Book 12

12. In the twelfth delight your heart, where as a new flower of the Loves Ampelos sent up his form into the vine-clad fruit.

So they, beside the brows of western Ocean,

were sailing to the halls of the generative Sun.

And as they journeyed the star Hesperus met them,

leaping from the hall; and hastening forth herself,

newly appeared, rose Selene, driver of oxen.

And before the eyes of the life-bearing Charioteer

they bent their fruitful track. He, having just finished his course,

returned from the air; and the radiant Morning Star

set down, near the four-horse car of the fiery-eyed driver,

the hot harness and the starry whip,

cleansing beside the streams of neighbouring Ocean

the bodies of the fire-fed horses, dripping with sweat;

and the colts, shaking the wet manes of their necks,

stamped with gleaming hooves in the glowing manger.

And the daughters of Chronos, around the fiery throne,

flying in a circle about the unwearied Charioteer,

the twelve circling Hours greeted the four,

handmaids of the Sun, companions of the glowing car,

ministers of Lycabas in turn; for to the primeval

ruler of the whole universe they bent a slavish neck.

And the grape-tending Hour cried out a word to him,

holding the autumnal sickle as witness of her supplication:

"Sun, grain-giver, planter, lord of fruits,

when will the vineyards grow the wine-bearing cluster?

And to which of the blessed does Aion betroth this honour?

Yes, I beseech you, do not hide it, for I alone

of all my sisters am without honour; for I grow no fruit,

no ear of grain, no meadow, and not the rain of Zeus."

She spoke; and the Sun encouraged the nurse

of the fruit to be, and beside the opposite wall

raising his finger he showed the circling girl

the unequal tablets of Harmony, on which there lie

in one all the oracles, all that were ordained for the world

that the prophetic hand of first-born Phanes inscribed,

and embroidered with his pen the fitting house for each.

And Hyperion, the steward of fire, spoke a word:

"On the third tablet, whence the wine-fruit shall come,

you will learn, where the Lion and the Virgin are; and on the fourth,

who is the sceptred lord of the cluster, where, drawing sweet nectar,

with painted hand Ganymede lifts the cup."

As the god spoke thus, the vine-loving girl ran,

turning her eyes about, and beside the wall of the oracle

she beheld the first tablet, coeval with the endless world,

bearing in one all things, all that the sceptred Ophion

accomplished, all that aged Cronos achieved, when, cutting

his father's male plough-share, he ploughed the bridal water,

sowing the unsown back of the daughter-bearing sea,

who once received his stone son in his gaping throat,

feasting on the counterfeit body of the lying Zeus;

and the stone delivered the brood of the children hidden within,

casting forth the burden of the pregnant throat.

But when the storm-footed Hour, the handmaid of Phaethon,

beheld the fire-bright victory of Zeus as he fought

and the hailing war-strife of the Cronian snow,

she looked in turn at the neighbouring tablet; and that one held

how the pine bore mortal offspring in travail, or whence suddenly,

unfolding its tree-like, generative childbearing,

the pine cast up an unsown, self-made son,

and whence rain-bringing Zeus flooded all the cities,

bringing the heaped-up water in towering seas,

how Notus from Boreas, and Eurus from Libs scourging,

lifted the wandering ark of Deucalion, neighbour of the Moon,

into an air-walking voyage, without a harbour.

And when the minister of Lycabas ran over the third tablet

with well-footed sole, the coiling girl halted,

gazing at the fated, many-turning oracles of the world,

reddening letters, inscribed with wise vermilion,

all that the various-storied, primeval mind had written,

such things prophesying, and she read on the tablets:

Argus, herdsman of Hera, will change into the shape of a bird,

keeping the bright form of his grim eyelids; but also

Harpalyce herself, after the bed of sinful unions,

having butchered her son for her daughter-wedding father,

will row her airy, winged journey

as a storm-like bird; and the web-toiling Philomela

will be a swallow with a spangled neck, twittering,

crying out the testimony of her tongueless silence,

having written speaking devices on a wise tunic;

and Niobe, beside the foot of Sipylus, a stone with sense,

lamenting with stony tears the rank of her children,

will stand as a piteous statue. And there will be a neighbour,

Pyrrhus, a Phrygian stone, love-maddened, still holding for Rhea

a lawless goad of unwedded unions,

and Thisbe a moist water, and Pyramus, both coevals,

longing for each other; and of the fair-crowned girl

Smilax, Crocus, longing, will be a flower of the Loves;

and after the bridal turning-post of the storm-footed weddings

and after the apples of the Paphian, into the shape of a lion

Artemis will goad transformed Atalanta.

