Book 14

14. For the fourteenth, keep your mind here: there Rhea arms all the divine ranks for the Indian war.

Rhea swift-sandalled, beside the mountain-dwelling manger,

binding fast the shaggy necks of her lions,

raised her feet, fellow-running with the breezy gusts,

rowing through the airy hollows with her sandal;

and gathering the divine phalanxes for Lyaeus

like a wing or a thought she ranged over the seats of the world,

to the South, to the North, to the West, to the bed of Dawn;

and to the oaks and rivers she joined one voice,

calling the Naiads and the lines of the wood's Hamadryads.

And the divine offspring, hearing the Cybelean call,

gathered from every side. And from on high to the land of the Lydians

leading her unerring track, Rhea came down through the air;

and on her return she lifted up again the mystic nightly pine,

warming the air for the Mygdonian a second time with her torch.

But after the mortal heroic stock of the champions

teach me also the divine army, breezes of Phoebus.

First from Lemnos, from the fire-pointed crag,

the storm-swift rumour beside the mystic pine of Samos

armed the two sons of Hephaestus, the Cabeiri,

bearing their mother's kindred name, whom long ago

Thracian Cabeiro bore to the heavenly smith,

Alcon and Eurymedon, masters of the hearth.

And grim warriors gathered from Crete,

the Idaean Dactyls, dwellers of the rocky crag,

the Earth-born Corybantes together, whose race once

sprang up self-made from the earth for Rhea;

they ringed about with shield-bearing dances, beside the birth-aiding rock,

the newly-delivered babe Zeus,

striking up a mountain-clashing, deceiving revel,

making the air dance; and as the bronze was beaten,

a cloud-near echo roared at the ears of Cronus,

stealing away the infancy of Cronion with the oxhides;

and the leader led on the dance-weaving Corybantes,

Pyrrhichus and Idaean the shield-wielder, with whom marching

the Cnossian Cyrbas of like name armed the shifting tribes.

And the envious Telchines came as comers to the Indian war,

gathering from the deep hollow of the sea;

and shaking with long hand a vast spear-point

came Lycus, and Scelmis followed Damnameneus,

steering the ancestral Poseidonian chariot of the sea,

after Tlepolemus' land sea-wandering settlers,

water-dwelling frenzied spirits, whom long ago

against their will from their ancestral field

Thrinax with Macareus and shining Auges drove out,

sons of Helios; and pursued, from their nurse

drawing the water of Styx with envy-heavy hands

they made the orchard of fruitful Rhodes unsown,

sprinkling the fields with Tartarean waters.

After these the gentle double-natured race of the Centaurs;

to Pholus, having a horse's shape, Cheiron joined himself,

of alien form, untamed, with unbridled beard.

And the phalanxes of the Cyclopes flowed in; for in battle

they hurled with unarmoured hands the hills

as rocky spears, and the crags were their shields,

and a crested watchtower of the ravine was their helmet,

and Sicilian sparks were their fiery arrows;

and brandishing the flame of their accustomed hearth

with fire-bearing hands the warriors armed themselves,

Brontes and Steropes and Euryalus and Elatreus

and Arges and Trachius and proud Halimedes.

But so great and such a one was left behind, alone, from the war,

cloud-near Polyphemus, offspring of the Earthshaker,

because the watery-pathed one held him back to stay there,

another Love, dearer than war; for gazing

at half-seen Galatea he sang to the neighbouring sea,

pouring a maiden-loving echo through his bridal pipe.

And dwellers of the crags from their self-roofed halls,

bearing the name of Pan, their desert-roaming sire,

the Pans were armed together, on whose form

was mingled with a man's the look of a shaggy goat;

and having the bastard shape of a well-horned head

there were twelve Pans, horn-drawn, and of one primeval

Pan, the mountain-dwelling father, they are sprung.

One they named Celaeneus by his witnessing form,

another, by his nature, Argennus of like name; and to Aegicorus

they fitted a name, since beside the pastoral flock

he was sated, squeezing the milk of goats' udders;

another was heard as the divine Pan Eugeneios,

holding a broad meadow of beard among his locks;

and with the pasturing Omestes was armed Daphoeneus;

and Phobos joined the rough-shanked Philamnus;

to Xanthus came Glaucus as fellow-traveller; for in answering

likeness Glaucus in his limbs was of the same hue as the sea,

grey-gleaming, and Xanthus, having yellow-coloured hair,

received such a name, the horned townsman of the crag;

and bold Argos came, bearing snowy hair.

