Book 4

4. Tracking your fourth course over the sea, you shall behold Harmonia sailing as companion to Cadmus, her equal in years.

So speaking, Hermes of the fair wand departed for Olympus, fluttering his light wings, and as his sandals stretched out his ankle was rowed onward in company with the breezes of the air. Nor did the Thracian woman, steerswoman of the Cabeiri, . . . but reverence for Zeus held her, and to the unwedded girl, daughter of Ares, spinning her wise fingers upright with a thoughtful gesture, she called Harmonia by the cunning mark of speech; and the girl, straining toward the gleam that met her eyes, gazed on the unsmiling round of Electra's face, and the deep, new-welling weight of an unspoken grief her silent cheeks proclaimed as by an oracle. The maiden sprang up and went with the woman who had reared her into the high-built house; and her mother, drawing open the much-prized bolt of the seven-chambered bridal room, crossed the stone threshold; and with affectionate intent the trembling bride's knees were shaken unsteadily, and she lifted up the rose-arm hand of her own child, gripping it with her snow-white palm; and you might almost say you saw white-armed Hera holding the hand of Hebe. But when, treading the floor with her purple sandals, she passed within the last glittering circuits of the hall, the Atlantid nymph seated the grieving maiden upon a well-wrought throne; and she in turn herself, sitting in order on a silver-gleaming chair, told to the unwilling girl the message of the son of Cronos, and taught her all that, in the likeness of a mortal form, the Olympian herald, the youth of changed appearance, had declared.

But the maiden, hearing of a much-wandering marriage, and of a husband without footing, a houseless wanderer beneath a borrowed roof, refused to take a stranger, and all that, from Zeus her father, Hermes the host of Cadmus, the driver of oxen, had told; and she wished rather for a husband of her own city, that she might escape a wedding that bears no bride-gifts, a yoke without dowry; and gripping with her hand the dejected hand of her nurse, drenched with tears she broke into a voice of much reproach: “Mother of mine, what has come over you to deny your own child? Is it thus you join your daughter to a newly-arrived man? What gift will the seafarer ever place in my hand? Will he grant me, as bride-gifts, the stern-cables of his ship? I did not know, you who love your child, that you were keeping your daughter, a maiden bereft of fatherland, for a wandering marriage. Other suitors I have, better men, citizens of my own; what need was there to take some naked husband without gifts, a foreigner roaming about, a fugitive from his own father? But you will say, he came to the aid of your bedmate the son of Cronos; how then did he not receive a privilege of Zeus upon Olympus, if indeed, as you tell me, he fought at the front of Olympus, and Hera, Zeus's consort, did not join the maiden Hebe to the helper of Zeus? Your husband, Zeus who rules on high, has no need of Cadmus; may the son of Cronos be gracious—the marvellous Hermes lied about Zeus the father; but I do not know how to believe that Zeus left furious Ares, the steersman of the battle-din, and called a mortal man to be his fellow-contestant in the struggle, he who rules the cosmos and the upper air. Ah, great wonder, he shut up so many Titans in the pit, and yet had need of Cadmus, to destroy one single foe. You know the twin and kindred marriage-beds of my forefathers: Zeus my ancestor held the bed of his sister Hera, keeping the law of a kindred wedding-chamber; and both, Ares and Cytherea, mounting one single bed, the parents of Harmonia, are born of one same father, sharing a kindred couch—alas for necessity— sisters keep their brothers, while I keep a fatherless husband.”

