Book 25

25. In the twenty-fifth you have the contest of Perseus and the judgment of Heracles against the valor of Dionysus.

Muse, make war once more on the cunning fray with the wise thyrsus; for not yet has the Eastern War-god bent a slave's knee under Dionysus and lulled to sleep the seven-year struggle; but, awe-struck still at the dragon-bearded crest of the Indian plane-tree, its nestlings cry out again, foretellers of the Bacchic war. I will not sing the first six years, when the Indian host was inside its walls; but, completing my work in mimicry of Homer's pattern, I will hymn the last year of the wars, and I will inscribe a battle matched in number to the seventh year of my sparrow. To seven-gated Thebes I will mingle my song, since she too, maddened, runs in Bacchic frenzy about me, and like a bride has bared her breast above her downcast robe, remembering Pentheus. And to urge me to my singing old Cithaeron held out to me his grieving hand, ashamed, lest I cry aloud the lawless bed or the father-slaying husband, the son who lay beside her who bore him. I hear the Aonian lyre's voice. Tell me, Muses, what Amphion again draws the breathless stone into the dance? I know the source of this sound: to Thebes that is being sung the Dorian echo of the Pindaric lyre rang out. But let us again slay the race of the Red-skinned Indians; for never has time looked upon another fray to match it before the Eastern war, nor after the Indian struggle has it seen another late-accomplished Enyo to balance it, nor did so great an army come to Ilion, nor a fleet of men so vast; but, contending with the young and the firstborn alike, I will raise up the well-toiled sweat of Dionysus, judging the valor of the sons of Zeus, that I may understand who labored at such a contest, who proved equal to Bacchus. Perseus, indeed, swift of knee, plying his well-feathered track, held a course near the clouds, a wayfarer on foot in the air, if truly he flew. But what was the greater feat, if, plying his ankles, he swam a strange rowing with his windy sole, in that, with the plundering grip of his deep-sunk hand, seizing the wandering eye of sleepless Phorcys's daughters, guarded by the noiseless leap of his point-piercing sandals, he mowed the snaky harvest of Medusa alone— whose womb, still swelling with offspring, was pressed, in labor with Pegasus, and the bride's pregnant neck, the Gorgon's, the travail-bringing sickle reaped, the harvest of that horse-bearing throat? And, of a war he never fought, swift-sandaled Perseus lifted up the tokens of victory, breathless, the snake-coiled crop of the Gorgon's hair, the relics of a head streaming with bloody drops, the half-completed hiss from the newly-severed throats thinly murmuring beneath. And he stood not in manly combat, nor was there then the din of land-battle, nor on the sea did the seaman War-god billow out for warring Perseus the warlike sails of ships with battle-rousing winds; nor with murderous spray did Libyan Nereus turn crimson, nor did the deadly water receive a corpse rolled in by its own course; but, trembling at the hiss of the dragon-tressed hair of raging Stheno, winged Perseus spun about, and bearing the helmet of Hades and the sickle of Pallas, and holding the wing of Hermes and Zeus for his father, the fugitive was lifted aloft on swifter sandal, hearing the bellow of Euryale and not the trumpet, having plundered a small cave of Libya. He slew no army of men, he laid no city in ashes with the flaming brand. But not such was the fray of Bromius: not creeping on foot was Bacchus armed, a guileful champion, nor by ambush of the wakeful circle of the eye that passes back and forth, the ever-shifting watch of Phorcys's daughters borrowed from Sleep, did he accomplish the womanish feat against unarmored Medusa; but, cleaving through the ranks of his foes with twofold victory of war on land and battle through the waters, he drenched the earth with gore, and mingling the wave with blood he made the Nereids crimson with the reddening stream, slaying barbarian tribes. And many upon their mother Earth, the high-crested harvest of the Indians, were entombed headless, and many, perished in the deeps beneath the sharp thyrsus, were ferried of themselves as voyagers over the sea, the dead throng of the Indians. And for unconquered Lyaeus, when the battle-rousing river fought with its waters, I pass by the billowing War-god, when the Bacchic pine, smoldering, set the barbarian water aflame with its sodden