And the restless Hour passed over all these things in one,

until she came to the place where fiery Hyperion

declared the symbols of prophecy to the storm-like girl,

where the Lion was wrought, radiant, where also

the starry Virgin herself was embroidered in a counterfeit shape

holding the wine-dark cluster, the summer-born flower of the fruit;

there the daughter of Chronos rested her feet, and read this:

Cissos, the high-flying, lovely youth, creeping into a plant,

will be the coiling ivy even among shoots; and of the youth

Calamus the upright reed, bent by the breezes,

will appear a thin shoot of the growth-giving field,

a prop of the vines; and changing his form into a plant,

Ampelos gives his name to the vine-clad fruit.

But when the harvest-girl beheld these oracles,

she sought that place, where beside the neighbouring wall

the image of Ganymede was inscribed with a fashioned form,

dripping the nectar-moisture from a golden cup,

where was the four-fold voice of the inscribed words;

there the grape-loving goddess reveled, and the nymph found

these oracles kept for ivy-bearing Lyaeus:

Zeus granted to Phoebus to have the prophetic laurel,

and reddening roses to rosy-skinned Cyprogeneia,

the grey-green olive-shoot to grey-eyed Athena,

and ears of grain to Demeter, and the vines to Dionysus.

Such things did the Bacchus-loving girl behold in the writings;

and rejoicing she darted off, and taking her sisters

she passed into the stream of eastern Ocean,

running together with the horsemanship of Phaethon.—But for Lyaeus

there was no remedy, with his comrade fallen, nor was there

memory of the dance; but with his mind shaken by the goad of love

he sang bitter dirges, and in careless silence

he left the bronze back of the unsounding ox-hide;

nor did the lyre delight him. And as, with mirthless face,

loving Dionysus piteously wailed,

the stream of the Lydian, reedy Hermus was stayed,

though it rolled swiftly with the windy beat of its current,

and longed not to flow; and with its deep-rich stream

saffron Pactolus reined back its mournful water,

bearing the likeness of a downcast man; and about the corpse

Sangarius checked the back-rushing draught of its spring channels,

pouring its Phrygian stream; and the breathless image

of the Tantalid, ill-bearing mother, drenched by the groanings,

shed double tears, as Dionysus lamented;

and the pine, wailing, companion of its coeval fir,

whispered faintly; and the laurel herself,

being the tree of unshorn Phoebus, shook off her hair

in the mournful winds; and the sleek, unpruned olive

poured its leaves to the ground, even though it was Athena's plant.

So, as tearless Dionysus groaned with longing,

the dread, unbound threads of the Fate were turned again;

and consoling the wail of grieving Dionysus

steadfast-worded Atropos cast up an inspired voice:

"Your youth lives, Dionysus, and he will not cross

the bitter water of Acheron; for your wail has found a way to undo

the unbending, recoverable threads of unswerving Fate;

Ampelos has not died, even though he died; for into a lovely

drink, into sweet nectar, I will change your boy;

him, with the dancing beat of the well-rolling hand,

the double-noted pipe, beating out the harmony of the feast,

will hymn, holding a Phrygian rhythm or a Dorian song;

or in the theatres a rhythmic man will sing of him,

pouring the Ismenian echo of the Aonian reed,

or to the dwellers of Marathon; and the Mysians will cry "Euoi"

for lovely Ampelos along with vine-clad Lyaeus.

