Book 10

10. And in the tenth, the madness of Athamas and the flight of Ino, how she fled into the swell of the sea with newborn Melicertes.

So she was a murderous mother, the slayer of her child,

raving; and the father of his children, under a vengeance that bore witness,

because Themisto, sharer of his hearth, had been the destroyer of his offspring,

Athamas, goaded by the maddening scourge of Pan,

came into the midst of the flock, and lashing as if they were servants

drove the innocent sheep with their fleecy wool;

and he caught up one of them, as though it were his wedded bride,

with two kids at the new-milked udders,

taking a she-goat; he bound its shaggy feet fast with a double

cord; and undoing the round girdle at the hip

he scourged the body of the false Ino as he tightened it,

not perceiving the counterfeit shape. And ever within his hearing

the din of Pan's Cronian scourge kept droning;

often, unsteady, he leapt up from his seat,

receiving with terrified ears the hiss of serpents.

Again and again he stretched his bow, and on the rounded string

he drew an arrow at an empty mark, hurling at the unwounded air.

And seeing the snaky semblance of the Tartarean goddess

he quivered in dread at the changing phantoms of her shape,

spitting snowy foam, the witness of his frenzy,

rolling drunken, threatening eyes.

And as he gazed about with restless, wandering impulses

his eyes grew bloodshot; and through the temple the thin

membranes of his unsteady head were whirling.

The third portion of his soul was lost; for the unswerving

purposes of his witless brain were turned awry,

and with treacherous reelings the eyes of the goaded man

were set raving; and his hair strayed loose,

shaken about the back of his uncut head.

And his mouth stammered, and opening his lips to the air

he sent out a discordant echo of meaningless words.

And the gusts of the Eumenides snatched away the mortal

cares of his life, and his tongue grew heavy with a maddened voice;

and gazing in coils beneath the whirl of his face

at the alien, counterfeit, unbeheld shape of Megaera,

frenzied Athamas shuddered with a deranged convulsion;

and from the grim hand of the wit-destroying goddess

he longed to snatch the viper-scourge;

and baring his sword against the brow of the Fury

he wished to cut the snaky locks of Tisiphone.

And he conversed with empty murmurings to the neighbouring wall,

gazing at the shadowy, deceiving image of a shape,

Artemis's; and seeing the airy phantom with his eyes

he came, before the answering shapes, to a desire for the hunt.

But late, with manifold tears, in the fourth year, Ino

came home returning; and the bride, beholding

both her husband goaded to madness and Themisto with her boys,

received a double grief. And her husband did not recognize her,

seeing his wife Ino, after long time, recovered again;

but holding a longing for the fawn-rousing chase, swift of knee,

he darted to the lookout-crags on stormy sandal,

seeing his son as though a horned beast; and with a straight-aimed

bow, unreachable, he sprang upon Learchus,

thinking him a high-antlered stag in the false shape,

like in body to a wild beast; but the boy in flight,

terrified, was borne along, plying his knees more swiftly.

And drawing the wind-borne arrow with frenzied hands

the father bound his young son fast with the child-slaying shaft;

and he crushed the unknown head with his knife,

made into a fawn by the phantom; and of the unrecognized face,

he laughed, fingering the tip of the bloodied chin,

handling him as though a beast, and he ran with a leap of frenzy,

while still the boy Learchus, unburied, gasped,

seeking the mother, and rolled his eyes in restless turning.

And none of the handmaids came near; but ranging madly

he passed through the seven-chambered house with swift foot,

calling his own son, the one he had slain. And in the hall,

beholding the infant Melicertes, just brought in,

and setting a fire-breathing cauldron upon the hearth,

he placed his son in the midst; and as the flame was kindled,

the murderous cauldron seethed with watery steam.

And his own child cried out, crying "Papa," and none

of the handmaids helped him; but the mother, swift as a storm,

snatching from the cauldron the child half-burnt by fire,

with frenzied bounds Ino ran, wind-footed;

and cleaving the dust of the White Plain

she was named Leucothea, that bore the fitting name; and out of the hall

the maddened Athamas, plying his windy knees,

pursued in vain swifter Ino, runner of the mountains.

But when her much-distraught husband came near her

with unsteady track on stumbling foot, then the wretched woman

stayed her wetted foot at the sea close by,

and to her plaintive child she uttered a mournful, wailing voice,

blaming Cronion and the son of Maia, the messenger:

"Fine indeed, white-lightning god, the nursing-fee you gave me for Bacchus!

