Book 16

16. In the sixteenth book I sing of bridal Nicaea, the sleeping consort of unsleeping Dionysus.

Nor was the murder of the plaintive herdsman unavenged, but taking up his bow and drawing his lovely arrow impetuous Eros, unseen, armed himself against Dionysus, who sat beside the bank of the smooth-pebbled river. And swift Nicaea, after the course of her usual hunting, streaming with unstoppable sweat from her labours among the loved crags, washed her naked body in baths poured down from the mountains. Nor did the far-shooting Eros delay: against the string he set the tip-showing notch of the winged arrow, he bent his bow round, and into the heart of love-maddened Lyaeus he drove the whole shaft. And in the streams, seeing the bare-skinned girl swimming, Dionysus was shaken in mind by the fiery, sweet-maddening dart. He went here and there, wherever the hare-club-bearing girl was, now gazing at the curling locks of her hair stirred by the circling breezes as she sped into her course, now watching, where her tresses were drawn aside, the gleaming nakedness of her neck, that sent out a light like the Moon's; and he neglected the Satyrs and no longer delighted in the Bacchants; and looking toward Olympus he spoke with a love-begetting voice: 'I will go where the dewy running-ground is, where the quiver, where the arrow and the lovely bow, where too the very couches of the unwed maiden breathe with perfume; I will touch the nets' stakes and spread the toils with my hands; I too will hunt, and bring down the familiar fawn. And if, like some heavy-tempered Amazon, she should reproach me, belching a womanish weight of honey-sweet threat, to the knees of the angry girl I will bring my hand, touching her lovely flesh as a suppliant — not lifting an olive branch, since that is the tree of Athena, the unwed and unbeguiled maiden, but instead of a bitter, glistening bough, to my honey-sweet bride I will lift up, in supplication, a cluster bearing the wine-dark fruit of the honey-dripping vintage. And if she should be angered, the maiden of the curved bow, let her not fix her spear in my flesh, nor again draw the murderous arrow, but in shame let her strike my body with the very tip of her sweet bow: I care nothing for a stroke that charms the heart. And if she wishes, let her seize my hair with her lovely hands, tugging the willing locks of my bound tresses. I will never restrain the maiden, but as though in anger I will press her clenching right hand with a relentless grip, taking her reddening fingers in a hooked clasp, a comfort for the toil of Cypris — for the maiden has plundered all the beauty of Olympus. Be gracious, Cerne! Astacis has sprung up as a new rose-fingered Dawn, another light-bearer has grown up — for the younger holds her form unchanging: Nicaea is a Moon. I longed, in my desire, to change my many-fashioned form; were it not that reverence for my father's modesty holds me back, I too, through the Tyrian water, a bull crossing the wet, would carry my Nicaea unwetted over the seas and swim — like the bridegroom of Europa — and unwilling I would shake my back, so that, as the girl was tossed, her all-white right hand might seize my horn. I longed, were I a winged husband, that I might dance lifting unshaken the woman upon my back, as Cronides bore Aegina, so that after the bed I might make the eagle, that other bird, a star to adorn the loves' wedding. Yet I will not, by striking my wife's father with a thunderbolt, grant my bride the wicked dowry of her father's ruin, lest I grieve sweet Nicaea by his destruction. Would I were a bastard bird with goodly wings, since she too, our own maiden, loves winged arrows. Rather, longing for Danae's watery shape of love, I longed, were I become the golden shower as her husband, myself the gift of wedlock, myself the spouse, that I might dance pouring down on her the rich, loving shower of dew; for it would befit my Nicaea, my fair-faced girl, who has a golden form, to have a golden husband.' Such words, raving with love, he cried in a frenzied voice. And once, walking within a fragrant meadow, he gazed at all the blossoming flowers, kin in hue to the girl, and spoke a word to the misty breezes: 'Only now, scarcely, Nicaea, have I seen your shape here. Did you not change your beauty into flowers? For gazing on the fair-formed rose-bed I recognized your cheeks; and your rose blooms unfading — for you wear the inborn, never-ceasing, blushing anemone. Turning my