Book 24

24. The four-and-twentieth holds the boundless lament of the Indians, and the shuttle of the loom-laboring Aphrodite, and her distaff.

But father Zeus turned aside the threat of his angry son, lashing the din of the close-woven clouds with thunder; and he soothed the wrath of boundless Ocean, restraining the fiery battle of Dionysus. And Hera crashed a boundless echo through the air, checking the wrath of fire-mighty Dionysus. And stretching out a watery hand to merciful Bacchus, to the fiery son of Zeus old Hydaspes shouted, welling up a suppliant word from his throat: "Spare me, Dionysus, the Zeus-fallen river, showing favor to my fruit-bearing waters; for from your waters there sprang up the fair-clustered vintage. I erred, fire-nurtured Dionysus; for the heavenly gleam of your torches proclaimed your lineage. But longing for my children compelled me; for to Deriades, my son, bringing loyalty, I roused the threat of my surges, rolling a helping swell for the slaughtered Indians. I am ashamed to appear before my father, because to the sea I drag streams mingled with murmuring blood and defile Poseidon with bloody drops; this, this it was that armed me to strive with Dionysus. But by your father of hosts and of suppliants, have shame for the Hydaspes, hot and seething with your fire. The Naiads flee my stream; and around my springs one dwells in a watery home, another in the thickets, companion of the Hamadryads, exchanging her plant for the sea, another holds the Indus as an exile, and one, fleeing on dusty feet, plunged into the thirsty Caucasian rock, and another, darting away to the Choaspes, dwells in foreign streams and no longer her father's water. Do not destroy the reeds, the offspring of my streams, on which, as they grow, leans the shoot of the vine, the grape-bearing shoot; for the reeds, bound to one another, buoy up your well-watered vintage; do not burn the reeds, from which come your Mygdonian pipes, lest your music-loving Athena ever reproach you, she who once, finding the grim likeness of the Gorgons' heads as they cried out, devised the Libyan form of the paired pipes; and have shame for the song that steers your mystic strain, the harmonious melody of the Pan-pipe; cease to wither the river's stream with your fennel-stalk, since the river's stream nourishes your fennel-stalks. You have not crossed a foreign stream that bears your name; for another, a different Dionysus I made bright in my baths, the namesake of the younger Bromius, when the son of Cronus entrusted Zagreus to my child-nurturing Nymphs; and you too bear the whole body of Zagreus; but to him grant a late-fulfilled favor, from whom you sprang; for from the heart of that first-born, the much-sung Dionysus, you arose. And honor the youth-nurturing water of your Lamus; remember Maeonia your fatherland; for of your gracious Pactolus the Hydaspes is the brother. And you, now stretching one favor to so many rivers, my kinsmen, rein back your radiance; do not burn with fire the flood of waters; for from waters sprang the lightning, the rainy fire of your Zeus. But soften your wrath, since I fall at your knees, spreading out a gentle, suppliant stream; for in his wars, if Typhoeus had bent his bold neck and been gentle, and, casting away the swelling, recoverable mass of his threat, your father, high-ruling Zeus, would have checked the lightning." So he spoke, and Dionysus reined back his pine-torch. And the Northern wind fanned the river-mouths with its wintry lash, bringing a stormy breeze, cooling the stream of the fire-struck river, honoring the sun and Bacchus and Zeus together, and quenched the unquenched divine fire of the surges. While Bacchus still sailed across the watery Hydaspes, meanwhile, with the daring of Ares, an overmighty rush, Deriades armed the Indians for the eponymous strife, setting his ranks about the stream, that the warriors might hold back the host of the Bacchae as they were still coming up. Nor did it escape the all-seeing eye of Zeus; and swiftly he was borne from heaven to shield Dionysus. And going as helpers to their own, one after another, with Zeus all the gods, dwellers of Olympus, came with winged leap; and for the sake of Aegina's bed the eagle hovered, a second time the high-flying Zeus, after the stream of Asopus, and air-roving Aeacus, gripping him with sparing talons, with snatching foot he lifted and brought him into the war of Deriades, to the Indian land; and from the broad-pathed gulf his father Apollo saved his son Aristaeus, bright, borne on his chariot of evil-warding swans, keeping the memory of his bridal chamber with lion-slaying Cyrene; and prevailing, long-winged