Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [295] So cried Bacchos — Sleep flew away, the poor lovelorn girl scattered sleep, awoke and rose from the sand, and she saw no fleet, no husband — the deceiver! But the Cydonian maiden lamented with the kingfishers, and paced the heavy murmuring shore which was all that the Loves had given her. She called on the young man’s name, madly she sought his vessel along the seaside, scolded the envious sleep, reproached even more the Paphian’s mother, the sea; she prayed to Boreas and adjured the wind, adjured Oreithyia to bring back the boy to the land of Naxos and to let her see that sweet ship again. She besought hardhearted Aiolos yet more; he heard her prayer and obeyed, sending a contrary wind to blow, but Boreas lovelorn himself cared nothing for the maid stricken with desire — yes, even the breezes themselves must have had a spite against the maiden when they carried the ship to the Athenian land. Eros himself admired the maiden, and thought he saw Aphrodite lamenting in Naxos where all is joy. She was even more resplendent in her grief, and pain was a grace to the sorrower. Compare the two, and Aphrodite gently smiling and laughing with love must give place to Ariadne in sorrow, the delectable eyes of Peitho or the Graces or Love himself must yield to the maiden’s tears. At last in her tears she found voice to speak thus:

  [320] “Sweet sleep came to me, when sweet Theseus left me. Would that I had been still happy when he left me! But in my sleep I saw the land of Cecrops; in the palace of Theseus was a splendid wedding and dance with songs for Ariadne, and my happy hand was adorning the Loves’ blooming altar with luxuriant spring flowers. And I wore a bridal wreath; Theseus was beside me in wedding garments, sacrificing to Aphrodite. Alas, what a sweet dream I saw! But now it is gone, and I am left here yet virgin. Forgive me, Peitho! All this bridal pomp the misty darkness marshalled for me, all this the envious dawn of day has torn from me — and awaking I found not my heart’s desire! Are the very images of Love and Love Returned jealous of me? for I saw a delightful vision of marriage accomplished in a deceitful dream, and lovely Theseus was gone.

  [336] “To me, even kind Sleep is cruel. Tell me, ye rocks, tell the unhappy lover — who stole the man of Athens? If it should be Boreas blowing, I appeal to Oreithyia: but Oreithyia hates me, because she also has the blood of Marathon, whence beloved Theseus came. If Zephyros torments me, tell Iris the bride of Zephyros and mother of Desire, to behold Ariadne maltreated. If it is Notos, if bold Euros, I appeal to Eos and reproach the mother of the blustering winds, lovelorn herself.

  [345] “Give me again, Sleep, your empty boon, so pleasant; send me another delectable dream like that, so that I may know the sweet bed of love in a deceptive dream! Only linger upon my eyes, that I may know the unreal passion of married love in a dream! O Theseus my treacherous bridegroom, if the marauding winds have carried your course from Naxos to the Athenian land, tell me now I ask, and I will resort to Aiolos at once reproaching the jealous and wicked winds. But if some cruel seaman without your knowledge left me outlawed in desert Naxos, and sailed away, he sinned against Theseus and against Themis, against Ariadne. May that sailor never see a favourable wind; if he rides the raging storm, may Melicertes never look on him graciously or bring him a calm sea; but may Notos blow when he wants Boreas, may he see Euros when he needs Zephyros; when the winds of springtime blow upon all mariners, may he alone meet with a wintry sea.

  [364] “That lawless sailor sinned: but I myself was blinded when I desired the countryman of chaste Athena. Would that I had not desired him, love-lorn! For Theseus is as savage as he is charming in love. This is not what he said to me while yet he handled my thread, this is not what he said at our labyrinth!

