Book 30

30. In the thirtieth, to the nether house of necessity Eurymedon sends Tectaphus, cut down, to Hades.

So Ares ran to the seven-zoned heaven,

jealous, heavy in his wrath. And dancing into the fray,

bold Dionysus fell upon the swarthy host,

now leaping among the foremost with earth-shaking bound,

now in the midst of the champions; and with his javelin-thyrsus

he reaped the harvest of the dark battle,

and raged, cutting down the tribes of the hostile phalanx;

and he gave heart to the Satyrs for the War of Deriades,

when Bacchus saw that Ares had left the fight of the Indians;

one strove against another. And entrusting to Dionysus

the right wing, the fierce front of the cluster-bearing tumult,

Aristaeus ran along the left horn of the battle.

And Morrheus, still gazing on the servants of Bromius

fighting with leaves and the flowering bolt,

broke into a wondering voice to witless Deriades:

"Deriades, what is this marvel? My fighters fall,

struck by thyrsus-wands and by worthless leaves,

and the shieldless slay the armed; and unbending

the Bassarids, though struck by axes and the double-edged blade,

remain unwounded. If it is right to tell,

you too, sceptred lord, leave your bronze-wrought spear

and lift the murderous wine-dark thyrsus, since with their ivy

the enemy excel far more than with iron.

Never have I seen such a fashion of battle; the worthless

thyrsus-javelins are mightier than spears.

Give me too a green shaft to wield in the fray; for our arrows

have been beaten by the unwarlike fennel-rod;

give me tawny buskins to wear, since even

unbroken greaves give way before the high boots.

What use is it, if I have a bronze shield, when women

excel the more unarmed, and in the tumults

whirl cymbals, and the fighters sink to their knees,

and the helmet yields to garlands, and the breastplate to a fawnskin?

Often, in the path opposite unwounded Dionysus,

I thought to slash open his unbreakable flank,

sending well-aimed spears, and, as it touched Lyaeus,

the sharp, unbending bronze of my javelins was bent."

So he spoke, and the bold lord smiled, and at his son-in-law

bent sidelong eyes, with silence the herald of his anger;

and he hissed out at him a threatening cry:

"Why do you tremble at unarmed Dionysus, childish Morrheus?

A pleasant thing, to fear the sportive War of the Satyrs."

So speaking, he gave his son-in-law courage with fearless threat.

And monstrous Morrheus armed himself against the champions of Bromius;

he wounded Eurymedon, grazing the midst of his groin

with the bloody spear; and rushing through the thigh

the raving point cut the rich, flesh-leaving flesh;

and with sinking knee he fell to the ground. And bronze-clad

Alcon did not neglect his fallen brother,

but came as a champion for the hard-pressed man, lifting his spear

and well-whirled shield; and he covered the whole fighter,

towering the man's body with his buckler, and at the foe

shaking his point this way and that in turning sweeps,

brother defended brother; and standing over the wounded man,

like a lion over its cubs, he roared from his throat,

pouring a Corybantic voice from raving lips.

And, marking him wheeling on knowing foot,

the champion of his fallen brother Cabeirus,

monstrous Morrheus raved like Typhon in his kind,

armed against the two brothers, that their mother

Cabeiro might weep for her twin children destroyed,

cut down in a single dawn by one iron.

And now he would have given both to an equal doom,

but, drawing the breath forced through his lips,

Eurymedon called on his Lemnian father with his voice:

"Father, fire-breathing lord of the toilsome craft,

grant me the favour owed me of old, when alone

Deo, the harvest-goddess, snatched away three-headed Sicily,

the gift of looking on hidden Persephone's wedding,

and you checked your western bellows-bags at evening,

and the broad hearth and your snatching fire-tongs;

but I startled her, shielding my father,

the helper of your anvil; and from me

the black air is heated by your Sicilian spark.

Save your child for me, whom savage Morrheus has wounded."

He spoke, and fiery Hephaestus, springing from heaven,

whirled the kindred, much-splitting, leaping fire about,

turning the fiery bolt in his palm; and about the neck

of Morrheus the self-coiling, prudent flame wound itself,

wreathing his neck with the fire-warming noose of necessity,

twisting; and after the fiery garland of his throat

it leapt to the farthest sole with a treading bound

and twined a fire-woven cord about the champion's foot,

shaking on the ground a steady gleam with footstep leaps;

and his head was heated as the helmet caught fire.