Hermes snatched up his son, the son of Penelope, horn-spreading, long-haired Pan; and Urania rescued Hymenaeus from death, namesake of her fruitful son, and the airy paths she scored, like the track of a star, showing favor to her clustering brother Dionysus; and Calliope lifted Oeagrus on her shoulders; and Hephaestus took thought for his children, the Cabeiri, and snatched up both, like a swift flame; and Pallas Athena of the headland saved Erechtheus, the India-slayer, dweller of god-founded Athens; and the Hamadryad Nymphs all the dwellers of Olympus rescued, all who cared for the dear oaks; but beyond the rest the laurel Apollo, appearing, saved the laurel-nymphs, and together with him his mother helped them, his fellow-traveler, Leto, still honoring the childbed-trees. And the phalanx of the Bassarids and the cluster-bearing women from the deep, loud-roaring tumult were rescued by the daughters of Cydnus, the Zephyr-loving river, who knew the watery floating course, whom for victory in the Indian war their father gave to Bacchus, Naiads skilled in battle, whom once the art of war Cilician Typhoeus taught, when he warred with the son of Cronus. And the host accompanied them, traveling together; but the eager ones Euius outran, all of them, on his mountain-dwelling chariot scoring the stream with the track of his unwetted axle; and he held a course companioned with the Satyrs, with whom went the Bacchae, water-faring, and the Pans as fellow-travelers; but beyond the rest swifter the Telchines upon their sea-bred horses, drivers of their father's sea-founded car, joined the course of hastening Dionysus. Others were behind, and they pressed on by the crossing, coming up from another unseen path, where the god led the way; since, gently quivering his wing, the eagle led, Zeus in counterfeit form, across the mountain, with sparing talons bearing his son aloft, Aeacus borne high upon the airy path. And they danced, leaping over the Indian crag, and chased over the rocks, and dwelt in the thickets, and pitched their tents in the gently shadowy wood . . . and others held the fawn-chasing hunt of long-horned deer along with their hounds; and with the Hamadryad Nymphs the Water-nymphs of plant-loving Dionysus mingled. And the phalanxes of the Bassarids, beside the Erythraean thicket, nursed the cub of a mountain-dwelling lioness, and their breasts welled up with the moisture of self-flowing milk; another, pursuing her longing for the snaky cluster, searched the caves of venom-shooting serpents through the mountain, and displayed her hunting-craft; and with the casting thyrsus one struck the storm-footed fawn; another, unseen, with a maddened leap ran down a raging bear; and one gripped the spine of black-hided beasts and climbed the mane of the mountain-roaming elephants. And one of the archers fitted a shaft to the curved string and shot an elm; but another took an olive for his mark; and another struck a pine; and a great whistle of arrows sent forth hissed in the air toward a neighboring fir. For them the mountain-sounding revel roared. But grieving, Thoureus came to king Deriades, a bringer of ill news, announcing with speechless tears the slaughter of the Indians, and scarcely from his mouth lifted up his mournful voice: "Sceptered Deriades, god-born scion of Enyo, we went, as you bade, to the crag over against us, we found in the glens a lonely neighboring thicket; there we set our ambush and waited, until there should come the thyrsus-mad Dionysus; and as Bacchus came on the pipe crashed out, and as the rough oxhide was beaten on both sides there was a bronze-clanging echo and the noise of the syrinx; and the whole thicket quivered and the oaks spoke and the hills danced; the Naiads raised the ritual cry. And I armed the warriors, shrinking, trembling, dragging the unwilling into battle. And the god, whom they call by name, shaking his pointed thyrsi, shooting the Indian race with his worthless leaves, slew on the plain a boundless host struck by the sharp thyrsus, and in the surges destroyed the remnant of the Indians. But let us ask the wise Brahmans, that you may learn whether this is a god come against us, or a mortal man. Do not raise a useless nightly battle, do not destroy your army in lightless war; already the misty gloom is stretched out; and near at hand the Evening Star gleams, checking the strife. But if longing holds you for the hard-faced tumult, hold back the Indian today, and tomorrow you draw them into battle." So speaking, he persuaded the unyielding Deriades, won over not for weakness' sake, but as one finding fault with the setting Sun and not yielding to Lyaeus. And withdrawing