And leaving the crooked, serpent girdle of your locks

you will wreathe clusters of grapes about your hair,

bringing envy to Phoebus, because he wields with his hand the mournful

tree-borne dirges of the weeping hyacinths,

while you have a drink, the rest of the mortal race,

the earthly likeness of heavenly nectar, and your flowery youth

will put to shame the boast of the Amyclaean boy;

and if that one's city raises warlike bronze,

your youth's land too will grow, light-bringing,

the moist rain of the reddening river-dew,

luxuriant wholly with gold, and rejoicing not in iron;

if it glories about the stream of a sounding river,

the Pactolian water is better than the Eurotas.

Ampelos, you gave grief to griefless Dionysus,

that, when your honey-dropping wine is grown,

you might give delight to the whole four-fold world

and a libation to the blessed and gladness to Dionysus;

lord Bacchus wept, that he might loose the tears of mortals."

So speaking the goddess went, companion of her sisters.

And a great wonder appeared to mournful Bacchus, the witness;

for the lovely corpse, springing up like a creeping serpent,

Ampelos, self-made, changed his own shape,

and became a sweet flower; and as the corpse was transformed

his belly was a tall bush, and the tips of his hands

put forth branches, and his feet were rooted,

his curls were grape-clusters, and the very fawnskin

was shaped into a many-figured flower of the growing fruit,

and the vine-cluster was his long-shadowed neck,

and like to his elbow the crooked tendril stretched,

swelling with grapes, and as his head was transformed

the bent, curved clusters mimicked the shape of his horn.

There were endless rows of plants; and self-made

the vine-clad row, coiling its green tendrils,

girt the neighbouring trees with the new wine-dark fruit.

And there was a new wonder, since the boy at play then,

coiling his slanting foot about a high-leaved plant,

high-flying Cissos made his form into a tree,

and became a curved shoot named for him, and girt

the newly grown row of vines with a crooked bond.

And with friendly leaves he shaded the overshadowed temple,

and intoxicated his locks from the wine-loving leaves,

Dionysus exulting; and of the growing boy

he plucked the fruit of the harvest just now ripening.

And the god, self-taught, without foot, outside the wine-press,

pressing the cluster with the heavy fruit of his palm,

squeezing the travail of drunkenness with entwining hands,

revealed the new-flowing mass of the purple fruit,

and found the sweet drink; the white fingers of wine-pouring

Dionysus reddened as they were drenched.

And he held a curved cup, the horn of an ox; and of the sweet-drinking

dew Bacchus tasted with the tips of his lips,

tasted also of the fruit, and delighting his heart with both

he cast up a word from his proud throat:

"Ambrosia and the nectar of my Zeus, Ampelos, you bring forth;

bearing two beloved shoots, the fruit, Apollo

ate not of the laurel, and drank not from the hyacinth;

no ear of grain travails a sweet drink; be gracious, Deo;

I will give to mortals food, and not only drink.

Ampelos, your doom too is lovely; truly the threads

of Fate herself were softened for you and for your beauty,

for you even Hades was pitying, for you even Persephone

herself changed her harsh purpose,

and brought you, a corpse, to life for your brother Dionysus.

You did not die as Atymnius died; not the water of Styx,

not the flame of Tisiphone, you did not see the eye of Megaera;

you still live, boy, even though you died; nor did the water

of Lethe hide you, no common tomb holds you; but the earth

herself was ashamed to cover your form;

but my father made you a plant, honouring you as a son,

lord Cronion changed your body into sweet nectar.

Nature did not, as on the inscribed Therapnaean clusters,

carve a dirge upon your unweeping leaves;

you keep your own colour, boy, even among shoots;

your end has proclaimed the radiance of your limbs;

your reddening form has not yet abandoned you.

But avenging your death I will never cease

pouring your wine as a libation upon your slayer

as he is sacrificed, the man-slaying one. And you bring reproach to the Hamadryads

with your lovely leaves; and from your fragrant clusters

the moistures of your Loves breathe about me.

When shall I mingle the fruit of the apple in the bowl?

When shall I drop the fig into the nectar-cup?

The fig and the apple alike have grace as far as the teeth.

