Book 3

3. In the third book search for the much-wandering ship of Cadmus, and the halls of Electra, and the hospitality of her table.

The contest was loosed, when the storm had passed; and showing its tip, its light-bringing back like a knife on a cloudless baldric, Orion rose, and no longer in the circling pool did the frosty tracks of the sunken Bull bathe; no longer beside the slope of the rain-breeding, thirsty Bear was the gleaming water travelled with unwetted footsteps; no longer did the Massagetan, lashing his wandering house, crossing the stream on a wooden circling wagon-track, score the watery furrows of the frozen Ister; for already the pregnant Hour, herald of Zephyrus, with the splitting of the buds made the dewy breezes drunk, and the shrill swallow, the springtime herald, fellow-dweller with mortals, chattering and twittering robbed them of their morning sleep, newly come to light, and from its fragrant veil the flower bared and laughed, bathed in springtime life-giving dews. And beside the saffron streams of the Cilicians, leaving the horned headland of the high-crested Bull, Cadmus went early, when Dawn had cleaved the darkness.

And it was the season for sailing; and as Cadmus hastened the cables that hold the ships were heaved from the land; and the high-headed mast, striking the upper air, stood upright fixed, and gently lashing the sea with morning breaths the light breeze buzzed, holding an escorting sound; and arching the waves shifting in the gusts it checked the watery dance of the dolphin, the tumbler of the silent calm. And the twisted ropes whistled with a sharp hiss, and as the wind hastened the forestays groaned, and the straight-faring sail was bellied out, forced and big with the breeze; and the unsteady wave was split, back-falling, and the swelling water foamed, and as the ship hastened through the sea with the booming wave an echo cried about the keel; and the rudder's tip, with the cleaving track through the brine, scored the curved, foam-flecked back of the sea.

And after the tenth turning-post of the storm-free circling Dawn Cadmus, borne on the waveless breezes of Zeus, splitting the Trojan passage of water-roaming Helle, was drawn by the ravisher wind through the bellowing strait to Samos, opposite the strife-rousing Camandrus, neighbour of Sithonia, where as a maiden still for Cadmus Harmonia was kept; and the prophetic breezes escorted the ship to the Thracian shore, to divine Rhea.

And seeing the flame of the sleepless Samian pine, the sailors with limbs near the land joyfully furled the sails; and ferrying the ship near the waveless harbour they scored the windless water with the tips of their oars, and put in under the shelter of the haven; and of the unbending crags the pierced rocky nail received the ships' cables, and through the deepening gulf of the wet sand the curved-toothed anchors of the ship were fastened as Phaethon sank; and on the beach the sailors spread for themselves unspread ground-couches on the sand after the evening meal; and on the men's heavy eyes wandering Sleep set his noiseless tread.

But when, beside the wing of the purple, fiery Eurus, peering over the topmost scored cleft of Teucrian Ida, spitting forth the dawn, Dawn appeared, watcher of the harbour, lighting the dark swell of the sea across the way, then, so that Cypris might join Harmonia to a husband, the unsailable back of the silent calm was stretched out, unsailed.

And already the morning bird cried, cleaving the air, and the well-helmeted ranks of the desert-dwelling Corybantes beat out the Cnossian, shield-brandishing leap of the dance with measured steps; and as the loud-crashing bull's-hide was struck in coils with the rivalling iron, the double-voiced pipe sang, and urging on the dancers it crashed out a concordant tune with leaping beat. And the oaks whispered, and the rocks bellowed, and the frenzied woods were shaken with a sentient quivering, and the Dryads cried out; and the circling bears rushed thick into the dance with answering leaps, and the lions with roaring from their kindred throats mimicked the war-cry of the mystery-tending Cabeiri, a frenzy that held its wits; and as dog-loving Hecate sang, the company's pipes thundered, the unyoked pipes that the Cronian horn-carving art invented.

And at the loud-sounding din of the noise-loving Corybantes Cadmus woke early, and entangled together likewise the Sidonian sailors, hearing the morning's unsilent bull's-hide, from their well-pebbled beds left the sea-beaten back of the shore-couch.

And tracking the city the traveller Cadmus wandered, leaving the ship and hastening off from his comrades; and as he came to the house of Harmonia, the bridal-attendant Persuasion met him, having the form of a mortal woman, and through her burdened bosom, like a patient working woman, having drawn a draught from the spring, she lifted on her arm the silver well-rounded pitcher, a messenger of things to come, since by accustomed law a bridegroom before the wedding is sprinkled with life-giving baths.

