Book 6

6. Seek out the marvellous sixth book, where honouring Zagreus rainy Zeus flooded all the seats of the earth.

Nor was the father then alone in his desire; but they themselves, all who dwell on Olympus, holding one same arrow, sought the wedding of the goddess Deo as a bride-gift. There Deo, changing the gleam of her rosy face, was lashed in her mind, surging with griefs; and she unbound the fruitful veil of her head, loosing the curls that hung down her neck's hair, shuddering for her child; and as the goddess was burdened her cheeks were wetted with self-poured tears, because so many suitors, goaded by one fiery shaft into strife of rival weddings, shared Love drove to frenzy, contestants of the Loves; all of them she feared, but the plenteous mother feared most to have Hephaestus the lame as her child's husband. And she went to the house of Astraeus with well-footed step, the oracular deity; and from her backward-flowing tresses the unbound curl was shaken by the unsteady breezes. Eosphoros, seeing her, announced her; and hearing, old Astraeus arose; he, scoring with lines, sprinkled dark dust about the back of the table, and tracing in spirals with the hook-toothed iron he inscribed a four-sided base in the glowing ash, and made another figure with an equal-pointed triangle. But these things he laid aside and came near the doors to meet Demeter; and as they hastened through the hall Hesperos led the way, and seated Deo on a throne beside the seat of her father; and with affectionate intent the Winds, mixing from the nectar-bowl, greeted the goddess with toil-loosing cups, the sons of Astraeus; but Deo refused to drink, drunk with care for Persephone; for parents who bear but one child always tremble for their cherished children; but scarcely Astraeus, sweet of speech, persuaded her as she still refused, holding heart-charming Persuasion. There the old man prepared a great feast, that he might scatter the heart-biting cares of Demeter at the table. And girding belts about their flanks, the four Winds, the servants of their father, bound themselves; and holding out cups beside the nectar-bowl, the East Wind poured the wine, and the South Wind held in a pitcher the water for the meal, and the North Wind, bringing, set upon the table the ambrosia, and the West Wind, pressing out the sound of the pipe, the female Wind made music with springtime reeds; and Eosphoros wove garlands, binding flowers that bloomed at dawn with dewy clusters; and lifting the wonted torch of the nightly lamp Hesperos whirled with the dancing sole of his feet, shaking his curving step, since he was the escort of the Loves, and busied himself with the leaping of dance-woven weddings. But when, after the feast, the goddess was sated with dancing, having shaken off the heavy sting of mind-bereaving care, she asked for prophecy, and of the affectionate old man with her left palm she touched his knees, and entreating with her right she stroked his deep-braided beard; and she told of the many suitors of her own daughter, seeking comforting oracles; for prophecies steal away grief with hopes of things to come. Nor did old Astraeus refuse; and perceiving the newly-born birth-measures of his only-bearing daughter, and the time that does not falter, and the course of the unwandering Hour of the first-born, bending the shifting fingers of his hands about the migrant circle of the returning number he measured from palm to palm with twofold throb; and at his bidding a servant lifted up a well-rounded revolving sphere, the image of the upper air, the likeness of the cosmos, Asterion, and set it down, taking it, upon the lid of a chest. There the old man laboured, and turning the tip of the axis about the zodiac circle he stretched out his gaze, looking here and there at both the fixed stars and the wanderers; and he whirled the pole; and with much-whirling rush into an unsteady course it was bent at an endless turning-post, the bastard upper air, wheeling with artificial stars, pierced by a central axis; and the deity discovered, gazing at the sphere wreathed round, that with full face the Moon ran along the curving back of the bond, and Phaethon shared an equal lot with the facing Mene, borne at a point beneath the earth, and a dim cone, soaring aloft from the earth, creeping up sharp, covered the whole Moon, set against Phaethon; and hearing of the contestants for the wedded love he sought rather Ares, and over the western hall he perceived the thief of marriage with the western star of the Cyprus-born; and he found the portion named from the parents of the maiden, under the starry ear of corn; and around it ran the Light-bringing star of the rain-bearing son of Cronos. But when he had perceived all things, having numbered the rim of the stars, he hid away the ever-whirling sphere in the hollow chest, the dappled-backed sphere; and to the goddess as she questioned he belched up the threefold decree of the oracular echo: “Child-loving Demeter, beneath the shadowy cone, when the unlit Moon's ray is stolen away, guard against the bridegroom, the ravisher of Persephone, the secret plunderer of your unplundered daughter, if the threads of the Fates obey. For unforeseen you shall behold before the wedding a bastard, secret husband, beast-mingled, crafty-minded, since beside the western point I see Ares, the marriage-thief, walking with the Paphian, and I watch the Dragon rising beside them both. Most blessed I call you; for in the four-yoked cosmos you shall be bright with fruit, since you shall give fruit to the earth the barren; for over the