Book 34
Late Antiquity Nonnus of Panopolis Greek- While the Bacchant women are slain on either side, in the thirty-fourth book Deriades arms himself against them within his towers. The mountain-roaming girl, with swift and whirling foot, keeping her tread soundless, passed into the ridge of the forest; nor did Thetis linger upon the shore, but she too entered her father Nereus' weed-grown halls of the deep. Now, straining his eye through the cloudless air, Morrheus gazed his fill upon the starry circles of heaven, and spoke a word, lashing his heart with cares: “My mind drifts, shifting this way and that; not one counsel, not one purpose holds me; manifold longings have wheeled their ring about me, and I cannot finish a single one. Shall I kill the lovely Chalcomede? But what shall I do if, by desire after her death, she should kill me in turn? Or shall I leave her living, unwounded, and openly draw the maiden to a wedding? But in my heart I dread Deriades, and I pity Cheirobie. No, I will never kill the maiden; yet if I overcome her, how can I live, when I shall look upon the maiden no more? I waste away when I am parted from Chalcomede a single hour.” Such things Morrheus spoke in vain, and went, that man of many devices, seething with the pains of love-stricken care. As he wandered, doubling back high above the bank, having left the bed of the solitary, unforgotten nymph, bold Hyssacus, lying awake, marked him; and crafty as he was, he discerned the hidden goad of unfathomed loves, that most faithful servant; and with a wily speech he questioned him, pouring out this beguiling word from his throat: “Why, leaving your bed and your sleeping bride, do you wander here and there through the dark, undaunted Morrheus? Has Deriades perhaps frightened you with a threat? Is Cheirobie angry with you in a jealous heart, thinking you love some spear-won Bacchant woman? For when they see their husbands raving with love, women are forever envious over a secret passion. Or has bold Desire, the all-subduer, perhaps levelled against you the bridal sparks of his sleepless quiver? Do you long for one of the Bassarids? As I hear it, three are the Graces, dancers of Orchomenus, handmaids of Phoebus; but of dance-weaving Lyaeus there are ranks of three hundred Graces, of whom one alone shines forth surpassing all, even as the Moon herself with brighter beams hides the gleam of the stars, shooting her well-rounded radiance abroad. And she is armed with twin shafts under one law, striking with beauty and casting her blade of iron; this is Pasithea of the glancing helm, whom the Bacchants call Chalcomede; but I myself will name her silver-footed Artemis, or Athena of the golden shield.” So speaking, he fell silent; and drawing down the edge of his brow, with shamefaced lips, Morrheus, unhappy in love, spoke: “Truly Dionysus plunged beneath the sea's wave in fear of Lycurgus, and from the depths of the gulf below he armed the Nereids, and came from the brine bringing to the war his sea-dwelling sister Aphrodite; and instead of a bridal and sweet-scented robe he gave her an iron corslet to wear, and instead of the girdle he bestowed a bronze spear; and changing her former name he called her Chalcomede, Aphrodite under arms. She is a companion of the Bassarids; and against them both, unknowing, I fight—against Cypris and against Dionysus. Why do I lift my furious spear in vain? Yield, my spear-point. If the Paphian overcame the hurler of the thunderbolt, if she tames the sceptred lord of wars with her own spark, if she set the fiery Phaethon ablaze with a greater fire and drives the burning one—what could I do with iron? Tell me some counsel to aid me against the Cyprus-born. Shall I wound Eros? Whence shall I overtake the winged one? Shall I raise a spear? He fights with fire. Shall I draw a sword? He has a bow; and that bow is fire fastening on my heart. Often have I been wounded in battle; but, worn down, the healer saved me by his life-preserving craft, twining over the wound the pain-killing flower of herbs. Hyssacus, do not hide it: what varied drugs must I sprinkle to heal within my heart the wound of the Loves? Against my foes I am ever bold; but when I behold Chalcomede present, my spear-point turns to a woman's. I do not tremble before Dionysus; yet I cower before a woman, because, sending a flash from her love-darting face, she shoots me with her form, and I draw my bow no longer. So then I have looked upon one of the Nereids; if it is right to say it, either Thetis or Galatea fights at the side of Dionysus.” He spoke, and treading slowly on the very tips of his feet, lest he should wake his bride asleep in the night, he came back to the chamber; and from the dark-bosomed nymph he turned his eye far away, and longed that, appearing, Chalcomede might shine and rise like the dawn. Vexed beneath downcast Love, he fell upon his couch; and the sleepless servant, with a longing