Book 7

7. The seventh sings the white-haired suppliant prayer of Aion, and Semele, and the love of Zeus, and the stolen marriage-bed.

Now, with the renewing fruit of everlasting life,

mingling the male, the seed of begetting, in the female furrow,

Eros plowed the unsown world, the husbandman of love;

and Nature took root, the nurse of all that is born,

and, blending fire with earth and water entwined with air,

she shaped the human race in a four-yoked bond.

But a sorrow of changing kinds held the life of mortals,

beginning in toil and never ceasing from care.

And to Zeus who rules over all, Aion his companion

showed the race of suffering men, with no portion of gladness;

for not yet, loosing the swaddling threads of childbirth,

had the father shot forth Bacchus from his pregnant thigh,

the rest from human care; not yet did the libation,

steeped in wine, make drunk the airy pathways with fragrant smoke;

and the daughters of the year, the joyless Seasons,

wove for the gods their garlands out of meadow-grass.

For there was need of wine; and the grace of a dance without Bacchus

was half-complete and useless; it charmed only

the eyes of the gathered crowd, when in his whirling sweeps

the dancer, turning many a circle, spun in a storm of feet,

his gestures speech, his hand a mouth, his fingers a voice.

But Aion of changing shapes, spreading on the knees of Zeus

his white hair, holding the key of all that is born,

stretched out the slackened tress of his beard in supplication,

and made his prayer; with his head bowed down to the floor

the curving neck pressed his back, drawn out at length;

and stretching out an endless hand from his bending knee,

the old shepherd of everlasting life spoke out:

Lord Zeus, look you also upon the griefs of a downcast world.

Do you not see how War has goaded all the earth,

reaping in season the corn of swiftly-perishing youth?

Not yet have those relics passed away, since you washed

all the nations of men with the flood, and the stream of the rain from the sky,

surging through the air, splashed up against neighbouring Selene.

Farewell to the life of short-lived mortals, over whose doom

I refuse the heavenly tiller; no longer will I steer

the cable of the world; let some other, better, of the blessed

receive the rudder of life that comes round again;

let another keep the running course of my years; for in pity

of their bitter affliction I have toiled over the much-enduring race of men.

Old age is no remedy, which withers youth

and makes a man slow with his head bowed down,

when, bent, with trembling, over-many-footed steps,

heavy-kneed he leans upon the familiar staff that tends old age;

death is no remedy, that often has hidden in Oblivion

the bridegroom newly come from the dance, the partner of his bride of equal age,

loosing the life-giving cables of a union that cannot be loosed.

I know indeed that marriage is full of charm, where there sounds

the flute of Athena, blending its voice with the pipe of Pan;

yet what profit is it, when beside the wedded chamber

the upright echo of the seven-stringed lyre rings out?

The harps do not loose our cares; nay, Eros himself,

dance-less at the wedding, has shaken off the bridal torch,

looking on the marriage-songs of those who lack delight.

But the life-saving remedy that brings forgetfulness of grief

took no root among much-toiling mortals; for that heavenly

lid of the jar Pandora should never have opened

for men, that sweet evil. Nay, even Prometheus himself

is to blame for the wickedness of mankind,

who cares for wretched mortals; for in place of fire,

the beginning of woe, the sweet nectar that gladdens the mind of the blessed,

he ought rather to have stolen, and granted as a gift to men,

so as to scatter with your draught the cares of the world.

But leaving the cares of clamorous life,

look upon your own downcast rites; does the wandering,

empty vapour of unceasing sacrifices charm you?

So spoke the old man; and for a while, in thoughtful silence,

Zeus the counsellor stirred his own boundless wisdom;

and he loosed the reins of his mind; with crowding counsels

the purposes of his teeming brain were set whirling.

And the son of Cronos raised to Aion a god-proclaiming voice,

declaring the higher oracles of the prophetic axle:

O father, self-sown shepherd of the everlasting years,

be not wroth; for mortal nature, untimely, never ceases

waxing and waning, the imitation of the moon.

