Book 29

29. In the twenty-ninth Ares withdraws from the wars, as though hastening to another wedding of Cytherea.

And when Hera marked the slaughtered ranks of the Indians,

she cast hard-fighting courage into proud Deriades.

And the dread lord took on a still greater goad of love for battle;

and pouring a raving voice upon his champions,

he ran along the whole dark line of his battle-array,

drawing back the whole fleeing host to the conflict once more,

winning one by gentleness, another by threat.

And bolder he grew; and gathered together of themselves

the Indians streamed to the fray at their king's summons.

And far-shooting Morrheus split the whole rank of the Satyrs,

now sending against the foe from his back-strung bow

an air-roaming cloud of thronging arrows,

now whirling his rushing spear in turning sweeps,

and startled the horned race of the Sileni.

And Hymenaeus of the fair locks fought, brandishing his sword,

seated upon the back of his swift Thessalian horse,

cutting down the dark Indians with his rosy hand;

he flashed with splendour; you might see him, in the midst of the Indians,

a gleaming Morning-Star, the running-mate of the ugly dark;

and he put the foe to flight, since for his beauty's sake

Dionysus breathed inspired valour into him as he fought.

And Iobacchus, seeing him excel in the tumult,

took joy, and did not want as the fellow-toiler of his battle

the lightning of the son of Cronus so much as the spear of Hymenaeus.

Whenever the youth drove his colt rushing into the fray with the Indians,

Dionysus lashed the necks of his cunning-wrought beasts,

and brought his car close beside the youthful horse, lingering near,

cherishing the boy, as Phoebus cherished Atymnius; he stood ever

near at hand, and longed to appear, lovely and valiant in one

and the same fashion, like the young man; and in the tumults

he touched the clouds, sharing the fight with Hymenaeus.

One thing alone troubled him, that from earthly stock

he was a son of Phlegyas, and not of Cronus' offspring.

And he stayed ever beside him, as a father guarding his child,

fearing lest some far-shooter, loosing an arrow,

should shoot the boy; and as the shafts came on

he stretched out his right hand, shielding Hymenaeus.

And to him as he excelled he spoke this word:

"Send your shaft, dear boy, and Ares rages no longer;

with your beauty you struck Bacchus, the archer of the Giants;

strike too with your arrows witless Deriades,

the god-fighting king of the foe, that one may say,

'Hymenaeus, with one shaft, hit both,

the flesh of Deriades and the heart of Dionysus.'"

So Bromius spoke, and far more did lovely Hymenaeus,

the far-shooter, lay hold of the battle, and rejoicing in him

frenzied Dionysus plunged the more into War,

and startled the whole dark race from its very roots;

and one, seeing Dionysus in the unsparing storm of battle,

the insatiable archer of Indian heads,

spoke such a word to greedy Melaneus:

"Archer, where are your bows and your windy arrows?

Soft-robed women are shooting us down.

Come, send a shaft at short-lived Dionysus;

let the Olympian fame of his name not lead you astray;

never tremble before Bacchus, who from an earthly father

drew swift-fated blood, and lied that he was Zeus's offspring.

Come now, send your shaft, and, if you hit your mark,

you will receive the boundless gifts of a deep-rich king,

if he sees Dionysus, the proud son of Thyone,

set upon the pyre, mastered by your bolt;

one shaft would end the whole war. And for both,

lift your hands in water and pray to mother Earth;

with truthful lips promise to perform

sacrifices to both after the victory; and at the altar

let bull-shaped Hydaspes have a horn-dragging bull,

and let the dark earth receive a black-skinned lamb."

So speaking, he won over the arrow-shooting Melaneus,

a man whose wits wandered, goaded by the frenzy for possessions;

and he, silent, bared the lid of his quiver,

took a shaft and held it ready, and drew the wonted string,

bending the bow with the backward-straining pull of his hand,

and, propping the very point of the iron against the bow,

he brought the bloody oxhide string close to his neighbour breast;

and the straight-coursing shaft was turned from Dionysus

by Zeus's restraint, and the blood-stained thigh of fair-garlanded

Hymenaeus was grazed by the winged arrow.