daughter's lot of her parents the maiden Astraean stretches out her corn-bearing hand.” So speaking, he laid to rest the oracular voice beneath his mouth. But when Demeter the sickle-bearer heard the hope of fruits to come, and of a self-bidden husband, the unbetrothed ravisher of her cherished, unwed daughter, she groaned, smiling; and through the lofty path hastening to her own house she descended with downcast step, and beside the snaky stall the well-whirling yoke balancing about the twin crest of beasts she harnessed the unyoked crawlers with the breast-band; and binding their jaws with the hook-toothed bridle, golden-formed Deo led through the grim chariot her child, hidden in the dark-fronted band of a cloud, and the counter-going noise of the bellowing wagon she whirled with the beast-driving whip of the North Wind, restraining the light wings of the unsteady dragons as they rushed like horses along the course of the airy breeze, about the horn of the back-rushing Libyan Ocean. And hearing the helmet-glancing song of the Dictaean echo she passed by the Cretan dance of the heavy-clashing ox-hide, its surface leaping about with the tumbling iron. And spying out a stone house, the goddess entered the Pelorid rock of three-crested Sicily beside the Adriatic shores, where the restless flow of brine, drawn westward, bends round like to a sickle, escorting from the north the curving water toward the South-West; and where the stream, often bathing the maiden Cyane, poured forth the birth-gift water with a fountain whirl, she saw a neighbouring hollow, equal in height to a hall, crowned about with the veil of a stone roof, which Nature had walled with a ravine-gate, holding a stone loom, dear to the neighbouring Nymphs. And the goddess, creeping through the dark hall, hid her much-sealed child in the lurking rock; and loosing the dragons from her fair-winged chariot she set the one beside the right pillar of the doorway, the other beside the left, stone-pointed bolt of the gate, as guardians of the unseen Persephone; and there she left Calligeneia, her fair-childed nurse, together with the baskets, and all that the female stock of skilful Pallas tends, the wool-working sweat; and she cut the air with her feet, and to the lonely-pasturing rocky Nymphs she entrusted the guarding of her curving chariot.

And about the jagged-toothed jaw of the iron the girl laboured, carding the wool with the wool-tending comb, and wound it on the distaff; and with much-turning rushes the spinning spindle, twined with dancing throb, wheeled in the drag of the threads as they were spun; and with roving feet, going back and forth from end to end, she made the first-fixed warp, the beginning of the robe, and wound it about the loom; and the girl wove with the shuttle, drawing the weft past the thread, and about the cloth she sang of her kinswoman Athena, finisher of the loom. Maiden Persephone, you found no means to escape your marriage, but you were wedded in a serpent bridal, when Zeus the much-coiling, his face transformed, a bridegroom, a serpent rolling in a desire-stirring drag, went into the recess of the dark maiden-bower, shaking his shaggy chin; and at the doorway, drawing near, he lulled the eyes of the guardian dragons of like form, borne along . . . and with wedded jaws he licked the body of the girl, gentle. And by the airy serpent wedding the womb of Persephone swelled with living birth, bearing Zagreus, a horned infant, who alone mounted the throne of Zeus in heaven, and with a small hand brandished the lightning; and the thunderbolts of the newborn bearer were lifted lightly in his infant palms. Nor did he hold the throne of Zeus for long; but with cunning gypsum their faces smeared in deceitful circles, at the wrath of heavy-wrathed Hera the loveless deity, the Titans destroyed him with a Tartarean knife, while he gazed at his bastard image in a mirror set against him. There, his limbs cleft asunder by the Titan iron, Dionysus, holding the end of his life as a recoverable beginning, took an alien form and changed his many-scattered shape, now like crafty young Cronion shaking the aegis, now like aged, heavy-kneed Cronos sending down rain; at another time he was a dappled-formed infant, at another like a youth goaded to frenzy, and the fresh bloom of the first down darkly tipped, marked the circles of his face; now in dreadful wrath, like a lion sending forth a fearful roar, he raged with a gaping throat, raising his shadowy neck with thick manes, about his shaggy back as it writhed flogging his body with the self-acting whip of his tail; now, leaving the likeness of a lion's face, he bellowed a neighing like a high-crested horse, unyoked, champing the proud tooth on the bridle, and whitened his jaw, rubbing it with grey foam; at another time, pouring a whistling hiss from his beard, ample with scales, he writhed as a horned serpent, holding his tongue thrust forth from his gaping throat, and leaped upon the grim head of a Titan, binding a snaky necklace twined about his neck; and leaving the ever-whirling body of the crawler he was a tiger, dappling his glittering body; at another time, to a bull like in form, sending forth a false bellowing from his mouth, he buffeted the Titans with his sharpened horn. And he fought for his life, until in her jealous throat Hera bellowed a harsh lowing through the air, the heavy-wrathed stepmother, and at the goddess's equal-sounding cry the gates of Olympus rang with an airy clamour, and the bold bull sank down; and in turn the slayers carved up the bull-shaped Dionysus with the knife.