And he was near the city, where in hollow troughs women, treading with much-leaping feet the dirty rows of close-packed entangled robes, with eager feet. And from her topmost soles to her head, hidden in a dark cloud, Persuasion led Cadmus through the unmarked city, the searcher for the hall of the guest-receiving king, escort of the road at the Paphian's nod; and there a bird, seated under the grey, delicate shelter of an olive, the prophetic crow, opening her greedy mouth, reproached the youth, that toward Harmonia his bride he went, a sluggish traveller with sparing bridal foot, and shaking her wings cried out a mocking voice:

"Cadmus has become a fool, or has become a stranger to the Loves; swift Eros knows no slow bridegroom; be gracious, Persuasion, your Cadmus delays though Aphrodite hastens. Hot Eros calls you: why, bridegroom, do you travel sluggishly? Sweet are you, who became the neighbour of lovely Adonis, sweet, dwelling in a fatherland that shares a furrow with the Byblian women. I erred: you have not seen the stream of Adonis, you have not looked on the land of Byblos, where is the house of the Graces, where dances Assyrian Cytherea and not bed-fleeing Athena. You have Persuasion as escort, delighting in marriages, the nurse of the Loves, not Artemis; cease from your toils, have the joy of Harmonia and leave Europa to the bull; hasten, and Electra will receive you, from whose hands yes indeed, take on the cargo of wedding Loves, entrusting the merchandise of love to Aphrodite, and the Cyprian daughter kept for your bridal chamber receive as another Cypris; and you will praise the crow, and call me the bridal prophetic bird of the Loves. I erred: but Cypris breathed on me; for from the Paphian I prophesy your bed, even if I am the bird of Athena."

So speaking she sealed her chattering mouth with witnessing silence.

But when, as he walked, the public circles of the road showed from afar the king's all-receiving hall raised on columns, then, stretching out toward Cadmus her finger, the knowing witness of answering speech, with a silent herald Persuasion pointed out the house flashing many-coloured; and the deity sank into the air, otherwise-seeming, darting away on her winged sandal.

And Cadmus surveyed the house with wandering eye, the skilled work of Hephaestus, which once for the bride Electra the toil-worker of Lemnos wrought with Myrinaean art, bearing many cunning ornaments. Of the new-built hall the bronze threshold was well-trodden; and on both sides the doorposts of the much-carved gateways were drawn out long, and the crest was rounded into a ball at its navelled top, shown in the middle of the roof; and the back of the stone-paved wall was fixed firm, set fast with white gypsum, to the inner recess from the threshold. And near, an orchard of the court, spreading wide, was weighed down with the dewy fruit of its plants, four acres before the house; and spreading its male leaves the palm pledged its desire to the female palm; the pear with splendid fruit, grown together with its agemate pear, whispered in the morning, and twining with its clusters struck the neighbouring bush of the rich olive; beside the laurel that refuses the springtime winds the myrtle leaves were shaken, and the fragrant breeze fanned the morning foliage of the fair-leaved cypress; and from the sweet-bearing fig and the moist pomegranate the reddening fruit grew ripe beside the wine-dark fruit planted close by, and apple bloomed beside neighbouring apple; and much was the foliage marked with Phoebus' wise letters, the tree-borne writing of the weeping-loving hyacinths; and as Zephyrus breathed through the plant-nourishing garden Apollo, insatiate of his longings, stretched his unsteady eye, and, seeing the youth's plant shaken by the breezes, remembering the discus he quivered, lest perchance the breeze, jealous, might envy the boy even in the leaves, if truly Apollo, seeing that boy once writhing in the dust, once wept with eyes that had not wept, and the flowery form shaped the tears of Phoebus, inscribing on the hyacinth a self-summoned dirge.

Such was the well-shaded orchard; and near was a spring with two mouths, from one was drink for the dwellers, from the other the gardener channelled from a conduit the much-divided, winding water to plant after plant; and a stream, as if from Phoebus, buzzed delicately about the root of the singing laurel.