the Indian phalanx from the river, overmighty Deriades retreated in mournful frenzy, seated on the manes of his returning elephants. And the Indians here and there with their towering king sped into the city in flight, within their walls hearing of the victory of war-mad Dionysus. And already a mournful rumor flew through the town, announcing the kindred slaughter of the newly-slain Indians. And the lament was boundless; and of the dirge-loving women the circles of their faces were scored with mourning nails, and the tunics were rent at the middle of the breast, baring their bosoms, and with alternate blows beaten by their hands the rim of their breasts was reddened, blood-soaked. And a gray old man on the threshold of old age cut his snowy lock with downcast iron, hearing that his four youthful sons had perished, whom Aeacus had subdued with a single ghastly sword, slaughtered piteously; and of the heavy-suffering women one mourned her brother, another her father; another, a bride with varied tears, lamented her bridegroom newly-wed, like Protesilaus, another a Laodameia; and of the newly-yoked bride the unbraided, veilless cluster of her hair was torn. And one, the helpless wife of a fallen Indian, having fulfilled the near-birth pangs of childbed and beholding the tenth childbearing circle of the Moon, much-weeping, mourned her husband's watery death, and wrathful at the river broke into a wailing cry: "I will never drink my bitter fatherly Hydaspes; no longer do I pass by those streams, no longer, wretched, shall I touch the river that has hidden your corpse, no, by you and by your burden that I bear within my womb, no, by the love that time does not know how to wither. Who will take and carry me to where my dead husband fell, that I may embrace the watery corpse, that the wave may hide me too with my water-faring husband? Would that I had borne a son and reared him; but now, wretched, the swell of my belly holds me, my childbirth ripening. And if I ever bear a child and he asks for his father, to my son, calling for his papa, how shall I show his father?" She spoke to the husband who did not hear, lamenting. And another mourned the unwedded wedding-songs of her dying suitor, whom the marriageable season did not see crowned with a bridal wreath, nor in the bridal chamber did the sweet-sounding, life-saving pipe of the Loves sing. For them in their grief was the lament. But around the thickets Bacchus, with his Satyrs and his India-slaying warriors, held a feast; and bulls were carved, and heifers in rows were cut up with the knife, struck with axes, and from the Erythraean flock thick herds of spear-won sheep were sacrificed. And sitting in throngs at the well-rounded table the Sileni and the Satyrs with fair-thyrsused Dionysus with their many hands touched a single feast; and boundless wine was drunk in turn; and the cup-bearers emptied the fragrant, countless wine-jars, drawing the blameless grape of the nectarous vintage. And as they took their delight, singing beside the mixing-bowl, the Lesbian, self-taught Leucus wove a song, how the former Titans armed themselves against Olympus; and he sang the true victory of high-ruling Zeus, how broad-bearded Cronus, sinking beneath the thunderbolt, he sealed in the dark Tartarean gulf, armed in vain with the watery weapons of winter. And Lapethus, citizen of the unarmed Cyprian soil, sat beside the thoughtful harper, and offered him a rich portion of the feast, and asked him to sing that delightful tale, dear to never-silent Athens, of loom-laboring Cythereia striving with Athena. And he, playing the lyre, struck up to sing of Cypris, how once, holding the goad of distaff-loving care, with unpracticed hands she went after the loom of Athena, lifting the shuttle and no longer the girdle of the Loves. And the thick thread of the Paphian was stretched, like a long twisted withy-cord, well-plaited, such as by some craft in long stretches an old shipwright stitches, fencing the newly-finished, gaping timbers of ships; and she all day and all night beside the loom made and unmade Pallas' work, and with a strange, unwonted toil she wore out her untoughened hands; and with the many-toothed comb scraping the cloth and hanging the dancing weight at the middle of the shuttle, she wove a robe, and Cypris became Athena; and the toil was without laughter; and as the robe was woven the broad thread swelled monstrous; and of themselves the warp-threads broke as the cloth thickened; and she had as witnesses of her twofold labor's craft the sun and the lamp and the necessary Moon. Not for her did the dancing handmaids of the Paphian dance the dance of Orchomenos; but with