Nor did the wandering arrow, hung aloft, escape Dionysus,

flying with a whir, the running-mate of the unsparing breeze;

but he unmanned the cast of the rushing shaft as it sped on,

and blinded the deadly far-shot of Melaneus;

and the Paphian struck away the barbs of the bolt,

his sister, granting the favour to longing Dionysus,

and turned the shaft so far from the flesh, as when a mother

drives a wandering fly from her child still slumbering,

gently fluttering the edge of her robe before his face.

And the savage wound of his flesh, through the reddening thigh,

Hymenaeus, near at hand, showed to neighbour Bacchus,

shedding a lovely tear beneath his brows, that he might mark

the right hand of evil-averting Dionysus for a helper,

needing a life-preserving healer; and he, taking

Hymenaeus by his white hand, set him upon his own car,

and leading him away from the loud-roaring tumult,

set him down, heavy-headed and sluggish, on the shadowy ground

beside a neighbouring oak; and as Apollo

groaned for Hyacinthus, struck by the man-slaying sharp discus,

blaming the breath of the jealous Zephyr's gust,

so too Dionysus plucked at his hair again and again,

weeping with unweeping eyes for Hymenaeus.

And, seeing the barbs of the arrow standing outside the flesh,

he took welcome courage; and from the bloody thigh,

feeling the white-and-red double wound of the reddening flesh,

with sparing palms he drew out the tip of the arrow.

And, marking the tears of the lamenting youth,

he was wroth at both, both at Ares and at Melaneus;

and wiping away the sweet sweat of Hymenaeus,

with reproachful lips he poured forth a secret voice:

"A bull killed the vine; Ares will destroy Hymenaeus.

Would that he had slain all the fighters I armed,

and left this one alone unwounded; for in war

what grief stirs me when a Cabeirus is cut down?

When does the wound of a Satyr ever, ever trouble Bacchus?

Let the grape-tending Silenus fall; let the swarm

of Bassarids wander; only let me see my boy unharmed.

Let the famous archer be merciful; if Aristaeus falls,

what mourning is ever mine, who calls his bee's labour

dearer than the dewy fruit of the vine?

It was not, it seems, fated for me to escape a boy's grief,

since soon perhaps I shall again lament this boy as dead.

What heavy envy assailed them both? If it is right to tell,

Hera, looking on Bacchus with jealous eye

and on the young reaper of the black-skinned race,

grudging the young and longing Lyaeus,

armed furious Ares to strike Hymenaeus with a shaft,

though he wore an Indian, bastard, unfamiliar face,

that she might grieve the heart of love-sick Lyaeus.

But, stretching my shaft or straining the bloody bow,

I arm myself against treacherous Melaneus, that I may exact

the debt of vengeance owed for lovely Hymenaeus.

If you die, Hymenaeus, leaving War unfinished,

I withdraw from the fight and lift the thyrsus no more.

I will let all the enemy live,

reaping one man only, your slayer Melaneus.

Deriades did not slay you, though he is wroth at Dionysus.

Be merciful, Cytherea: after the bold son of Myrrha,

ruthless Ares drove down another gentle Adonis,

drove him and touched the rosy flesh, and through the thigh

once more the gore of the Loves just now gushed upon the ground;

but, granting the favour to your longing Dionysus,

send me here Phoebus your brother, who knows the art

that loosens pain, and he shall heal the boy. Hold, my voice:

let Phoebus be untroubled on Olympus, lest I rouse him,

reminding him of the lovely wound of Hyacinthus.

Send me, if you will, Paeon; let him come:

he has no part in longings, he is a stranger to the Loves.

I see another kind of wound; for in wars

one man, struck in the flank, is reddened by the spear,

another has the toil of the hand by the sword, one by a bolt

in the side, another through the ear; but in the heart

I share the deadly wound with Hymenaeus who bears it."

He spoke, and was startled, with sidelong eye askance,

gazing upon the wound of graceful Hymenaeus.