As she spoke thus her mother wiped away the shower from her mourning eyes, in distress; and torn in her resolve she pitied Harmonia, yet shrank from the threat of Zeus. But, girding her body with the heart-charming girdle, the cunning life-zone, crafty Aphrodite, and clothing her flesh in the loving robes of Persuasion, entered the sweet-scented maiden-bower of Harmonia; and changing the cast of her heavenly countenance, she likened her form to Peisinoe, the neighbour-girl, as though she too longed for Cadmus, and as if with some secret sickness sending a faint gleam over her pale-green face she sped away the handmaids; and sitting beside her alone, as if from modesty, she heaved up a deceitful voice: “Blessed are you, what a handsome wanderer you have in your house, what a suitor you have, most happy one—what a husband you shall behold, full of charm, such as no other maiden has won; truly he brings the blood of his Assyrian fatherland, where flows the stream of lovely Adonis; for full of charm is this youth from Lebanon, where Cytherea dances. I was wrong—surely no earthly womb bore Cadmus, but he holds the lineage of Zeus, and belied his true stock. I know whence this youth is, an Olympian; if ever upon Maia the Titan Atlas begot her sister Electra, then to Harmonia has come a husband, her wingless cousin Hermes, and not in vain is Cadmilus sung; for only his heavenly shape did he change, and still he is heard called Cadmus. But if he is some other god holding a mortal-seeming form, perhaps Emathion welcomed Phoebus in his hall. Maiden, the care of all, you are more blessed than your mother in your longing, in your Olympian marriage—ah, great wonder, in secret crafty Zeus wedded Electra, while openly Apollo himself courts Harmonia; blessed she, whom the far-shooter desired; would that of Peisinoe herself too Apollo would hasten to make a marriage. For I would never refuse Phoebus, as Daphne did, nor will I imitate the mind of Harmonia; but leaving my portion and my house and the parents whom I love, I would go with Apollo as fellow-traveller to the wedding. I remember once such a form; for once, following my father into our oracular house, I saw the Pythian image, and as I saw your wanderer, I fancied I beheld again the statue of Phoebus here. But you will say that Phoebus wears a gold-gleaming headband; Cadmus is golden in all his body; and if you should wish, take all my slaves beyond number, and in his place I will hand over to you all my gold and my silver, and I will give you royal robes of the Tyrian sea, and a house, if you wish, an ancestral one; if it is right to say it, take my father too and my mother, take all my handmaids, and only grant me this man for a husband. Maiden, why do you tremble? You in spring shall sail the sea, voyaging the narrow water, while with lovely Cadmus I will cross the boundless ocean through the storm. Do not fear the deep-roaring swell of the brine, for Aphrodite, daughter of the sea, will save in the sea her cargo of Love. Maiden, you have Cadmus—do not seek a seat on Olympus. I have no longing for the glittering Erythraean stone of the Indians, nor for the all-golden tree of the Hesperides, nor does the amber of the Heliads delight me, so much as one mist of the night in which this wanderer shall embrace Peisinoe. And if you trace your lineage from Ares, from Aphrodite, your mother, the dispenser of marriages, has found you a marriage worthy of marriage. Never have I beheld so great a flower; for of her own accord Nature gave to Cadmus a springtime gift; I saw the rose-fingered hand, I saw the face dripping sweet honey; and of his love-begetting countenance his cheeks blush like roses, and bright at their tips, two-coloured, the prints of his snow-white feet gleam, crimson in the middle, and his palms are like the lily. I will leave aside his tresses, lest I provoke Phoebus by reproaching with their hue the hyacinth of Therapnae. If ever, wheeling the mind-delighting circle of his eyes, he flashed his glances, all Selene shone with sparkling radiance, and if ever, shaking his curls, he laid bare his neck, the Morning Star appeared. Of his lips I would keep silence; but his mouth, the channel of the Loves, where Persuasion dwells, pours forth a honey-sweet voice, and the Graces tend his whole body; the tips of his hands I am ashamed to judge, lest I put white milk to shame. Take me, wretched, to share your hearth; and touching the right hand of the young man and caressing his tunic, may I find soothing remedies for a hidden sickness; may I see his bare neck, and as he sits press his finger as if against my will, and through my own bosom may I die, only when, relaxing his unsparing hand, he should press the free circle of both my breasts, fixing his shut lips upon my own shut lips, delighting me with the lightest of kisses; and the young man still embracing I would pass even to Acheron of my own accord, and sweetly beside much-weeping Lethe I will tell even to the dead my fate, that I may rouse both pity and envy in heart-charming Persephone; and I will teach those Grace-breathing kisses to the ill-loving women, all whom the lovely fire has slain, and I will make the dead jealous, if even beside Lethe, toward the Paphian after death, women still feel envy. I will follow, if you wish, as your companion, and I do not tremble at untaught wandering. Pitiless one, become the wedded wife of Cadmus; let me be the chamber-tender, a servant to you both, to Harmonia and her husband. But again I tremble for you, even if you mean to hide it, lest through your marriage-bed I rouse anger and jealousy, since Hera, though a goddess and ruler of the upper air, grudges Zeus his mortal bastard wives; she was angry at Europa and harassed restless Io; nor did she leave the goddesses alone—when their mother was angered Ares drove away Leto in her labour, heavy with child. If jealousy does not hold you, that I may find a remedy for my desires, grant me this man for a single dawn, yes, I beg you, for one course of a single night; but if you grudge it, slay me with your own hand, that I may know respite from a fire so unappeasable, that for ever night and day I tend deep within, feeding about my heart.”