Leave nectar to the blessed; and to men, a defence against grief,

I will give sweet wine, self-poured, the likeness of nectar;

another drink, fitted for mortals; but the primal world

still grieves, until I bring one child to birth.

I myself, the father, give birth, and in my male thigh I will endure

a woman's pangs, that I may save the offspring from its pangs.

Yesterday, at the nod of my Deo of the wide threshing-floors,

the earth, scored by the iron that woos the corn-ears,

bore the dry fruit of the sheaf-bearing ploughland.

Now my glorious-gifted child shall fix in the ground

the moist, fragrant fruit of pain-soothing autumn,

Dionysus the griefless, rearing the grief-dispelling cluster,

rival of Demeter; and you will praise me when you behold

the vine reddening with its wine-bearing dews,

the herald of gladness, and the country-folk beside the wine-press

treading the harvest with their heavy-laden feet,

and the phalanx of the Bassarids, lovers of the cry of Euoi,

shaking their loosened, frenzied hair into the air above their shoulders;

and, made frantic in mind by cup after cup,

all will raise the shout of Euoi at the loud-resounding table,

hailing Dionysus, the defender of the human race.

Him, when he has fought his contest, after the earth—companion of the stars,

after the war with the Giants, after the battle with the Indians—

the shifting heaven will receive, flashing his lightning beside Zeus.

And the god of the garden-vines, twining about his locks

the creeping serpent set upon the wine-dark ivy as a crown . . .

shall wear the serpent-headband, the sign of his new godhead;

and equal in honour with the blessed, named among men

shall be Dionysus of the vine, like Hermes of the golden wand,

like brazen Ares, like far-shooting Apollo.

So spoke the father; and the Fates consented; and around his word

the swift-footed Seasons, the heralds of things to come, sneezed an omen.

And so, when they had spoken, the two parted, the one coming

to the house of Harmonia, the other to the embroidered hall of Hera.

And Eros, self-taught and wise, who shepherds eternity,

striking on the dark gates of first-born Chaos,

brought out a god-driven quiver, in which alone

were kept, for Zeus, the fire-nourished arrows

that should turn him, fickle, to the desire of earthly marriages—

twelve of them; and a golden verse, measured out for each,

he had written on the middle back of the love-shooting quiver:

The first leads the son of Cronos to the bed of cow-eyed Io;

the second woos Europa with the ravishing bull;

the third leads the lord of Olympus to wed Plouto;

the fourth calls him to Danae as a golden bridegroom;

the fifth makes ready the fiery marriage for Semele;

the sixth grants the eagle to Aegina, the chief of the air;

the seventh joins Antiope to the crafty Satyr;

the eighth brings the wise swan to naked-bodied Leda;

the ninth bears the horse-bed to Dia of Perrhaebia;

the tenth charms Alcmene's three-moon husband;

the eleventh brings about the wedding of Laodameia;

the twelfth draws the thrice-coiling consort of Olympias.

But when Eros had looked over them all, handling them in order,

he let the other fire-pointed arrows lie,

and with his hand raised up the fifth and fitted it to the blazing string,

casting ivy upon the tip of the winged arrow,

that it might be a fitting crown for the vine-god,

dipping the whole shaft in the moisture of the nectar-bowl,

that Bacchus might make the nectared vintage grow.

While Eros was lifted to the house of Zeus on beating wings,

meanwhile Semele also, keeping pace with the rosy dawn,

was driving her mules, stretching the sound of her silver whip

through the city, and the slender, upright track of the well-wheeled car

scored the surface of the dust;

for, plucking from her eyes the Lethean feather of Sleep,

a wandering dream escorted her bewildered heart,

embroidering oracles, and with fresh-grown clusters

she thought she saw within the garden a tree of fair leaves,

green, weighed down with the swelling fruit of the unripe grape,

drenched with the growth-giving dews of the son of Cronos;

and suddenly a heavenly flame, falling through the air,

laid the whole tree low, yet did not touch its fruit;

but a wandering, long-winged bird snatched it up,

half-formed and lacking the birth that brings it to fulfilment,

and held it out to the son of Cronos; and the father in his sweet bosom

received and took it, and stitched it into his thigh; and in place of the fruit,

a bull-natured man, shaped with a horned form,

sprang up self-perfected above the loins of his sire.

