Book 5

5. Watch your fifth course still, and you shall behold Actaeon, whom no doe brought to birth, a wandering fawn torn by dogs.

But when, reaping the snaky harvest of war, Cadmus had mown the stubble of the teeth-sown Giants, pouring out the gore as a thank-offering of battle to Ares, and cleansing his limbs beside serpent-fed Dirce, he sacrificed the Delphian cow upon god-built altars, a fair offering to Pallas. As he began the sacrifice the twin horns were sprinkled here and there with barley-grains; and taking the naked sword that hung beside his thigh from its Assyrian baldric he cut the topmost hair from the long-snouted head with the hilted blade; and Theoclymenus, gripping the horn of the calf, drew back its straining neck, and Thyestes crushed the sinews of its throat with the double-edged ox-axe, and with the bloody flow of the cow the stone altar of Onca-Athena was reddened, and as the horned brow of the ox was smitten the calf fell forward; and as it was cut up by the iron they split its flanks and carved it with the knife, and stripped off the rough ox-hide covering, stretching it out; and rolling the bright fleece on the ground the king himself laboured, and the raw flesh of the well-shaped thighs cutting it up, he wrapped in a double fold of fat, carving little by little, and stretching upon the coals the entrails pierced long upon iron skewers he drew them out, roasting them with a gentle fire; and the half-cooked pieces, threaded in order, pierced by the point of the bronze, the carver set down upon the flower-decked, low-standing table, lifting in succession the spits all steaming. And the wandering vapour of Assyrian incense curled fragrant through the air. And when the sacrifice was finished the meal was ready, and Cadmus, taking it, distributed to each, holding out to all an equal-weighted portion of the chosen food. And the ranks of the feasters at the well-rounded table laid aside their longing for the banquet with a sated heart.

Nor for serpent-slaying Cadmus was there an end of toils, but after the crawler, after the wild tribes of Giants, he fought against the champions of the Ectenes and the Aonian host, mowing the barbarian crop of Ares, and assailed the neighbouring Temmices; and when he summoned his warriors a motley swarm of neighbouring allies came. And Strife joined the two armies with Enyo, labouring to bring forth battle; and as they met in the din the bow was bent, the spear was brandished, the helmet shaken, and the missile whistled, and on the bossed circle of the shield, struck by a millstone-rock, the ox-hide rang. And the blood of the slain flowed; and many a man, half-dead, rolled head-foremost in the dust upon the nourishing ground. And the host of the foe bent as suppliants to Cadmus; the struggle was loosed. And after the bloody whirl of the battle-din Cadmus laid the foundations of unwalled Thebes. And many furrows were cut here and there as the hollows were divided, and the seats of the many-branching streets were scored by the jagged-toothed iron of oxen; and many an avenue, allotted in the four-yoked order of the facing winds, was measured out among the meadows. And the Aonian city was wrought with Tyrian craft in beauty of stone; and one laboured after another, cutting with the earth-cleaving point the many-coloured rock, the workman, beneath the Boeotian crag, which beside the thicket of oak-clad Teumessus the hills brought to birth, which Helicon put forth and which Cithaeron travailed. And he completed temples of the gods and houses of men, rounding them by the rule; and on the unbreakable foundations, scoring the encircling city with a seven-gated wall, he imitated by his own craft the seven-zoned heaven, leaving for the inhabitants to come the wall of Amphion, guarded by the tower-building lyre. And to the heavenly wanderers he dedicated seven gates, equal in number, of like type; first, fixing toward the western clime, he assigned the Oncaean gate to grey-eyed Mene, named from the lowing of the ox, since she herself, bull-shaped, horned Selene, the driver of oxen, holding a triple form, is Tritonian Athena; second, to Hermes, the radiant neighbour of Mene, he gave a gate as a privilege; and marking out the fourth named from Phaethon as Electra's, since when he appears the morning gleam of like-coloured Electra glitters, he dedicated to the fiery Sun the gate facing the Dawn in the middle, since he is midmost of the planets; and the fifth he gave to Ares, the third he granted to Aphrodite, that on either side of both Phaethon might be in the middle, parting his neighbour furious Ares from Aphrodite; the sixth, the glory of Zeus, he wrought with brighter adornment, high-shining; and the last the seventh star of Cronos received. Such a seat he made; and founding the sacred city he named it of like name with the city of Egyptian Thebes, having fashioned a varied earthly likeness, equal to Olympus.