She spoke, and with her girdle drove the bed-fleeing Harmonia into the voyage, goading with desire the now-yielding girl. And she, turning her mind to a twofold counsel, longed to take the stranger and yet wished to dwell in her fatherland, and spoke some word, her mind lashed by the goad: “Alas, who has changed my mind? Farewell, fatherland, rejoice, Emathion and all the house; caves of the Cabeiri, farewell, and Corybantian peaks; no longer do I behold the nightly revel-torch of my mother's Hecate. Farewell, maidenhood—I am wedded to sweet Cadmus; Artemis, do not be wroth, I shall cross the swell of the bright-green sea. But you will say the sea is pitiless—I do not heed the raging surge; let my mother's water receive, perishing together, Harmonia and my Cadmus. I follow the young man, proclaiming my marriage to the goddesses; if eastward my husband bears me sailing, I will tell of the longing of Orion for the Dawn, and I remember the chamber of Cephalus; but if ever I come to the misty west, then over Endymion the Latmian Selene, having suffered the like, will comfort me.”

Such things the girl cried out in her mind-distracting cares, helpless, her mind torn by the lovely goad; and with the wailing drop that wetted her face she kissed Electra's hand and her eyes and the tips of her feet and her head and her breast, and the face of Emathion with modest lips, though he was her brother, and she embraced all the handmaids; and lamenting she greeted the wrought and much-carven rounds of the doors, breathless things, and the couch and the fences of her maiden-bower; and taking the dust of her fathers the girl embraced it. And then, holding her hand, under the witnessing escort of the gods, Electra brought Harmonia, dowerless, owed to Cadmus, having wiped the streaming shower from her face. And the morning wayfarer, taking the Cyprian daughter, left the house with an aged handmaid, the queen's gift, keeping the servant as his guide through the city as far as the sea. And seeing the maiden, high on the shore beside the deep, following the stranger, seething with fiery compulsion, Mene, fond of mockery, cried out blaming the Cyprian: “Cypris, do you arm yourself even against your own children, and did the sting of the Loves not even spare your own offspring? Her whom you bore, did you not pity, pitiless one? And what other maiden do you pity, when you drag your own kin into desire? Wander you too, dear friend; child of the Paphian, say to your mother: Phaethon mocks you, and Selene shames me. Harmonia, fatherland-forsaking, ill-loving, leave to Mene her bridegroom Endymion, and tend the wanderer Cadmus, have the heart to bear an equal toil, and in your love-begetting care remember that you too have suffered, worn out by love-stricken Selene.”