Behold your child Lyaeus's coeval, half-burnt!

If you wish, strike down with your unsparing bolt

the mother and the young son, whom I reared in one bosom,

foster-brother of your god-born Dionysus.

Child, Necessity is a great goddess; to whom do you flee?

What mountain receives you in flight, here beside the sea?

What Cithaeron will hide you in a dark hollow?

What mortal pities you, whom your own father does not pity?

Either the sword or the sea will receive you; if it must be,

better to be overcome in the deep than by the knife.

I know whence this woe was rolled upon you, your mother;

I know whence: for a cloud sends the Furies against me,

that I may die in the sea, where the maiden Helle fell.

I have heard that Phrixus, borne through the air to the land of the Colchians,

the high-riding charioteer of the snatching ram,

yet lives, an exile; would that he too,

my own son, fatherless, fleeing, might travel the airy path

of the golden-fleeced ram, Melicertes;

and would that, after Phoebus, taking pity on you, Ino,

Poseidon, host of Glaucus, might save you.

I fear lest, after the death of unburied Learchus,

I behold you too dead, a corpse unburied and unwept,

gasping under your father's bloody knife.

Hasten to flee mad Athamas, and do not perceive

your child-slaying father, the destroyer of your mother who bore you.

Receive me too, O sea, after the land; receive me, Nereus,

with a hospitable hand, after Perseus and Melicertes;

receive Ino too, sailing with the ark of Danae.

I too have suffered what is deserved of impiety, since Cronion

made even my own offspring barren of seed,

as I made the life-bearing furrow of earth barren;

for, being a stepmother, I planned to reap

the bastard brood of Athamas, and Hera rages against me,

having become the stepmother of newly reared Dionysus."

So speaking, on trembling feet she leapt into the sea,

plunging swiftly with her son; and Leucothea

the dark-haired god received with open hands,

a sharer of hearth with the gods who walk the waters; and from there she aids

sailors who wander astray, and Ino became a sea-goddess,

a Nereid, the steerer of the calm sea without surge.

Her lord Cronides showed to the mother of Lyaeus,

that the goddess was for Bromius's sake; and she, rejoicing,

uttered a mocking voice to her sea-faring sister:

"Ino, you have the sea; Semele has won the circle of Olympus.

Yield to me; for I have Cronides, the ploughman of my brood,

an immortal husband, who brought the travail of my child-bearing

to birth in my stead, while you were wedded

to an earthly bedfellow, Athamas, the destroyer of your offspring.

Your child has won the sea; my offspring will come to dwell in the upper air,

will come to the higher house of Zeus; for I do not liken

heavenly Dionysus to Melicertes beneath the waves."

Such things did airy Semele, the bride, bellow,

mocking the life of her sister Ino, dweller of the sea.

Meanwhile Dionysus too, beneath the Lydian region of the land,

whirling the Bacchic instruments of Cybeleian Rhea,

flowered, having such stature as he wished; and fleeing

the noonday scourge of the high-coursing Sun

he gently brightened his body in a bubbling bath

of the Maeonian river, and to gratify Lyaeus

Pactolus murmured, pouring gold-bearing water

over its purple sands, and from the deep-rich lodes

the gilded fish rolled in the wealthy depth;

and the Satyrs playing, casting their feet into the air,

poured themselves into the river with somersaulting head,

of whom one swam self-borne, rowing with his hands,

and another, pressing his foot, face-down, in the surge and the swell,

with feet stretched backward clove the wealth-flowing water;

and one dived to the bottom of the underwater channels

seeking down below the many-coloured catch of fishes,

stretching a blind hand over the swimming fish,

and again he left the deep, and held out fishes to Bacchus

reddened with the silt of the wealth-holding river;

and joining his fitted feet entwined together,

hunchbacked, vying with a Satyr, wandering Silenus,

headlong, self-tumbling, sprang into the stream

from on high into the deep gulf, and his hair touched the silt,

and he set his two feet in the gleaming swim,

mining the well-pebbled wealth of the river;

and one, showing his back to the air in the streams,

left his shoulder dry through the water, dipping his loins,

deep beside the bank, unshaken; and another, stretching his bare ears,

wetted his shaggy thighs in the glittering flood,

and his own coiling, natural tail lashed the stream.

