Book 40

40. The fortieth holds the slaughtered captain of the Indians, and how Dionysus entered Tyre, the homeland of Cadmus.

Nor did Deriades escape all-seeing Justice, nor even the unbending threads of Fate's unbreakable spindle; for Pallas Athena, beholding him in flight— she was seated above the sea upon a jutting crag, watching the sea-battle and the strife of the armed Indians— sprang up from her lookout and put on a man's shape. With cunning words she beguiled the captain of the Indians, wearing the likeness of Morrheus, and to favour Lyaeus she checked Deriades; and as if anxious for the fray she shouted a dreadful word with much-reproaching voice: "You flee, Deriades? To whom have you left the war of the ships? How can you show yourself to your countrymen? Or how face the war-steadfast Orsiboë, if she should hear that Deriades is in flight and will not stand his ground before women? Have shame before Cheirobie, breaker of men, lest she perceive you cowering from Lyaeus' ironless battle— she who, holding a furious spear and heaving up a shield of oxhide, fought against the Bassarids at her husband's side. Give way to me, leave the fray to Morrheus; and if you wish, I myself will play the champion and destroy unwarlike Bacchus. I will not call you father-in-law while you flee; rather let your daughter Cheirobie have another husband—for in shame I will leave your city behind, and go to the land of the Medes, go to Scythia, that I may not be called your son-in-law. But you will say: my wife, well-armed, knows the war-cry. There are Amazons about the Caucasus, where many women play the champion far better than Cheirobie; there, captured by the spear, a strong bride without dowry I will lead to marriage, if I choose, one of them—for into my chambers I do not receive the child of a war-shunning father." So speaking she persuaded haughty Deriades, and gave him courage a second time, that he might be slain, struck down by the man-killing thyrsus as Bromios fought. And the bold one, not knowing that cunning Athena stood beside him, hearing the chiding speech of the false Morrheus, cried out a comforting word with abashed lips: "Spare your words. Why do you blame me, fearless Morrheus? He is no warrior, no warrior, this one, ever changing his body. For indeed I am at a loss whom I fight or whom I strike. Eager to hit Dionysus with a winged arrow, or to smite the middle of his neck with the sword, or to cast my spear and pierce him through the belly as I long to do, instead of Lyaeus I overtake a dapple-backed leopard rushing upon me . . . As the lion fights I hasten to cut its neck, and instead of the lion I spy a bold and horrible serpent; striving against the serpent I watch the back of a bear; into its hump-arched mane I hurl my furious spear, but in vain I draw the long shaft; for instead of the bear appears an air-roaming, woundless, flying flame. I see a boar coming on, and I hear the lowing of an ox; instead of the swine I behold some bull above its slanting brow hurling against our elephants, with its blue-grey horns, a javelin; and I whirl my own sword against the manifold beasts, and yet I subdue not one beast. I spy a plant and draw my shaft, but as it flees I see toward the airy mark only the arching water. So, trembling at the many-drugged marvels of his craft, I shrink from the ever-shifting battle of Dionysus; but again I will arm against Bromios, until I expose the artful sorceries of guile-stitching Dionysus." So he spoke, and armed himself a second time in his wonted frenzy, and again upon the plain the battle roared, and as he fought Dionysus was armed once more after the strife at sea; and he had forgotten the earlier victory of Bromios, when, his neck enfolded by a tree-like bond, he raised up a much-prayed-for plea with Bacchus as witness. But again he was the god-fighting champion; and he held a purpose of two minds: either to take Bacchus or to make him a slave. Three times he cast his spear, and missed, striking the air; but when for the fourth time he ran upon wine-dark Bacchus, hurling his uplifted spear at a useless target, overweening Deriades called upon his comrade in the contest, his son-in-law—but Morrheus was no longer to be seen; rather Athena, turning aside her wile-weaving shape, stood beside the vine-clustered god; and as he gazed a god-sent terror loosed the knees of Deriades. He knew that the deceiving image of human form bore a copy of the answering