And now he would have fallen, struck by the flaming bolt,

had not Deriades' father Hydaspes warded it off;

for he sat watching the battle high upon a rock,

bull-formed, with a bastard shape in mortal likeness;

he brought him back to life, pouring counter-flowing water,

cooling the hot breath of the fire-stricken face,

wiping the ashy filth from the helmet;

and snatching Morrheus, he cloaked him in dark mist,

hiding his limbs covered in a purple cloud,

lest the light-bearing god of both crafts should kill him,

brandishing the Lemnian death-bringing kindling fire,

lest, with the first one dead, old child-loving Hydaspes

should see yet another of Deriades' sons-in-law destroyed,

and weep for the doom of Morrheus together with Orontes.

But torch-bearing Hephaestus drove off all the fighters

who stood around his freshly wounded son, and high on his shoulder,

raising his son, he leaned him against a neighbouring oak,

apart from the din, and brought the fallen one back to life,

sprinkling life-giving remedies on the wounded groin.

Nor did Morrheus stay forgetful of his former battle;

but he armed himself again, having fled the fiery War

and the flashing champion and the smoking point;

and laughing at Phlogius, the much-turning son of Strophius,

he slew him, the dancer of leap-loving Dionysus,

who at the tearless banquets of Lyaeus

would whirl the supple fingers of his answering hands,

and, miming the death of Phaethon with prudent hand,

made the guests shed unwonted tears,

weeping over the doom of the feigned Phaethon;

and weaving a young man, smouldering and self-rolling,

he gave woeful grief to ungrieving Dionysus.

Seeing him leap, spear-wielding Morrheus said:

"This is another kind of dance you wove beside the table;

stretching out a laughing dance beside the mixing-bowl,

why now do you weave a groaning dance after the fight?

But if the goad of Dionysus' dancing holds you too,

celebrate the mysteries for Hades, and you will need no gypsum,

wearing the self-dyed, dust-grimed circles of your face;

and, if you will, dance beside lament-loving Lethe,

and let mirthless Persephone delight in your song."

He spoke, exulting, and rushed on like the storm,

and put the Sileni to flight. And with his irresistible blade

shield-wielding Tectaphus joined him, whom once Deriades

bound and hid within a hollow pit.

Nor did he find escape from doom a second time; for under necessity

who can ever ward off a man's hateful death,

when pitiless, all-subduing Fate bids him die?

For no cunning could find a way to save dying Tectaphus,

who then in his frenzy drove off the host of Lyaeus,

cutting the sport-loving limbs of the fair-horned Satyrs;

and he reaped the throat of battle-rousing Pylaeus,

and struck the brow of Onthyrius with his unsparing blade,

and clove broad-chested Pithos with his iron.

And now he would have slain another throng of thronging Bacchants,

but swift Eurymedon spied him, and stood against him,

shaking his double-mouthed Corybantic blade in his hand;

he crushed the edge of his brow; and as the head split,

upright there spurted up a fountain of bloody dew;

and the champion fell to the ground, and, sprinkling the dust,

half-dead he rolled, and of the earth-dug pit

he groaned for the ancient evil and the threads of his late-coming Fate,

and, still remembering the cunning love-charm

of his evil-averting child, he roared in a wailing voice,

and as he wailed the tears ran down with his gore:

"My mother and my nurse, guileful, ill-wedded maiden,

why did you not come near me, when I came near to doom?

Why now have you not helped me again, fearless maiden?

Where has your life-giving charm gone? Do you keep faith,

faithful to your living father and not to your dying one?

If cunning can bring a man back from Hades,

seek me another, better cunning, seek a crafty

counsel against death, that beyond the earth's hollows

I may escape the gates of Hades even in the wars,

if there is any homeward path from the pit of no return."

Such a word he spoke with difficulty, and his voice obeyed no longer.