As she spoke thus, Cadmus, hastening his comrades over the shore, loosing again the moorings of the straight-running ship, filled the sail to the bellying with a stormless spring wind; and fastening the two ropes to a peg he steered through the swell the timber-jointed chariot of the sea, balancing on either side the ship's sheets, and like a Phoenician, knowing the ancestral familiar craft of seafaring, he stayed by the rudder; and on the stern he set Harmonia herself, the untouched fellow-voyaging girl, seeing on the ship the stranger passengers whom then the sailors were taking on as hired men. And quietly the fellow-voyaging man, looking on both, mingled with wonder his voice: “Love himself is this seafarer; for it is no marvel that sea-born Aphrodite should bear a sailor for a son; but he holds an arrow and a bow and lifts a torch, little Love, adorned with wings; and I behold a Sidonian ship. Crafty, thieving Ares perhaps sits in the stern, bringing within Lebanon the western Aphrodite as she sails from Thrace. Be gracious, mother of Love, and in unwaved calm send me a favouring breeze for my stormless mother the sea.”

Such a secret word the fellow-voyager spoke, turning sidelong toward Harmonia his answering eye. And Cadmus accomplished the voyage to Hellas, with the goad of the Phoebean oracle in his heart, and ever urging him on the inspired word of Zeus ran upon his unwandering ears. There, holding out to all the Greeks newer gifts, he hid away the life-bringing craft of Danaus the source of evil, of water-bearing Danaus; for what greater thing did he find for the Achaeans, if ever with bronze ground-digging mattocks hollowing out the streaming hollow of an earthly chasm he stopped the thirst of Argos, and to its dust-covered citizens gave a watery footing for their feet, a guest-gift of water, a little stream from the deep flanks of the earth? But the other, bringing to all Hellas vocal and intelligent gifts, fashioned harmonious instruments of speech, and of a kindred harmony, mingling in order the unyoked with the yoked, he rounded a written image of unsounding silence, having learned the ancestral mysteries of a divine art, a migrant of Egyptian wisdom, when Agenor, dweller of Memphis, founded hundred-gated Thebes; and, drawing the unspeakable milk of the sacred books, tracing with a backward-moving hand the slanting marks, he wrote curved circles; and showing the ivy-rites of Egyptian Dionysus, of Osiris the wanderer, he was taught the mystic nightly rites of the secret art, and a magic hymn he chanted with frenzied voice, holding a thin shrill cry; and the carved intricate work, engraved upon the deepening wall of the stone-image temple, he learned in his boyhood; and with much-pondering mind, having measured the fiery rim of the countless stars and learned the course of the Sun and the measure of the field, bending the twined fingers of his well-turning hand, he understood the restless circles of the returning Moon, how with threefold spirals she shifts her changing shape, new-shining, half-full, glittering with her whole face, and how, drawn together and flowing away by the male fire of her father the Sun, she is born from his motherless radiance, stealing from her father his self-born, renewing fire.

Such was he; and swiftly going to the cities of Achaea he laid aside his seafaring; and bringing with Harmonia the swarm of his sea-wandering comrades as a wayfarer on land, with horse-drawn chariots and burden-bearing wagons he came to the prophetic shrine; and arriving there he questioned the oracle of Pytho's never-silent navel-stone at Delphi, and the wise Pythian stone of itself, self-shouting, prophesied with a hollow voice all around: “Cadmus, in vain, wanderer, you wind a much-roving track; you seek some bull whom no cow's womb bore, you seek some bull whom no mortal knows how to overtake; renounce Assyria, and as the leader of your journey tend an earthly cow, do not seek the bull of Olympus; the bridegroom of Europa no herdsman knows how to drive; he goes to no pasture, no meadow, obeys no goad, is commanded by no whip; he knows how to lift the soft trappings of Cypris and not the yoke-band of the plough, and stretches his neck to Love alone and not to Demeter. But, leaving aside the longing for your Tyrian father, stay among foreigners, and of your Egyptian Thebes found the city of your fatherland, namesake of it, where, falling, a divine cow shall rest her heavy-kneed foot.”