And the daughters of the Aonians struck up in their dances the wedding-song of Harmonia; and over the fair bridal hall the Thracian dancers chanted the name of the bride. And the Paphian, the lovely mother, adorned the newly-built bridal-chamber for Cadmus, singing the god-summoned marriage of her own child; and the father, in delight at his daughter, naked, without his shields, gentle Ares danced, leaning his ironless right hand toward Aphrodite, and with the marriage-trumpet he made music for the heart of the Loves, matched against the pipe, and from his iron-bearing head he shook off the wonted crests of his warlike mane, binding his locks with bloodless garlands, weaving a revel for Love; and dancing with the immortals Ismenian Apollo came to the marriage of Harmonia, beating out on his seven-toned lyre a song of love; and the nine Muses struck up a life-giving strain, and Polymnia, the nurse of the dance, shook her hands, and traced the mimic image of voiceless speech, uttering with her palms a wise shape in thoughtful silence, rolling her eyes; and on twirling sandal, to please Zeus, Nike stood as bridal attendant, hailing Cadmus, the champion of Zeus, and around the bridal bed with virgin lips she wove a marriage-song, and wheeled the print of her foot, and in the well-rounded dance modestly she shook her wings beside the wings of the Loves. And from the many-scattered torches of like-shining radiance the light of an evening, lying Dawn arose. And with clear-voiced lips beside the dance-loving bridal bed all night long there was a revel of unsleeping dance of singers; for hastening to the wakeful wedding . . . he left his wonted wand, since he is the steward of sleep. And Thebe was an Olympian dance-floor; and one might behold Cadmus and Zeus together touching one same table. And bringing to the marriage-chamber the bride-escorting hour, the Dragon of the northern Wain rose, its fellow-traveller, a herald of things to come, that consorting with his age-mate bride, from mortal shape the bridegroom of Harmonia was destined to take a serpent form. And one immortal after another gave a gift to Cadmus as he hastened to the chamber; Zeus made all things perfect; and honouring his sister Hera, the care of all, since she was mother to Ares, the dark-haired Earthshaker, lord of horses, gave gifts of the sea; Hermes gave a sceptre, Ares a spear, Apollo a bow, and a crown adorned with stones in many-coloured array Hephaestus hung upon the head of Harmonia, suspending a golden fillet over her temples; and golden-throned Hera gave a well-jewelled throne; and to honour Ares, much-counselling Aphrodite joined to the girl's white, reddening neck a golden necklace holding the intricate gleam of stones, the cunning work of Hephaestus, which he wrought for the Cyprus-born, that it might be a birth-gift for the archer Love; for the heavy-kneed husband always hoped Cytherea would bear a limping son, the image of his father's feet; but he hoped in vain, and seeing a son sound of foot, shining with wings like the son of Maia, he made the intricate necklace, which on its star-bright back had a coiling body like a serpent; for as the two-mouthed amphisbaena winds in the middle of its drag, spitting venom through both its heads, writhing about with the cross-yoked throb of its limbs, and creeping joins head to head, leaping about its curved back in a slanting course; so that intricate necklace, stretching its broken back, was bent, holding a doubled, arching neck, ample with scales, reaching as far as the navel, a plaited, two-headed serpent; and under the whirl of the craft the golden circle of the dragging spine writhed, and its head, wreathing with much-whirling throb, belched a false hiss from its throat. And on either side of the mouths, where end and beginning meet, there was a golden eagle, as if cleaving the broad air, upright between the two snaky heads, high-shining with the four-yoked muzzle of its four wings; on the one side yellow jasper ran, on the other it held the all-white stone of Selene, which, when the fair-horned goddess wanes, diminishes and grows, when Mene, new-shining, glittering the moist gleam from her horn, draws the self-born fire from her father the Sun; another held the light-bringing pearl, by whose grace of radiance the grey swell of the Erythraean sea glitters as it shines; of another, in its midmost, with fiery adornment, the Indian agate spat forth a slender, moist gleam. And as the heads on either side joined to one another, the two gaping jaws of the dragon's heads widened, enclosing the eagle with both their jaws, intertwined here and there; and through its bright face carbuncles shot from the eyes an innate radiance, sending a sharp gleam, like a blazing lamp when kindled; and adorned with the many-formed shape of stones there was a sea, and a stone green with grey emerald receiving crystal yoked with it, like to foam, held the whitening image of darkening brine; in it were all the intricate things wrought, in it all the gold-gleaming sea-fed flocks of the deep glittered, as if leaping about; and many a moist wayfarer, a dolphin half-visible, danced grazing the brine— and it lashed its false self-darting tail— and a chorus of birds of varied hue, of which you might almost say you heard the windy beat of their flying wings, since Cytherea gave the necklace as a gift to the girl, golden, well-jewelled, hanging at the bride's neck.