To these there were two Pans together, whom Hermes begot

mingling in chosen love with twin nymphs;

one, seeking the bed of the mountain nymph Sose,

he begot full of prophetic, god-speaking utterance,

Agreus, fenced about with the beast-slaying care of the hunt;

the other dear to the pasturing of sheep, Nomios, when

he crossed the bed of the field-dwelling nymph Penelope,

caring for the shepherd's pipe. With these Phorbas,

the insatiate flesh-eater, kept a fellow journey.

And resting his hand on a fennel-stalk, old Silenus,

double-natured, the horned son of the field, was armed,

leading three sons of the revel-band; for to battle

Astraeus was armed, Maron went, Leneus followed,

lightening the hands of their mountain-wandering father

with age-tending clubs; for these strengthless old men

their sluggish bodies were eased by a vine-staff,

whose span of years was very many, from whom the hot

double-natured race of the much-marrying Satyrs sprang.

And the horned Satyrs were marshalled by their leaders,

Poimenios and Thiasos and Hypsiceros and Orestes,

and to horned Napaeus joined Phlegraeus;

Gemon came, bold Lycon was armed; and to the deep-drinking,

rock-perched, laughing Pheres the wine-loving one followed,

and Lamis the mountain-roamer kept a fellow journey

with Lenobios, and Scirtus revelled, running beside Oistros,

and with Pherespondus went Lycus, the loud-voiced herald,

and Pronomos skilled in mind, whom Hermes begot

yoking a strong woman under secret marriage,

whom Dorus once bore, an offshoot of the line of Zeus,

root of the race of Hellen, and from primeval Dorus

from Doris sprang the Achaean blood of the race;

to these Eiraphiotes entrusted the prize and the sceptre

of the heavenly herald, their mind-strengthening sire.

Always drunk with cups loving the unmixed wine

was all the bold-hearted race of the Satyrs, and in battle

threateners only, ever fleeing Enyo,

lions away from war, but hares in wars,

skilled dancers, knowing more than others

how to draw the sweet wine from the wine-holding bowl;

few of them are warlike, whom bold Ares

taught every kind of care for the fight,

and to marshal a phalanx; and as Lyaeus armed

some hid their bodies in untanned oxhides,

others strengthened themselves with the shaggy skins of lions,

others put on the grim coverings of leopards,

others were armed with long-sprigged clusters,

others girt about their breasts a dappled tunic

of long-horned deer, matching the stars;

over their temples, twin on either brow,

sharp-pointed prongs of horn lengthened out,

and thin hair grew on their jagged heads,

barely showing over their slanting eyes, and both ears,

as they moved, the winged winds fanned up

straight, sounding against their shaggy jaws,

stretched out; and a horse's tail, drawn down the back,

upright, coiling, flowed from the loins.

Another race of alien form, the Centaur stock, came,

the shaggy breed of fair-horned Pheres, to whom Hera gave

another man-grown horned body; for of the water-born

Naiads they were once the children, in mortal-seeming shape,

whom men call Hyades, the river-stock of Lamus,

and they nursed the well-born offspring of Zeus,

Bacchus still breathing of his much-stitched birth,

child-nursing guardians of unseen Dionysus,

having no strange form; and in the dark hall

often they cradled the boy in their bent arms,

him babbling of the sky, his father Zeus's seat,

still in his infancy, the wise babe. And like a new-born

kid he was in all things, hidden within the fold,

and thickened his body with long hair,

of alien show, and pouring forth a deceitful bleating of teeth

he mimicked a false hoof with goatish tracks;

and at times wearing a woman's false shape

he appeared in clothes, a mimic, saffron-robed maiden,

freshly blossoming, and leading astray the mind of envious Hera

with answering lips he uttered a womanly voice,

and on his locks he bound a fragrant veil,

wearing woman's robes, much-embroidered; and at his mid

breast he set a band and an upright rim of breast . . .

with a maiden's girdle, and as if a knot of maidenhood

he fitted a purple round band to his loins.

