Book 32

32. In the thirty-second are battles, and the bed of slumbering Zeus, and the madness of Lyaeus.

So speaking she persuaded her; and crafty Aphrodite yielded to her gainful words, and drawing from her bosom gave to willing Hera the girdle of the Loves. And she spoke a word concerning the charming band: "Receive this girdle, a remedy for your distress; you will charm all things in one with the desire-guiding girdle, the Sun and Zeus and the upper air and the choir of stars, and the unstable stream of boundless Ocean." She spoke, and sank into the Assyrian Lebanese rock. And Hera entered the star-roaming circle of Olympus, and swiftly adorned her all-white form; often, smoothing the wandering tress let down to her forehead, she set straight the straying cluster of her hair; and she moistened her braided locks with fragrant oil, whose far-shadowing scent, when it stirred, through air and sea made the whole earth drunk with the breath of perfume. And on her head she had an all-glittering wreath, in which were many brilliant gems, companions of Love, from which the Cyprian fire sends bright sparkles as they are shaken; and she had that stone which draws men into desire, bearing the bright name of love-stricken Selene, and the stone that yearns for love-begetting iron, and the Indian love-stone, since it too sprang from the waters, kin to the foam-born, and the dark hyacinth, still dear to Phoebus; and about her tresses she bound a love-bringing herb, which Cytherea loves, as the rose, as the anemone, and wears it when she is about to lie with the son of Myrrha; and she bound her flanks crown-wise with the unwonted girdle; and she had a dappled robe, most ancient, on which had flowed in the secret love of a bride's union with brothers the bridegroom's blood, still a remnant of her old maidenhood, that she might remind her husband of their wedded love; and washing her brow she covered it with a flashing veil, and clasped the brooch, the key of her tunic; and having dressed her body and gazed in the mirror, like a feather or a thought Hera ran through the air. And she came near to Zeus; and seeing her, high-ruling Zeus was lashed by the goading girdle into hot Loves; and as Zeus looked on, his eyes were enslaved; and the son of Cronus, watching her, questioned her with a word: "Hera, why have you come to the eastern clime of earth? What need brought you? Why do you walk here today? Do you again, in anger, arm yourself against wine-dark Bacchus, and long to help the overweening Indians? Speak." And with laughing mind much-contriving Hera, mad with jealousy, spoke, beguiling her bedfellow: "Father Zeus, another dear errand keeps me; for I do not come pursuing alien cares of Indian Ares and Indian-slaying Dionysus, but to the burning halls of neighbouring Helios at the sunrise I go in haste; for winged Love, beside the water of Tethys, stung by the goad for Rhodope, daughter of Ocean, has renounced the marriage-yoke; and the world has become a wanderer, and life is useless when the unions are gone; him I go to summon, returning here; for you know that I am called the Yoke-goddess, since my own hands command the birth that brings offspring to fulfilment." To her, crying out such a word, her hot husband replied: "Dear bride, leave off your strife; let my proud Dionysus, mowing down root and branch the unbacchic race of Indians, take his joy; and let the bridal bed receive us both; for it is not desire of an earthly wife, nor of a goddess, that has so set my heart raging with the charming girdle . . . not when I loved Taygete the Atlantid, from whose bed the eldest-born city-guardian Lacedaemon grew up; not so much did I love Niobe beside neighbouring Lerna, daughter of first-born Phoroneus; nor so much Io, the roaming Inachian, the cow-eyed, who beside the Nile bore the offspring of Epaphus and first-born Keroessa; not so much did I come to desire of the Paphian, for whose bed I begot the Centaurs, casting seed in the furrow of earth; as now I follow your sweet desire—do you too, as one born of the yoke and mistress of the race, shoot your bedfellow with Cyprian darts?" So speaking, he rolled the golden clouds into a tower and enclosed himself in a curving, rounded canopy; and there was a fashioned likeness of a bridal chamber, which then in a circle the many-coloured form of the heavenly rainbow crowned with purple, and for Zeus and his bright-armed bride it was an unbidden shelter of the dewy union, and a self-made image of the chamber of necessary love. And they joined in the sweet ordinance of gracious marriage; and the earth, unfolding her fragrant childbed, crowned the bridal bed with lovely flowers; and the Cilician saffron sprang up, and the smilax grew, and to the female herb beside it twined the male leaves, as though the delicate husband breathed desire even among the flowers, and a double shoot adorned the bed of both, covering Zeus with saffron and his consort Hera with smilax; and to wise silence the sharp love of Zeus was shown by the lovely narcissus leaping upon the anemone. Nor did any of the immortals look on the shadowed bed, not then the Nymphs their neighbours, nor all-seeing Phaethon, nor even the eye of cow-eyed Selene beheld the imperishable union; for with thick clouds the shelter of the bed was girdled, and Sleep, companion