face of Morrheus, and he understood the beguiling guile of wise Athena. Dionysus, seeing her, rejoiced, and in his heart he knew that lying Athena fought at his side. And then the vine-clustered god, in his wrath, raged in his frenzy, high-towering, vast, equal to the rock of Parnassus; he pursued swift-running Deriades; but the other in flight, light, stretched himself out as a runner with the hurrying winds. But when he reached the place where the war-breeding water, with raging wave, old Hydaspes murmured, there he stood, vast, beside the river's banks, as if he had his father, a comrade in the contest, a roaring fighter, a watery spearman against the armed assault of Dionysus. But the vine-god, hurling his flesh-cutting thyrsus, only grazed the topmost skin of Deriades. And he, struck by the ivy spray that destroys men, slid headlong into his father's stream, bridging the whole water with his long limbs of his own accord. And the gods, after the long war of the Indians, with all-ruling Zeus returned again to Olympus. The Bacchants raised the cry together for unvanquished Dionysus, hymning the fray, and many gathered round piercing the whole body of Deriades with their spears. Orsiboë wailed upon the much-lamenting towers, mourning her husband, lying newly slain; with mourning nails she scored the circle of her face, and tore the unkempt cluster of her twisted hair, and poured smoking dust upon her head. Cheirobie shrieked aloud over her dead father, and struck her dark arms, and bared the whole breast of her silvery robe, rent in two; and Protonoë, barefoot, scratching her cheeks, disfiguring the circle of her dust-stained face, wept for both her husband and her father, holding a double grief, and cried in mourning voice: "Husband, young you have perished out of life; you have left me a widow in the halls, untried in childbirth; I bore no infant son for comfort; not after victory did I behold my returning husband a second time—rather by the sword he was slain by his own, and gave his name to a river, and died among strangers, so that I must call my husband seedless, self-slain, returnless, watery Orontes. I mourn them both, Deriades and Orontes, perished alike by a watery doom; for man-slaying Deriades the wave hid, and the stream covered Orontes. I have not become wholly like my mother; for Orsiboë sang of her daughters' weddings, untimely cut down; she saw the marriage of Protonoë, received Orontes as son-in-law, and yoked Cheirobie to an unconquered husband, whom even great Bacchus fears; Cheirobie tends her dear husband alive, and neither thyrsus nor stream laid him low; but I suffer doubly, my husband gone and my father destroyed. Cease, nurse, vainly consoling your child; grant me to keep my husband, and I will not bewail my father; show me some child, a comfort for my husband's pain. Who will take and carry me to broad-flowing Hydaspes, that I may kiss the dear billow of the honey-dripping river? Who will take and carry me to the holy glens of Daphne, that I may embrace Orontes even in his streams? Would I too were a lovely stream; would that I myself, rained over with tears, might appear there as a fountain, where my well-watered husband, dead, rolls his billow, a watery bride; and I shall be like Comaetho, who once, having loved a lovely river, takes joy even now in holding her husband Cydnus in her arms— a tale I hear cherished among the Cilician men; but I, longing, will not pass by sweet Orontes, like fugitive Periboea, nor ever, reining back the winding water, will I guard myself against my watery husband. But if it is not fated for me to die beside neighbouring Daphne, let father's-father Hydaspes hide me in his waves, that I may not sleep in the arms of a horned Satyr, that I may not see the Phrygian revel, nor shake cymbals in my hands, that I may not perform the playful rite, nor behold Maeonia, nor see Tmolus, nor the house of Lyaeus, nor the heavy-burdening yoke of slavery, nor let anyone say: the daughter of Deriades, the spear-bold king, serves Dionysus as a captive after the war." As she spoke, the women wailed in pity with her, whose child, whose brother had died, whose fathers, or whose newly-bearded husband untimely. And from her head Cheirobie, tearing her hair, gashed her cheeks; she was scourged by a twofold pain, and for her father she mourned not so much as she was wroth against her husband; for she had heard of Morrheus' love-maddened compulsion and the