But the trick was useless, since Hera learned of it from on high,

turning everywhere the all-seeing eye of her face,

watching the ever-changing shape of Lyaeus;

and she was angry with the guardians of Bromius; and receiving

the Thessalian deceitful flowers of the grass from Achlys

she poured sleep over the heads of the bewitched guardians,

dripping potent charms from their hair;

and smearing a soft magic salve over their faces

she changed the older form of their human look;

on them appeared an eared shape of nature,

and a horse's tail rose upright through the loins

lashing the haunches of the shaggy-breasted bearer,

and an ox-horn grew from the temple,

and the eyes widened on the long-horned brow,

and crooked locks grew on the heads,

and white-toothed jaws lengthened on the chins,

and a strange, self-made, thick hair, from loins to the tips of the feet,

flowed down the shaggy neck.

Twelve leaders marshalled them all in all,

Spargeus and Gleneus the dance-treader, and of alien form

running beside Eurybius came cluster-bearing Ceteus,

and to Riphonus joined Petraeus, and the deep-drinking

Aesacus and Orthaon went together, whom into one journey

both Amphithemis and Faunus made,

and with well-horned Phanes came Nomeion as companion.

Another double-natured race of Centaurs was armed,

the Cyprian, when Cypris ran like the breezes,

shunning the track of her desiring father,

lest she should look upon her lawless begetter as a husband;

and Zeus the father gave way, leaving untouched

the swifter, uncaught, refusing Aphrodite;

and instead of Cyprian beds he sowed in the field,

pouring out the loving shower of child-begetting ploughs;

and the earth, receiving the bridal dew of Cronion,

shot up an alien horned race.

With these armed there ran together as one the Bacchae,

some from the cleft of Maeonia, some from the hill

of lofty Sipylus they darted above the peaks.

And the trailing-robed Oread nymphs with manly spirit,

raving, rushed on with the fair-thyrsus warriors,

those who lived a long span of time

at the much-whirling turning-post of the returning years, some

neighbours of the crags, sheep-keepers of the lonely pastures, some leaving

the wooded groves and the ridge of the wild forest,

the Meliae grown with the oak of their own age; who then all

hurried together to battle, some taking up

the bronze-backed timbrels, instruments of Cybelean Rhea,

some covering their locks with curling ivy,

others were wreathed with snaky clusters;

and in their hands they raised the sharpened thyrsus, with whom then the Lydian

maenads went, fearless, to the Indian war;

of whom then the Bassarids of the revel-band, in skilled craft

surpassing, hurried on, the nurses of Dionysus,

Aigle and Callichore and Eupetale and Ione

and laughing Calyce and Bryousa, companion of the Seasons,

and Seilene and Rhode and Ocynoe and Ereutho

and Acrete and Methe, and there followed, companion of Harpe,

rosy Oenanthe and silver-footed Lycaste,

Stesichore and Prothoe; and the smile-loving old

wine-heavy Trygie was armed last, even she.

Each led his own chosen host for Bacchus,

but over all led the fire-roaring Eiraphiotes,

flashing, conspicuous; and dancing to battle

he lifted no shield, no fierce spear, no sword on his shoulder,

he set no helmet on his unshorn hair,

the bronze, unbreakable shelter of the head, but his hair,

unbound, he bound with a snaky knot,

ringing his head with a grim crown; and instead of well-made,

cunning greaves up to the top of the knee

he set white feet in purple buskins,

fastening a shaggy fawnskin on his breast,

wearing a dappled corslet, a figure marked with stars;

and a golden round band he fitted to his loins.

In his left hand he held a horn filled with sweet wine,

golden, well-made, and from the wine-pouring horn

upright dropped a stream of wine-drinker's dew;

and in his right hand he lifted the goading thyrsus,

wreathed with wine-dark ivy, and on its topmost cluster

the bronze-heavy point was shaded by the leaves.

But when Dionysus, within the Corybantian court,

put on the golden, well-made gear of battle,

leaving the fair-weather dwellings of dance-delighting Rhea

he passed by Maeonia; and with the mountain-dwelling Bacchae

the warriors rushed on with the cluster-bearing god;

some, steersmen of the well-wheeled wagon,

carried the saplings of the new planting of Bacchus;

and many lines of mules went, and on their backs

they lifted the jars of vine-born nectar;

and on the patient backs of slow asses they set

crimson rugs and dappled skins of fawns;

and other wine-drinkers, with golden cups,

brought silver mixing-bowls, the weapons of the table;

and the Corybantes busied themselves near the bright-eyed manger,

binding the necks of leopards with a yoking strap,

and they fastened lions with ivy-bound traces,

binding their lips with a threatening bridle.