And yoked by the desire-guiding girdle of marriage, Harmonia brought to birth in her womb a many-childed offspring, born little by little; and with successive child-bearing she loosed the pregnant burden of daughter-bearing labour, having filled out four times nine circles of the Moon. First Autonoe leaped from her mother's fruitful womb, unfolding her nine-month labour with first-born throes; and of the same kindred stock fair Ino grew up, the bride-fellow of Athamas, a mother of two; and third Agave arose, who once, wedded in a Giant marriage, bore a son like to her teeth-sown husband; and the image of the Graces, a face shot with longing, Semele blossomed fourth of the daughters, kept for Zeus, and to her alone, though she was the youngest, Nature gave the privilege of an unconquered beauty. And a male, late-completed, yoked with the female stock, Harmonia bore as a new son to rejoicing Cadmus, Polydorus, the morning star of his Aonian fatherland, younger than rose-fair Semele, whom in Thebes the lawless king Penthe deprived, taking up the sceptre. And these things old time was destined to accomplish late.

And to chosen husbands Cadmus betrothed his daughters in the four-yoked bridal of successive marriage, and joined bed after bed; for first the gift-bringer Aristaeus, the Herdsman, surnamed the Hunter too, the blood of wise Phoebus and of skilful Cyrene, wedded Autonoe by the law of yoked ploughings; nor did the son of Agenor refuse to have as son-in-law the knower of much-feeding craft, the life-giving son of Phoebus, but to him who, with the life-sustaining breezes of the Zeus-sent winds, had laid to rest the deadly star of fiery Maera, he betrothed his daughter to that exceedingly wise husband. And the marriage was rich in blessings, since as a gift to the unwed girl he gave oxen, granted goats, bestowed a mountain-reared flock; and many a swathe, burdened with the load of toil, lifted the cargo of an oil-bearing jar, the bride-gifts; and much intricate travail of the wise bee he brought, the cunning offering of the much-pierced birth-pang. That man first, mountain-ranging with the spring of his feet, found the crag-loving toil of the deer-driving hunt, how with intelligent nostril, by the flanks of the feeding wood, the hound divines the scent of the trackless beast, straining upright its ears toward the winding course, and learned the much-twined nets of cunning craft and the upright form of the stakes, and over the sand the print of beasts freshly scored at dawn upon the untrodden field . . . and having taught the hunter-man to wear buskins on his feet, darting unrestrained into the dog-driven course of the hunt, to carry his robes as far as his gleaming knee, lest ever, as the hunter's foot presses onward, its rush be checked back by the trailing tunic. That man understood the rows of the much-pierced hives, and stayed the works of the wandering, lonely bee, which within the meadow shifts from flower to flower to a bright-fruited plant, and flying upon the clusters with its topmost lips draws off the tip of the dew; and binding his limbs with the linen meshes of his much-woven tunic from nails to hair, he guarded himself against the dreadful stings of the arming bee, and with a cunning, choking, craftsman smoke of fire he soothed the angry swarm, and shaking against the wind the threatening torch of the hive-loving bee he lifted the double bronze, and at the housed brood, as the never-silent din clattered with its buzzing tumult, beating with his much-rattling hand a twin clash, and cutting away the many-pointed cover of the wax he pressed out the gleaming gifts of the honey-dripping birth. He first found the dew of well-dropping oil, when, cutting the fruit with a heavy millstone, he pressed out the rich, moisture-bearing offspring of the olive. And to the shady, much-treed crag of the well-fed wood, to the marsh, to the meadow he brought and taught the herdsmen to pasture from the showing of the Sun until evening. And of the straying flocks, untraceable, unyielding to the roving hoof, he joined in one path the slow-going, backward-treading row of the sheep that followed, to a flowery pasture, taking a goat as forerunner of their like-eager journey. And he understood the pastoral mountain song of Pan. And the fire-blazing star of Maera he laid to rest, and kindling the fragrant altar of Zeus the Moistener he poured over it a sweet libation with the blood of a bull, the varied altar-gifts of the wandering bee, filling the delicate cups with a honey-mixed draught; and father Zeus heard, and honouring his son's son he sent the counter-blowing breeze of the evil-averting winds, holding back Sirius from its smouldering fever. Even now the Etesian breezes from Zeus, the heralds of Aristaeus' sacrifice, cool the earth, when the dappled-clustered grape of the vine grows ripe. Him Love escorted to the Aonian wedding, the Cean son of Phoebus; and at the ox-marked sacrifice all the city was garlanded, and the straight-cut streets were busy with dancing, and beside the porch of the bridal hall the citizens performed the winding wedding-dance, and the women struck up a sweet-voiced song, and the Aonian flutes sounded with the marriage-pipe.