And seeing her freshly wounded father high upon the tower,

the piteous, many-tearing maiden welled up a mournful voice,

airy; and she fouled her crooked hair with dust,

baring her breast where her tunic was torn,

and beat her head; and to her incurable father,

as though he heard, she uttered such a voice:

"Son and father, heavy-fated child of your milk-giving girl,

today, with you dead upon your breathless lips,

what other life-giving milk have I, by which, wretched,

I may bring your soul back, recovered, to you?

What other helping breast shall I hold out again?

Would that I could deceive even Aidoneus.

For you, father, one other gift is kept; for I will not leave

you alone among the dead; but from your slain girl

receive too the blood of her neck after the milk of her former breast.

Come, guardians of Deriades, and in his stead

show me another recess within the earth, where, going,

I may make my dead father live again;

Hades is not like guardians, that I may accomplish

another pain-loosing cunning to aid my father.

I would wish for that murderous sword, that I might die,

heavy-hearted, slipping upon my father-slaying iron.

This man, who cut off the head of my father,

slay Aerie too after Tectaphus, that one may say:

'Both father and child he laid low with one blade.'"

She spoke, shedding tears; and her grief grew greater.

And against the twin hosts she fanned the flame of War . . .

And with his sword Morrheus killed the Taenarian Dasyllius,

who never threw away his shield before the foe,

the Amyclaean townsman, unshaken before his enemies,

driving his spear by the bone of his right jaw.

And he killed mountain-running Alcimacheia, who in one frame

had manhood and beauty surpassing her youthful prime,

the daughter of Harpalion, the cluster-loving father,

who was so daring that she came even into the house of Hera

lifting the ivy, which the Argive goddess loathed

as much as she loved the reddening, wonted pomegranate;

and she lashed the well-made image with her wine-dark thyrsus,

striking the bronze body with her vine-cluster,

dishonouring the heavy-wrathed stepmother of Lyaeus.

Nor did god-fighting Lemnian Alcimacheia escape

the grim anger of Hera who laid hold on her; but in a foreign

land she was buried, and after the wars

she did not see her father Harpalion a second time, nor saw her homeland,

Lemnos, the bridal of Jason's Hypsipyle;

but among strangers she was hidden in the heaped dust,

meeting an avenging doom. Ah, greatly wretched,

she lost Harpalion and was robbed of Lyaeus.

Nor was furious Morrheus sated with cutting down

the god-mocking maenad Alcimache; but her too,

dwelling in Elis, on the Olympian floor of the plough-land

beside the stream of Alpheus, the garland-loving river,

he killed, Codone, still a maiden. Be merciful, Fates,

he had no pity on the tresses of her withering head,

nor on the rosy ray of her dust-fouled face;

nor, seeing on her breast a nipple like a rounded apple,

did he pity it, the unbending goad of her girdle,

nor did he reverence the gash of her deepening thigh,

but he killed so great a beauty before its time; and wounded,

she fell to the ground; and pursuing countless

fair-robed maenads, helmet-flashing Morrheus killed,

he reaped Eurypyle and Sterope and Soe with his blade,

and cut down Staphyle, and wounded ruddy Gigarto,

and, piercing above the rosy nipple,

he reddened the breast of Melictaena with his murderous iron.

And the envious Telchines advanced to the tumult,

one holding a vast fir-tree, one a cornel

bush whole and uprooted, another, breaking off

the peak of a crag, smashed it down, and went to the fray of the Indians,

shaking the javelin-stone with frenzied forearm.

And fickle Hera, bearing down upon Lyaeus,

gave might and courage to proud Deriades,

and as he excelled she granted him a light-bearing radiance

for terror to the foe; and as the warrior armed,

a deadly gleam flashed from his Indian shield,

and over the crest of his helmet a leaping flame blazed.

And bold Bacchus trembled, when he saw of Deriades

the boss of his fire-stricken shield flashing,

and the air-roaming gleam of his kindled helmet;

seeing him, Dionysus was astounded, and dared not

meet him, and, perceiving the cunning of Hera who armed him,

with unwilling feet he withdrew from the battle.

And then the Indians, taking courage, went to the fray,

now that Bromius had left the fight; and watching,

Deriades cut down the rank of thronging Bacchants,

whirling his spear this way and that in turning sweeps.