eye to the lily, I saw your snowy palms, and beholding the hyacinth I saw your dark-blue hair. Receive me as your fellow-traveller in the hunt; and if you wish, I myself will bear the sweet burden of the stakes, I will carry the high boots and the bow and the lovely arrows, I myself — I have no need of the Satyrs. Did not Apollo himself, beside the thicket, lift the nets of Cyrene? What grudge is it, if I too handle the net? I do not toil when I carry my Nicaea upon my own shoulders. Nor am I greater than my father — for in the surging waters the sea-crossing bull bore Europa undrenched. Rosy maiden, why has the woodland so pleased you? Spare your lovely limbs, and let no rocky, unspread couch wear away your back upon the stones. I will be your chamber-servant, if you wish; and in the hall I myself will spread your bedding, and over it lay the richly-dappled skins of leopards, and with them throw the bristling, thick-haired hides of a lion's covering, baring my own limbs; and you shall sleep sweet sleep covered by the dappled fawnskins of Dionysus; and a fitting screen of Mygdonian deer I throw on high, stripping the Satyrs. And if you have need of hounds, I will give you at once all my Pan's dogs together, and bring other hounds from Sparta, those that my Carneian Apollo rears for the loves of young men, and I will summon the hunting hounds of Aristaeus; and I will bring nets with their stakes and fitting gifts, the high boots of Nomius and Agreus, who long ago knew both the rich-meadowed pasture and the course of the toilsome chase. And if you fear the flame of the summer-born thirsty season, I will plant vine-shoots over your bed, and the fragrant breezes of wine will breathe around you as you lie within the midst of a covering of many grape-clusters. Wandering maiden, of the love-stricken face, pity your cheeks, smitten by Phaethon's heat, lest the Sun's brilliance wither the beam of your limbs, lest the winds spoil your perfumed locks: sleep amid the roses and on the petals of the hyacinth, resting your head on Dionysus your neighbour, that you may kindle one revel for the four immortals, for Phoebus and Zephyr and Cypris and Dionysus. I would grant you, as plunder, a dark-skinned brood of Indians, chamber-servants of your bridal bower — but why have I named the dark race as escorts of your bed? When does white Dawn ever mingle with black-cloaked Night? Astacis, you are a younger Artemis — but I myself will bring you sixty handmaids, dancers, that I may make a countless choir to attend you, equal in number to the handmaids of the mountain Archeress, like the daughters of Ocean, so that Artemis may not vie with you in hunting, even if she is mistress of the chase. To you I grant the Graces of holy Orchomenus as handmaids, taking over my children of Aphrodite. But charm your unbeguiled heart with desire, and let my bed receive you after the toil of the hunt, that you may appear Artemis among the crags and Aphrodite in the bridal chambers. What grudge is it, that you should hunt with hunting Lyaeus? And if you have got a frenzy for battle, then, like a famed-bow Amazon, you shall come to the Indian war, that you may be Persuasion apart from strife and, when there is combat, Athena. Take too, if you wish, the deer-slaying thyrsi of Lyaeus, and become a fawn-slayer; and by your own hands and by your own labours adorn my chariot, yoking a leopard or lions to the bridle.' So speaking he pursued the mountain girl, his neighbour, crying out this word: 'Wait, maiden, for Bacchus your husband.' But she, growing angry, raised up a mighty voice, the maiden, hurling a furious mouth against Lyaeus: 'Go and say these things to some loving bride. If you can drag the grey-eyed one or Artemis into wedlock, then you have mighty Nicaea too as an obedient bride; for I am companion-in-arms to both. But if there flees you the unforeseen wedding of unlabouring Athena, then neither will you charm the mind of the disobedient Archeress. Do not seek the bed of Nicaea; nor let me see you laying hand to bow and fingering the quiver. Lest, after the herdsman Hymnus who perished, I bring you down too. I will wound the unwounded Dionysus — unless against iron you bear a flesh unscarred and unyielding to the dart. I will imitate the high-crested sons of Iphimedeia, and bind you with iron, inextricable chains, just like your brother, and within a hiding-place of bronze jars I will keep you too, after Ares, until, fulfilling twelve circuits of