  O that the cruel bull had killed him! Hush, my voice, no more folly, do not kill the delightful boy. Alas, my love! Theseus has sailed alone to Athens his happy mother. I know why he left me — in love no doubt with one of the maidens who sailed with him, and now he holds wedding dance for the other at Marathon while I still walk in Naxos. My bridal bower was Naxos, O Theseus my treacherous bridegroom! I have lost both father and bridegroom: alas my love! I see not Minos, I behold not Theseus; I have left my own Cnossos, but I have not seen your Athens; both father and fatherland are lost. O unhappy me! Your gift for my love is the water of the brine. Who can be my refuge? What god will catch me up and convey to Marathon Ariadne, that she may claim her rights before Cypris and Theseus? Who will take me and carry me over the flood? If only I could myself see another thread, to guide my way too! Such a thread I want for myself, to escape from the Aigaian flood and cross to Marathon, that I may embrace you even if you hate Ariadne, that I may embrace you my perjured husband. Take me for your chambermaid, if you like, and I will lay your bed, and be your Ariadne (in Marathon) instead of Crete, like some captive girl. I will endure to serve your most happy bride; I will ply the rattling loom, and lift a pitcher on envious shoulders, an unfamiliar task, and bring handwash after supper for sweet Theseus — only let me see Theseus! My mother too once was the menial of a farmer, and bowed her neck for a herdsman, and prattled of love to a dumb bull in the pasture, and brought the bull a calf. She cared not to hear the herdsman make music on his pipe so much as to hear the bellowing bull. I will not touch the crook, I will not stand in the stall; but I will be ready beside my queen to hear the voice of Theseus, not the bellowing of a bull. I will sing a lovely song for your wedding, and hide my jealousy of your newly wedded bride.

  [406] “Stay your voyage by the sands of Naxos, sailor, stay your ship for me! What — are you angry too? So you too come from Marathon? If you are bound for your lovely land, where is the home of love, take this unhappy girl on board that I may behold the city of Cecrops. If you must leave me, pitiless, and go on your voyage, tell your Theseus of mourning Ariadne, how she reproaches the treacherous oath of love unfulfilled. I know why angry Eros has left unfulfilled Theseus the deceiver’s promise. He swore his marriage-oath not by Hera, whom they call the Nuptial goddess, but by the immaculate Athena, the goddess who knows nothing of marriage. He swore by Pallas — and what has Pallas to do with Cythereia?”

  [419] Bacchos was enraptured to hear this lament.

  He noticed Cecropia, and knew the name of Theseus and the deceitful voyage from Crete. Before the girl he appeared in his radiant godhead; Eros moved swiftly about, and with stinging cestus he whipt the maiden into a nobler love, that he might lead Minos’s daughter to join willingly with his brother Dionysos. Then Bacchos comforted Ariadne, lovelorn and lamenting, with these words in his mindcharming voice:

  [428] “Maiden, why do you sorrow for the deceitful man of Athens? Let pass the memory of Theseus; you have Dionysos for your lover, a husband incorruptible for the husband of a day! If you are pleased with the mortal body of a youthful yearsmate, Theseus can never challenge Dionysos in manhood or comeliness. But you will say, ‘He shed the blood of the halfbull man whose den was the earthdug labyrinth!’ But you know your thread was his saviour: for the man of Athens with his club would never have found victory in that contest without a rosy-red girl to help him. I need not tell you of Eros and the Paphian and Ariadne’s distaff. You will not say that Athens is greater than heaven. Minos your father was not the equal of Zeus Almighty, Cnossos is not like Olympos. Not for nothing did that fleet sail from my Naxos, but Desire preserved you for a nobler bridal. Happy girl, that you leave the poor bed of Theseus to look on the couch of Dionysos the desirable! What could you pray for higher than that? You have both heaven for your home and Cronion for your goodfather. Cassiepeia will not be equal to you because of her daughter’s Olympian glory; for Perseus has left her heavenly chains to Andromeda even in the stars, but for you I will make a starry crown, that you may be called the shining bedfellow of crownloving Dionysos.”

  [453] So he comforted her; the girl throbbed with joy, and cast into the sea all her memories of Theseus when she received the promise of wedlock from her heavenly wooer. Then Eros decked out a bridal chamber for Bacchos, the wedding dance resounded, about the bridal bed all flowers grew; the dancers of Orchomenos surrounded Na
xos with foliage of spring, the Hamadryad sang of the wedding, the Naiad nymph by the fountains unveiled unshod praised the union of Ariadne with the vine-god: Ortygia cried aloud in triumph, and chanting a bridal hymn for Lyaios the brother of Phoibos cityholder she skipt in the dance, that unshakable rock. Fiery Eros made a round flowergarland with red roses and plaited a wreath coloured like the stars, as prophet and herald of the heavenly Crown; and round about the Naxian bride danced a swarm of the Loves which attend on marriage.