And Semele was the tree; and the maiden, shuddering,

leapt up from her bed and startled her father,

telling of the gleaming vapour rising from the fair leaves.

And Cadmus the king was shaken, hearing that the tree of Semele

was burnt by fire; and calling his son, the god-voiced offspring of Chariclo,

early in the morning he told the smouldering dreams of his child.

And then, having received the inspired voice of Teiresias,

the father sent his daughter to the wonted temple of Athena

to make sacrifice to Zeus, the hurler of the thunderbolt—

a bull, the very image of the horned form of Lyaeus,

and a goat, the cutter of vines, the foe of the vintage to come.

From there she went out before the city, to kindle an altar to Zeus,

lord of the lightning; and standing beside the sacrifice

she steeped her bosom in blood, and the maiden was sprinkled with the slaughter;

and unsparing streams of blood wetted her tresses,

and her garments were dyed purple with the runlets from the ox;

and guiding her course beside the deep-rushy grass

she went to the ancestral water of neighbouring Asopus,

the maiden of the gleaming robe, to wash in the streams

her spotted garments, soaked with the many-spattering gore.

And looking on Semele bathing beside the streams of Asopus,

the Fury that roams in the air laughed,

remembering the son of Cronos, since with a common doom

he was to strike them both with the flaming thunderbolt.

There she cleansed her body, and naked, with her handmaids,

oaring her hands through the water, the maiden ran;

and with skilful art she held her head undrenched,

raised high above the swell, soaked to her hair,

and, laying her breast upon the stream,

with alternate feet she pushed the water behind her.

And she took up another offering, and high upon the neighbouring bank,

beside the eastern edge, to Dionysus the averter of ill,

into the stream, into the winds she shook off the fear of her dreams.

Not without the gods did she go to the streams; rather the Seasons,

prophetic, led her to the outpourings of that river;

nor did she escape the all-seeing eye of Zeus; and around the maiden

he turned, high-shining, the endless circle of his gaze.

And drawing in the air his bow, the helper of life,

Eros stood facing the father who was watching,

the unerring archer; and on the flower-tressed arrow

the bowstring flashed, and as the back-bent bow

was drawn, the echo of Euoi whistled forth the cunning shaft.

And Zeus the father, mighty as he was, was the target; to a worthless

Eros he bowed his neck; and like the track of a star

the bolt of the Loves, stirred with the wedding-whistle,

came to the heart of Zeus, swerving with thoughtful throb,

scoring with its topmost notches the fold of his thigh,

the herald of the birth to come. Then the son of Cronos,

bearing a restless eye, by the channelling constraint of earth,

was scourged toward the love of the maiden by the girdle of desire;

and gazing on Semele he leapt up, lest near the bank

he should see Europa again; and in his heart

he laboured once more, bearing a Phoenician longing; for of that same

beauty she bore the imprint, and ever about her face

shone the kindred radiance of his father's sister.

And Zeus the father changed his crafty form,

and for love of Semele, untimely, he flew as an eagle

high above Asopus, the daughter-begetting river,

bearing, like the prophet of Aegina's well-winged marriage,

the keen-eyed semblance of a bird's gaze;

and he left the upper air, and close beside the nearby bank

he measured the naked body of the fair-tressed maiden;

for he did not wish to see her from afar, but to gaze

close at hand on the all-white whole body of the bride,

because, sending everywhere his boundless eye,

so great and of such kind, the surveyor of the whole world,

it seemed to him not enough to see one unwedded maiden.