spark, and watery Hydaspes seethed with hot wave, gushing up his river smoke. But you will say that Perseus slew the sea-bred monster: with the Gorgon's eye he turned the beast of the sea to stone. What was the greater feat, if, watching for the eye of murderous Medusa, Polydectes, changing the alien form of human limbs, was molded of himself into stone? But the mighty toil of Indian-slaying Bacchus was no single Gorgon, no air-roaming, sea-beaten stone, nor any Polydectes; but he mowed the stalk of dragon-haired Giants, Bacchus excelling with his little, man-breaking thyrsus, when, hurling the warlike ivy at Porphyrion, he struck Enceladus and drove back Alcyoneus, fighting with leaves. And the thyrsi were shot as arrows, slayers of the earthborn, defenders of Olympus, when the coiling people of the Field with two hundred hands, pressing the starry rim against their many-ridged temple, bent the knee to the slender spear-flinging cluster, to the ivy-spear—and not by the fiery thunderbolt did so great a swarm fall as by the man-breaking thyrsus. But, friends, let us judge. In the eastern field, indeed, the Sun, beholding the Indian-slaying sweat of Dionysus, was amazed; and over the western gulf the Evening Moon saw long-winged Perseus, who had toiled at a small labor with his curved-claw bronze; and by as much as Phaethon won glory above the Moon, by so much will I declare Bacchus mightier than Perseus. Inachus was witness of them both, when with ivy and murderous fennel the Mycenaean spears contended, heavy with bronze, and, fleeing the ivy-loving war of the Satyrs, sickle-bearing Perseus yielded to thyrsus-bearing Bromius, and instead of warring Lyaeus he hurled his rushing spear, casting at worthless, ironless Ariadne; I do not admire Perseus for slaying one woman, still breathing the Loves in her bridal raiment. And if he boasts because of the golden bed of Zeus, rainy Zeus did not carry Danae up to heaven, honoring the maiden-loving shower of fertile dew, that little stealthy union; but Semele set foot on Olympus with Zeus, with the blessed ones touching one table, seated beside her clustering son Dionysus. Danae won no Olympian home, but, being inside a sea-faring chest, the bride of Zeus went sailing, blaming the deceitful shower of wedded Loves, that held an unstable fortune of a short-lived snow. I know of Andromeda, that she shines within Olympus, but again she suffers even in the heavens; and perhaps, poor wretch, often she has spoken such a word in an indignant voice: 'What is the more, if you carried me to the heavens, bridegroom Perseus? A fair Olympian bride-gift you gave me; for the starry Monster troubles me still even here, and a new one, another counterpart of the former, after the earth and the terror of the brine, I still wear chains even among the stars. Your sickle did not save me in heaven; in vain for me within Olympus the gentle eye of starry Medusa gleams; the Monster troubles me still, and you spread no nimble wings. My grieving mother constrains me, since she too, poor Cassiopeia, sinks through the heaven into the sea, dreading the Nereids, and blesses the course of the Bear, unwetted by Ocean and not touching the sea; and, seeing the terror of Andromeda and the Monster of Olympus, aged Cepheus laments here too after the earth.' Such a word the chain-bound bride often cried aloud, calling on Perseus, and her husband did not help her. And if Perseus glories in the stars of Andromeda, turn a sidelong eye through the heaven, where there shines the gleaming Serpent-bearer lifting the coiled Serpent, and you will see the round Crown of Ariadne running with the Sun, rising together with the Moon, announcing the desire of crown-loving Dionysus. I know of the war of Minos, which the womanish Enyo gave him, lifting up the love-girdle and not the strap of the oxhide shield, when Cypris was the helmet-shaker, when Persuasion brandished the bronze spear and became Pallas Athena, fellow-traveler to warring Minos; and in the battles the marriage-marshalling swarm of Loves, untrained in war, shot their arrows, and Desire the lovely, the city-sacker, when to the people of Nisaean Megara the Cydonian trumpet roared, when, seeing Fear and Panic as fellow-laborers of the Loves, bronze Ares retreated with shamefaced steps, beholding Aphrodite lifting the shield and Desire wielding the spear; and for the well-armored fighter delicate-robed Eros wrought a fair-haired victory: for Scylla, while her unshorn father slept, sheared