And a great, well-made boy of gold stood, propping his foot on a rock, facing the diners, stretching the after-dinner radiance of an evening lamp; and many ranks of figures, with their matched limbs in cunning silence, through the made gapings of their grinning throats, the wise ranks of false dogs near the doors stood here and there, and a golden dog, neighbour to the silver dog, barked along with it from its swelling throat, fawning on the accustomed man; and as Cadmus passed by it sent forth the stranger-saving Echo of a mimic bark, and the artist made the likeness of an affectionate wagging tail to quiver.

While Cadmus, turning the eyes of his well-turning face, measured out the garden of the lords with his wandering gaze, and the carvings and all the beauty of the painted hall, seeing the bright glitterings of the stony metals, meanwhile, leaving the assembly and the quarrels of the people, bright, seated upon the back of his high-crested horse, Emathion, holding Thracian Samos, the seat of Ares, came to the royal house of his mother Electra, who then alone ruled, guiding the reins of his brother's sovereignty, since, leaving his fatherland's soil, Dardanus had settled in the land's margin across the way, scoring out the well-towered city named Dardania, marking the Idaean dust with a ploughman's track; and drinking the stream of Heptaporus and the floods of Rhesus he left the heritage to his brother to hold, and the sceptre of the Cabeiri. Dardanus, brother of Emathion, whom the bed of Zeus begot, whom Justice the nurse cherished, when, taking the sceptre of Zeus and the robes of Time and the wand of Olympus, the Hours ran to the house of royal Electra, prophets of the unbreakable sovereignty of the Ausonians; and they reared the infant, and by the unswerving voice of Zeus the boy, springing up like the flower of ever-renewing youth, left the house of Electra, when the flood of the third rain towered with waves overwhelmed the seats of the universe.

For Ogyges first made trial of the sounding flood, cleaving the air through the towering water, when all the earth was hidden, flooded over, and the tip of the Thessalian rock was covered, and on high the Pythian peak, the cloud-near rock, surged with the snowy flood. The second rain was when over the rim of the circling earth the snow-laden water hid it with a raging stream, when Deucalion alone, fellow-voyager with his agemate Pyrrha, amid the perishing mortals, in a hollow ark cutting the back-whirling flood of the unmeasured downpour of the watery air, was ferried, a whirling sailor. And the third rain of Zeus was when it washed the seat of the earth and hid the cliffs, and even the unwetted back of the Sithonian hill of Athos itself was covered, when, cleaving the flood of the high-faring downpour, Dardanus set foot on the ancient neighbouring Ida.

His brother then, lord of the snowy Sithonian land, Emathion, leaving the heavy-sounding assembly, marvelled at the man's form, since his inborn youth mingled manliness and beauty in a matched shape, he marvelled at so great a form; for of distinguished lords the looks are themselves voiceless heralds, speaking unbidden. And taking him in he gave him hospitality, and with weary Electra he adorned the varied dinners of the rich table, welcoming the stranger with friendly and blameless words, setting much before him. But he, bowing his bent neck to the floor, apart from the attendants, drew his eyes uncharmed, and scarcely feasted; and as the hospitable bride sat facing him, with a stealing glance from his face he stretched in shame his chaste hand to the table.

And as they feasted, in close succession one after another the breathing reed of Corybantian Ida crashed out; and from the much-pierced passage, with the leaping of hands, the dancing fingers, pressing the song, beat out the concordant tune of the bellowing pipe; and the booming cymbals, clashing with rolling shakes, sounded a concordant echo with their double bronze joined to the reeds; and beneath the plectrum the very upright string of the seven-toned lyre quivered.

But when after the feast he had had his fill of the Bistonian pipe, drawing near to the inquiring queen, who loves to ask, Cadmus, setting aside the frenzy of his sea-wandering care, told of his bright lineage, and a stream of ever-flowing words he poured from his opening throat like a fountain:

"Dear lady, why do you ask me so much of the blood of my race? I liken the race of swift-fated mortals to leaves; the leaves that the frenzied breezes pour down on the earth when the autumn season comes, and others in the springtime season the wooded trees foster, in fresh bloom; so the short-lived race of men: one is subdued by destruction, having run its course of life, while another still flourishes, that it may yield to another in turn; for, creeping back again, the age of man flows from grey to new, taking shape afresh. But I will tell of my far-famed, fair-childed race. There is a city, glorious Argos, the equestrian seat of Hera, the navel of the island of Tantalus; there a man sowed a fair maiden with female-bearing seed, Inachus, the famed citizen of the Inachian land, a temple-keeper, who plotted the dreadful rites of the city-guarding goddess with prophetic, mystic art, an elder; and Zeus, the chief of the gods, the leader of the stars, he refused to have as a son-in-law, keeping reverence for Hera, . . . when, bull-formed, the heifer Io, her face changed, was driven into the field-herd, a fellow-grazer, and Hera set over the heifer a sleepless herdsman, many-eyed Argus, adorned with unwandering eyes, the watcher of Zeus' cow-horned wedding, of unseen Zeus, and the girl went into the pasture trembling at the eyes of the many-pupilled herdsman; and Io, her body scored by the limb-devouring gadfly, scored the swell of the Ionian sea with roving hoof; she came even to Egypt, of my stream—which the citizens called the Nile by a fitting name, because to the land year after year, borne along, the watery bedfellow with muddy flood throws around it new silt— she came to Egypt, where after her cow shape, changing the image of her divine horn, she became the fruit-bearing goddess; and as the fruit is kindled of Egyptian Demeter, of my horn-drawn Io, the vapour rises, fellow-traveller with the fragrant breezes. There she bore Epaphus to Zeus, since of her unsullied bosom, of the Inachian heifer, the divine bedfellow had touch with love-maddened hands; and from a god-begotten father, from Epaphus, came Libya; and journeying to Libya's bridal chamber even to Memphis came Poseidon as a wanderer, tracking the maiden daughter of Epaphus, and then the girl, receiving the dweller of the deep as a landward traveller, bore Libyan Zeus, Belus, the ploughman of my race. And the new oracle of Asbystian Zeus, an answering voice, the thirsty prophetic sands proclaim to the Chaonian dove; and as a father, equal in number to five, Belus sowed a succession of children, Phineus and Phoenix who left his city, with whom flourishing together the citizen of cities exchanged in turn, the roaming Agenor of unsettled life, my father, held his course to Thebes after Memphis, to Assyria after Thebes; and wise Aegyptus, the dweller of the Egyptian land, of grievous birth, many-childed, who with male-born offspring sowed the short-lived flocks of so many children, and Danaus who left his fatherland, who armed against the male race the female kind, stretching the wedding sword, when the bridal chambers were reddened with the blood of slaughtered weddings, and with hidden swords upon the iron-bearing beds female Enyo lulled to sleep naked male Ares; yet to Hypermnestra the evil-bridal slaughter was not pleasing, but thrusting aside the grim-kindred ordinances of her father she entrusted her father's word to the airy gust, and kept her hand pure and bloodless of the iron; and the marriage of both was holy. And my newly-blooming sister the bold roving bull carried off, if truly it was a bull; for I do not know how to believe that bulls long for women's weddings. And Agenor sent me, fellow-traveller with my brothers, to track our sister and the wild ravisher of the bride, the bull, the false sailor of the waveless sea, for whose sake I come here, an unsteady wanderer."

Such things within the well-piped hall Cadmus told, pouring forth speech from his eloquent throat, telling of the child-saving frenzy of his father's threat and the false-sailing bull-traveller of the Tyrian surge, the unattainable, unknown ravisher of the Sidonian bride.

And Electra, hearing, cried out a comforting voice:

"Stranger, your sister and your fatherland and your father give over to the whirl of Lethe and to forgetful silence; for thus the life of mortals is borne, holding toil on toil, since all, as many as a mortal womb has borne, are enslaved to the compulsion of the Fates' spinning thread; I am a witness, queen though I am, if ever of those Pleiades I too was born one, whose mother once brought to birth the female pangs within her bosom, calling seven times upon Eileithyia at her childbed to lighten the sting of repeated birth— I am a witness; for far from my parents I dwell, having neither Sterope nor Maia my fellow, nor my sister Celaeno near as a hearth-mate; nor in my bosom of my sister Taygeta have I held Lacedaemon with a double leap, embracing the joyful boy with child-nursing arm; nor near do I see the house of Alcyone, nor of Merope herself, do I hear her speaking the mind-delighting word. And besides, this I lament still more: for newly-blooming my son who left his fatherland, when he had the down of first beard, Dardanus, migrated to the bosom of the Idaean land, and to Phrygian Simoeis gave the first-fruits of his hair, drinking the alien water of the Thymbraean river; and at the boundary of Libya my father still labours with pressed shoulders, old Atlas bent over, heaving up the seven-zoned hollow of the air. Yet, having suffered so much, I feed a comforting hope on the promises of Zeus, that with my other sisters from the earth I shall come to the Atlantean pole of stars, having heaven as my house, and shall be the seventh star. And you too, soften your cares; for unforeseen, rolling upon you the whirl of life-wandering fortune, the dreadful thread of unmoving Fate has sealed it; endure to bear, as one who left his fatherland, the unbending bond of compulsion, feeding a higher hope as the herald of things to come, if first-sown Io rooted your race, if you have got from Libya the Poseidonian blood of your line; remain among strangers, like Dardanus, dwelling in a house, inhabiting a foreign city, as your father Agenor, as Danaus your father's brother; for he too, another man bearing his house, having the god-inspired race of Io, a heavenly Zeus-fallen shoot, by name Byzas, drinking the seven-mouthed water of the self-born Nile, allotted a neighbouring land, where beside the Bosporus shore the water crossed by the Inachian heifer is drawn, giving light to all the dwellers around, when of that unbending, maddened bull he bent the neck aslant."