So speaking, he laid to rest the frenzied voice of the tripods, and the crags of Parnassus were shaken as they heard the neighbouring Phoebean echo, and with its oracular stream the inspired water of wise Castalia bubbled up. The god spoke; and Cadmus withdrew, and beside the temple he saw a cow, and went along with her as she journeyed; and following, the men, with the slow-obeying hoof of the unstraying cow, made their sparing, measured journey, those nimble servants; whence then Cadmus, as he travelled, beheld a sacred land set out before him, where, perceiving it, the Pythian had laid to rest the death-bringing venom of the Cirrhaean viper, the nine-coiled drag of the mountain serpent. Leaving the heights of Parnassus, the migrant man trod the bordering soil of Daulis, whence I hear of the speaking robe of silent, ill-spindled Philomela, whom Tereus defiled, when conjugal Hera fled the danceless wedlock of mountain-dwelling marriages, and the girl groaned upon the unspread ground-bed of the wayside chamber; and as the tongueless girl lamented the Thracian, compulsory Aphrodite, with mimic tears voiceless Echo groaned, mourning the bed-fleeing maiden Philomela, when mingled with a crimson stream of blood the blood of her freshly-cut maidenhood gushed up with her freshly-cut tongue. And he saw the city of Tityos, where the bold son of Earth, passing through the fair-leaved groves of Panopeus, pulled aside the sacred robes of Leto as he forced her; and he set the print of his foot in the Tanagraean hollow, and from Coroneia crossing the Haliartian soil and the city of the Thespians and the deep-shinned Plataeae he came near Aonia, travelling the Boeotian plain, where once Orion, the ill-loving son of Earth, the scorpion, helper of the loveless arrow-pourer, laid low so great a one, when he had lifted the very lowest hem of the unwed goddess's tunic, that slow-creeping earthly monster; and striking the heels of his enemy with its hailing sting he scored them. And he set foot on the Chaeronian land, where the hoof of the cow whitened as it cut the silvery dust, and pursuing the much-bending circles of the rugged journey she shook from her dusty feet the white defilements. And the oracular hoof of the cow, sinking to her ground-bed, gave way, the herald of a city to be. But when for Cadmus the Pythian decree of the earthly echo was fulfilled, setting the sacred cow beside the incense-smoking altar, he sought a flow of spring waters, that he might cleanse his prophet hands, and pour over the offerings pure water; for not yet in the wine-planted vineyards did the delicate fruit of the ripening vintage appear. And he set his feet beside serpent-fed Dirce; and he stood astounded, where, slanting, appeared in his serpent-coil the spangle-backed snake of Ares, who had girdled the spring, and terrified the host, all the great throng that followed Cadmus; this one, biting beneath the breast with his glaring jaws, that one, striking, he scored with his blood-red tooth, and tearing the life-sustaining liver of another as he fought he made him a corpse; and the dry hair flowed from his neck of its own accord, slipping loose from his sodden head; another he terrified, leaping over the rim of his temple, a human one, and through the throat of another he ran unrestrained, and striking the eye with venomous spray he darkened the marble gleam of the shut eye; another's foot he seized, and scoring it with his jaw he held it in his bite, and belched the green foam of his teeth into the body of the young man, and, like the livid iron, his flesh was chilled to death by the green venom; of another, gasping beneath the blows of the jaws, the unsteady membranes of the head heaved like waves with the poison-bite, and as the brain poured forth, through the sodden nostril streamed the down-rushing gore. And swiftly the writhing serpent, creeping up the shins, girdled Cadmus with a threatening bond, and raising his body with a limb-mounting throb he sprang to the rounded navel of the ox-hide shield; and the man, his feet swathed in the crooked coils, grew weary, heavy-bound by the dragging snaky cord, bearing a dreadful burden, and the burdened bearer, standing upright, the serpent dragged down to the ground, hauling him; and he loosed his bitter mouth, and as the deadly thing gaped the bloody gateway of his raw-devouring throat widened, and he held his head aslant, and as his head was shaken the high-stretched neck writhed, curving in the middle.