And, twining the Bacchic-loving flower about the thigh this way and that,

feeling the white-and-red double wound of the reddening flesh,

he brought the boy back to life with his healing ivy,

sprinkling Hymenaeus with the defending wine.

And as when the swift-working rennet, hastening to curdle the milk,

stirring it, parts the liquid from the snowy dew,

that the goatherd may make it set,

shaping it in the basket's round mould with wheel-like sole;

so he healed the bloody wound with the art of Phoebus;

and the young man, made whole, had his War recovered again,

having found the pain-healing hand of Dionysus.

And drawing his far-shooting, air-roaming shaft to its mark,

he bent his bow again, and, aiming with his bolt,

gave a wound in answer to the arrow-shooting Melaneus.

And his bold prowess sped on; following Lyaeus,

he ever struck down men and was no longer left behind by Bacchus.

And as when some shadowy likeness of a man, breathless, creeping,

near at hand and unmarked, journeys keeping pace with the man,

and ever follows him as he hastens, and as he stands

it stands, and as he sits it sits beside him, and at the table

with mimic hands feasts as his fellow-traveller;

so the youth stayed keeping pace with wine-dark Bacchus.

Nor did Dionysus cease from battle; but, piercing

a man clean through, he lifted him impaled on his thyrsus,

upright and high in the air, and on the airy path

raising the Indian aloft, he showed him to jealous Hera.

And, fulfilling War under his three surnames,

divine Aristaeus, skilled as the Hunter of Ares,

fought as Nomius, brandishing his crook in his hands,

the far-shooting bridegroom of Autonoe; and in the tumults,

bearing a famous bow, he imitated his own father,

with overweening courage from his arrow-shooting mother,

Cyrene of old, daughter of Hypseus; and the raving,

hostile man, fearless Hunter, he took alive in bonds,

hunting him like a beast; and against the destroyer of his foes

with practised hand he poised a heavy stone, such as he had set

to press out the flowing labour of the rich olive;

and he routed the enemy with the proud man's wonted whirl,

shaking that bronze, which, brandishing in his hands,

he used to scare the maddened stings of the roving bee.

And of Thracian Samos the fire-strong townsmen,

two sons of the Lemnian Cabeiro, raved in Bacchic frenzy;

and since their father Hephaestus glowed with the breath of fire,

their eyes shot up kindred sparks.

For them there was a car of adamant; and around it the colts,

beating the battered dust with bronze hoof,

belched a harsh neighing from their throats,

which their father Hephaestus wrought with inimitable art,

breathing a threatening flame from their teeth,

just as for Aeetes too, the mighty lord of the Colchians,

he fashioned the twin-yoked pair of bronze-footed bulls,

making them brazen harness and a fiery plough-beam.

Eurymedon drove, and with fire-stricken bridle

he reined in the fiery jaw of his iron-footed horses;

and in his hand a Lemnian spear, which his father's anvil had wrought,

he lifted in his right, and on his well-made thighs

he hung a light-bearing sword; and if any man,

lifting some small stone with the tips of his nails,

struck the fire-running back of the whetted blade,

sparks of themselves were shot from the iron.

And Alcon fitted his hand to the smoking bolt,

whirling the festal torch of his father's Hecate.

And shaking the bosses of their high-crested helmets,

the Dictaean Corybantes advanced to the tumult,

goaded into the fray; and with rival bronze

their bare swords clashed upon the battered oxhide shields

in answering bounds; and the rhythm of the shield-bearing dance

they imitated with the winding beat of their feet,

raving for Ares. And of the mountain-dwelling herdsmen

the Indian offspring was cut down by the Curete's iron;

and one man slid headlong into the dust,

hearing the bellow of the deep-booming oxhide drum.

And one, lifting up the flower-loving spear of War,

a Bassarid, cast it; and of the unbacchic race

many male heads were cut down by a woman's thyrsus.

And, lifting a crested watch-crag with shaggy hand,

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

sending the jagged point against the foe.

And the Bacchant raised her cry around; and vine-arrows

whirled in the hands of the ivy-bearing women.