the coeval cluster of his purple hair, and sacked the whole city with a single cleaving iron, mowing the lock of her city-guarding head. Minos the city-sacker once, by his own naked beauty, found the end of the battle, and conquered—not by iron, but by desire and love. But when Lyaeus was arming, no Desire soothed the fray of the spear-bearing Indians, no Paphian armed herself to fight beside Lyaeus, conquering by beauty; no single maiden frenzied with passion brought aid, in love with Dionysus, no lovely guile, no locks of Deriades; but, of the far-scattered wars, the strange-tempered Indian held the boast of an ever-renewed victory. And if you honor the Inachian Heracles, I myself will refute his whole toil. I know, indeed, that, twisting his slanting arm about the lion, he encircled its neck with a well-handed clinging bond, bringing a death without iron, where through the life-sustaining throat the breath of the windpipe passes midway through the air; I do not admire even this: by a leafy thicket once, excelling with lion-slaying hands, Cyrene the maiden wrought a like deed, in that she too mastered the male beast with an unyielding female bond. But Bacchus, a child still in his first bloom, sporting in the mountains, gripping with one hand the shaggy chin, dragged the bloody lion, and held out to his mother Rhea the gaping beast, pressing the lock of its neck; he dragged it still living, and, binding it tight with a collar, he yoked the beast with a guiding bridle, fastening the slavish jaws, and, seated on high in his car, he lashed with his whip the wild backs of trembling lions. And the breeds of leopards and the race of flesh-eating bears were enslaved by the infant hands of Dionysus. I know also the Arcadian mountain-ranging boar; but to Lyaeus boars and tribes of lions were playthings while a child. What greater thing did bold Heracles accomplish, if, with much labor, he loosed some small snaky spring of Lerna, cutting the self-renewing harvest of the lurking hydra, the many-necked field sprouting up with serpents? Would that he had slain it alone, and not, toiling, called upon Iolaus, the smiter of the newly-grown heads, lifting the light-bearing torch, until the two of them laid low the female serpent. But I do not know how to honor two men contending against a single worthless viper; one toil was divided between them both. But the thyrsus-bearer, alone cutting off the snaky sons of the Field, Euios assailed them all, the champion of Zeus, from over whose shoulders broad and on either side hydras flowed by turns, far greater than the Inachian hydra, and instead of Lerna they hissed unsteady in the air, neighbors of the stars. Be gracious, Iolaus; for you burned the body of the hydra, yet Heracles alone, alone, snatched the name of victory. No little Nemea did my champion, no Lerna did Bacchus revive from many-throated jaws, cutting the snaky thicket of the self-renewing hydra; but, bearing the South Wind and the Northern feet and the wing of Eurus and the West Wind as herald, with fourfold victory he filled Ocean, earth, and sea with his contests. If a serpent brings glory to a man, if lurking hydras, these are the natal garlands of Bacchus, these of Lyaeus the dread snake-coiled bonds of dragon-locks, ever since he left the offspring-completing fold of his father's thigh. I will be silent about the golden horn of the deer; I will not blame so great a Heracles as the slayer of a single doe. Make no mention of the trembling deer; for to the fawn-slaying Bacchant the deer-coursing hunt is a small plaything. Leave aside the Cnossian toil of Heracles; for that frenzied bull which he drove I do not admire, in that, brandishing so great a club, he cut off a little horn; often one woman has done this, often a Bacchant has carved up the boundless herd of well-horned bulls, a worthless handmaid of bull-horned Dionysus; and, dragging up the sharpened, curved horn, often, if the maddened ox fought with its horns, she bent the bull to its knee, the assailer of lions. Leave aside too the heads of three-crested Geryon; for my own Dionysus, with his flesh-cutting ivy, crushed Alpos, the god-fighting son of the Field, Alpos haired with a hundred snaky heads, touching the sun and again dragging down the Moon, crowding the starry dance with his tresses. The labors of Heracles, whom immortal Zeus begot, holding the three-mooned, child-sowing bed of Alcmene, were a worthless mountain-bred toil; but the deeds of Bacchus were either a many-cubited