deceiving guile of chaste Chalcomedeia. And she spoke a word, rending her tunic: "Sparing his ash-wood spear, Morrheus slew my father; nor was he avenger of the dead; but desiring hated Chalcomede, he drove not on the women's war, but still favours the Bassarids. Tell me, you Fates: what envy sacked the Indian city? What envy suddenly fell upon both the daughters of Deriades? Dying in the war, Orontes made his own bride Protonoë an unkempt mourning widow, and Cheirobie her husband renounced while she yet lived. Worse than my sister's are the sufferings I endure; Protonoë had a husband who defended her nurse, Cheirobie had a husband, destroyer of her fatherland, a useless warrior, a follower of the Cyprian goddess, valiant, ever-shifting, of one mind with Lyaeus. Against me my marriage too was armed; for through our Morrheus' desire the city of the Indians was plundered; I was robbed of my father for a man's sake; I who once was haughty and a king's daughter, I who once was mistress of the Indians. I too shall be one of the handmaids; and soon, wretched, I shall call my handmaid Chalcomedeia my mistress. Today you hold the Indian seat, deceitful Morrheus; tomorrow, self-summoned, you will go to the land of the Lydians, serving Dionysus for the beauty of Chalcomede. Openly hold the bed of Chalcomede, bridegroom Morrheus; for no longer do you fear the grim mouth of Deriades. Give way: the serpent calls you again, who pursues you, sending its hiss as guardian of an unplundered marriage." Such things the grieving, heavy-weeping bride spoke; and Protonoë shrieked a second time. Upon both the mother, leaning her downcast hands, cried aloud: "The hopes of our fatherland have fallen; no longer do I behold my husband Deriades, and no longer Orontes my son-in-law. Deriades is dead; the city of the Indians is plundered; the unbreakable wall of my land has toppled. Would that me too Bacchus would take and destroy along with my perishing husband, and, taking me, would cast me into swift-flowing Hydaspes, since the earth refuses me; let the father-in-law water hold me, and let me behold Deriades even in the waters; let me not see Protonoë led unwilling after Dionysus, nor ever hear again the piteous lament of Cheirobie dragged to the love of spear-won wedlock; let me not look upon another husband after Deriades. Would I might share a hearth with the Naiads, since even Leucothoë, living, the dark-haired god received, and she is called one of the Nereids; and instead of white another, with dark feet, I shall appear, a water-Ino." Such things the trailing-robed women mourned, standing in rows upon the loud-roaring towers. But the Bacchants clashed their hands, casting aside the war-cry, shouting such a word from their like-voiced throats: "We have won great glory; we have slain the captain of the Indians." And laughing Dionysus leapt for joy of victory, and, taking breath from his toil and the bloody contest, first he buried the row of unburied corpses, raising a single boundless tomb in a wide hollow, a confused funeral pyre a hundred feet about; and around the dead the Mygdonian pipe, of varied music, sounded its dirge, and the Phrygian flute-players wove a manly strain with mournful mouths, and the Bacchants danced to the tender singing of Ganyctor in Euian voice; and the Berecyntian double pipes of Cleochus beneath the mouth bellowed a fearful Libyan lament, which once both Stheno and Euryale, with one many-throated voice, wailed shrilly over newly-cut Medusa as the two hundred serpents spoke upon her heads, from whom, as they mourned, the twisting hiss of their hair proclaimed a many-headed dirge for Medusa. And, ceasing from his toil, and cleansing his limbs with water, he gave the Indians, now freed from strife, a god-fearing lord, choosing Modaeus; and over a shared cup the Bacchants feasted, and touched a single table, drinking yellow water from the wine-flowing river. And the dance was beyond telling; many a Bassarid leapt up, striking the ground with frenzied sandal, and the Satyr, beating the deep-thudding earth with his foot, revelled with sidelong tumbling leaps of his feet, leaning his arm on the neck of a maddened Bacchant; and the foot-soldiers of Bromios danced together with their shields, and, whirling the armed circles of the rolling dance, imitated the rhythm of the shield-bearing Corybantes, and the host of horsemen stood in the helmet-flashing dance, hymning the all-subduing victory