And the dark water was reddened by her rosy limbs,

and the river's stream became a lovely meadow,

flashing with the Graces; and gazing through the maiden

the naiad, unveiled, gave up a voice of wonder:

Surely it was not after the elder Cypris that Cronos, snatching away

their wedlock, cut the loins of his father, until again the wise foam,

bringing to a self-accomplished birth the shaping water,

brought to labour the younger sea-born Aphrodite?

Surely it is not that the river, after the sea, with like jealous births,

whirling the birth-bearing wave of the self-born swell,

bore another Cypris, and did not yield to the sea?

Surely it is not that one of the Muses entered my ancestral water

from neighbouring Helicon, and left for some spring

the horse-spring of Pegasus, the honey-dropping water,

or the stream of Olmeius? Stretched out in the streams

I behold a silver-footed maiden within the river;

I am persuaded that, wishing to come to the bed of Latmos,

to the couch of Endymion, the sleepless herdsman,

Selene is bathing in the Aonian outpourings;

but if she has cleansed her body for the grace of her sweet herdsman,

what need has she of Asopus, after the stream of Ocean?

And if she keeps her snowy, heavenly form,

what sign of the moon has she? For the yoke-straps of the unbridled

mules and the silver-wheeled car

are beside the shore, and Selene, the driver of oxen,

knows not how to yoke mules to the harness.

But if some heavenly goddess has come—for of the maiden

I see the grey, calm flashing of her eyes—

then perhaps, after the old quarrel of Teiresias,

grey-eyed Athena has bathed again, casting off her garment.

The rosy-armed maiden has a godlike form;

but if an earthly womb, glory-laden, bore her,

she is worthy of the heavenly bed of the son of Cronos.

Such words the voice from beneath the water spoke among the waves;

but Zeus, stirred by the fire-pointed goad of desire,

gazed on the rosy fingers of the swimming maiden;

and he turned the wandering circle of his unsteady eye,

now gazing on the spark of her rosy face,

now on the gleam of her ox-eyed lids, now on her hair

wandering in the winds, and, as her tresses were drawn aside,

he beheld the free, uncovered neck of the maiden;

and yet more he gazed upon her breasts, and, naked before the son of Cronos,

her bosom was armed, the archers of the Loves;

and he gazed on all her body; only the unseen, sacred

mystery of her lap his reverent eyes passed by.

And the mind of heavenly Zeus, creeping as a wanderer,

swam together with swimming Semele; and, charmed,

receiving the sweet-maddening spark in his accustomed heart,

the father yielded to the child; and with his feeblest dart

little Eros set the hurler of the thunderbolt aflame;

neither the showering of snow, nor against the fiery bearer

did the lightning avail; and even she herself was vanquished,

that so great a heavenly flame, by the little fire

of unwarlike Paphia; and little Eros with his shaggy quiver

vied with the aegis, the girdle with the shield, and to the love-breeding quiver

the heavy-thundering crash of the thunder was made a slave.

And Semele was stirred by the heart-charming sting of desire,

holding amazement; for love is the neighbour of friendly wonder.

And hardly did wily, high-ruling Zeus come back to the pole of heaven,

wearing again the inspired, recovered shape of his form.

And wishing to mount the nightly bed of Semele

he stretched his eye toward the west, for when sweet Hesperus should come;

and he blamed the long evening hour of Phaethon,

and with friendly lips he uttered a love-sick voice:

Tell me, lingering Night, when does grudging Dawn go down?

But you, lift up the torch, the forerunner of the Loves of Zeus,

prophesying the night-wandering lamp of Lyaeus.

Jealous Phaethon constrains me; can it be that he too

desires Semele, and grudges me in my longing?

O Sun, you trouble me, even if you have learned the goad of the Loves;

with sparing lash why do you whip your slow horse?

