Book 41

41. The first of the forties holds whence, for the son of Myrrha, Aphrodite bore another Cypris, Amymone.

Just now, above the brows of beetling Lebanon, having fixed the bright-fruited cluster of autumn upon the earth, he made drunk all the wine-bearing hollows of the field; and he saw the bridal house of the Paphian; and roofing over a deep-shaded grove with newly-planted shoots of the vine, he gave a vine-clad gift to Adonis and Cythereia. And there was a chorus of Graces; and from the growth-rich thicket, leaping with a mounting throb upon the girdle of the vines, the high-flying ivy was wreathed about the cypress.

But beside the neighbouring shore of law-administering Beroe— tell, you Lebanon Muses, the hymn of Amymone, and of the deep-dwelling son of Cronos and of well-hymned Lyaeus the watery war and the vine-clad battle. There is a city, Beroe, the keel of life, the harbour of the Loves, sea-built, fair-islanded, well-verdured, where the spine of the isthmus is narrow though long, where, midway between the twin brine, its upright neck is lashed by the waves on either side. But its parts beneath the deep-treed ridge of the burning East-wind lie spread out toward Assyrian Lebanon, where for the citizens the life-giving breeze comes whistling upright, as the cypresses are shaken by the fragrant winds . . . the old shepherd, fellow of the fisherman, made his music. And there is a house of the country-folk, where often near the thicket sickle-bearing Deo met Pan as he piped, and some farmer, bending his neck over the plough-tree, sprinkling the freshly-furrowed earth with the back-cast seed, beside the foot of the pasture wood, near the neighbouring shepherd, yoking his pair of bulls, the bent ploughman held converse. But the city has other parts beside the seas, where she stretches her breast to Poseidon, and the watery husband enfolds the embryonic neck of the maiden with his dripping arm, sending watery kisses upon the lips of his bride; and from his deep hand the bedfellow receives in her wonted lap the sea-fed flocks of the mere, the wedding-gifts of Poseidon, the fishy, many-coloured banquets of the table, leaping upon the sea-table of Nereus, beside the northern foot, where, by the deep-waved shore, the northern channel is drawn through a long hollow. And about the southern neck of the mind-delighting land, toward the Southern shore, are sandy paths into the Sidonian land, where the varied trees of gardens and the grape-clusters luxuriate, and with long-branched leaves the shady road is stretched for unerring wayfarers. And, slanting its stream upon the shore, the sea beats about the dark-faced west, where with shrill-sounding wing, as Zephyr rides over the western channels, with a dewy whistle the Libyan elbow is fanned, where is a flowery place, where, beside the neighbouring sea, the plantations flourish, and from the fair-leaved trees the living wood makes music with humming breath. Here once dwelt men, coevals of the dawn, whom self-begotten Nature, by some unwedded ordinance, sowed apart from marriage—fatherless, unborn, motherless— when, with the four-yoked bond of the mingling atoms, the unsown slime, shaping a wise birth mingled of water and fire and the vapour of air, gave living soul to the offspring in its pregnant mud, to whom Nature granted a fulfilling form; for they had not the shape of primeval Cecrops, who with the venom-darting drag of his foot, scraping the earth, trailed along with his serpent sole, a dragon below, and above, from the loins to the head, appeared a misshapen, unfinished, two-coloured man; they had not the wild shape of Erechtheus, whom Hephaestus begot upon the furrow of Earth, wedding her with bridal dew; but, an image of the gods' offspring, from a native root, the golden corn-ear of men was first brought to birth. And they settled Beroe, the city, the first-sown seat, which Cronos himself built, when, at the nod of wise Rhea, he set a chill banquet for his all-gulping throat. And taking the stone, Eileithyia, in his heavy load, the missile of his pressed, many-childed offspring, gulping the whole river's stream like a cloud, he stood the birth-aiding water in his foaming breast, loosing the swelling of his belly; and, driving forth in succession his twice-born sons, his pregnant throat belched them up, holding the birth-channel, the throat the place of delivery. Zeus then was a boy, still perhaps an infant; never yet splitting the warm cloud with a dancing throb did the lightning flash, nor in the Titan war were the helping thunderbolts of Zeus shot forth; nor, as the clouds came together with bellowing whirl, did the heavy-thundering rainy echo of thunder roar. But the city Beroe was earlier, which together with the earth first-appearing Aion, her coeval and fellow-grown, beheld; not then was Tarsus, the delight of mortals, not then