of Dionysus. None was without sound; with like-tongued shouting the Euian echo ran up to the seven-zoned vault. But when the revel of the toil-loosing feast had passed, taking all the spoil of victory after the war of the Indians, Dionysus remembered his ancient homeland, dissolving the seven-year foundations of the war. And the warriors plundered all the wealth of the foe: one held Indian jasper, another the veins of painted Phoebean hyacinth, and the green-tinted backs of emerald; another, beneath the lookouts of fair-founded Imaeus, drove on the upright pace of spear-won elephants, and one, by Emodus' deep-cavernned hill, proudly drove the migrant chariot of Indian lions, and another, fastening a knot upon its neck, hastened to drag a leopard to the Mygdonian shore; and a Satyr was carried along, and with a wine-loving spray, lashing on a spotted tiger that ran before him, he revelled; another came home leading to his Cybeleian bride a fragrant nursery of sea-fed reeds, and a flashing stone, the gift of the Erythraean brine; and many a captive bride of dark complexion, fresh-wedded, was dragged from the chamber with her new husband, yoking her bound, enslaved neck beneath the collar. And lifting in her hand a flowing heap of wealth, the god-driven Bacchant went to the lookouts of Tmolus, hymning the revel for the homecoming Dionysus. And Dionysus shared out the spoil of battle to his host, sending all the people, his comrades in arms, back homeward after the Indian war; and the people hastened away lifting marbles, the Eastern gifts of the sea, and birds of varied form; and on the homeward journey, hymning the revel for unconquered Dionysus, all reveled, leaving behind the memory of the whole laborious war, scattered to run with the Northern breeze; and each, holding the offerings of victory, came late and returning to his home. But instead of his homeland Asterius alone, near the unwashed-footed Bears, about the stream of Phasis settled in a cold land beside the Massagetan gulf, dwelling beneath the snowy ankles of starry Taurus, his father's father, fleeing the Cnossian city and his male-childed lineage, hating Pasiphaë and his own father Minos, and he preferred Scythia to his own land. But Bacchus, with only his own Satyrs and his Indian-slaying Bacchants, after the Caucasian war of the Amazonian river, entered Arabia a second time, where, dwelling often, he taught the people of the unbacchic Arabs to lift the mystic fennel-wands; and from the growth-rich thicket he crowned the Nysian mountains with the clustering spray. And, leaving the deep-shaded grove of Arabia's ridge, he measured the Assyrian path, a wayfarer on foot, and longed to see the land of the Tyrians, the homeland of Cadmus; for there he bent his step, and gazing at the boundless robes he marvelled at the varicoloured works of Assyrian craft, beholding the silver-white work of Babylonian Arachne; and he gazed at the garments dipped in Tyrian dye, that shoot forth purple sparks of the sea, where a sea-working dog, feeding along the shores, its inmost teeth seizing the wondrous fish with its grey jaws, purpled its snowy cheeks with the blood of the shellfish, crimsoning its lips with watery fire, with which alone the bright robe of the sea-cloaked kings once grew red. And beholding the city, he rejoiced—the city which the Earth-shaker girdled not with a whole wet belt of sea, but it received an Olympian shape, such as the moon weaves near to its full, leaving a gap with one of its horns. And to him as he gazed, the land set midway, yoked to the brine, a double wonder befell, since Tyre lies in the sea, divided into a land mass, and joined to the sea with three flanks she fastened one girdle; unmoved she was like a swimming maiden, and gave her head, breast, and neck to the sea, spreading her hands midway in the twin sea, whitening her body with the neighbouring sea-foam, and propped both her feet upon mother earth. And the Earth-shaker, holding the city with an unshaken bond, the watery bridegroom swims about her, as if joining his foaming arm to the encircled neck of his bride. And Bacchus still marvelled at Tyre, in which alone the herdsman, neighbour by the road, mingled with the sailor near him, piping along the strand, and the goatherd with the fisherman hauling his net, and with answering oars the clod was furrowed by the plough as the waters were cloven; and the companions chatted near the sea-side thicket, the