She spoke, lulling to rest the cares of the son of Agenor.

And father Zeus sent the long-winged son of Maia to the house of Electra, a swift messenger, that to Cadmus he might give Harmonia for the harmony of wedlock, a maiden migrant from heaven, whom for Aphrodite in secret love the marriage-thieving Ares begot; and the mother, ashamed of the babe, the self-announcer of her hidden bed, did not rear her, but from her heavenly bosom the nursling girl, reclining on her arm at the breast, she brought to the house of Electra, fit for nursing, whose own child the childbed Hours had brought to wet birth, whose dense breasts still welled with swelling white moisture; and receiving the bastard daughter by an equal law the contemporary of Emathion she joined to one breast, the newly-born girl, and with kindred-loving purpose she lightened the double offspring with a nursing arm.

As some wild, twin-bearing lioness within the thicket, shaggy, with milky dews fitted her twin breasts to both cubs and gave the divided teat to the twin young, and licking their flesh and their still-hairless neck reared the agemate brood with equal care: so then with child-nursing loving teat she gave suck, tending the yoked pair of newly-born children; often she embraced the infant son, fellow with the agemate girl, turning him here and there to the moisture of her rich breast, with the loving hollow of her outstretched hand; and on her knees she set the male child beside the female girl, spreading her gaping thigh beside the neighbouring thigh, widening the bosom of her deepening tunic; and crying a sleep-charming melody to her children she lulled both to sleep with nursing art, spreading her arm to support the neck of the children, and made her knee their bed, and over the two she turned the edge of her robe, fanning their faces, cooling the children, and quenched the rush of the heat by pouring an answering blast, a made breeze.

While Cadmus sat near the prudent queen, meanwhile, escaping the gatekeeper with his thieving foot, unforeseen and unattainable, Hermes went into the house, like a youth; and about his rosy face the trailing track of his uncovered hair hung loose, spreading wide, and crowning the edges of his new-haired cheek the slender circle of his growing first-beard reddened, freshly grown, running round on either side; and like a herald he lifted his accustomed wand; and with face unseen, adorned with clouds from head to the tips of his feet, he came upon the finished dinners of the rich table; nor did Emathion see him near, nor did Harmonia herself, nor Cadmus the hearth-mate, nor the chorus of servant men; but to god-fearing Electra alone appeared Hermes of varied speech; and taking her into the recess of the house, unforeseen he conversed and spoke with human voice:

"Mother's sister, bedfellow of Zeus, hail, of women all the most blessed hereafter, since the son of Cronos keeps the sovereignty of the universe for your children, and all the cities of the earth your offspring will govern, the bride-gifts of your love, and with my mother Maia you may flash among the seven-pathed stars upon Olympus, fellow-runner with the Sun, rising together with the Moon. I am of your race, child-loving one, kindred Hermes, the long-winged messenger of the immortals, and from heaven your hospitable, high-ruling consort sent me concerning your god-fearing guest; but you yourself obey your son of Cronos, and your daughter Harmonia send to go dowerless, fellow-voyager with her agemate Cadmus, and do a favour to Zeus and the blessed; for the worn-out immortals this stranger saved them all by singing; this man came to the aid of your labouring consort, this man spread a free day over Olympus. Let not your daughter charm you with mother-loving lament; but give her in marriage to the evil-averting Cadmus, obeying the son of Cronos and Ares and Cytherea."