Giant or the high-crested champion of the Indians— no deer, no ranks of an ox-herd, no shaggy boar, nor a hound, nor a bull, nor self-rooted fruit gold-gleaming, nor dung, nor a wandering, restless bird holding a worthless, ironless, feathered point, nor a horse's stranger-slaying jaw, nor one little girdle of Hippolyta—but the victory of Dionysus was boundless Deriades or twenty-cubit Orontes. All-radiant son of Meles, undying herald of Achaea, gracious be your book, coeval with the dawn; I will not make mention of the Trojan struggle; for I do not liken Dionysus to the son of Aeacus, nor Deriades to Hector. Your Muse ought to have hymned so great and such a contest and Bacchus, the spear-flinger against the Giants, and to have left the toils of Achilles to other singers, had not Thetis seized that prize. But to sing clear breathe upon me your god-sped breath; for I have need of your eloquence, since, singing of so great a War, I dim the Indian-slaying sweat of Dionysus. But, goddess, carry me a second time into the midst of the Indians, holding a breathing spear and the shield of father Homer, to fight with Morrheus and witless Deriades, armed together with Zeus and Bromius; and in the battles let me hear the army-rousing sound of the Bacchic pipe and the unceasing din of Homer's wise trumpet, that with intelligent spear I may slay the remnant of the Indians.

So upon the well-pastured ridge of the Indian wood sat Bacchus and his throng, a citizen of the desolate crag, in the truce of the war. And Ganges quivered in fear, pitying his children; and over the fate of the newly slain the whole city was shaken; and with the mournful clamor of dirge-loving women the streets rang loud. And Deriades was shaken by fear and wonder and shame; for now he had heard all; but the more, with sidelong eye, he grieved as he gazed, in that, changing its marvelous form, black Hydaspes murmured with billowing wine. There too the broad-bearded one, plying his sluggish foot, the wretch, holding a misty, blinding fog upon his eyes, sprinkled the golden dew of toil-loosing drunkenness upon his gummed eyes; and as his face drew up the wine-dark drops, his eyes were opened. And with delighted feet the old man danced, singing aloud, of the crimsoning moisture of the evil-averting river; and with his aged hands drawing up the stream cloud-like, he filled the fragrant skins with purple drunkenness, and kindled an altar to Zeus and to wine-pouring Dionysus, beholding the late radiance of the unwonted Sun. And the boy, leaving the wine-drunk hounds on the shore lapping the sweet water of the reddening river, the hunter, fellow-rover of the mountain Archer-goddess, turned his step toward the city, to disbelieving Deriades announcing the sweet flood of the drunkenness-staggering river. And now the vine-scented odor ran through the town and with warm breezes made drunk all the streets, foretelling the victory of Indian-slaying Lyaeus; and on the lofty towers the citizens lodged in fear, and the guards girdled the wall with oxhides, of the high-crested city. And on the hilltops, grieving, Dionysus often reproached Hera, that, grudging again, she had reined back the battle of the Indians, when the returning Moon had filled ten circles, measuring the thirtieth dawn's course of the war; and the winds fanned up every hope of victory. And gazing at his lions by their idle manger, like a lion he roared and groaned within the thicket with tearless eyes; and to downcast Bacchus trailing-robed Attis came through the Scythian mountain, unsown, lashing on the wandering car of lions, swift messenger of divine Rhea, who once with bronze made bloody the fruitful stalk of marriage-completing youth, and cast away the loving furrow of unmarried plows, the harvest of male reaping; and with bloody, child-begetting drops besprinkling the fold of his thigh, he made his warm body female with the smiting iron; he then, driving the car of the Cybelean goddess, came as a comforting messenger to grieving Lyaeus. And Dionysus, seeing him, sprang up, lest he come near bringing all-subduing Rhea to the battle of the Indians. And, halting the wild car, drawing the reins through the rail, and showing the unscarred tips of his rosy beard, Attis spoke a word to Bacchus, pouring forth a shrill cry: 'Vine-clad Dionysus, child of Zeus, descendant of Rhea, tell me at my asking, when will you return to the land of the Lydians, having destroyed the wool-haired race of the Indians? Not yet has Rhea looked