Thence from the bed of Aristaeus and Autonoe Actaeon arose; and with crag-loving heart, bearing the blood of the Hunter, he wiped clean his ancestral hunting, a mountain-ranging servant of Artemis—and no wonder that ill-fated Actaeon learned the cares of the chase, being the grandson of lion-slaying Cyrene— never did the mountain bear escape him, nor did the deadly eye of the lioness in childbed terrify him; often, watching the leopard leaping high in the air, he laid it low; and ever high in the thicket goat-herding Pan beheld him with astonished eyes outrunning the journey of the swift deer. But the running of his feet did not help him, nor did his quiver avail, nor the straight aim of his arrows, nor the cunning of the chase; but Fate destroyed him, a wandering fawn torn by dogs, still breathing of the battle-din after the Indian war, when, sitting high upon a long-stemmed oak, he beheld the whole body of the arrow-pourer bathing, an insatiable gazer at the unseen goddess, measuring the holy body of the unwed maiden close at hand; and him, as he watched with secret eye, with sidelong eye, the unrobed form of the queen, an unveiled Naiad Nymph saw from afar, and in terror cried out, and announced to her queen the wild boldness of the love-maddened man; and half-visible Artemis, snatching with her garment the round headband, covered her chaste breasts with the maiden girdle, and sinking with her moist limbs into the streams, modestly the girl hid her whole body little by little.

Actaeon, heavy of doom, your human form at once left you, and the hoof of your four feet was cloven, and your cheeks lengthened into long jaws, your shins grew slender, and curved upon your brow grew the two long clusters of the long-shooting antler, and with dappled limbs a bastard form was wrought, and you had a shaggy body; but in the wind-swift fawn your mind alone was still steadfast; and with swift-going leap of the hoof you ran through the inhospitable mountain, a hunter fearing the hunters. And of changed appearance the dogs no longer knew their former master; for at the unmoved nods of the grieving, heavy-minded arrow-pourer, maddened with the raving breath of frenzy, they scored the yoked swathe of their fawn-slaying teeth, and led astray by the false aspect of a deer they devoured the dappled bastard body in mindless frenzy. And the goddess devised another thing, that the dogs with slow jaws should rend Actaeon little by little, still breathing, gifted with a thinking mind, that they might tear his heart the more with sharper pangs; and in his mortal mind groaning for his own fate he bellowed with a mournful voice: “Blessed Teiresias, for you beheld, beyond destruction, the naked form of pitying, unwilling Athena; you did not die, you did not take a deer's body, nor on your brow did the antlers hang jutting forth; you live, having lost the light of your eyes; but the gleam of your eyes Athena removed into your mind; the arrow-pourer is angered with worse anger than the Tritonian. Would that she had granted me a like grief, would that she too had assailed my eyes as Athena did, would that she had changed my mind as she changed my body; for an alien beast's form holds me, and I keep a man's character. When do beasts ever groan over their own destruction? Senseless they live and know not their end. I alone keep a thinking mind; and as I perish beneath beastly brows I shed understanding tears. Be wilder now, my dogs; never so much did you rush down with raving leap upon lions. Cry the dirge for Actaeon, dear hills, yes, I beg you, and you beasts too the like; tell, Cithaeron, to Autonoe what you saw, and to Aristaeus my father with your stony tears proclaim my end and my maddened, unsparing dogs. Alas for necessity, I myself with my own hands reared my own slayers. Would that a mountain-ranging lion had subdued me, would that, dragging me, the spangle-backed leopard had torn me, would that with bitter, unsparing claws raving bears had carved me, fawn-seeming, with their glaring jaws, and not the dogs of my own house had subdued me; no longer do they know my form, no longer my alien echo. Half-dead he spoke these things, and to the beast-hound that mad and heard not his prayers he pleaded with mournful voice; he sent forth thoughtful words, but instead of a human voice there sounded the noise of an unmeaning echo.