shepherds . . . with woodcutters, and in one place roared together the surge of the sea, the lowing of oxen, the whisper of leaves, cable, plant, voyage, grove, water, ships, freighter, plough-handle, sheep, reed, sickle, skiffs, nets, sails, breastplate. And gazing on these things he broke into a much-marvelling voice: "Whence have I beheld an island on the mainland? If it is right to say it, never have I beheld such beauty; for high-stretching trees whisper beside the waves, and as the Nereid speaks across the sea, the Hamadryad nearby hears, and over the Tyrian seas and the sea-bordering fields the gentle southern breeze, breathing from Lebanon, with fruit-bearing breath pours forth a ship-saving gust, cooling the field-dweller and drawing the sailor to his voyage; and bringing the earthly sickle near the sea-deep trident, Deo the harvest-bringer here speaks to the lord of the waters, who drives his dry chariot over the silent calm, to guide an equal course upon the like-zealous cars, plying her whip on the airborne backs of her dragons. O mistress, cared for by all, image of earth, likeness of heaven, you hold the three-sided baldric of the conjoined sea." So speaking, he passed on through the city, straining his eye; and to him as he gazed the stone-paved streets showed forth the gleam of the alternating ore; and he saw the house of his ancestor Agenor, beheld the courts and the chamber of Cadmus, and the unguarded maiden-bower of Europa, once carried off, he entered, holding in mind his own horned Zeus; and the primeval springs he marvelled at the more, where through earth's hollow, the water pouring forth and gathered back into a single hour, with self-born streams loosed the nourishing water; he saw the fertile flow of Abarbarea, beheld the spring named lovely Callirhoë, and saw too the tender bridal water of Drosera as she gushed forth. But when he had marked all with his pleasure-loving heart, he revelled into the house of Astrochiton, and the lord of the stars he summoned, shouting such a word with mystic voice: "Astrochiton Heracles, lord of fire, captain of the cosmos, Helios, long-shadow-casting shepherd of mortal life, riding in spirals over the whole vault with fiery justice, whirling the son of time, the twelve-month year, you bring circle after circle; and from your car the age flows on, shaped now in old age, now in youth; midwife of the wise birthless travail, the image of Mene, you bring to birth the triple-curving moon, when dewy Selene draws from your birth-giving ray her answering fire, gathering the curved horn of the bull; all-shining eye of heaven, you bear on your four-yoked car winter after autumn, you bring summer, changing the spring. Night, driven by your hurling torch, gives way, unstayed, when, drawing the silver yoke, the top-shining, upright horse's neck is lashed, and as you shine the meadow, no longer shining brighter, is dappled with the bright-gleaming stars; washed in the streams of the eastern Ocean, shaking off the fruitful moisture of your cold hair, you bring the fruit-bearing rain, and on well-travailing Earth you belch forth the morning watering of airy dew, and you nourish the travails of the corn with your disc, sprinkling the bounteous harvest through the life-bearing furrow. You are Belus on the Euphrates, Ammon called by the Libyans, Apis you are by the Nile, Cronus to the Arabs, Assyrian Zeus; and bearing fragrant wood upon its hooked talon the wise thousand-year bird, upon your sweet-scented altar, the phoenix, bringing the end of life as its own self-sown beginning, is born, the recurring image of equal time, and, loosing its old age in the fire, exchanges youth for the fire; whether you are Sarapis, the cloudless Egyptian Zeus, or Cronus, or many-named Phaethon, or whether you are Mithras, the sun of Babylon, the Delphic Apollo in Hellas, or Marriage, which Eros sowed in shadowy dreams, fulfilling the deceiving desire of a counterfeit bed, when, from sleeping Zeus, as with the point of a knife he scraped the watery seed upon the self-wedded furrow, the crags were brought to birth by heavenly drops, whether you are pain-slaying Paeon, or whether you are dappled Aether, and you are called Astrochiton—for at night the starry tunics light up the heavens—: with kindly ears receive my voice." Such a word Dionysus uttered. And suddenly, holding an inspired form within the god-receiving temple, Astrochiton flashed forth; and from his fire-eyed