for sweet sleep, Hyssacus, slept again upon his ox-hide. As Morrheus slumbered, a vision of a dream beguiled him, darting up through the ivory gates that cheat the mind, and spoke a word of lovely deceit: “Receive Chalcomede, willing now, bridegroom Morrheus; receive your bride to your bed after the wars. By day you gladdened my sight when you looked on me; by night lie beside the love-loving Chalcomede. There is a grace even in a sleeping marriage; there is even the lovely, sweet sting of dream-wrought weddings. I longed to hold you in my arms—and near at hand is Dawn.” So speaking, she flew away; and Morrheus leapt up from sleep, and marked the light of Dawn beginning, who steals away wedlock; and he fancied he held Chalcomede his desire; and at once in silence he spoke, feeding the deceitful hope the Cyprian had given: “Threefold, O Dawn, is the light you bring, for you carry Chalcomede, and lead the radiance, and drive away the night. Comforter of sleepless Morrheus, may you too appear, Chalcomede, rosier than rose-crowned Dawn; never do the meadow Hours bring such a rose. Graceful maiden, your cheeks possess a springtime meadow that time knows not how to wither; your flowers bloom even when the Hours bring autumn; your lilies shine even in winter; and there surrounds your body the blushing anemone that never fades, which the Graces tend and the winds do not destroy. You have adorned your name, foremost in iron; your name befits your manhood; and Chalcomede— not without cause they call you so: for bronze-clad Ares begot you upon the bed of Cypris, mother of the Loves, in his dancing. All call you Chalcomede; but I alone will name you Chrysomede, since you have the beauty of golden Aphrodite. I am persuaded that from Sparta you draw your descent; for, as I think, iron-mailed Aphrodite gave birth to Chalcomede.” Such a word he uttered upon his wakeful bed. But when, sending a gleam from her reddening face, the far-shooting Dawn, herald of battle, sprang up, Ares, rouser of armies, was arming the Indian race; and then, harnessed, from their well-rolling beds the Indians streamed together to the chariot of Deriades. But the Bacchants, with unconquered Dionysus not present, poured into the plain downcast; and in their hearts no longer confident, they marched out to the din of battle, but were shaken with fear; and no longer with man-breaking frenzy did the bronze-clad women rave as before, nor from the deep-voiced, bellowing throat did they fling up foam, but in soundless silence the ringing backs of the untanned ox-hide stayed still; no torches blazed with the flame of the warlike pine, belching deadly smoke; but beneath the goad of the divine whip the warriors grew soft as women. No Satyrs shouted; the wonted noise of the pipe that rouses the fray did not boom; in unbacchic battle the Sileni fought soberly, nor, smearing their faces with vermilion of one hue with the dark gore, did they redden a tawny mark in a false shape for terror; nor were their foreheads daubed with white gypsum and sprinkled as before; nor, having drunk with their lips the warm, fresh-flowing blood of a desert-roaming lioness, did the storm-swift Pans rave in the battle, but for fear they became gentle; and timorous, with sparing, noiseless hooves they struck the ground, checking the dread, mountain-running leap of the dance. But overweening Deriades rushed on to manly battle, shaking the point of his horn like a helmet-crest; and Morrheus, leaping upon the women's phalanx, raved; for Chalcomede no longer stood as companion to the Bacchants, so that he might revere her, and when the women charged, reddening with blood, might check his point; but then there joined the fray among the foremost fighters a lovely young maiden, a far-famed bowing Amazon, wearing light raiment and a flashing tunic upon the plain; for wise Thetis had told her so, to save the whole toiling host while Dionysus was shaken from his place. There, cleaving through the image of a face like the Graces', Morrheus took alive eleven helpless Bassarids, whom after Chalcomede he had chosen; and of the Maenads he bound the backstrained hands with a bond not to be loosed, and dragging the loose-haired rank under the yoke of slavery he gave them as captive handmaids to his father-in-law Deriades, a second bride-gift for his wife, for whose bed's sake he had waged the bride-winning war beside high-crested Taurus, when he bound with the marriage-bond the young royal maiden of Deriades, Cheirobie of his own age; for the chief of the Indians had taken no wedding gift for his daughter, no lovely gold, no marble stone of the sea with its sheen, but herds of cattle and flocks of sheep Deriades refused, and to his battle-rousing warriors he joined his daughters in marriages that took no gifts, having Morrheus for son-in-law and nine-cubit Orontes; and to two foremost fighters he wedded his own offspring, Cheirobie to Morrheus