And now self-fulfilled mountain Rumour flew, crying out to Autonoe the dog-torn doom of her child, not how he took the shaggy form of a deer, but only that he had perished. And with affectionate heart, barefoot, unveiled, the mother was lashed with grief; and she tore her locks, and rent her whole tunic, and with mourning nails scored her cheeks, reddening them with blood, and over her bare breast she reddened the life-giving circle of her child-nursing breasts, remembering his birth; and the bride bathed her robes with the ever-flowing tears of her mourning face. And the dogs of Actaeon, coming from the crag, confirmed the ill-tidings; for with their silent tears they divined the end of the young man. And seeing them mourning, the mother groaned far more; and Cadmus, the old man, cut off his grey lock, and Harmonia cried aloud; and of the weeping women the heavy-sounding echo, gathered together, filled the whole house. And Autonoe, going with Aristaeus her husband, went searching the much-scattered remains of the corpse; she saw and did not know her own offspring, she beheld the form of an intricate deer and did not see the face of a man, and often passed by the bones of the unknown fawn lying on the ground, and did not know; for as her son perished she expected to see a mortal-seeming form. Ill-fated Autonoe I do not blame; for an alien remnant of her child she beheld, and of an unrecognizable face she perceived the jaws and did not see the round of an eye, and touched the horns and did not know her son's hair; she found slender feet and did not mark them for feet, she saw slender feet and did not see the round of sandals. Ill-fated Autonoe I do not blame; for of the perished one she did not behold human eyes, did not see the likeness of a human form, and did not perceive the throat scored with the purple flower of the first down. And with roving feet, passing through the ridge of the wood, she trod the rugged, hard-to-climb backs of the hill, ungirt, unsandalled; and from her mountain-wandering toils she came home again to the house; and over her unprofited intent grieving, scarcely she slept beside her grief-bearing husband. And both consorted with shadowy dreams, snatching with their eyes the wing of nightingale Sleep. And the soul of the young man stood beside his downcast father, having the dappled, shadowy body of a deer, and from its eyelids it shed thoughtful tears, and spoke in a human voice: “O father, you sleep, and you do not know my doom; awake and know my bastard, unrecognized face, awake and embrace the antler of your dear deer, and kiss the thinking beast whom Autonoe's womb bore. You gaze on me myself, whom you reared; for both you behold Actaeon and you hear Actaeon. If you long to touch the palm and fingers of your child, look at my forefeet, and you will find a hand; if you long for my head, you will perceive a deer's head; if for my human temples, look at the long antlers; if for the feet of Actaeon, see my hinder hoof; if you saw the hairs of my limbs, they are my tunics. Know your son, father, whom Apollo did not save; groan, father, for your son, whom Cithaeron did not guard. Hide your alien child in the downcast dust; let not the bastard, untrustworthy face lead you astray; do not leave your perished fawn unburied. Would, father, that you had guarded me, unused to hunting; then I would not have had longing for the lonely arrow-pourer, then I would not have seen an Olympian form. Would that of a mortal maiden I had had love; but mortal-born women leaving to others, and swift-fated weddings, I longed for an immortal one; and at the angered goddess I became the meal of my own whelps, father; the hills are my witnesses; if you do not believe the crags, ask the Naiad Nymphs; my oaks know it; and of like form ask my beasts, and those whom I called my herdsmen. But, father, grant me a last favour, and in your senseless child-loving grief do not slay my slayers, pity the blameless child-killers; for by my beastly aspect, unwilling, they were led astray. What dog ever spares the deer? Or what man is angered at fawn-killing whelps? Ah, how the poor things, running round here and there about the circling hills, track the corpse, whom I slew; and from their eyelids they pour thoughtful tears, and with their forefeet they embrace the nets with some affectionate bond, like grieving men, and over my ground-bed they weep with mournful howls. Yes, I beg you, do not slay the mourners; for my shaggy hide and face they gazed on, and were not persuaded by prayers, and did not check their teeth, hearing the alien bellowing of my voice, and with mournful mouths they questioned my crag: ‘Today someone snatched away Actaeon; tell, rocks, where he plies the deer-driving course; tell, Nymphs.’ Such things the dogs uttered; and the hill answered: ‘What mountain-roaming doe holds the deer-driving hunt? I have not learned of a deer that shoots the deer; but of alien form Actaeon was changed and became a thinking fawn, who once slew beasts; and by a man-slaying goddess himself, bearing the blood of the Hunter, he is hunted by the arrow-pourer.’ Such things the crags cried out for the grieving whelps. And often Artemis said to my seeking slayer: ‘Cease, much-toiling hound, winding your much-roving track; you seek Actaeon, whom you carry within your belly, you seek Actaeon, whom you slew; if you wish, you shall see only the bones, the still-left remnants of your food.’ But, father, in order I will cry to you my fate. There was a long-leaved bush, one of wild-olive, one of olive; wretched I; for leaving the shoot named from the wild-olive I ran up to the holy olive-stock beside the path, watching the bare flesh of unseen Artemis. I sinned; for fostering a twofold reckless outrage I came to the tree of Pallas, to see the body of the arrow-pourer with daring eyes, whence a heavy-wrathed threat assailed Actaeon both from Artemis and from Athena. For just then, sweating with the fire-bright vapour of the heat, Artemis, after the well-toiled course of her wonted hunt, was bathing in pure waters, and as she bathed the facing gleam flashed upon my eyes, shooting snow-white rays into the streams; you would say that, beside the back-flowing current of Ocean, the western, plenteous Mene shone through the water. And the kindred Naiads cried out; Loxo cried aloud, holding Oupis in like cry, and in the calm stream checked her swimming sister Hecaerge. And an air-roaming darkness covered my eyes; and head-foremost from the tree I slipped into the dust, and suddenly took a dappled body, and instead of human form an unrecognizable down covered my body, and the hunting dogs together scored their teeth. I will keep silence on all this; why should I tell a second grief? Lest, sleeping, I bring you again to groans. Often you passed that tree, where lies the remnant of Actaeon, and the bones of the intricate fawn, loosed upon the ground, often you passed by, pitiful, of much-devoured limbs, scattered on the earth, apart from one another. But I will cry to you another sure sign of my death; for of the source of evil you shall see the quiver and my arrow near the tree, unless the winged arrows too were transformed, unless angry Artemis again into a tree of the wood changed my bow, and altered my quiver. Blessed was Otos, since he was no wandering fawn; no dogs . . . Orion the deer-driver . . . would that a scorpion too had slain Actaeon with its sharp sting. Wretched I; for an empty rumour deceived my mind; for hearing that Phoebus, the brother of the arrow-pourer, lay beside Cyrene, and sowed my father, I fancied I was drawing Artemis into a kindred marriage. And again hearing that bright Dawn snatched away Orion as her bridegroom, and Selene Endymion, and that Deo embraced mortal Iasion as her husband, I fancied that such was the mind of the arrow-pourer. But, father, give burial to my bastard, antler-bearing form, and do not leave it to become the sport of other dogs. And if you hide my remains in the hollow earth, grant me this gift too: fix bow and arrows beside my tomb, which is the privilege of the dead. But leave aside the arrow and the bow, father, since in shafts the arrow-pourer delights, and bends her curved bow. And beseech the cunning, many-turning sculptor, that he may carve my dappled bastard form from neck to feet; let him fashion only the likeness of my human face, that all may know my false form. But do not, father, inscribe my fate; for the wayfarer cannot weep at once for my form and for my doom.” So spoke the dream-borne thinking deer, and unforeseen it departed, taking wing; and the husband of Autonoe sprang up, casting off the wing of oracular Sleep. And rousing from her bed his much-frightened wife, he told the beastly, antler-bearing face of his child, and recounted all the words the thinking fawn had spoken. And the lamentation grew the more; and the bride of Aristaeus went searching a second time, and grieving often she passed through the inmost places of the long-stemmed thicket; and treading the rugged, hard-to-climb circles of the paths scarcely she found that murderous tree, and found too the quiver and the bow beside the lonely tree. And the bones scattered here and there upon the strewn earth, fallen remains, scarcely the mother gathered, and with loving hand embraced the sweet antler, and kissed the shaggy lips of the ill-fated fawn. And keenly wailing the mother entombed the corpse, and inscribed for him beside the tomb all that the nightly dream-voice of Actaeon had spoken to his father.