I know also another, swifter setting; if I wish,

I will hide both you and the dawn-goddess in my clouds,

and, with you hidden, day-time Night shall appear

as the bride-bringer of eager Zeus, so that there may shine

the stars at midday, and so that I may make the wonted escort of the Loves,

Hesperus, rise and never set.

But, drawing your forerunner the Dawn-star to the west,

grant a favour to you and to me in my longing, and all night long

have the joy of your Clymene, and let me come swiftly to Semele.

Yoke your chariot for me, light-bearing Selene, you also,

sending forth your plant-fostering radiance, since this marriage

ordains the birth of plant-rearing Dionysus;

and, rising over the lovely halls of Semele,

shine for me in my longing, together with the star of the Cyprian,

and lengthen the sweet darkness that ministers to the bed of Zeus.

Such words the father spoke, the things that desire knows how to bid.

But when, as he hastened, the earth-born leap stretching upward,

the topmost wide cone of mist ran up,

bringing the moist gloom of setting, the shadow opposite to Dawn,

then airy Zeus passed by the starry house

to the marriage of Semele, and with untraceable sandal,

leaping his first bound, measured with his sole the whole

airy path; and with the second he reached Thebes

like a wing or a thought; and as he rushed within,

the bars of the gateway opened of themselves.

And he embraced Semele with the loving clasp of his hand,

now over the bed lowing with the bellow of an ox,

bearing a horned aspect on his human limbs,

the very likeness, equal in growth, of bull-horned Dionysus,

now he put on the thick-haired form of a lion,

at another time he was a leopard, as begetting a bold son,

the driver of leopards and the charioteer of lions;

at another time the bridegroom, his hair coiled

under the spires of serpents, was bound with a vine-wreath,

whirling the wine-dark, twisting ivy of his locks,

the woven ornament of Bacchus; and a curving serpent, creeping,

licked the rosy neck of the trembling bride

with gentle lips, and, going down over her bosom,

it wreathed the rounded circle of her steadfast breasts,

hissing the marriage-song, and pouring out the sweet honey

of the well-hived bee, not the deadly venom of the viper.

And Zeus tarried at the marriage, and as beside a neighbouring wine-press

he thundered the cry of Euoi, begetting the son who loves the cry of Euoi;

and he set mouth upon mouth in love-madness, and, gushing forth

the lovely nectar, the consort made Semele drunk,

that she might bear a child, the sceptred lord of the vintage,

raising the care-banishing cluster, the messenger of things to come,

leaning his weighted arm upon the fire-bearing fennel-rod;

at another time he raised the thyrsus, much-entwined with wine-dark ivy,

bearing the skin of a deer; and on the woman-maddened bearer's

left arm shook the dappled fawnskin.

And all the earth laughed, and with self-grown leaves

a vine-bearing orchard ran round the bed of Semele,

and the walls budded with flowers from the dewy meadow

about the birth of Bromios; and on the cloudless bed,

with thundering crashes, Zeus within the chamber clashed

the drums, prophesying nocturnal Dionysus.

And after the bed he embraced Semele with loving speech,

consoling his bride with hopes of things to come:

I am, woman, the son of Cronos, your bridegroom; lift up

your proud neck on high, joined to a heavenly consort,

and do not seek a measure greater than mortal birth.

The marriage of Danae does not rival yours; nay, the wedlock

of the cattle-Loves even of his own father's sister

you have hidden; for Europa, glorying in the bed of Zeus,

went to Crete, but Semele comes to Olympus.

What more did you wish, beyond the heaven and the pole of stars?

And one day someone will say that the son of Cronos gave honour

to Minos below and to Dionysus in heaven.

But after the mortal son of Autonoe and the offspring of Ino—

the one fallen by his own hounds, the other doomed

to die at the winged arrow of his child-slaying sire,

and after the short-lived son of raving Agave—

you shall bring to birth an undying son, and I will call you immortal;

blessed are you, that for gods and men you shall bring forth a joy,

bearing a son who makes mortals forget their grief.