And Zeus the father, recognizing in the shadowy image of the deceitful mirror the slaughtered elder Dionysus, drove the mother of the Titans with a vengeful torch, and shut up the slayers of fair-horned Zagreus behind the Tartarean gate; and from the burning trees the hot tresses of the burdened earth withered. And he set the East ablaze, and with a smouldering shaft the morning land of Bactria burned, and in the nearby Assyrian waves the Caspian water was kindled, and the Indian ridges; and as the Erythraean gulf surged with fire, the Arabian Nereus was heated. And he laid low the opposite West with his thunderbolt, fiery, child-loving Zeus; and beneath the foot of the West Wind the half-burned western brine spat out a moist gleam, and the northern ridges; and as it too blazed with the same fire, even as it froze, the back of the northern sea seethed; and beneath the snowy reclining-place of the southern Sea-Goat with a hotter spark the noonday corner boiled. And shedding river-tears from his moist eyelids, Ocean entreated, pouring out suppliant water; and Zeus softened his wrath, and seeing the earth withered by the thunderbolt he pitied it, and wished to wash with water the ashy filth and the fiery wound of the field. And then rainy Zeus flooded the whole earth, thickening the whole sky with clouds, and the heavenly trumpet of Zeus bellowed with thunderous crashes, when all the stars in their own halls held their separate courses, since on his four-yoked car the Sun shone upon the back of the Lion, riding through his own house; and running over with her car three-formed Selene wheeled round the eight-footed Crab, and beneath the dewy foot, beside the equinoctial circle, Cypris, having shifted from the horn of the Ram, held her springtime house, the stormless Bull of Olympus, and the neighbour of the Sun, the herald of the Yoke-beam, Ares held the Scorpion, girdled with the fiery Bull, slanting, watching the opposing Aphrodite, and completing the year, a twelve-month wayfarer, Zeus at nightfall ran over the starry Fishes, holding on his right the three-sided, coiling Mene, and Cronos passed through the rainy back of the Sea-Goat, drenched with frosty light, and about the bright maiden Hermes was lifted high on wings, since the lawgiver had Justice as his house. And of the seven-pathed upper air the watery bolts were opened as Zeus poured down rain; and from the roaring gulf the ravines bellowed with fuller springs, and the watery daughters torn from Ocean, the lakes, were lifted up, and into the air the nether water, the spurting springs of Ocean, gushed forth, and the peaks dripped, and with mountain-poured streams the soaked hills murmured river-like; and the sea was raised on high, and into the mountain above the thicket the Nereids became Oreads. Ah, in great misery, maiden Echo swam with unpractised hands, changing for another the dread about her ancient girdle, lest, having fled Pan, she should mingle with Poseidon. And seafaring lions within an unwonted rock danced in the cavern of mountain lions with sodden limbs; and in a ravine-gulf a wandering boar met a sea-dolphin; and in the common surges of the mountain-poured snow beasts sailed together with fishes; and the coiling octopus, mountain-roaming, leaped upon a hare. And the moist Tritons beneath the foot of the lurking wood, shaking their green double tail upon their loins, hid themselves in the mountain-dwelling halls of Pan, entrusting to the airy breezes as a fellow-voyager their wonted dappled shell; and on a well-watered hill migrant Nereus met crag-loving Pan, and the rocky dweller, changing mountain for sea, leaving aside his sodden pipe to float away; he held a moist cave, the roofed home of Echo. And then men, swollen with moist destruction, were entombed in the waters, and many a corpse upon another floated, borne along by the billowing drag; and with the roaring snow into his gaping throat greedily drinking the mountain-running water from the crag the lion fell, the boar fell. And in the yoked-together stream lakes together with rivers, the flood of Zeus, the waters of the sea were mingled with one another, and in one the four breezes of the commingled winds lashed the confused water. And seeing all the earth moist, beneath a greater throb shaken alone by the threatening rain of Zeus, the sea-girding Earthshaker cast away his point, distressed, wondering what land he might heave up with his trident. And the phalanxes of the Nereids sailed over the unwetted water; and a moist wayfarer held Thetis upon his green loins, a broad-bearded Triton, and upon his fishy back roving Agave steered the pilot-fish through the air, and carrying his crest wheeling in a watery drag, migrant, lifting Doris, the dolphin ran. And the deep whale, leaping about the