And the god, raising his head and spreading his chest,

oaring with his hands, furrowed the golden calm;

and the waveless banks spat forth a self-made rose,

and the lily blossomed, and the Hours crowned the shores

while Bacchus bathed, and in the lightning-bright stream

the unbound locks of his dark hair reddened.

And once, hunting beneath a shady covert of the woods,

he was enchanted by the rosy-faced shape of a coeval youth.

For already beneath the ridge of Phrygia the boy at play,

Ampelos, had grown, a newly reared shoot of the Loves;

nor had the soft down of his reddening chin

scratched the snowy circles of his downless cheek,

the golden flower of youth; and from his back-flowing hair

the curling clusters ran upon his silvery shoulders

unbraided, and quivering together with the shrill breeze

were lifted lightly by the breath; and as the locks were drawn aside

the middle neck rose into view, growing bare,

and shot forth a gleam undimmed by shade, such as shines

the Moon half-revealed, splitting a moist cloud in the midst;

and from his rosy mouth a honey-breathing voice flowed forth;

and from his limbs the whole spring appeared; and as he walked

from his silvery foot the meadow reddened with roses;

and if he turned his eyes in the bright-shining circle

of his ox-eyed glances, the whole Moon shone.

Having him as companion, Dionysus, playing tenderly,

questioned, pouring forth a wondering voice upon his beauty

as a mortal, while the deceiver hid his immortal form:

"What father begot you? What heavenly womb bore you?

Which of the Graces gave you birth? What fair Apollo sowed you?

Tell me, friend, do not hide your race; if you come

as another wingless Eros, without arrows, apart from the quiver,

which of the blessed begot you, lying beside Aphrodite?

For I too tremble to name your mother Cypris,

lest I call Hephaestus or Ares your father.

But if you are the one they call Hermes, come from the heaven,

show me the light wings and the living wings of your sandals.

How do you keep your uncut hair hanging on your neck?

Surely you have not yourself come to me without lyre, without bow,

Phoebus of the unshorn locks, shaking your loosened curls?

If Cronides begot me, while you from an earthly stock

bear the short-lived blood of ox-horned Satyrs,

reign equal with me, a mortal with a god; for your

heavenly form will not disgrace the Olympian blood of Lyaeus.

But why do I call you of short-lived stock?

I know your blood, even if you wish to hide it;

the Moon, lying beside the Sun, bore you,

wholly like to graceful Narcissus; for you have an airy

likeness in form, the image of the horned Moon."

Such words he spoke; and the young one gloried in the speech,

exulting, because his beauty surpassed his coeval youth

with a brighter form. And within the mountain thicket,

if the boy wove a song, Bacchus was delighted to hear;

if the youth stayed outside, he kept his cheeks unsmiling;

if a Satyr at the feast of the sport-loving table

beat the drums with his hands, striking a resounding noise,

and the youth was outside, pursuing the deer-killing hunt,

with the boy not present, he rejected the noisy echo;

if ever beside the flowery stream of Pactolus

he lingered and tarried, that he might bring as a banquet-gift

himself sweeter water to his king,

with the boy staying away, Bacchus was lashed with grief.

If the youth raised the bold pipe, the instrument of Libyan Echo,

sending a thin breath against his swollen cheek,

Bacchus thought he heard the Mygdonian piper,

whom divine Hyagnis bore, who to his own hurt contended with Phoebus,

pressing the pierced, double-sounding pipe of Athena;

but if the youth touched the same table together with him,

while the boy spoke, he had most delightful hearing,

but when the young one ceased, he had downcast cheeks;

and if, borne by the goad of deep-leaping desire,

Ampelos was set whirling in the dancer's beating of feet,

and entwined his hand in the dance with a sporting Satyr,

changing slantwise foot for foot in turn,

Bacchus, gazing, was stirred with jealous care.

If ever he kept company with the Sileni, if with any youth,

a coeval hunter, he ran together into the course of the chase,

jealous Dionysus restrained him, lest some servant of the Loves,

stricken with a like dart that beguiles the heart,

should turn aside the purpose of the light-minded boy,

and remove the lovely youth from Lyaeus,

as a youth in his prime delighting a coeval of his years.

But when he raised the thyrsus against a raging she-bear,

or hurled the fennel-rod at a mighty lioness,

he stretched his eye toward the west, looking sidelong at the air,

lest the death-bearing breath of Zephyrus should blow again,

as before the bitter wind slew the youth,

turning back the cast discus against Hyacinthus;

he feared lest Cronides, the love-winged bird of the Loves,

unforeseen, unreachable, should appear above Tmolus,

bearing the boy with sparing talons into the air,

like the Trojan boy, the servant of his cups;

he trembled too at the love-sick steerer of the sea,

lest, after the son of Tantalus, the mounter of golden chariots,

leading the winged car into the airy course,

the love-maddened Earth-shaker should snatch away Ampelos.