No other plant can contend with your grape-clusters;

not the rose, not the fair-coloured narcissus, not the anemone,

not the lily, not the hyacinth equals the shoot of Bacchus,

because with the new drops of much-pressed fruit

your drink will receive all the flowers; one drink will be

mingled with all, and will come to one fragrance,

blended with flowers of every kind; for your flower

will adorn the whole springtime meadow-grass.

Yield to me, famed-archer, because you girt your griefless locks

with a mournful bond of many-wailing leaves;

dirges are inscribed upon your petals; but if in a garden

the famed-archer bears a garland, I draw sweet wine,

and put about myself a lovely garland, and the sweet-drinking

Ampelos himself I lift wholly within my heart.

Yield to the grape-rich one, glittering-helmed; for bloody Ares

pours gore as a libation, while the vine-clad one pours to Dionysus

the reddening dew of the wine-drenched cluster.

Deo, you are plundered after Pallas; for the olives

bring forth no gladness, and no ear of grain charms a man,

the pear has honey-sweet fruit, the myrtle grows

fragrant flowers, but they do not, with a mind-charming fruit,

cast human cares to the winds;

I have become far better than you both; for when our

wine is not present, joyless are the meals of the table,

when wine is not present, uncharmed are the dances.

If you can, grey-eyed one, drink the fruit of your olive;

my splendid-gifted harvest has conquered your plant,

because with your sleek oil athlete-men, joyless,

anoint their bodies; but the sorely-suffering man,

having cast wife or daughter into a common doom,

or having grief for perished children or mother or father,

when he tastes sweet wine,

will shake off the gloomy, swelling mass of his grief.

Ampelos, even after death you gladden the heart of Bacchus;

with all my limbs I will mingle your drink."

And all about, the trees with downward-nodding head,

like a suppliant, bend the curving neck,

and the aged palm bowed down its high-stretched leaves;

about the apple-tree you stretch your feet, about the fig-tree

spreading your hands you lean upon them, and your

harvest the handmaids lighten, as a mistress,

when, with the coiling beat of your stretching leaves,

you rise above the shoulder of the attendants; and of the neighbouring plants

the soft, many-coloured leaves of the wide-scattered clusters,

as though you slept, quiver upon your face,

cooling breezes with sparing breaths,

as an attendant shakes a thin, accustomed fan,

bearing an artificial breeze, cool, for her king.

But if you bring the noonday threat of Phaethon,

the Etesian breeze, leading the way for your cluster, comes,

lulling to rest the thirsty star of fiery Maira,

when the course of the summer-born Hour heats you,

warming with Sirian vapour the dew as it ripens.

He spoke, exulting, and cast away his former cares,

holding the fragrant harvest, the medicine for the youth.

And these things are sung about the vine-clad cluster,

how it became named for the youth. But of the singers

there is another, older story, how once upon the earth

from heaven the fruit-bearing Olympian ichor flowed

and brought forth the drink of the Bacchic cluster, and on the crags

self-grown, untended, the fruit of the harvest grew;

and not yet was the vine named for the gardener, but in the thickets

the wild vine, flourishing among the much-curved parsley-plants,

put forth a vine-rich wood of wine-bearing plants,

gushing up the moist, crammed mass of its dew;

and there was a great row, where, creeping up in order,

cluster upon cluster, reddening, shook as it wandered;

of which one, half-finished, swelling its travail,

flushing in changing hues, appeared with two-coloured fruit;

another, whitening, ripened, of a colour like foam,

and a great one, golden-formed, pushed its yoked

neighbour, neighbour against neighbour, and another in form was like pitch,

darkening its whole flower, and from its wine-bearing leaves

it intoxicated the whole splendid-fruited olive growing near it;

and over another, just-carved, with unripe fruit,

the self-rushing black air ran upon the silvery cluster,

bearing, in its cluster-laden mass, the swelling harvest;

and the coiling tendril of the harvest crowned the opposite pine,

shading the enveloping shoot with combined thickets,

and delighted the heart of Pan; and bringing its branches,

shaken by Boreas, near the vine-clad cluster,

the blood-dipped pine waved its fragrant hair.