Thebes, not then was Sardis, where, by the bank of Pactolus that belches gold, the rich mud glitters, Sardis, coeval with the Sun; not then the race of men, not then was there any Achaean city, nor even pre-lunar Arcadia; she alone sprang up, older than Phaethon, whence the Moon got her light. And, anticipating all the earth, in her all-mothering bosom drawing the new-shining gleam of the sun's radiance and the late-perfected light of unsleeping Selene, first she shook off the cone of dark mist, and thrust away the gloomy veil of chaos; and, anticipating Cyprus and the Isthmian city of Corinth, first she received Cypris at her hospitable gate newly born from the sea, when the heavenly water, pregnant, brought forth Aphrodite from the deep furrow, where, ploughing the stream apart from marriage with a male gore, the self-fulfilled offspring took shape in the daughter-bearing foam, and Nature was the midwife; and, rising together with the goddess, the dappled band, winding a circle round her waist like a crown, girdled the body of the queen with a self-made cincture. And the goddess, tracking through the water the soundless shore, ran not to Paphos, nor to Byblos, nor set foot on the dry land of the Coliad strand, but with a swifter eddy she ran past even the city of Cythera itself; and rubbing her skin with the seaweed cluster she became the more empurpled; and of the waveless sea, oaring her hands, she clove the goddess-bearing water as she swam, and, spreading her breast upon the sea, she beat back the silent brine furrowed by her sole, and lifted up her body, and, as the calm was cleft, with alternating feet she thrust the water behind; and she set foot on Beroe; and the dweller of Cyprus lied about the goddess's footsteps as she came from the sea. First it received Cypris; and high above the neighbouring harbour the self-grown meadows, belching up the moss of the grass, bloomed here and there, and in the sandy bay the shores grew red with rosy clusters, and the foaming rock, pregnant with fragrant wine, bore a purple birth at its torrent breast, a shadowy shower of dew with the wine-press streams . . . the silvery gush rippled in a milky channel; and, whirling aloft the vapour of self-poured perfume, the fragrant breeze made drunk the airy passages. And then bold Eros, the first-sown beginning of offspring, the life-bringing charioteer of the cosmos's harmony, newly-appearing she bore upon the brows of the neighbouring harbour; and the swift-footed child, shaking off the manly weariness of his feet, anticipated the birth-aiding hour of the unmidwived womb, striking the closed bosom of his unwedded mother, warm still before the birth; and with a tumbling throb, whirling his light wings, he opened the gates of delivery. And quickly, leaping upon his mother's radiant forearm, restless Eros bounded upon her unbending breasts, stretched out on the child-nursing chest; and he had a longing for food, self-taught; and of the unmilked teat, biting the tip, pressed by the swelling of its fertile streams, insatiate he drained all the milk of the swollen breasts. Root of life, Beroe, nurse of cities, boast of kings, first-appearing, coeval of Aion, contemporary of the cosmos, seat of Hermes, plain of Justice, city of laws, home of Euphrosyne, house of the Paphian, dwelling of the Loves, the pleasant seat of Bacchus, the haunt of the Archer-goddess, the offering of the Nereids, the house of Zeus, the court of Ares, the Orchomenus of the Graces, the star of the Lebanon land, coeval of Tethys, fellow-runner of Ocean, who begot Beroe at his many-fountained bridal bed mingling in the moist weddings of Tethys, whom they named Amymone, when her mother bore her in the deep bed of watery love. But there is a younger tale, that she herself, Cythereia, the steerer of the human race, all-white, bore as mother to Assyrian Adonis; and, fulfilling the ninefold course of the Moon, she eased her load; and anticipating her with swift foot, lifting up the herald of things to come, a Latin tablet, to Beroe's travail came birth-aiding Hermes, and Themis Eileithyia, and through the swollen bosom, unfolding the veil of the straitened travail, she eased the sharp shaft of the ripening birth, holding the ordinances of Solon; and, pressed by the delivery, leaning her heavy back upon the birth-loosing goddess, Cypris was in travail, and high upon an Attic book she bore the wise child, as Laconian women travail with their sons upon a well-rounded oxhide; and the newly-born offspring she spat from her female bosom, having a male midwife, the judge, the son of Maia; and she brought the babe to the light. And they bathed the girl, the four winds galloping through all the cities, that from Beroe they might fill the whole earth with ordinances; and to her in travail, still the first messenger of laws, Ocean gave the birth-stream to the