And a Centaur, with his shaggy bristling beard,

stretching of his own accord his willing neck into the yoke . . .

and having far more than the Satyrs a longing for sweet wine,

the half-formed man mingled with a horse neighed,

eager to lift Dionysus on his shoulders.

And the god of the fair vine, seated on the rim of his car

beside the stream of Sangarius, about the Phrygian gulf of the field,

passed by the mourning stone of stony Niobe;

and the stone, seeing the Indian throng striving against Lyaeus,

with tearful eyes again cried out in mortal voice:

"Do not array a god-fighting war, foolish Indians,

against the son of Zeus, lest Bacchus turn into stone

you too, who threaten Enyo, as Apollo did,

mourning, a likeness equal to my rocky form,

lest beside the stream of the river named for him, Indian Orontes,

you behold the son-in-law of Deriades fallen.

Rhea in her wrath can do more than the Arrow-pourer;

flee Bacchus, the brother of Phoebus; for I am ashamed,

at the Indians' slaying, to shed tears that are not mine."

So the stone cried out, and silence sealed it again.

And the god of the vine, after the foot of the Phrygian crag,

set foot on Ascania. And the citizens, gathered all together,

all to whom Iobacchus held out his fruit,

received both the rites and welcomed the dances,

bowing their necks to unconquered Dionysus,

wishing for the calm of bloodless peace;

such was the horned army of the Bacchae, with whom the Bacchae

were armed for battle. And for the wake-loving Lyaeus

all night, weaving a starry, fire-wheeling track,

the heaven thundered, since then with a witnessing flash

Rhea prophesied the end of the Indian-slaying victory.

To battle at dawn the god went, driving out the violence

of the dark men, that he might unyoke the slavish neck of the Lydians

and the dweller of Phrygia and the citizen of Ascania

from the dread traces of cruel lordship.

Then Bacchus sent to them two heralds of battle

to speak his message, either to flee or to fight;

and as they went there marched with them goat-grazing Pan,

bearing a long beard that shadowed his whole breast.

But Hera swift-sandalled, in the likeness of an Indian's body,

bade curly-haired Melaneus not to lift the wine-dark thyrsus,

Astraeis, the spear-shaking leader of men,

nor to honour the shout of the unmixed-wine-loving Satyrs,

but to raise a truceless battle against Dionysus;

and she spoke a word, persuading the Indian leader:

"Sweet is the man who fears a soft line of women.

Astraeis, fight; arm yourself too, Celaeneus,

holding cutting bronze against cluster-bearing Dionysus;

the thyrsus is no match for the spear. But, Celaeneus,

beware mad Deriades, lest he overcome you

for fleeing a worthless, iron-less woman."

So speaking she persuaded, and the goddess sank into the air,

the stepmother angry at war-staunch Dionysus.

And the heralds of Bromius departed; and close at hand

Astraeis overweening, with loveless threat,

raged, pursuing the ox-horned Satyrs and Pan,

dishonouring the heralds of gentle Dionysus.

And they, with the timid sole of a backward-returning foot,

bent a fleeing track to Dionysus, rouser of battle.

And Bacchus armed his host against the opposing lines of the Indians.

Nor did the womanish Enyo escape gloomy Celaeneus,

but darting unapproachable he armed the whole host of the Indians;

and bold Astraeis, swelling the war-staunch frenzy,

stood about the echoing stream of the Astacid lake,

awaiting the onset of cluster-bearing Dionysus.

But when the leaders of the double army, with unequal yoke of host,

marshalled all the lines of both,

with a shout the gloomy Indians went to battle,

like Thracian cranes, when, fleeing

the wintry lash and the airy pour of rain,

in flocks they swoop upon the heads of the Pygmies

about the streams of Tethys, and with sharp beak

they destroy the strengthless blood of the worthless race,

flying cloud-like over the horn of Ocean;

and on the other side the warriors raved into battle,

unbending servants of battle-rousing Dionysus;

and the phalanxes of the Bassarids flowed in; and as they gathered

one girt her head with a snaky bond,

another bound her hair with fragrant ivy,

another armed her hand with the bronze-bearing thyrsus,

frenzy-mad, and another, down her neck, free of bonds,

let fall the loose curls of her long hair,

a Maenalid unveiled, and over both her shoulders

the wind fanned up her unbound locks;

another shook the rattles yoked with double bronze,

tossing her curling tresses upon her head;