And he had a sweet dream on his dream-bearing bed,

and conversed in friendly words with the false image of the youth,

beholding the shadowy phantoms of a mimic form.

And if anything ill-shaped marred his lovely face,

this too was lovely to love-stricken Dionysus,

dearer than the whole skin of the youth; and if at the end

a tail hung upright, joined slantwise through his loins,

it was sweeter to Bacchus than sweet honey;

and the unkempt locks of his careless head

themselves the more delighted the eye of the love-maddened one.

By day he rejoiced in his companion; but he grieved ever

when night came on, when, no longer hearing the boy

with enchanted ears, he received the accustomed voice,

sleeping in the caves of Rhea, mother of a mighty son.

And one of the Satyrs, seeing him, was charmed by his divine form,

and stealing forth a secret, lovely voice, he said:

"O Persuasion, steward of the human heart, friend of love,

may this one youth alone, lovely, be gracious to me;

and having him, like Bacchus, as my companion, I do not long

to dwell in the upper air as an exile, I did not wish

to be a god, not Phaethon who gives light to mortals, I draw no longing

for nectar, and I lack not ambrosia; I do not care

whether Ampelos loves me and Cronion hates me."

So he, tending the love-arrow beneath his heart of the Loves,

cried out a hidden word with a jealous voice,

holding his love-charm mingled with wonder. But Euios himself too,

stricken by the sweet sting of the youth,

cried out smiling to Cronides, his love-sick father:

"Grant me one favour, who love, O Phrygian Zeus;

while I was an infant, my nurse Rhea told me even now,

how you gave to Zagreus, the earlier Dionysus,

while he still cried 'Papa,' your fiery point of lightning,

and the crash of thunder and the airy shower of rain,

and he became, while still a babe, a second rain-bringing Zeus;

but I refuse your thunderbolt's heavenly fire,

I want no cloud, no crash of thunder; if you will,

give to fiery Hephaestus the spark of the bolt,

let Ares have the breastplate-covering of your clouds,

give to Hermaon the grace of the Zeus-sent shower of rain,

and let Apollo too lift the lightning of his father;

a lesser will is mine, dear one, for sport-loving Dionysus;

it is good for me to lift Semele's modest lightning,

the mother-slaying sparks of the thunderbolt are joyless.

I dwell in Maeonia; what has the upper air to do with Dionysus?

The beauty of my Satyr is dearer to me than Olympus.

Tell me, father, do not hide it; let your young one be a witness:

when the eagle lifted the boy beneath the heights of Teucrian Ida

with sparing, snatching foot to heaven,

how great a beauty the herdsman won, whom you joined to the table

of heaven, still breathing of the cattle-stalls?

Father Zeus, be gracious, wide-winged one; do not name to me

the Trojan wine-pourer, the servant of your cups,

because, bearing the gleam of a more radiant face,

lovely Ampelos puts the form of Ganymede to shame;

the Tmolian is fairer than the Idaean. And there are many

lovely rows of other youths, all of whom together,

if you wish, embrace, but leave one boy to Lyaeus."

Such words he spoke, stirred by the goad of desire;

not so, within the shaggy Magnesian wood,

did Apollo, herdsman of Admetus, tend his oxen,

stricken by the sweet sting of the love-bearing boy,

as much as Bacchus delighted his heart, playing with the youth.

And both sported, gone together within the thicket,

now casting into the air the wandering thyrsus,

now beside a shady flat rock, at other times among the crags

they went hunting the mountain-bred cubs of lions;

and once, alone, upon a desolate height of the bank,

playing in the sands of the fair-pebbled river,

they held a contest of sport-loving wrestling;

for them there was no tripod as prize, nor was a flowery cauldron

set out for victory, nor pasture-fed horses,

but the clear-sounding double-noted pipe of the Loves.

For both the strife was lovely; and in the midst

stood wanton Eros, winged Hermes of the contest,

weaving a garland of desire, narcissus plaited with hyacinth.