And grieving, Iobacchus climbed to the ridge of the wood,

and left to the winds his hope of driving the fight,

trembling at his stepmother's savage anger. But Athena came

from heaven; for high-ruling Zeus had sent the messenger before,

that his fleeing brother, terrified with fear of Hera,

she might draw back to the battle with changed purpose;

she stood behind, and gripped the tawny hair of Bacchus,

appearing to him alone, the grim goddess; and from her face

her eyes shot up a fiery flash;

and breathing wise sparks upon Lyaeus,

reproaching and angered, she spoke in a war-loving voice:

"Where do you flee, Dionysus? Why fear instead of fight?

Where are your valiant thyrsus-wands and your vine-arrows?

What tale shall I cry to my son of Cronus about you?

What lord of the Indians did I see destroyed in the fight?

Deriades lives, and Morrheus still fights on.

What heaven-born inborn valour were you showing?

Did you set foot in Libya? Did you have the contest of Perseus?

Did you see the eye of stony Stheno, or the

hard-fighting, bellowing throat of Euryale herself?

Or did you mark the tresses of snake-haired Medusa,

and did the chasm of her scattered serpents wind about you?

Semele did not bear a warlike child; but Gorgon-slaying,

a worthy son, did Acrisione bear to my Zeus;

for winged Perseus did not shake off my sickle,

but honoured Hermes, the giver of his sandals.

I have a neighbouring witness, the rocky beast of the sea;

ask Cepheus of me, what the harpe of Perseus wrought;

ask the East and the West; for both alike,

the Nereids tremble at the husband of Andromeda,

the Hesperides sing of the reaper of Medusa.

Aeacus, undismayed, is not like Bacchus,

he did not flee Deriades, he did not tremble at the fight of the Indians.

Did the Arabian champion frighten you again yesterday? Ever since then

I shrink from seeing furious Ares, the father of Lycurgus,

crying out the weakness of war-fleeing Dionysus.

Your father and mine did not tremble at the battle,

when the Titan gods were arrayed against Olympus.

What Orsiboe did you carry off, mistress of the Indians?

Your Rhea did not see Cheirobie won by the spear.

Be merciful, glory of Zeus: I will not call you brother,

Deriades who flees, nor the race of unwarlike Indians.

But take up your thyrsus-wands and remember the fight again,

and lead the host; and to the armed Bacchant women

you shall see well-armoured Athena sharing the fight,

lifting the aegis, the unwounded weapon of Olympus."

So speaking, she breathed might into Bromius; and he, bold in heart,

fought a second time, and of the victory to come

he entrusted all his hope to Tritogeneia.

Then whom first, whom last did Bacchus slay,

when insatiable Athena gave him courage for battle?

He slew a hundred of the foe with his pitiless thyrsus,

and gave a wound to many, striking with his spear in many ways,

either with the tendrils of plants or with the well-budded cluster,

or casting a stone, a rugged bolt; and the stricken

were driven, with a din, into Bacchic frenzy by the divine lash.

And he wounded the left shoulder of Phringus with his sharp thyrsus;

but he, leaping, withdrew untouched; and as he fled

Melisseus laid him low with his whetted ox-cleaver.

And thyrsus-mad, far-shooting Dionysus rushed at Egretius,

whirling his Bacchic-loving spear; and flying

the Bacchic point of the spear whizzed through the air,

eager to strike the man, and, when Egretius had fled,

it fell upon the Bolinges, and the battle-rousing Arachotae

it startled into fear; and with his strong-wine-loving leaf

the dread tribes of the spear-bold Salangae were cut down;

and the host of the shield-bearing Arieni was startled;

and pursuing the champions of Phringus and Egretius,

Euius startled the whole host of the Uatocoetae;

and valiant Iobacchus thrust Lygus from the bloody

tumult; and Meilanion, who lay in wait by a tree,

the guileful one, he wounded with his wine-dark thyrsus,

as he shot at the Bassarids with hidden bolts;

but hard-fighting Hera took him alive unharmed,

because he had armed himself with guile and often assailed the Bacchants

with secret wars; and ever a rock hid him,

or a high-headed plant, as he lurked stolen among the leaves,

shooting at men with unmarked bolts.

And the Indians sped after the man-slaying tumult,

trembling at the valour of unconquered Dionysus.