While grief roared through the hall of Aristaeus, meanwhile fair-breasted Agave bore to Echion a bold, god-fighting son of the earthborn; and as the fresh grief stood newly-slain, he was named Pentheus, from grief. And after the bed of Nephele, after her former wedding, the maiden Ino came reveling into the chambers of Athamas; and she bore ill-fated Learchus and Melicertes, destined to be a wanderer of the sea, as a fostering nurse, the life-giving child-nurse of Bromios; for to both she joined one breast, to Palaemon and to Dionysus. And Semele was kept for a brighter wedding; for already Zeus who rules on high longed to rear a new Dionysus, a bull-shaped likeness of the elder Dionysus, having desire for ill-fated Zagreus, whom Persephone bore in the serpent bed of Zeus, the bride of the dark-cloaked king of the underworld, when Zeus the much-coiling, holding a false form, gentle, a serpent rolling in a desire-stirring drag, plundered the maidenhood of unwed Persephone as she was hidden, when all who dwell on Olympus were charmed by a single girl, and over the bride-to-be maiden the gift-bringers held a Cyprian strife for her unplundered marriage; not yet come to the couch of Persuasion, Hermes held out his wand, the bridal privilege, and Apollo offered as bride-gifts his well-hymning lyre, and Ares gave a spear and a marriage breastplate, bringing a shield as a bridal gift, and from the fair-sounding forge the Lemnian, newly-finished, still breathing of the furnace, the god of both crafts stretched out an intricate, many-coloured necklace; for already, unwilling, he had refused his former bride, watching Aphrodite revel with Ares; and he showed even to the blessed ones the marriage-thief, the ravisher of his bed, at the message of Phaethon, with a spider-like bond binding naked Ares to naked Aphrodite. But Zeus the father was charmed far more by Persephone; and as Zeus gazed on the fair-maiden bloom of her body, his foremost eye became the escort of the Loves, insatiable of Persephone; and beneath his heart ever the storms of unsleeping care whistled; and little by little he was kindled with a greater flame for the Paphian from a small spark; and over the fair-bosomed goddess the eyes of love-maddened Zeus were enslaved. And once the girl, holding bright bronze, delighted in the judge of her reflected beauty, and to the self-acting, silent herald she entrusted the shape of her form, judging her false body in the shadowy mirror, and laughed at the mimic image; and Persephone, gazing on the self-carved likeness of her face, beheld the bastard form of a lying Persephone; and once, fleeing the noontide track of the parching Hour in the fire-bright vapour of the thirsty heat, the girl rested from the loom-toiling labour of the shuttle, and wiping the moist sweat from her face, loosed the chaste girdle bound about her breast, and bathing her flesh in toil-loosing waters was carried to the spring's cooling stream, leaving the threads pierced upon the loom of Pallas. Nor did she escape the all-seeing eye of Zeus; and the whole form of the unsheltered, bathing Persephone he beheld; not so longing did he rave for the Cyprus-born, whom desiring he sowed the unreachable seed upon the field, shooting the warm self-darting foam of the Loves, whence within child-bearing, horned Cyprus the two-coloured stock of the fair-horned Centaurs blossomed. And he, ruler of the cosmos and charioteer of heaven, the so-great one, bent his neck to desire; nor did thunderbolts, nor lightning help when Aphrodite arrayed herself for war; and he left the house of Hera, refused the bed of Dione, cast away the love of Deo, fled Themis, abandoned Leto, and was charmed only toward the wedding of Persephone alone.