And both came into the midst, contestants of the Loves,

and wreathing their hands like a crown about each other's back,

binding the clasp of their forearms upon each other's waist,

they girt their sides with the yoked draught of the arm,

and lifted each other's body above the ground

with alternating hands; and Bacchus touched Olympus

in the honey-sweet wrestling, and had a double

lovely delight, lifted and lifting . . .

and twining his hand about the wrist of Bromius's hand,

with hands joined, pressing the unequal grip,

he locked the fitted fingers in a double bond,

clasping the willing right hand of Dionysus.

There, coiling his hands about the waist of the youth,

Bacchus, pressing the body with love-maddened hands,

lifted Ampelos; but he, getting a grip on Bromius,

struck the hollow of his knee; and Euios, laughing sweetly,

struck on the soft sole by the coeval youth,

self-tumbling on his back, slipped down into the dust;

and the boy sat upon Bacchus, who lay willing upon the earth,

with bare belly; but he, rejoicing,

stretched out, sprawled this way and that, reclined upon the ground,

bearing on his belly the sweet weight; and straight up

setting the tip of his foot, ground into the earth, upon the sand,

he raised his back, turning it over, and showed a manhood

that spared its strength, and with a contending convulsion

he shook off, from his refusing hand, the burden of the Loves;

and slanting his side, bringing his elbow to the dust,

the cunning youth leapt upon the back of his adversary

obliquely upon his sides, and clasping above the loins

the tips of his foot to the hollow of the knee, fixing his track beside the ankle,

he girt the middle belly with a double bond,

squeezing the sides, coiling his sole beneath the knee

stretched out upright; and as both rolled in the dust

the sweat, herald of toil, ran down.

And late, when he was vanquished, though unvanquished,

bearing the likeness of his father Zeus the wrestler,

Dionysus was conquered willingly, because Zeus himself too,

great Zeus, self-tumbling, wrestling at the Alpheus,

knelt down, bending willing knees to Heracles.

Such was the sport-loving contest accomplished; and the delighted hand

of the youth lightly took up the double-noted pipe as prize.

And the young one, sweating, brightened his limbs in the stream

and washed off the wet dust; and as he bathed,

from his sweating skin a lovely radiance flowed.

Nor, having accomplished the limb-strong victory of wrestling,

did Bacchus, companion of the youth, cease his play,

but he set up a wind-swift contest of speed of foot.

And bringing the dappled suitors of the contest into the love,

for the first he set as gifts the Cybeleian instruments of Rhea,

cymbals with bronze backs and dappled fawnskins;

and the prizes of victory, the second, were Pan's companion,

the sweet-voiced syrinx and the resounding ox-hide,

heavy with bronze; and for the third Dionysus at play set

the reddening sand of the ready river.

And Bromius, marking out the ground divided for the course,

measured out the two ends of the stretched track,

setting up a ten-span sign of the running on the earth,

setting as the goal of the race a tall stake; and at the opposite end

he fixed the mark of the starting-line, raising the thyrsus on the shore;

and he roused the Satyrs to contend for victory.

And as sport-loving Lyaeus keenly called them,

Leneus first rushed forth, wind-footed, and beside him

high-footed Cissos and lovely Ampelos stood;

and trusting in the swift sole of the straight-running foot

they stood chosen, in a row; and from the ground

raising on high the track of his scoring tip,

Cissos was lifted by the stormy beat of his feet;

and warming the back of the one who hastened with his breath,

Leneus ran on, running together with the airy winds,

near in sight to the one running before, and of the hind foot

he struck the tracks that touched the poured dust;

and so much of the dividing line was left between the two,

as the rod of a weaver's beam at the breast of a girl

gains, half-revealed, a space near the unbending breast.

And third was Ampelos, behind; and seeing him

jealous Dionysus melted, looking askance,

at the two contestants running before in the games,

lest perhaps they should win and Ampelos come last;

but the god helped, and breathing strength into him

made the boy swifter than the well-running storm;

and first of the two prize-bearers in the contest,

as they sped, plying his knees on the wet shore,

Cissos slipped, falling in the sandy mud,

and the unsteady rush of Leneus's knee was dragged

back, reining in the course of his feet; and the prize-bearers,

both, were left behind, and Ampelos snatched the victory.

And the aged Sileni shouted the Bacchic echo "Euion,"

amazed at the victory of the youth; and the soft-haired

young one received the first prizes, Leneus received the second,

holding envy, and recognized the jealous trick of Lyaeus

and his desire; and with shame-faced look he saw his coevals,

while Cissos bore the last prizes with a downcast hand.