But when Cadmus grew weary, then near at hand came Athena, brandishing the aegis, the herald of victory to come, maned with the snaky head of the Gorgon, and to him in his terror the host-rousing goddess cried out: “Cadmus, fellow-contestant of Zeus in the Giant-slaying battle-din, do you tremble at the sight of one single snake? In the battle-din Cronion, trusting in you, laid low Typhon, maned with so many serpent heads. Cease to tremble at the hiss of beastly teeth; Pallas urges you on, and beside murderous Dirce no bronze Ares shall rescue the crawler, his guardian. But, taking the dreadful teeth of the slain beast, sowing the earth with the snaky harvest, reap the serpentine crop of the Giant battle, and join the phalanxes of the earthborn in one common ruin, leaving five alive; for in the Thebes that is to come the bright-fruited race of the Sown Men shall spring up like grain.”

So speaking, Athena heartened the astonished Cadmus, and inscribed the deep air with her windy foot, entering the house of Zeus. And he, beside the firm clod, the marble boulder, the well-rounded boundary-stone of the broad cornland, stood lifting the rugged missile, and with a straight-flying stone he crushed the top of the serpent's head; and drawing the sharpened blade from his thigh he cut the beast's neck; and the head, severed, remained outside the body, and rolling in the dust the restless tail wound its familiar, re-loosing circle, and the serpent lay stretched on the ground, a corpse. And about the dead furious, heavy-wrathed Ares cried aloud; and as he raged Cadmus, his limbs changing into a coiling shape, was destined to take another form, beside the foothills of the Illyrian land, to wear a strange likeness of a serpent's face. But these things were fated to come after a time. Meanwhile he, in the middle of his bronze helmet, gathered the harvest of ruin, the grim crop of the beast's jaws; and the native plough of Pallas, hooked, dragging from the meadow into the soil, and ploughing the war-breeding furrow of the bright-green earth, he sowed the many-ranked swathe of the venomous teeth. And the self-born crop of Giants grew up, of whom one, high-headed, ran up stretching the tips of his well-armoured chest, while another, with thrusting head, reared his dreadful shoulder above the opening cornland; another peered up to the navel, and one upon the earth half-finished rose, lifting the earth-nourished weapon; another, stretching out the jutting crest that peered above, did not yet show his chest, and still creeping from his mother's flanks, little by little, fought fearlessly against Cadmus, helmeted in his self-grown armour—ah, great wonder, Eileithyia armed him whom no mother delivered; and one hurled a kindred spear, fumbling for it, half-visible, while another, light, drawing his whole body into the light, left the unfinished tips of his feet fixed fast in the cornland. But Cadmus did not forget the command of Athena, but reaped the stubble of the re-born Giants; this one he struck above the breast with his windy lance, that one he smote upon the collarbone beside the broad neck and split open the bones of his shaggy throat; another he scored with a hurling stone, visible only to the belly; and as the blood of the dread Giants poured river-like, Ares slipped in the gore, reddening his own limbs, and as Nike stood by in the battle-din the tunic of Nike was reddened with the crimson drops. Another, as he fought, he struck with his sword beside the hip, and cut through his close-grown back together with the ox-hide loins. And the slaughter was unspeakable; and as the Giants were cut down the deadly pipe of bloody dew spurted up from those smitten by the sword. And he, by the wise counsel of Pallas, lifted up a stone against the heads of the earthborn; but they, drunk with the blood-red longing of Enyo, raged in Bacchic frenzy for Ares, and with their kindred iron the slayers of one another were entombed in the dust. One strove against another; and with the reddening gore the dappled, drenched backs of the ox-hide grew black of the slain earthborn; and by the earthly sword's kin-slaying point the harvest of the cornland was cut to pieces.