  [470] The Golden Father entering the chamber of wedded love sowed the seed of many children. Then rolling the long circle of hoary time, he remembered Rheia his prolific mother; and leaving faultless Naxos still full of Graces he visited all the towns of Hellas. He came near horsebreeding Argos, even though Hera ruled the Inachos. But the people would not receive him; they chased away the danceweaving women and Satyrs; they repudiated the thyrsus, lest Hera should be jealous and destroy her Pelasgian seat, if her heavy wrath should press hard on Lyaios; they checked the old Seilenoi. Then Dionysos, angry, sent madness upon all the Inachian women. The women of Achaia loudly bellowed; they attacked those they met at the threeways; the poor creatures sharpened knives for their own newborn babies — one mother drew sword and slew her son, another destroyed her three year old child, one again hurled into the air her baby boy still searching for the welcome milk. Inachos was stained with the death of perishing newborn babes; a mother killed a son, never missed him at her nursing breast, never thought of the pangs of travail. Asterion, where the young men so often cut the flower of their bared brows as firstfruits of growing age, now received the children themselves and no longer locks of hair.

  [496] As Lyaios came up, a man of the Pelasgian country thus called out to one of the servants of the god:

  [498] “You there with the grapes, you hybrid! Argos has her Perseus, one worthy of Hera, and needs not Dionysos. I have another son of Zeus and I want no Bacchos. Dionysos treads the vintage with dancing feet; my countryman cuts the air with high-travelling steps. Do not think ivy as good as the sickle, for Perseus with his sickle is better than Bacchos with his ivy; if Bacchos destroyed the Indian host, I will announce an equal prize for Perseus Gorgonslayer and Dionysos Indianslayer. If Bacchos once in the western region of the rolling sea turned into stone a Tyrrhenian ship and fixt it in the sea, my Perseus turned into stone a whole huge monster of the deep. If your Dionysos saved Ariadne, sleeping on the sands beside an empty sea, Perseus on the wing loosed the chains of Andromeda and offered the stone seamonster as a worthy bridal gift. Not for the Paphian’s sake, not while she longed for Theseus did Perseus save Andromeda to be his bride; a chaste wedding was his. No fiery lightnings burnt Danae to ashes, like Semele; but the father of Perseus came to his wedding as a golden shower of love from heaven, not as a flaming bedfellow.

  [520] “I do not admire this hero at all. For what lusty spear of war does he hold? Stay, Perseus, do not fight the woman’s ivy with your Gorgonslayer sickle, do not defile your hand with a woman’s buskins, do not shake the cap of Hades upon your brow against a wreath of vineleaves — but if you wish, arm Andromeda against unarmed Dionysos. Begone, Dionysos, I tell you; leave Argos and its horses and madden once more the women of sevengate Thebes. Find another Pentheus to kill — what has Perseus to do with Dionysos? Let be the swift stream of Inachos, and let the slow river of Aonian Thebes receive you. I need not remind you of heavyknee Asopos boiling still with the thunderbolt.”

  [533] So the man spoke, deriding Dionysos. Meanwhile Pelasgian Hera equipped her Argive army; she took the shape of the seer Melampus, and angrily called to Perseus Gorgonslayer in martial words:

  [537] “Perseus Flashhelm, offspring of heavenly race! Lift your sickle, and let not weak women lay waste your Argos with an unwarlike thyrsus. Tremble not before only one snake wreathed in the hair, when your monsterslaying sickle reaped such a harvest as the vipers of Medusa! Attack the army of Bassarids; remember the brazen vault which was Danae’s chamber, where Rainy Zeus poured in her bosom a shower of bridestealing gold — let not Danae after that bed, after the wedding of gold, bend a slavish knee to that nobody Dionysos. Show that you have in you the true blood of Cronion, show that you have the golden breed, proclaim the bed that received that snowstorm of heavenly riches. Make war on the Satyrs too: turn towards battling Lyaios the deadly eye of snake hair Medusa, and let me see a new Polydectes made stone after the hateful king of wave washed Seriphos. By your side is Argive Hera in arms, all vanquishing, the stepmother of Bromios. Defend Mycene lift your sickle to save our city, that I may behold Ariadne captive of your spear following Perseus. Kill the array of bullhorned Satyrs, change with the Gorgon’s eye the human countenances of the Bassarids into like images selfmade; with the beauty of the stone copies adorn your streets, and make statues like an artist for the Inachian market-places. Why do you tremble before Dionysos, no offspring of the bed of Zeus? Tell me, what could he do to you? When shall a foot-farer on the ground catch a winged traveller of the air?”