upon the dark-skinned captives, not yet, after the strife, beside the mountain-stalled manger, has she wiped the Mygdonian sweat of your lions beside the wealth-flowing stream of Pactolus; but the whirl of the noiseless, ever-flowing years of battle you keep rolling; not yet to the beast-rearing Mother of the gods have you brought the tokens of victory, the eastern tribes of Indian lions. But from Hephaestus and from your immortal Rhea receive these arms, which the Lemnian anvil wrought, holding the sea with the earth and the air and the dance of stars.' Not yet had the speech ended, and proud Bacchus cried out: 'Hard are the gods, and jealous. In the wars, indeed, in a single dawn I shall be able to destroy the city of the Indians with my ivy-spear; but the victory my stepmother's grudge, the envy of Hera, turns me away from against my will. Openly against Deriades stands wild Ares as champion, fighting against the Satyrs; and I have often longed to wound him with the thyrsus; but, threatening, the son of Cronos with thundering crashes reined back my onset. But may heavenly Zeus this very day lull the din of the heavy-crashing clouds, and tomorrow I will bind Ares, until I cleave the well-helmeted stalk of the Indians.' So spoke Dionysus, and the Lydian Attis answered him, brandishing the starry, unwounded shield of the air: 'O friend, would you not fear the wrath of Ares, the envy of Hera? Nor the whole rank of the blessed ones, while you have all-mother Rhea, nor the curved-bow army—so that, hurling spears, you might not strike the Sun or wound the Moon? Who would dim the sword of Orion with his blade, or shoot at Bootes with earthly arrows? But you will say it is the horn-trailing father of Deriades: to Hydaspes, who bears Ocean, what could he do to you? Take courage and fight a second time, since of the battle my Rhea has prophesied the late-accomplished victory; for there will be no end of the war before in the combat the four-yoked Seasons fulfill the sixth year; for so the eye of Zeus and the threads of unbending Fate yielded to the nods of Hera; and in the coming seventh year you shall shatter the city of the Indians.' So saying, he gave the shield to Bromius; and, delighting his heart with the goblets, lovers of unmixed wine, of toil-loosing wine, he touched the feast; and, pleasing his spirit at the table, he turned back again and lashed the backs of his lions, guiding his mountain-coursing car homeward to Phrygia. And he drove past the crags of the Caucasian glens, and the heights of the Assyrians and the hard-trodden mountains of Bactra, and passed the watchtowers of Lebanon and the spurs of Taurus, until he set foot on the land of Maeonia; and the self-built, marvelous hall of mighty-childed Rhea he entered; and he loosed the flesh-eating lions from their collars, and tied them near the manger and gave them ambrosial fodder. But he, instructed in his mother's inspired oracle, thyrsus-maddened Dionysus, mingled with the mountain Bacchants, leaving to the winds the burden of downcast grief, shaking in his hand the much-wrought shield, the weapon of Olympus, the wise work of Hephaestus. And the peoples gathered, gazing at the varied Olympian marvels of art, the gleaming wonders that the heavenly hand had wrought, fashioning the many-colored shield, in whose midst he had made the encircling earth, and around the earth he had rounded the heaven, engraved with the dance of stars, and he made the sea yoked to the earth; and in the upper sky he wrought with gold the Sun mounted on the fiery rim of his car, and from silver metal, whitening, he made round the whole wheeling Moon; and there all the constellations that, in the many-shining order, the coiling sky has girdled like a crown and made varied, about its seven zones, and by the axle's circle the unwetted twin pole of the heavenly Wain; for both run beside the turning-post, higher than Ocean, in line with each other at the flank, and ever by so much the head of the setting Bear is bent below as the neck of the other rising Bear is stretched up; and he wrought the Dragon midway between the two Wains, which, joining the divided limbs of both that lie near, is bent in the coiling track of its heavenly belly, drawing back again its glancing body, like the coiling stream of slanting, roaring Maeander, which, through the land, turning its curved water aslant, travels in spirals, stretching its facing eye toward the head of Helice, girdling its body with starry scales, ringed about with