hills, wandered, seeking the caves of the ground-lying lioness. And then, seeing wave-borne Galatea swimming beneath a neighbouring rock, sodden Pan cried out: “Where are you borne, Galatea, through the mountain instead of the sea? Do you perhaps seek the lovely song of the Cyclops? By the Paphian I beseech you, and by your Polyphemus, do not hide it, since you know it, my heavy longing, if beside the rocks you have seen my mountain-roaming Echo swimming. Does she hold a like wet course as you? Or does she too, sitting on a dolphin of sea-born Aphrodite, like unveiled Thetis, my Echo, sail? I fear lest the hard-meeting waves of the sea have stirred her; I fear lest the great flood has hidden her; so then the poor thing, restless among the seas, walks the waves over the mountains; she who once was rocky shall appear a water-nymph, Echo. But leave your Polyphemus slow; if you wish, I myself will save you, lifting you on my shoulders; the roaring flood does not drown me; if I wish, with goat-feet I will go to the pole of the stars.” So he spoke, and Galatea cried back this answer: “Dear Pan, lift up through the swell your unsailing Echo; do not question me in vain, why today I walk here; another, higher voyage rainy Zeus has found for me. And leave aside the Cyclops' song, though it is sweet. No longer do I seek the Sicilian sea; for of so great a snow I have dread, and I care nothing for Polyphemus.” She spoke, and passed by the haunts of water-going Pan. And as the irresistible snow surged thickly, every city, every people was a flood; nor was any corner unwetted, no hill was bare, no peak of Ossa, nor then the height of Pelion; and beneath the three-crested hill the Tyrrhenian roared; and as the sea was lashed the Adriatic rocks crashed against the Sicilian waters with rainy surges. And in the airy path the gleams of Phaethon were softened by the streams; and in the seventh zone, above the rim of the lowly base, Selene, chilling her radiance with the towering waves, checked the bathed neck of her sodden bulls; and the rain-water mingled with the starry phalanx made the Milky Way whiter with foam. And pouring his seven-mouthed water in a fruitful surge, wandering Nile met ill-loving Alpheus, of whom the one wished to creep through the fruitful furrow, delighting the thirsty bride with moist kisses, while the other, darting past his former road of wonted hunting, was borne along in grief; and seeing creeping with him lovely Pyramus, he heaved up this great cry: “Nile, what can I do, since Arethusa is hidden? Pyramus, why do you hasten? For whom have you left your wonted Thisbe? Blessed Euphrates, since he took no sting of the Loves. I hold jealousy and dread mingled; for watery Cronion perhaps lay beside lovely Arethusa; I fear lest with his streams he has wedded your Thisbe. Pyramus, comfort of Alpheus, us both not the rain of Zeus has stirred, so much as the arrow of the foam-born. Follow me in my love, and I will seek the tracks of Syracusan Arethusa, and you, Pyramus, seek Thisbe. But you will say, the earth is shaken, the heaven is troubled, the sea does violence, and the very upper air, unsailable, surges with foaming flood; I care nothing for the maddened snow. Ah, great wonder: the rain of Zeus cleansed the whole burning earth and the flame of the sea and the rivers, but from Alpheus alone it did not quench the worthless kindled fire of the Paphian. Yet, if so great a flood drives me, if I am worn by fire, small is the remedy of my pain, that he too wanders, delicate Adonis, grieving Aphrodite.” Not yet did his speech cease, but fear forced his voice. And then Deucalion, crossing the rising water, was an unreachable sailor, holding an air-roaming voyage, and a self-going vessel without a foot, with no share of a harbour, the self-faring ark scored the snow-laden water. And now the cosmos would have become orderless, and now all-nourishing Aion would have unloosed the unsown harmony of men; but at the holy nods of Zeus the dark-haired one, digging the navel-tip of a Thessalian crag, clove it with his earth-cleaving trident, and through the midst of the bursting cliff the gleaming water withdrew; and pushing aside the high-coursing flow of the snow the earth appeared again; and as the streams were driven into the deep hollows the crags were stripped bare. And shedding the much-thirsty gleam over the moist brow of the earth the Sun dried it; and as the streams thickened with hotter rays the mud was made dry land again as before. And wrought with greater human craft the cities were set fast upon stone foundations, and halls were built, and of the newly-founded cities the streets were fortified for the newborn mortals. And Nature laughed again; and as the birds flew together in the storms with their wings the air was rowed again.