the Moon, you cast off your frenzy to the airy winds. With woman-mad hands do not touch my quiver: I have a bow, you a thyrsus; on the Astacian cliff I send my arrow here against boars or lions, Artemis' fellow-contestant, but over the rock of Lebanon do you too hunt fawns, hunting alongside Aphrodite. I do not accept your bed, even if you carry the blood of Zeus; for if I wished to have a god as husband, I would not have a soft-haired, ironless, feeble spouse of womanish form, I would not have Dionysus, but there would be guarded for my bridal a bridegroom either the famed-bow lord or bronze Ares — one holding a bow, the other a sword as the loves' dowry; but since I will accept none of the blessed ones, the frenzy does not hold me even to call your father Cronion my father-in-law. Seek another, Bacchus, a young and obedient bride. Why do you hurry? You run an unattainable course, as once Leto's son pursued Daphne, and as Hephaestus pursued Athena; why do you hurry? This course is vain; for among the crags the hunting-boots are far better than buskins.' So speaking she left Bacchus. And ever beneath the grazing thicket he sought the mountain-wandering maiden; and as he sped, a hound ran with him, a faithful companion with a prudent heart, which once, to mountain-loving Dionysus as he hunted, high-horned Pan, the rearer of whelps, had given to keep as a gift. And watching it as though it had understanding and a voice, his fellow-ranger, his road-companion, his partner in toils, Bacchus, raving with love, embraced it with a friendly speech: 'Why, wandering hound, are you the running-mate of Lyaeus, you who deserve forever the longing Pan? Why do you alone track with Dionysus as he tracks the maiden? Has your keeper made you pitying toward loves? Seek still our maiden, and do not, among the rocks, leave Bacchus to wander alone over the mountains. You alone pity me, and like a mortal, into the ridge of the woodland you go after the leafy haunts of the wandering girl. Toil for your king; and in return for your toils I will give you a recompense: after the star Sirius of Maera, I will lead you within the heaven and make you a star near the earlier Dog, so that you too may ripen the grape-cluster, shooting your gleam upon the Eileithyia of the cluster. What grudge is it that a third Dog should rise? You too will shine running beside the starry, hastening Hare. If it is right, while pitying me, find fault with the chaste girl. Turning a sidelong eye toward the ridge of Cybele's woodland, because the woman still flees me, a god, as I seek her; find fault with both, with Adonis and with Cythereia, and pursue restless Echo, the wanderer through the mountain, lest she make my bride still more a fugitive from the bed; and do not leave your love-sick Pan near the girl, lest he seize her and yoke her in compelled wedlock. If you see the maiden, come swiftly, announcing it to Dionysus by a witnessing silence or by intelligent barkings; be the messenger of my desire; let some other hound wander chasing either boars or lions from the crag. Dear Pan, I call you most blessed, since even your own hounds are born searchers-out of the loves.' 'You who play, many-shaped Fortune, with the mortal race, be gracious, all-subduer; for after the mortal breed you rule the whelps too, since this ill-fated wanderer serves, after Pan, the longing Lyaeus as well; find fault with the maiden, dear oaks; say it, you rocks: even the hounds pity, and yet the Amazon did not show mercy. There are prudent ones even among the whelps, to whom Cronion gave a human mind, though he granted no mortal voice.' He spoke near a plant; and through the leafy cluster, hearing the voice of woman-mad Dionysus, the ancient Melia raised a mocking cry: 'Others, Dionysus, are hunting here, urging on their hounds for the Archeress, but you hunt for Aphrodite; sweet is he who dreads the soft-skinned, unwedded girl; bold Bacchus has become a suppliant, a servant of the loves; with his Indian-slaying hands he begs a feeble girl. Your father did not know how, with mind-charming speech of desire, to lead an obedient girl into wedlock, into marriage; he did not entreat Semele, until he won his love. He did not persuade Danae, until he plundered her maidenhood; you know Ixion's wife, joined to Zeus, and the bridal neighing and the horse-wedding; you learned the playful ordinance of the loves with Antiope, and the laughing Satyr, the false, mimic husband.' So she spoke, mocking