face his eyes shot out a rosy gleam; and the radiant god stretched out his hand to Lyaeus, wearing a varied garment, the image of heaven, the likeness of the cosmos, gleaming with golden cheeks and a starry beard; and he gladdened him and soothed him with a friendly table. But he delighted his heart at the unportioned feast, touching ambrosia and nectar; and there is no blame, if he drank sweet nectar after the immortal milk of Hera; and he questioned Astrochiton, pouring forth an inquiring voice: "Astrochiton, teach me, by the form of the earth, by the image of the island, what god founded the city? What heavenly hand drew it? Who raised the crags and rooted them in the sea? Who wrought these marvels? Whence did the springs receive their name? Who mingled the island with the land, yoked to its mother the sea?" He spoke; and Heracles soothed him with a friendly tale: "Bacchus, hear the tale; and I will teach you all. Here once dwelt men whom alone, sprung from the same seed, Aion beheld as coevals of the everlasting cosmos, a holy race of an unwedded earth, whose shape then the unploughed, unsown slime brought to birth of itself; who, with native craft, fortified a city of even floors, unshaken upon rocky foundations. And once, by the well-watered springs, on beds of earth, as the ground was scourged by the vapour of the fiery sun, plucking the Lethean wing of mind-delighting Sleep, they slept together; and, swelling in my heart a city-loving sting, I lifted the standing footprint of the earthborn upon their heads, and, holding the shadowy semblance of a mortal face, I uttered an oracle from my speaking throat: 'Shaking off idle sleep, children of the soil, make me a strange chariot of the passable sea; with sharp-cutting axes cut me the spine of the pine-wood forest; make me a clever work; and beneath thick ribs nailing planks in close-set order, bind together, unshaken, with a fitted bond, a chariot of the sea, a first-sailing raft, which through the deep may carry you; and let a curved end from end to end, a first-fixed long beam, receive the whole support; fasten the planks, fitted to the ribs, in a circle, the dense pattern of a wooden wall; and high-stretching, bound with fastenings, let the middle beam stand upright; and fasten a broad linen cloth to the middle beam, and intertwined ropes in turn, from whose bonds spread out, belly out the cloth to the airy wind, pregnant from the wind, ship-saving; and the newly-built, gaping planks fence with slender pegs, strewing them thickly upon the yoked walls with wicker mats, lest the thieving wave be poured into the hollow hidden draught of the gaping plank. And the helm of the raft, the steersman of its watery course, the much-turning charioteer of the liquid path, whirling everywhere, wherever your mind draws you, score the back of the sea with the wooden hollow, until you come to the destined place, where two unstable rocks float, wanderers in the sea, which Nature named the Ambrosial, in which there flourishes a self-rooted olive shoot, yoked together, of equal age, at the midmost navel of the water-faring rock; and on its topmost boughs you shall behold an eagle sitting beside it, and a well-wrought bowl; and from the flaming tree self-kindled fire belches forth wondrous sparks, and the flame, unburning, feeds about the olive shoot; and a coiling serpent dances about the high-leaved plant, swelling a wonder both to the eyes and the ears; for the serpent, creeping soundless, does not gird the high-flying eagle with a threatening, slanting coil, nor, spitting the death-bearing venom of its teeth, devours the bird with its jaws, nor does the eagle itself, seizing the many-coiled creeper with its talons among the thorns, mount aloft and cleave the air, nor scratch it with its sharp-toothed beak; nor, borne upon the branches of the tall-trunked plant, does the fire feed about the unharmed olive shoot, nor does it wither the coil of the serpent's scales, its fellow-dweller, neighbour by the road; and of the bird's own interwoven wings the leaping fire takes no hold, but sends its dear gleam, a vapour, into the midst of the plant; nor does the unshaken cup, hanging on high, fall down as the boughs are shaken, slipping with the winds. And, having caught the wise coeval bird of the olive, the high-flying eagle, sacrifice it to the dark-haired god, pouring its gore upon the sea-wandering crags and to Zeus and the blessed ones; and the unstable