And about it a serpent, coiled with crooked spines,

milked the dainty nectar of the well-dropping fruit,

and milking the Bacchic drink with grim jaws,

dropping into its throat the draught of the wine-drenched cluster,

the serpent reddened its chin with a purple drop.

And the mountain-roaming god marvelled, watching the snake

with its throat stained with the wine-coloured drop;

and coiling its dappled, turning track of scales,

it entered the neighbouring deep-bosomed crevice in the rock,

the spangled snake, having beheld the Bacchic juice. And gazing,

Bacchus marked the cluster pregnant with the reddening dew,

and recalled the older oracles of oracular Rhea.

And he dug into the crags, and with the sharp point

of his earth-digging iron he hollowed a recess in the rock;

and smoothing the brows of the deepening hollows

he made the trench into the shape of a fine-grape wine-press,

reaping the fresh-budding clusters with a sharp thyrsus,

making the likeness of the later-born curved-clawed sickle.

And there was a band of Satyrs, his companions; of whom one

leaned, gathering the vintage, another received the clusters

cut, in a hollow vessel, another, cutting the tangled leaves,

shook off the green refuse of the wine-loving fruit;

another, without thyrsus and without well-sharpened iron,

stretching his ironless right hand to the branches,

broke off the tips of the coiling cluster,

crouching, bent over, stretching his eye toward the vine;

and in a deep hollow he spread the heaped harvest,

heaping the centre-naveled back of the ravine with grapes . . .

he laid the coiling clusters one upon another in the hollow,

stretched out this way and that, and as he heaped up vintage-piles

filling the whole hollow he gathered them in the cavernous rock,

and trod the cluster with the dancing beat of his feet.

And the Satyrs, shaking their wild hair into the air,

learning the like mimicry of Dionysus,

binding dappled fawnskins about their shoulders,

shouted the song of the Bacchic, fellow-tongued echo,

with much-leaping feet pressing the harvest,

singing "Euoi"; and from the grape-rich hollow

as the wine gushed up the ravines grew purple;

and the harvest, pressed by alternating feet,

cast up the white foam of the reddening dew.

And they drew with bovine horns instead of cups,

not yet appearing, whence afterward, ever from that time,

this wondrous name belonged to the wine being mingled.

And one, gushing up the moisture of mind-charming Bacchus,

bent his crooked track of feet with a coiling beat,

shifting his right sole, changing from the left,

and wetted his shaggy beard with the moisture of Bacchus;

another leapt up, shaken by the goad of drunkenness,

hearing the fearful bellow of the struck ox-hide;

and one, drinking the irresistible stream of pain-healing wine,

reddened his dark chin with the rosy draught;

another, stretching his unsteady gaze up toward a tree,

watched the half-revealed, unfilleted neighbour Nymph,

and now into the high-leaved plant of the mountain wood

he would have crept with the curved-clawed sole of his slipping foot,

had Dionysus not restrained him; and about the springs

another, with a wandering beat of mind-rousing drunkenness,

pursued the watery, unrobed Naiad girl,

and now he would have embraced her as she swam with his shaggy arm,

had she not, anticipating him, hidden in the deep stream.

But to the wine-drinker Dionysus alone Rhea gave

the amethyst, the warder-off of raving compulsion.

And many of the fair-horned Satyrs, with sport-loving sole,

goaded into the dance, reveled; of whom one,

holding a hot, new goad beneath his heart, the escort of the Loves,

clasped a Bacchante about the middle with his hairy arm;

another, shaken by the goad of mind-wandering drunkenness,

touched the girdle of an unmarried, chaste maiden,

dragging back to Cypris the garments of the unyielding nymph,

and with a back-cast hand touched her rosy thighs;

and one reined back an unwilling initiate girl

lighting the night-dancing torch kindled for Dionysus;

another, casting his sparing fingers about her breast,

squeezed the swelling circle of her unbending bosom.

And after the revel of his sweet harvest, Dionysus,

exulting, entered the caves of the Cybelean goddess,

stretching the cluster-laden branches with flower-loving hand,

and taught his own Maeonia his sleepless festival.