the timid mind of Bacchus. And she went within the oak, her coeval. And upon the hills, grieving, Dionysus followed the frenzied girl with love-maddened feet; and the swift-sandalled Amazon, restless, went over the topmost heads of the trackless rock, stealing away the footprint from the searching Lyaeus. And as her skin was lashed by Phaethon's fiery brand, the parched lips of the thirsty girl grew dry, unmoistened; and not knowing the trick of woman-mad Dionysus, she saw the yellow water of the wine-loving river, and drank the sweet stream, whence the fiery Indians had drunk; and her mind whirled, and the girl raved in drunkenness, and she shook her head, shifting with a double throbbing, and she thought she saw a twin, capacious lake as she rolled her eyes; and as her head grew heavy she beheld the doubled ridges of the beast-feeding hill; and slipping on the dust with trembling feet she was dragged, self-rolling, onto the wing of neighbouring Sleep; and the heavy-kneed bride was charmed by the bridal swoon. Seeing her asleep, Eros pointed her out to Bacchus, pitying Hymnus; but Nemesis laughed to see it. And crafty Dionysus, with noiseless boots, crept soundless to the wedding with a cunning beat of his feet. He came near the girl; and gently, drawing the topmost fastening, the guardian of her inviolate girdle, he loosed it with a sparing hand, that sleep might not let the maiden go. And the earth, opening her fragrant childbed, gave birth in travail to a plantation, in favour of Dionysus, and lifting up a great vine-bearing canopy the plaited stake was weighed down with clustering fruit; and the bed was shaded with leaves — for of its own accord the vine's tendril girdled the well-vined couch; and many a wandering grape-cluster, high in the air with wine-dark fruit, was shaken here and there by the breezes of Cypris, and shrouded them both; and with celery-bearing cluster the lovely shoot of the vine, its yoke-mate, made drunk the woven ivy, climber upon the swelling vintage. And the crafty wedding was like a dream-bed, having sleep for its partner; and she was robbed of maidenhood, the slumbering girl, and beheld, as escort of the loves, sleep the under-servant of the wine-tottering wedding. And the breeze, in the high-coursing leaping of the frenzied wood, restless, self-shouting, wove a hymn of the loves, and the wind-roaming song of the mountain-dwelling wedding the maiden Echo answered with shamefaced lips, the daughter of Pan, late-voiced; and dancing above the ground the flute resounded, singing 'Hymen, O Hymenaeus'; this lovely wedding the mountain pine proclaimed. And the wind-roaming soul of the herdsman, darting up, stirred the sleeping maiden with nightly dreams: 'There are Furies even for one who loves, well-wed girl; if you fled Hymnus your bridegroom, you have been wedded to Dionysus; crookedly you give judgement, chamber-keeping maiden bride; for you kill the one who loves, and pursue the one who does not woo. Maiden, you gave brazen sleep to Hymnus who loved you; maiden, sweet sleep has destroyed your maidenhood. Pitifully, laughing, you saw the blood of the herdsman struck down; more pitifully, lamenting, you have seen the blood of your maidenhood.' So speaking, like to shadowy smoke, the tearful soul of the love-stricken herdsman sped away, and unreachable plunged into the all-receiving hall of Tartarus, bearing envy of Bacchus and his wine-tottering wedding. And striking out a bridal sound on his clear reeds, hiding the envy beneath his heart, the hymn-singing Pan spoke a reproachful song against another's wedding. And one of the love-maddened Satyrs, beside the neighbouring thicket, an insatiable gazer at the unseen wedding, told the Bacchic tale, having seen the fair-maiden bed: 'Horned Pan, do you still alone run after Aphrodite? And you too — when will you be the bridegroom of the pursued Echo? And you too — when will you contrive such a helping trick, an aid for your own unwedded wedlock? Dear Pan, become you too a planter instead of a herdsman, and renounce the shepherd's crook, and beside the rock leave the cattle and the sheep — what will the herdsmen do for you? Wake, and plant you too the wedding-arranging wine of the loves.' The tale was not yet ended when the goat-feeding Pan cried out: 'Would my father had taught me the trick of marriage-fulfilling wine! Would that, like Bacchus, I ruled the mind-deranging grape! Then I too would have fulfilled the much-wandering frenzy of