another in her hands, gripped by a leap of frenzy,

struck up an upright, answering echo of battle,

beating with her hands the deep-roaring backs of the oxhide;

and the thyrsi were spears, and hidden by the leaves

of the vine-shaft was a bronze-forged point;

another, longing for the bloody fray,

bound on her neck the bonds of raw-devouring serpents;

another a dappled-backed covering of leopards on her breast,

another, like a tunic on her flesh,

put on the dappled skins of crag-loving fawns,

binding close the covering of a cunning deer;

another, holding a cub of a shaggy-breasted lioness,

gave it suck at her human, milky, bastard breast;

and one bound a thrice-coiled snake on her harmless bosom,

a hidden girdle, gaping near her thigh,

hissing gently, and of the unmixed-wine-loving girl,

the sleeper, a wakeful watcher of her maidenhood;

another, bearing her feet bare of sandals over the mountains,

treading with her feet on brambles and sharp-haired thorns,

set a firm step on the sharpened wild-pear;

and one, darting upon a long-shanked camel,

cut through with her reaping thyrsus its curved neck,

and stumbling along the path with blind feet

was carried half-seen, and on its many-bent course

the headless body of the wandering camel was driven on,

and striking with its stumbling hoof the deepening earth

it rolled over of itself, backward, slipping in the dust;

another, leading her track to the cattle-rearing ridge of the wood,

irresistibly raging, seized the hide of a bull,

and from its neck, scored by her grim nails,

stripped away the unpierced bull-hide covering;

another drained out all the entrails; and one could see

a maiden, unveiled, unsandalled, high on a rock,

leaping about the rough headland of the crag;

she did not shudder at the hard-to-climb peak, nor did

the sharp-fixed nail of the hill scratch the girl's bare foot.

Many here and there beside the mouth of the Astacid lake

the Indian race was cut down by Curete iron.

And the warriors ringed about the phalanxes of the foe

with answering arms, and they mimicked the rhythm

of the shield-bearing dance with the coiling beat of their feet;

and with shaggy hand lifting a crested peak,

cutting off the topmost heads of a mountain, Leneus armed himself,

sending a jagged point against the foe;

and the Bacchant shrieked all about, and the vine-clad point

the Bassarid hurled, and of the black-skinned race

many male heads were cut down by the female thyrsus.

And cutting through a bold man with a deadly cluster

Eupetale was armed, and with cluster-loving leaf

she sent the goading ivy as crusher of iron;

and Stesichore rich in clusters leapt into the fray,

and routed the race of the foe with man-breaking whirl,

whirling the deep-roaring cymbals of double bronze.

And great was the battle on both sides; the pipe roared,

the battle-rousing pipe, and the flute of Enyo sounded,

and the Bassarids raised the cry; and as the battle rose

with thunderous crashes the black air, bellowing,

prophesied to Bromius from Zeus the victory to come.

And a great swarm fell; and the whole thirsty field

reddened with wet gore, and the mouth of the Astacid lake

gurgled, blood-stained, mingled with the slaughter of the Indians.

And the god pitied his foes with playful heart

and poured upon the stream the gift of drunkenness, and from the flow

the snow-white water changed to yellow nature,

and the river gurgled, drawing along honey-flowing streams,

and made its outflow drunk; and as the streams changed

fragrant breezes of newly-poured drunkenness breathed;

the banks reddened; and an Indian chieftain, drinking,

broke from his lips this much-wondering speech:

"Strange and incredible was the drink I saw, not goats' milk

white was this, nor black like water,

nor like that which I have seen in the many-holed hives

the humming bee brings forth in sweet wax;

but it has a fine-breathing smell that delights the mind.

A thirsty man, in the much-warming vapour of the heat,

drawing a little flowing water in his hands,

at once shakes off the storm of his parched thirst;

and honey rather brings a quick surfeit; ah, great wonder,

drinking this I wish to drink again; for both

this stream is sweet and breeds no surfeit in men.

Hebe, lift the pitcher and come here, take

the Trojan cup-bearer, the servant of holy goblets,

that, drawing from the honey-dropping river,

Ganymede may fill up all the bowls of Zeus.

Come, friends, taste the honey-flowing river.

Here I behold the likeness of the sky; for self-poured

is that which they call the drink of Zeus, the nectar of Olympus,

which the Naiads spout up in earthly streams."