of the Loves, charmed the eyes of Zeus. While Zeus lay sleeping delicately among the flowers, charmed, holding his consort in his arms upon the unseen bed, meanwhile the many-shaped Fury that roams the mountains was armed against Dionysus by the nods of Hera; and she crashed a din upon the eyes of Lyaeus, shaking, heavy-thundering, her viperous scourge; and she tossed her head, and from her serpent locks, shuddering, shaken, a deadly echo hissed, and jets of venom sprinkled the lonely peak . . . Now showing the likeness of a beast's face, fearfully mad she bristled, a lion with thick-haired throat, rushing at Dionysus with bloody jaws. Him, held fast in the leap of mind-stealing frenzy, Artemis watched, and wished to drive off the madness, but heavy-thundering Hera from on high frightened her, hurling a torch; and the mistress of the hunt gave way, in anger at her stepmother; yet some guardian there was of Bacchus in his madness, and she checked his beasts with a threat, and fastened his hunting hounds with a bond, binding tight the tangled trace of the neck-straps, lest they should harm the flesh of mind-distraught Dionysus. And Megaera, blackening in her nether tunic, came again into the gloom, darting at Lyaeus phantoms of many shapes; and against Bromius many venom-shooting drops were shot from her head, and grim sparks; and ever within his hearing the Tartarean hiss of the mind-stealing scourge whistled. And Dionysus, suffering, within the lonely thicket ranged the hard-to-tread mountains with wandering foot, shaken by a demonic gasping; and about the rocks, like a gadfly-maddened bull, he butted with his horns, pouring a harsh bellow from his frenzied throat; and Echo of evil sound, leaving Pan and her after-voice, bellowed with a maddened cry, answering the bold answering sound of Dionysus. And dappled deer and shaggy lionesses he pursued, storm-swift Bacchus, following the mountain-roaming chase; no bold lion came near him; the frightened bear, startled, hid in a hollow rock, cowering before the madness of threatening Lyaeus, receiving in her grim ears the god-driven sound; and the long serpents leaning on a rock, licking gently, he sheared off with his pitiless thyrsus; and he shook the peaks with his long-pointed horn, slaying the suppliant tribes of unbending lions; and he uprooted the oaks of the fruitful field, and pursued the Hadryads; and shooting the hills he drove the Naiad Nymphs from their river, wanderers. The Bassarids strayed and did not touch Lyaeus, and the Satyrs, shuddering, hid themselves in the sea, nor did they come near him, awed at the weight of his threat, lest he should rush at them, pouring a discordant sound, hurling snow-white foam, the witness of his madness. But Deriades, with overweening boldness, fell upon the Bacchants, by the nods of Hera, while Dionysus was shaken. As when, roaring in the swell of wintry breakers, the unsailable sea rages with opposing storm-blasts, snowing the drenched air with towering waves; and the stern-cables, by the unsparing onset of the wave, the squalls have snapped, and rolling the sail with a gust the furious blast stripped the bowed mast bare, girt round with sails, and the yard was wrenched askew, and the sailors in distress gave up their hope to the sea; so then the Indian War-god roused the whole host against Bacchus. There was strife in no order, nor was the clash of men equal, nor the contest fair; for tireless, returning, rousing the war-cry, bronze Ares thundered on, bearing the likeness of the champion Modaeus, who more than others insatiate of battle delighted in the joyless gore, to whom slaughter was sweeter than a feast; and on his shield, like the snaky coils of the Gorgon's locks, bearing the painted image of fair-tressed Medusa, he was like to Deriades, of the same colour; and then, of that horror-bringing form having the laughterless likeness of face, and bearing the twisting tress and the device of the shield, fearfully mad, host-rousing Ares was borne into the fray, and cheered the champions. With one-tongued war-cry, though Bacchus was not present, the fearless Indians roared, and deadly Ares thundered back a nine-thousandfold din, having roaming Strife as his fellow-worker; and in the tumult he set Phobos and Deimos, the attendant of Deriades. And the army of lonely-roaming Dionysus was stung to madness by Deriades and by Ares, running beside the slumber of Zeus. The mingled phalanxes of the like-zealed battle girdled with iron the whole rank of the Bassarids, and many fleeing were slain by the slayer, struck down by swords. Homeric Muses, tell me, who died, who fell beneath the spear of Deriades: Aibialus and Thyamis and Ormenius and Opheltes, Criasus son of Argasus, Telebes and Lyctian Antheus and Thronius and Aretus and the fair-speared Moleneus and brave Comarchus; and one upon another was stretched out by the spear of Deriades, a dead host; and as they perished, one lay sprawled on the ground, another on the streams floated, bearing the wavy fray, another in the sea nearby was subdued, and as he was driven by iron the Arab Nereus entombed in the waves the newly-wounded man; another ran on stormy foot through the mountain, fleeing death; another, leaving the spear fixed midway through his back, made for the inner shade of the thicket, needing the absent