rock no longer wanders, sea-borne, but with unmoving foundations, girded of itself, joins to its unyoked fellow-rock. And fix a city set upon both crags, on either side, upon the base of either sea.' Such an oracular word I uttered; and waking, the Earthborn were stirred, and in the ears of each the wondrous tale of the unwandering dreams ever buzzed. And to them I revealed another portent after the winged dreams, to them in their grief, swelling a city-founding spirit, to be their future city-protector; and peering above the sea, bearing an answering copy in equal shape, the nautilus fish swam into self-taught sailing; beholding it then like a ship of the sea, and learning a well-made voyage without toil, and fastening a raft like the fish of the deep, they imitated an equal pattern of sea-sailing. And the voyage was made; with the equal-weighted load of four stones they steadied their measured sailing upon the sea, and imitated the unshaken passage of the cranes, which, within their mouths, a helper of the road, lift a heavy stone, lest, as they fly, the wind drive their light wings off course, until they beheld that place, where with the gales the crags sailed into a self-guided voyage. And they set the raft beside the sea-garlanded island, and stepped upon the rocks, where was the plant of Athena. And to them, as they sought it, the hearth-bird of the olive, the air-roaming eagle, stood of its own will toward its death; and the Earthborn, taking the well-winged inspired prey, reining back its back-strained head, spreading out its bare, free throat, sacrificed the self-offering eagle with the knife to Zeus and the lord of the waters; and as the conscious bird was slain by the iron, from its newly-slaughtered throat the wondrous blood flowed, and with divine drops it rooted the sea-faring crags in the sea near Tyre beside the deep; and on the unbreakable rocks the Earthborn built a deep-bosomed nurse. To you, lord Dionysus, I have told of the earth-nourished blood of the Giants, self-born, Olympian, that you may learn the Tyrian, earthborn stock of your forefathers; and about the springs I shall tell; for primeval maidens were they once, prudent, against whose girdle hot Eros was wroth, and drawing his desire-bearing shaft he framed such a word to the marriage-shunning Nymphs: 'Naiad Abarbarea, maiden-lover, receive you too this shaft, which all Nature has felt; here I will fix the bridal chamber of Callirhoë, and sing the wedding-song of Drosera. But you will say: I belong to the watery race, and from the streams I came to be self-fulfilled, and a spring was my nurse. Clymene was a Naiad and an offshoot of Ocean; but she yielded to marriage, and she too was wedded, when she saw the servant of Eros, the mightier dark-haired god, stirred by the Cyprian sting; and primeval Ocean, ruling the rivers and all the waters, knows the love of Tethys and watery weddings. Endure, you too, to bear what Tethys bears. And though she carries the blood of so great a sea and of no small spring, Galatea longs for singing Polyphemus, and, of the deep, has a landsman for her husband, and from the sea, charmed by the lyre, a wanderer she comes to the land. And the springs know my shaft; I will not teach you a watery desire; from the desire-smitten spring you have heard the watery love of Syracusan Arethusa; you have learned of Alpheus, who, by the moist bridal bed, with watery hands embraces his wonted Nymph. Bearing the blood of a spring, why do you delight in the Archer-goddess? Artemis did not spring from water, as Aphrodite did. Tell it to Callirhoë; do not hide it from Drosera too. To the Cyprian you should rather give thanks, since she too bent her neck to Eros, even if she is the nurse of the Loves. Receive the goads of longing, and I will call you a water-dweller in your race, in love a sister of Aphrodite.' Such a word he spoke; and from his back-strained bow he sent triple shafts, and at the well-watered bridal bed he joined the sons of the soil in the love of the Naiads, and sowed the god-born blood of the Tyrian race." Such things Heracles, captain of heaven, spoke to Bacchus with mind-delighting words; and he delighted his heart at the tale, and gave to Heracles, which heavenly craft had wrought, a golden-gleaming, light-bearing mixing-bowl; and Heracles clothed Dionysus in a starry tunic, and, leaving the starry-robed god as protector of Tyre, Bacchus set foot upon the soil of another Assyria.