There, weaving a song for both Ares and Dionysus,

Eupetale armed herself, and with grape-loving leaf

she sent the goading ivy, the thresher of iron,

destroying the Indian offspring with her oaken cluster.

And, routing a cloud of foes with her man-breaking thyrsus,

grape-loving Terpsichore leapt into the tumult,

whirling deep-booming cymbals with twin bronze;

not so much did Heracles drive off the Stymphalian birds with his din,

holding deep-sounding bronze, as Terpsichore drove off the host of the Indians,

clashing the war-Echo of the dance.

And heavy-kneed Trygie was left apart from the crowd,

last of all, and rooted her feet in fear; and none of the Sileni

stayed beside her; they left her there alone,

terrified, needing a helper; and to wine-loving

Maron she stretched out her hands, but Maron refused the old woman,

because she was breaking up the dances of the strong-wine-loving Corybantes

and of the Satyrs; and she ever prayed the gods that she might be slain,

old and useless, beneath the spear of Deriades;

and Calyce fought, standing beside Dionysus,

frenzied. And in the quivering beat of her drunkenness

Oenone reeled, running before; weighed down in the tumult

her knees laboured, and of the wine-loving nymph

the swollen tresses of her head whirled about.

And there was a heavy-booming groan; and in the rival tumult

Astraeis pursued Staphyle, and Celaeneus pursued Calyce.

And spear-wielding Morrheus drove off the phalanx of the Sileni,

smiting it with his ox-cleaver; and at one shout of the driver

Astraeus was shaken, Maron fled, Leneus sank to his knees,

the three children of shaggy Silenus, who without a marriage-bed,

unsown, self-begotten, sprang up from his mother's plough-land.

And Doryclus startled lovely Lycaste . . .

To these the god brought aid, and on the freshly wounded women's

wounds he sprinkled remedies; and from the Enyalian iron

he rescued Gorge, worn at the tip of her unfilleted foot,

binding her foot fast with a fetter of the vine-tendril;

and he quenched the fresh-flowing ichor of Eupetale with wine,

and soothed the streaming blood of Staphyle with a song;

and Myrto's wounded palm he healed with myrtle,

and saved Calybe, drawing the bolt from her shoulder,

sprinkling the bloody wound with the draught of the wine-vat;

and he stopped the pain of Nysa's freshly wounded face,

anointing her cheek this way and that with white gypsum;

and with unweeping eyes he groaned over Lycaste.

But when thyrsus-mad Dionysus had soothed the pains

of the Bassarids by his art, he fought with a mightier battle.

And one, possessed by the leaping wit-stealing frenzy,

a Bassarid, a raving Maenad of War, went after the Indian Ares,

about you, Lydian god; and from the Bacchant's tress

a flameless fire of itself blazed down her neck.

And, rousing the ill-matched swarm of the mighty champions,

the pipe crashed out the host-gathering Echo of Ares,

and with both palms of the din-loving Corybantes

the rims of the double-striking oxhide were beaten,

the cymbals rattled, and, changing its strain,

the sweet-melodied Panic pipe piped out battles;

and the phalanxes of the foe roared in answer; and in throngs

the winged arrows whizzed up from the air.

The bow twanged, the stone hummed, the trumpet bellowed.

But when they reached the ford, where, borne along in its flood,

Hydaspes reddened the white water with his drunken stream,

then Bacchus shouted from his deep-booming throat

as loud as the nine-thousandfold swarm of War roared,

uttering the dread cry of their shouting mouths in one; and unsteady,

shunning the tawny flood, the Indians sank to their knees,

others on the plain; and the host of Bacchus was parted,

slaying the foe both on the floor of earth and in Hydaspes,

gasping with parching thirst, when over the earth

the dawn had reached its midmost, and the hot wayfarer trembled

at the noonday lash of the blazing Sun.

And the vine-god challenged the lord of the Indians,

pouring a threatening word from his raving throat:

"What fear is this? If the chief of the Indians boasts the river's race,

I have blood from heaven; and overweening Deriades

is meaner than Lyaeus, as much as Hydaspes is meaner than Zeus.