averter of evil, Dionysus. Boastful Echelaus fell by an untombed doom, struck by the man-breaking stone of towering Morrheus, a Cyprian, still bearing the newly-traced circle of his beard, wholly like a high-leaved palm; and in the tumult the delicate unshorn youth rolled, shaking his torch, struck at the tip of the hip, where with binding-bond to the flesh Nature fitted the axle of the thigh, joined to its socket; and he died, still grasping the kindled mystic pine, and gasping, he turned his head to ash with his own torch, burning his twining locks with the smoking brand. And boasting over him, scoffing Morrheus cried out: "Boy, stranger to your reputed nurse, youth Echelaus, you have belied your descent from Cyprus; you do not have your race from Pygmalion, to whom Cypris gave the long course of a long-lived life; your bridegroom Ares did not save you for your Paphian; nor did your Cytherea give you the boundless rounds of returning years, nor an unlimping chariot, that you might escape your doom on a death-averting car, ever driving the heavy-kneed course of mules. I erred—you have your race from Cyprus; for swift-dooming Ares has subdued you too, like the son of Myrrha." So speaking, spear-shaking Morrheus charged among the foot; and seizing rolling-footed Bilithus and slaying Denthis, and cutting the neck of the dancer Erigbolus, with his far-flung spear he frightened the Phrygian warriors; and Sebes he laid low headlong with a jagged dart; and pursuing the phalanx of the Thebans and Actaeon, he slew Eubotes, a townsman of the Cadmean land, the comrade of Actaeon. With one-voiced war-cry many, fleeing the boundless might of Deriades, all together slipped headlong into the nets of yoke-mate Fate, dying by the self-slaying, threshing iron, by the casts of a single man; and falling on one another they were strewn in rows in the bloody dust— Crimisus, Imaleon, Phrasius, Thargelus, Iaon, among whom, as they were hewn down, Coilon fell in their number, and a corpse, Cyes, rolled in a bloody doom; and slaughter unspeakable there was; and as they were cut by the hostile iron, the thirsty ground bathed itself willingly in the gore, receiving the strange shower of the Warlike snowfall. And there was rout of the Bacchic phalanx; for unsteady the footmen were shaken, and toward flight the well-stoned bits of the war-shy drivers were drawn back in fear; of whom one, mountain-roaming, sank into a hollow rock, another, going beneath the long-leaved slope of a thicket, sat down hidden in the leaves, another into a lions' cave, another sought the lair of an irresistible bear; and one, escaping over a high-crested headland, with mountain-roaming feet ranged the topmost hill. A Bacchant passed by the lairs of a newly-delivered beast, treading the headland with frightened sandal; for she no longer cared to hold the lions' rock, but reached the strengthless nest of deer with her enfeebled ways, since the Bacchant had turned her former mind into the heart of a deer instead of a lioness. And one of the storm-footed Satyrs ran on frightened foot, sandalless, like the unsteady breezes, fleeing the god-defying weight of the threat of Deriades. And old wandering Silenus pursued the crags; often he fell to the ground with face in the dust, crouching, heavy-kneed, on slippery sandals, again raising up his shaggy body; and among the hills he hid instead of fighting, and the Euian spear by necessity, the thyrsus that cared for the storms, he left, that was no fighter, and barely escaped the spear of well-helmeted Morrheus. And sluggish Erechtheus retreated on hesitant feet, straining backward his fair-rounded eye, ashamed before his city-guardian Athena who loves the fray. And unwilling Aristaeus refused the Bacchic Maenad combat, struck on his left shoulder by an arrow. And he avoided the army of spear-bold Corybantes, wounded along his shaggy breast—Melisseus, grazed at the nipple's tip by an Erythraean point. And the grim Cyclopes, shameless, on nimble foot hastened in awe to flight, with whom, fleeing, unshaken Faunus left behind the Indian War. And drawing the whole army of the fair-horned phalanx into flight, the eldest-born, fugitive, Parrhasian Pan retreated, and on silent feet sank into the shady wood, lest unstable Echo see him fleeing through the mountain, and laugh at him and call him weakling. And then all the champions fled; but in the tumult Aeacus alone was left there, and fighting he lacked the unconquered Dionysus, who was not present; yet even so he stayed there. And from the crag the Nymphs, the Naiads, hid in the deep halls of the water; some, companions of the Hydaspes, others, fleeing, made their dwelling in the streams of the Indus near the path, others were companions of the Sydrian waters, and others in the Ganges wiped off the newly-shed gore; and these, then, many, coming in droves to the watery channels, the silver-footed Naiad with hospitable gateway received into the courts of her billowy maiden-bower. Others hid in the shady clusters of the Hamadryad, sinking into the opening oaken hollows. And many beside the water-bearing springs by the rock, the Bassarids wailed in streams; and with newly-poured tearful shower from the lament-loving face the deep-bosomed fountain, filled, grew all empurpled, mourning the heavy grief of unmourned Dionysus.