the constellations of the Bears; and on the tip of its tongue a forward-stretched star gleams, spitting out light, sending its many-toothed flame near to its lips. Such things upon the central surface the wise smith fashioned of the well-made shield; and, doing grace to Lyaeus, he wrought the ox-built walls of lyre-built Thebes, of the seven-passaged, alternating gateways being raised; and Zethus was there, toiling for his fatherland, lifting a rocky burden on his straining shoulder; and Amphion sang, the lyre-striker; and to his song into a self-rolling course the coiling hill danced, as though enchanted even on the shield; and perhaps you would say . . . though it was painted, that, sporting with a leap, the light quiver of the unmoving crag was set astir; and, watching the man absorbed in his silent lyre, striking a rapid melody on the deceitful string, you would have hastened to draw near, that, leaning your ear to the tower-building lyre, you might delight your mind as well, hearing the stone-moving sound of the seven-toned music. And the well-whirling shield, where the glancing dance of stars, held its fitted ornament, since within the hall of Zeus the Trojan cupbearer was wrought with sacred art, holding the well-made eagle, the winged bearer, as in paintings too, gripped by the seizing wing; and Zeus, in terror, seemed to fly through the air, lifting with untearing talons the awe-struck boy, sparing him in the onset of his gently moving wings, lest, plunging headlong from the air, Ganymede be hidden in the murderous surge of the sea; and he trembled the more for the Fates, lest, having first given the lovely youth, who had bestowed his name on the neighboring sea, he should snatch a late prize reserved for Helle; and beside the heavenly table of the gods' feast the boy was fashioned just like one drawing wine; and of the self-poured nectarous dew he held a brimming bowl, and offered the cup to feasting Zeus; and Hera sat as though in anger even on the shield, with form for witness holding the jealousy of her soul, and to the goddess seated beside her, to Pallas, she pointed out the boy, that the sweet nectar of Olympus a star-roaming herdsman, Ganymede, was pouring, plying in his hand the cups that maiden Hebe had as her lot. And Maeonia he fashioned, since she was the nurse of Bacchus, and Moria and the dappled serpent and the divine plant, and the boundless dragon-slaying son of earth, Damasen, and Tylos, scarred by a sharp, venom-shedding doom, the short-lived dweller of Maeonia, who once walking by the brows of the Mygdonian river, neighboring Hermus, touched a dragon with his hand; and it, stretching out its broad neck, and raising its head with the boundless gaping of its jaw, rushed against the man, and, scourging the man's flanks, shook its tail in a stormy assault, and, fastening its back upon the mortal flesh like a garland, leaping about the circles of the youth's neck, scoring the tips of his cheeks with its many-toothed furrow, with its venom-shedding jaws it spat out the moisture of Fate, and, as it leaped upon him, over his weighed-down shoulders the man's neck was girdled midway with its tail-coils, holding the snaky necklace of Hades, neighbor of Fate. And the corpse fell to the earth like a plant of the field. And, pitying the youth newly fallen by a witnessed doom, a veil-less Naiad mourned over the neighboring corpse, and then held back the monstrous beast, that it might be slain; for it slew not one wayfarer alone nor herdsman, nor killed only untimely Tylos, but in its lair dwelling it fed even upon beasts, and often, dragging the unstable, self-rooted tree beneath the grinding of its teeth, it hid the trunk in its musty throat, again drawing back the grim blast of its jaws; and often, dragging back the spun-around traveler, with its inward-drawn pantings, terrified, dragging him into its mouth, the far-seen beast received the whole man into its gaping throat. And Moria watched the slayer of her brother, gazing from afar, and the nymph quivered with fear, seeing the long-ranked furrow of its venom-shedding teeth, and she saw the garland of death coiled about a throat; and, wailing often beside the dragon-pastured thicket, she met with towering Damasen, the son of Earth, whom once his mother bore in birth-pangs of her own begetting, attending from his birth his hairy circle of beard; and at his birth Strife was his nurse; and spears were his breast, and his washings were slaughters, and his swaddling-cloth