persuasion with falsehood: but the truth is: Zeus our Lord on high joined the soul of Erigone with the star of the heavenly Virgin holding an ear of corn, and near the heavenly Dog he placed a dog like him in shape, Seirios of the autumn as they call him, and the soul of Icarios he combined with Bootes in the heavens. These are the gifts of Cronides to the vinelands of Attica, offering one honour to Pallas and Dionysos together.
[265] Now Bacchos left the honeyflowing streams of Ilissos, and went in dainty revel to the vineclad district of Naxos. About him bold Eros beat his wings, and Cythereia led, before the coming of Lyaios the bridegroom. For Theseus had just sailed away, and left without pity the banished maiden asleep on the shore, scattering his promises to the winds. When Dionysos beheld deserted Ariadne sleeping, he mingled love with wonder, and spoke out his admiration cautiously to the danceweaving Bacchants:
[275] “Bassarids, shake not your tambours, let there be no sound of pipes or feet. Let Cypris rest! — But she has not the cestus which marks the Cyprian. I believe it is the Grace that wedded Hypnos, cunni
ng creature! But since dawn is bright and morning seems near, awaken sleeping Pasithea. But who has given a dress to the naked Grace in Naxos, who? Is it Hebe? But to whom has she left the goblet of the Blessed? Can this be Selene, that bright driver of cattle, lying on the seashore? Then how can she be sleeping apart from her inseparable Endymion? Is it silverfoot Thetis I see on the strand? No, it is not naked, that rosy form. If I may dare to say so, it is the Archeress resting here in Naxos from her labours of the hunt, now she has wiped off in the sea the sweat of hunting and slaying. For hard work always brings sweet sleep. But who has seen Artemis in the woods in long robes? Stay, Bacchants — stand still, Maron — dance not this way, stop singing, dear Pan, that you may not disturb the morning sleep of Athena. No — with whom did Pallas leave her spear? and who bears the bronze helmet or aegis of Tritogeneia?”