and Protonoe to Orontes; for Morrheus was not like men of earth, but with the high-necked shape of Giant limbs he imitated the ancestral might of the earthborn Indians, having the native stock of towering Typhon, when beside the neighbouring rock of the fire-bred Arimoi he displayed his kindred valour to the witness Cydnus, bringing the bride-gifts of the marriage, the sweat of the Cilician contests, a possessionless bridegroom, who won his bride by valour. So once, to the iron that wooed for Morrheus' marriage, Assyria bent the knee, and into the yoke of Deriades Cilician Taurus bowed his rocky neck, and bold Cydnus sank down; whence in the land of the Cilicians Morrheus is still called Sandes, the Heracles. And these things were of old; but in the later battle Morrheus took the raving women captive with his unsparing spear; and exulting, he poured out an unbridled cry: “To you, sceptred lord, the treasures of your daughter, the Bacchants, I bring first, and afterwards I will deliver Bacchus.” As Morrheus spoke so, the lord of the Indians answered: “Having Cheirobie without bride-gift, helmet-glancing Morrheus, you gave me worthy gifts of a shield-bearing wedding, enslaving the cities of the Cilicians with high-manhood victory. Now once more you grant me new gifts; and if you will, plunder still other Bassarids, and fill the whole house of Cheirobie with handmaids; but for Bacchus I have no need of Morrheus: with chains unbreakable I will bind him, and drag Dionysus into the bondage of the slave's yoke. Only guard yourself, for me, from desire of a spear-won bed, lest I see you like the woman-mad Indians; do not gaze at the eyes and silver neck of a Bacchant, lest in your longing you wrong my jealous daughter. But when I have destroyed the whole army of Bromius, I will go to the Maeonian land, whence I will draw off the boundless wealth of the Lydians, all that Pactolus swells; I will come to vine-rich Phrygia, where Rhea is the nurse of Bromius, and I will lay waste the neighbouring rich plain of silver Alybe, that I may carry off the gleaming, snow-white backs of the wealth-gushing mines; and I will sack the land they call seven-gated Thebes, and burn the fiery house of Semele, where the bridal chambers still bear the warm remnants of a wedding withered away.” So spoke the lawless king; and from his son-in-law of Enyo Deriades received the whole rank of handmaids, the gifts of battle, and to Phlogius and Agraeus he gave the Bacchants dragged by the hair; and in a bond all of one weaving unbreakable thongs were bound about their hands. These Phlogius led, the heralds of the king's victory, and paraded them bound through the city. And high uplifted, some, beside the gateway of the well-carved hall, were strangled, their entwined necks crushed in a deadly bond; to others he gave a warm doom of fiery destruction; and some were entombed in earth-dug streams in the hollows of a well, where from the depths of the gulf with hand passing to hand the forced water is drawn up; and one, within the wet, deepening cavity, half-seen, unmoved, spoke with an answering voice: “I have heard that to the Indians earth and water are a god; nor is this ever said in vain: for both have armed against me of one mind, and I am set midway between death by earth and destruction by water, and I hold a twin-yoked doom close: for a muddy, strange bond holds me, and I lift my foot no longer, but, having rooted my fixed knees in the wet clay, I stand unshaken, ready for the Fates; a river too pursued me, yet I did not tremble at the streaming water. Would that this too were a sounding flood, that here also I might oar my hands and cleave the dark water.” She spoke; and at her opening throat the down-flowing streams receiving little by little, she died an unburied death. But Morrheus, fettered by the sweet goad of Chalcomede, drove the whole ironless host of the Maenads into the beetling city, pricking them from behind with his spear. As when a shepherd, into the recesses of a spacious fold, driving into one the scattered ranks of mingled sheep, guides the wool-fleeced flocks with his crook all together, and many herdsmen marched along with him, hemming the sheep in with a shared sweep of the arm, headlong, in close order, fitted close, lest ever from the flock as it is penned a stray swarm should wander off the path; so he, penning the female throng within the gateway, into the steep-built city storm-footed Morrheus drove the whole Bacchic rank, torn away from the war. And toiling, he kept up a vain stratagem, so that from the battle leaving the fair-women plunder, the migrant prey, he might drag Chalcomede under the yoke of servitude, a fellow with the other women, that for him forever she might be a handmaid by day and a bedmate by night, and might perform in turn the works of two goddesses, the secret works of Cypris and the open loom of Athena. . . . But Morrheus, the spearman, was