a whirling rush Pasithea twirled the spindle, and Peitho became a wool-worker, and Aglaia gave the thread and the spun yarn to her mistress. And the life of mortal marriages wandered astray; and the harmony of unwedded wedding-songs, useless, old Aion, charioteer of life, lamented in dismay; and unhonored Love unstrung his fiery bowstring, gazing at the unbegotten, unplowed furrow of the world. Then was no lovely sound of lyres, then no syrinx, no clear pipe sang, shrilling "Hymen, O Hymenaeus"; but as life dwindled and the race was lashed, the bars of the indissoluble yoke were heaved aside. And toil-enduring Athena saw the labor-loving Paphian, and held wrath mingled with laughter, when she saw the long, rough cord of the labor-untried Cythereia; and she announced it to the immortals; and with heavy-jealous purpose she spoke, finding fault both with Cypris and with her father: "Your gift, heavenly Zeus, comes shifting and inconstant; no longer do I hold the gift of the Fates; for the loom-laborer, your daughter Aphrodite, has plundered my lot. Lady Hera did not seize Athena's lot, the sister and consort of my Zeus, but she vexes Agelaia, armed with shields from birth, that steward of bridal chambers, the tender goddess. But of your kind when did unwarlike Cythereia fight in the front of Olympus, or what Titans did she destroy with her womanish girdle, that after wars she now does me violence? But you yourself, tell me, Archeress, when from the midst of your forest did you ever see Athena shooting or hunting? Who calls on the gray-eyed one when women are in labor?" As she spoke, the gods, dwellers of Olympus, gathered, wishing to see Aphrodite plying the loom. And beholding the labors of the battle-untried Cythereia, in wonder they ringed round the goddess's counterfeit work; and laughing, mockery-loving Hermes spoke again: "You hold a loom, Cythereia; leave your girdle to Athena. If you handle the thread, if you stretch the shuttle with your hands, take up also the rushing spear and the aegis of Tritogeneia. I know, Cythereia, from where you weave the much-clattering loom; your guile does not escape me; perhaps your bridegroom Ares demands of you lovely tunics for the wedding. Weave a robe for Ares; but on the newly-spun robe do not embroider a shield; for what has Aphrodite to do with shields? Make Phaethon the light-bearing witness of your bed, announcing the thief who plundered your couch in secret; if you wish, embroider also your ancient bonds, and let a modest hand fashion the god, the bastard husband; and you too, Love, after your bow, twirling your spindle, make threads for your mother, distaff-loving Cythereia, that after the winged one I may call you a loom-laborer too, and after the ox-string sinews behold the fiery god drawing out the spool past the thread instead of arrows. In gold fashion Ares beside golden Aphrodite, carrying a shuttle in his hand and not brandishing an oxhide shield, embroidering a double cloak with the work-laboring Cythereia. But, goddess Cythereia, from your distaff-loving hands cast the threads to the winds and busy yourself with your girdle-strap, and take thought for wedlock a second time; for the first-born world still wanders astray, while you still weave a robe." So he spoke, and they smiled, all the dwellers of Olympus. And casting away the half-finished thread of the cloth, ashamed before the gray-eyed one, Cythereia went up to her own Cyprus, the nurse of the human race; and Love once more fitted the shifting-formed life to his girdle, sowing the childbed-circle of the well-plowed world. Such a lovely-voiced song Leucus wove, hymning Aphrodite, untaught in the distaff, who had raised a great quarrel with the work-laboring Athena.

But when there was satiety of the wine-loving table, welling up wine, they fell on the lonely bed; some on the broidered fawnskin, some on leaves spread out, others, above the poured dust, strewed a pallet for themselves with goatskins; and others kept company with battle-rousing dreams, spreading their bronze bodies in warlike sleep, of whom one struck an Indian seated high upon a horse, another pierced an Indian on the neck, and one, slaughtering, struck a footman with his sword, and one wounded Deriades; and another, sending his air-roving shaft high, struck the towering elephants with a dreaming arrow. And the breeds of leopards and the wild tribes of lions and the hunting hounds of desert-roaming Dionysus kept the sleepless watch of alternate guard, waking all night within the mountain wood, lest the battle of the dark Indians rush upon them; and torches in rows flashed toward Olympus, the lamps of the sleepless Bacchic dance.