  [567] So she encouraged him, and Perseus flew into the fray. The Pelasgian trumpet blared calling the people. They came, one lifting the spear of spearman Lynceus, one the spear of Phoroneus more ancient still, one that of Pelasgos, one carried on his arm the oxhide of Abas, and the ashplant of Proitos, another bore the quiver of Acrisios; this bold man stood up to fight holding the sword of Danaos, which once he raised naked when he armed his daughters for those husband-murdering bridals; another again grasped the great axe which Inachos held to strike the bulls’ foreheads, when he stood as the inspired priest of Hera Cityholder. The battlestirring host behind their prancing teams ran with Perseus to the field; and he stood before them shouting the warcry with harsh voice, on foot himself, and shook back the rounded quiver over his shoulder, and fitted arrows to curving bow. Perseus of the sickle was champion of the Argives; he fitted his feet into the flying shoes, and he lifted up the head of Medusa which no eyes may see.

  [587] But Iobacchos marshalled his women with flowing locks, and Satyrs with horns. Wild for battle he was when he saw the winged champion coursing through the air. The thyrsus was held up in his hand, and to defend his face he carried a diamond, the gem made stone in the showers of Zeus which protects against the stony glare of Medusa, that the baleful light of that destroying face may do him no harm.

  [594] And Flashhelm Perseus when he saw the ranks of the Bassarids and the gear of Lyaios, laughed terribly and cried —

  [596] “It’s nice to see you there with that thyrsus, that greenleaf shaft, marching against me armed with your wretched foliage, playing at war! If you have in you the blood of Zeus, show your breeding! If you have the water of golden Pactolos River, I have a golden Father — my father is Zeus of the Rains. See the crimson foundations of my mother’s chamber, still keeping relics of that snowstorm of wealth! Go, flee now from famous Argos, since these buildings belong to steadfast Hera, your mother’s destroyer, lest she make you the maddener mad, lest I see you once more driven with frenzy at last.”

  [607] He spoke, and advanced to the fight. All-vanquishing Hera marshalled the battle, and scattered the Bacchants with Medusa’s reaper; she dashed upon Bacchos like the lightning, a godsent leaping fire, and cast at Bromios her gleaming flashing lance. But Dionysos laughing replied in a wild voice —

  [613] “Not so much of a flash you make in that blade of yours, with no iron; you cannot scare me, though your point is on fire! Even the lightning of Zeus does not hurt me; for when I was half-made and still a baby the thunders bathed me, pouring breath which burnt not upon inviolate Dionysos. You too, Perseus of the sickle, proud as you are, make an end! This is no battle for a feeble Gorgon, the prize is not a lone girl in heavy chains, Andromeda. Lyaios is your enemy, the offspring of Zeus, to whom alone long ago Rheia offered the life-giving breast; for whom long ago the flame of marriagelightning was a gentle midwife; the admiration of East and of West, before whom the armies of India gave way; at whom Deriades trembled, and Orontes wi
th his towering giant-stature fell; to whom bold Alpos bent his knee, that son of Earth with huge body rising near the clouds; to whom the Arabian nation kneels down, and the Sicilian mariner still sings the changeling shape of sea-scouring Tyrrhenian pirates, when once I transformed their human bodies and now instead of men they are fishes dancing and leaping in the sea.

  [633] “You have heard the groaning of sevengate Thebes; I need not remind you of Pentheus in dire madness and Agaue who slew her child; you need no tale or witness how your Argos has felt Lyaios, and the wives of Achaia themselves are still mourning for their children. Very well, fight, my friend, and soon you shall praise Bacchos with his weapons of leafage, when you see the wings of your shoes yielding to my unconquerable buskins. Never shall you scatter my battling Bassarids, never will I cease casting my vine-wand, until I show Argos your throat pierced by my spear of ivy and your sickle beaten by my leaves. Zeus my father will not save you, nor Brighteyes my sister, nor your own Hera, however she hates the steadfast Dionysos: but I will kill you, and boastful Mycene shall see beheaded the man who beheaded Medusa. Or I will bind you in a chest with greater bonds, and throw you to float again on the sea you know so well; you may land again at Seriphos by and by, if you like. If you are so proud of your golden birth, you may take the golden Aphrodite, that good-for-nothing, to help you.”