not negligent; for to Deriades, fighting at close quarters, he entrusted the fugitive women's war, and against the Bacchic phalanx he rushed in manly battle, that he might hem in the men as well; and in the fray they were driven to flight. But the stormy maiden stood, arrayed before the city, near the tower, a maiden unveiled; and of the love-maddened women with feigned gestures the maiden imitated the manner, rolling her eyes; and outside her wonted girdle the white tunic reddened against her blushing breast; and Morrheus, beholding, was delighted, and through the thin robe discerned the swelling curve of her breast. And a well-wrought stone, like the rounded discus, the maiden snatched up, a monstrous load for a wagon, and hurled it at well-helmed Morrheus with knowing skill; and the stone, borne from the air with a sharp whirr, struck the rim of his shield, where the gold-wrought image bore the counterfeit form of Cheirobie in a lying shape, and shore off the fashioned head, and as it was struck, with its marble edge scoring the carved face it ground away the rounded image of the imitated form; and Morrheus, blessing his shield, leapt up again and again, and laughing in his heart he uttered a secret voice: “Fearless Chalcomede, young rosy-fingered Persuasion, delicate ornament of Cypris and of well-corsleted Athena, Bacchic dawn and never-setting Moon, you have scraped off the painted form of my wife; would that of the real Cheirobie herself you had reaped the neck, the true bride.” So speaking, he pursued before the city the unwedded maiden, keeping a threatening tongue, not arming his hand, hurling a word, not piercing the maiden with his spear, lifting in a gentle hand a spear that spared her; and a deceitful Echo rang of his grim shout, as of a chief truly wrathful yet kindly; for both at once he kept a laughing mind, and showed anger on his face. Gently whirling it, he sent the wavering point at the useless target, on purpose; and she, fleeing, swift-kneed, ran along, a companion to the airy breezes; and as she stretched out with the windy rush of her knee, the breezes fanned up her clustering locks, baring a neck that vied with the Moon; and with sparing feet, on purpose, Morrheus ran, now at the bare tread of her foot, free of well-stitched sandals, gazing at her rosy ankles, now marking the back-streaming, coiling tresses of the wandering hair, he pursued Chalcomede; and he cried with a sweet word, pouring a gentle, calm speech from his throat: “Wait for me, Chalcomede, the warrior who longs for you. Your splendour saves you, not your running; not so much do spears know how to strike a man, as the sparks of the Loves. I have not become your foe, do not fear; for as I fought, your beauty conquered my brazen spear-point. You need no spear, no shield; for the ray of your face is like a sword to you, like a furious spear, and far more than the ash-spear your cheeks prevail in battle. The dread strength of my hand is loosed; for it is no shame, if I hold my furious spear conquered, since even savage Ares himself grows soft as a woman when Cypris stands by. Receive me as a fellow with your Satyrs; for in wars the Indians will be the bravest, so long as I still arm my hand. But if you will, like a servant I will toil for Dionysus; if you will, slay me, at the neck or at the flank; I care not for death, pierced by your spear; only mourn for me when I have fallen; and as you weep, the tears of Chalcomede will bring me back even from Hades. Maiden, why do you tremble, because I lift a gentle spear? Looking on your coiling locks above your shoulders uncovered, I have laid aside the helmet from my hair; gazing at the fawnskin, I loathe to wear the corslet.” As he spoke, the woman passed him by and mingled with the Bacchants, and, turned aside from the path of murderous Morrheus, fought boldly and contended in manly battle. And then, leaving the eddy of the ill-sounding din, the Bacchic throng took breath, while Morrheus drew back. And the phalanx of the Bassarids before the city, striking with his sword, Deriades pursued, until he drove them near the towers, penning the whole rank within the opened gate of the high-crested wall; and driven by the iron, torn from their wonted woodland, they came within the city; and the unsteady ranks, along the unaccustomed circuits of the road, marched here and there, scattered apart, to the wing of Eurus, to the ridge of Zephyrus by the western quarter of the earth, some wandering by the border of Notus, some of Boreas the Bassarids were driven; and the man-hearted constraint the Maenads exchanged, and again became women, and renounced battle, and of the distaff-loving craft and of the wool-baskets they remembered, and longed once more to tend the spinning-thread of Athena and no longer the thyrsus of Lyaeus. And destroying the snow-white rank, the dark-skinned man kept up the inmost rout of the city-guarding battle.