my loves, seeing sleeping and drunk the ill-maiden Echo. Be gracious, this pasture of mine, since beside the neighbouring spring I water these sheep, but with the wine-loving stream Dionysus drags unbeguiled maidens into wedlock. He has found a drug for love, his own plant: away with the milk of goats, away with the milk of our sheep — for it cannot bring sleep upon desire or drag a maiden into wedlock. I alone, Cythereia, am forced — alas for the loves!' The pipe of Pan fled the unwedded wedlock and hailed with joy the just-accomplished wedding of Dionysus with self-sounding strains; and the more — to his accustomed song the answering Echo replied as Syrinx sounded: 'Dionysus, mortal-charming shepherd of the bridal wine, you alone have become blessed, since, when the bride refused, you found wine, the wedding-arranging helper of the loves.' Such a word the love-sick, grieving Pan recited, holding envy and longing for marriage-fulfilling Lyaeus. And having accomplished his love and his desire of the wayside bed, Dionysus rose up on his unspeakable sandal. And the bride, waking, blamed the river spring, angry at sleep and Cypris and Dionysus, drenched with a tearful rain; and grieving she heard still the remnants of the Naiads' bridal song, and the herald of the bed of love-stricken Lyaeus — shaded by the leaves of the vine she saw the couch covered with the bridal fawnskins of Dionysus, self-announcing the secret bed; she saw too her own maiden girdle filled with the bridal dew. And she gashed her rosy cheeks, and beating both her thighs she roared with a plaintive voice: 'Alas for my maidenhood, which the Euian water snatched away; alas for my maidenhood, which the sleep of the loves snatched away; alas for my maidenhood, which wandering Bacchus snatched away. Away with the deceiving drink of the Water-nymphs, away with the bed! Hamadryad nymphs, whom shall I blame? For my maidenhood sleep, Eros, trickery, wine have plundered. Even Artemis has renounced maidens — but she herself, why did Echo, all her body, not tell me, "flee the bed"? Why into my ear, only that I might not hear Bacchus, did Pitys not whisper, and Daphne not speak, "Maiden, beware of drinking the deceiving water"?' She spoke, and gushed up a much-weeping rain of the eye. And now she longed to press a sword against her neck, now, self-rolling, she wished to fall from the mountain headlong at the last, slipping in the dust; and she longed to wipe out the drink of the bridal spring, had not the earlier flood, changed from the moisture of Bacchus, murmured white water and no longer the stream of Lyaeus. And she entreated Cronides and Artemis, that he might dry up the courts of the Naiads, made dusty in thirsty ground. Often she strained her eye through the mountain, in case she might find the unsteady footprint of the unseen Dionysus, that a woman might strike the god with her bow, that she might subdue the cluster-bearing deity; and she wished still more to destroy with fiery fire that whole bridal vine. Often, beholding through the mountain the tracks of Bacchus, she shot, aiming her arrows at the airy gusts; often she lifted her spear and stood facing her mark, that she might strike the body of the unwounded Dionysus; but in vain she let fly, and did not hit Lyaeus. And she was angry at the river and swore that never from its spring would she drink the deceiving water with thirsty lips; she swore too to keep a sleepless eye through the nights, she swore to sleep no other sweet sleep in the mountains. And she was angry at the guardian hounds, because they too had not then armed themselves against woman-mad Lyaeus. And she sought a high remedy against death by hanging, crushing her neck, entwined in a strangling bond, shunning the mocking blame of her companion youth. And unwilling she left the ancient beast-nurturing wood, ashamed to appear before the Archeress after the bed. And filled with the drop of holy Lyaeus' seed she bore a burden in her womb; and when the labour was fulfilled the life-warming Hours delivered a female birth, and confirmed the nine-circuit course of the Moon; and from the wedlock of Bromius the god-sped girl flowered, whom he named Telete, ever rejoicing in festivals, the night-dancing girl, follower of Dionysus, delighting in castanets and in the double-beaten oxhide. And beside the wine-loving lake the god built a fair-stoned city, Nicaea, which he called by the name of the nymph Astacis, after his Indian-slaying victory.