If I will, I stand near the clouds; if I should wish,

my straight-coursing shaft will reach even to the Moon.

But if you are proud, wearing your horn-dragging form,

then, if you can, fight in the van against ox-horned Dionysus."

So he spoke, and the fighters bellowed with a roar;

and one strove against another, sharing the fight with Dionysus.

And on his goat's feet gentle Pan fought,

and, sharply grazing the whole flank of the archer,

with his whetted hoof he ripped open the belly of Melaneus,

exacting vengeance for the wounded Hymenaeus,

that he might lighten the fire-sealed grief

of Dionysus mourning with unweeping eyes.

And frenzied Iobacchus rushed upon the battle,

and touched the clouds and laid his hands on Olympus,

now lengthening his tall body, neighbour to the heaven,

and now planting his sole on the earth, and striking the air with his head.

And as they fought, the Evening Star came on,

loosing the foundations of the India-slaying battle.

And to Ares as he slept there came, at Rhea's nod,

a guileful vision of a dream, weaving its varied phantoms,

crying out such a word in a bastard shadowy shape:

"Ares, Ares, you sleep, ill-fated in love, lying alone,

bronze-clad; but Hephaestus holds for the second time, high upon the bed,

your Paphian, your former Aphrodite,

and has driven from his halls the Grace, the jealous bride;

dragging back his ancient wife to her marriage again,

Love himself shoots the unwilling Aphrodite,

granting the favour to his father Hephaestus. But she too,

untaught in longings, Athena persuaded great Zeus,

the guileful maiden, that she might escape Hephaestus,

remembering the bastard bed of the earth-bred Hymenaei,

lest after the death of the former Erechtheus, from a male breast,

she should rear another younger son of the plough-land.

Wake, and going to the Thracian foot of the cliff,

behold your Cytherea within her wonted Lemnos;

behold how the propylaea of Paphos and the seats of Cyprus

a fellow-marshalling swarm of Loves has wreathed with flowers,

and hear the Byblian women singing of Aphrodite

and of the young love of the returning wedlock.

Ares, you are robbed of your Cyprian; for the man-slaying

swift Ares the slow one has outrun. Sing too yourself

of Aphrodite joined to fiery Hephaestus.

Set foot in Sicily, and the Cyclopes standing at the furnace

beseech for me; for they too, knowing the noblest toil

of Hephaestus, jealous of his cunning works,

are fashioning a snare for you, and like your ancient bond

they will make a younger one of the same kind, that you too,

pressing both in cunning fetters they cannot loose,

may bind the thief of your marriage with your avenging chain,

fastening rolling-footed Hephaestus to Aphrodite;

and all the gods of Olympus will praise you

for hunting in bonds the plunderer of your bed.

Wake, and become a weaver of guile yourself; wake, take thought

of your ravished bride. What are the troubles of Deriades to you?

Be silent for our sake, lest Phaethon hear the tale."

So she spoke and flew away. And at once, shaking off sleep,

gazing at the freshly traced early light of Dawn,

hot Ares leapt up, rousing Phobos and Deimos

to yoke his bloody, swift-running car; and they obeyed

their hastening father; and with curved-tooth bridle

dismayed Deimos, fastening the jaws of the horses,

bound the captive neck in servile harness,

and tied the yoke-strap around it; and Ares mounted the car;

and Phobos drove, guiding his father's chariot,

borne from Lebanon to Paphos, and from Cythera

he turned the restless car to the horned land of Cyprus;

again and again he looked toward Lemnos, and more than all

jealously eyed the fire-breathing hearth,

tracking the Cyprian with rolling, jealous foot,

to see whether he might catch sight of her by Hephaestus' furnaces,

standing there as before; and he feared lest the smoke

should dim his sight of darkened Aphrodite.

And he ran past Lemnos up to heaven, that with iron

he might raise a bridal War for the blessed ones,

against Zeus and Phaethon and Hephaestus and Athena.