a breastplate, and, weighed down with the broad burden of his long limbs, an infant wielding the spear, a valiant babe, neighbor of the air, from birth he brandished the kindred spear, and the newly-appeared Eileithyia armed the cradle-shield-bearer. Beholding him beside the slope of the well-pastured wood, she bent in supplication, and, weeping, the nymph pointed out the boundless serpent, the slayer of her brother, and Tylos newly-scarred, still gasping in the dust; nor did the Giant, the monstrous champion, neglect her; but, pressing the tree by its very root, he tore it from his mother the field, and stood slantwise against the flesh-eating dragon; and the coiling champion fought for snaky honor, sending the hiss of battle from its neck-trumpet, a serpent of fifty acres, wreathed in its coil; and with a double clasp it fettered his feet with a bond, and, scourging the body of Damasen with crooked coils, with a raging chasm it opened the gates of its teeth, shooting from its lips the wet shaft, shaking its eyes, raw, breathing slaughter, and at the Giant's face it spat from its rainy jaws the springs of venom, shooting the pale, long-shadowed foam of its teeth; and it leaped upon the high-crested Giant's head, darting upright with an earth-shaking quiver of its limbs. But the dread Giant shook off the burden of the dragon's spine, shaking limbs like crags; and in his hand he brandished his long-leaved point, hurling upright the oaken shaft; and about the temple he fixed the tree by the roots, where about the round neck the bond of its spine was joined by the throat-point; and the tree was rooted a second time; and upon the earth lay the dragon, unshaken, a coiling corpse. But suddenly the female serpent, scraping the ground with a homeward coil, the mate, wreathing herself about, sought her slanting consort, like a woman longing for her dead husband; and to the crags she stretched out more swiftly the coil of her long spine, hastening to the herb-bearing mountain; and about the thicket plucking the flower of Zeus with her snaky jaw, with her uttermost lips she brought the pain-killing plant, and to the grim corpse, as a warder against destruction, she fitted it to the dry nostril, and to the dead, venom-stricken serpent she gave back a flowering life. And the corpse, self-coiling, leaped; and part of it was breathless, but another part moved on, and another, shaking, was a half-completed corpse, holding a self-stirring tail; and with cold jaws, drawing a breath restored, in its opening throat by little it hummed in wonted fashion, pouring forth a recovered hiss; and late, going homeward, it slipped back into its ancient lurking-hole. And Moria lifted the flower of Zeus, and over the corpse to its life-bearing nostril she fitted the life-giving plant. And the life-bringing herb with its pain-healing clusters breathed soul into the cold body of the renewed corpse. And the soul came into the body a second time; and in its inmost recess the cold body was warmed by a helping fire; and the corpse, tending the recovered beginning of life, quivered the sole of its right foot, and about its left, straightening its standing step, it propped itself on the whole sole, holding the same likeness of a man who, sleeping in his bed, shakes off morning slumber as his eyes open. And again the blood seethed; and of the newly-breathing corpse the hands grew light; and harmony came to its form, walking to its feet, light to its eyes, voice to its lips. And Cybele was carved newly-delivered, as though in her lap lifting a mimic, child-less childbirth with fashioned arms, and to her loveless consort guileful Rhea offered the stone birth-pang, a chill, heavy meal; and he, hiding the mortal-shaped form, the marble son, the father, in his devouring throat, feasting on the false body of a sham Zeus; and lifting within his loins the birth-bringing stone, he cast up his oppressed, many-childed offspring, spitting out the burden of his pregnant throat. Such manifold works of laboring art the warlike, many-fountained shield of Olympus held, the Bacchic shield, which, beholding, they marveled one upon another, and they ringed the bearer of the wheeling shield, praising the fiery Olympian hearth. And as they delighted, Dawn measured out the setting, withdrawing the light of her fiery-eyed face; and silent Night blackened the whole shadowy earth. And the peoples, here and there on couches strewn upon the ground, after the evening meal, sank down on their mountain bed.