waist of the cosmos, pouring the girdling water with an everflowing baldric; and with aged hands, upon the skin of the newly-born girl, Aion her foster-father lifted up the swaddling robes of Justice, prophet of things to come, that, changing the burden of old age, like a serpent shaking off the coil of his feeble scales, he might grow young again, bathed in the streams of the laws; and over Aphrodite's god-sent daughter in travail the four-yoked Hours struck up a concordant strain. And learning of the Paphian's birth-completing travail, the beasts revelled; and some lion, sporting tenderly, with gentle lips embraced the spine of a bull, sending a friendly lowing from his lips' edge, and the horse, striking the deep-thudding ground with its rolling hoof, clattered, beating out a natal sound, and, leaping with a mounting throb of its high-stepping foot, the dapple-backed leopard bounded against a hare, and, pouring the howl's wail from its playful throat, with unscratching jaws the wolf embraced the flock, and some hound in the thickets, leaving the deer-rousing hunt, holding another sweet sting, in a contesting dance vied as a dancer with a capering boar, and, raising its feet and entwined about its neck, the bear embraced a heifer with a harmless bond, and, often curving the kiss-loving rim of its temples, the calf leapt up, licking the body of a lioness, sending a half-formed lowing from its young jaws, and the serpent touched the friendly tusks of the elephant; and the oaks spoke; and with a serene face smile-loving Aphrodite sent her wonted laughter, beholding the birth-festal games of the delighting beasts. On all she rolled the joyful circle of her gaze, on all alike; only she would not look upon the delight of the swine, like a prophetess, since in the shape of a swine sharp-toothed Ares, hurling his death-bearing venom, jealous-mad, was destined to weave doom for Adonis. And taking Beroe, still a laughing babe, in the clasp of her hands from her mother, the nurse of the whole cosmos, the maiden Astraea, nurturer of the golden race, nursed her at her prudent breast as she lawfully babbled; and with maiden milk, gushing the streams of ordinances, she moistened the child's lips, and let flow into the girl's mouth, pressing out the elaborate travail of the much-pierced delivery of the sweet-bearing Attic bee, speaking honeycombs mingled in a wise cup; and whenever, thirsty, she asked for drink, she held out to the girl the Pythian water reserved, garrulous, for Apollo, or the stream of Ilissus, which, breathing with the Attic Muse, the Pierian Phoebean breezes ruffle upon its shore; and curving a starry corn-ear into a cluster, golden, like a necklace, she set it on the girl's neck. And the bathing maidens, dancers of Orchomenus, the handmaids of the Paphian, dear to the nine Muses, drew from the spring the wise horse-water. And Beroe grew up, fellow-runner of the Archer-goddess, lifting the hunting-nets of her father the huntsman; and she had the whole kindred form of the Paphian her mother, and her radiant feet; and, peering above the sea, Thetis, leaping with snowy capering sole, saw another silver-footed Thetis; and in shame she hid, dreading again the boast of Cassiepeia. And, having marked another Assyrian unwedded maiden, Zeus again was excited, and wished to change his shape; and now, bearing the burden of Eros in bull-faced form, dipping his hooves, he would have been carried, plying his step through the water, lifting the undrenched woman upon his back, had not the memory of the bull-horned wedding restrained him, the Sidonian one; and a starry strain with jealous throat the bridegroom of Europa lowed, the Bull of Olympus, lest, making through the air the image of a like-shaped ox, he should set up a younger sea-faring star of the Loves; and Beroe, owed to the watery weddings, he left as bride for his brother, guarding for the earthly bride the marriage-strife of the Earth-shaker. Such was Beroe, the bloom of the Graces; if ever the maiden uttered a voice sweeter and more honey-flowing than the hive, sweet-spoken, insatiate Persuasion sat upon her lips and stung the prudent minds of unbewitchable men; and the gathering of the Assyrian youth of her age was outshone by her laughing eyes, the dart-throwers of the Loves, with brighter graces, as much as the Moon hides the stars, shooting her cloudless rays when full; and white about the lowest ankles of the maiden the tunics grew red upon her purple limbs. There was no blame in this, even if, more than the youth of her age, she got so great a beauty, since indeed about her face the bright beauties of her two parents glittered. Cypris then, seeing her, pregnant with a prudent thought, whirled a swifter purpose, turning it about, and, galloping her mind round the whole wandering earth, measured the bright seats of the old-born cities, that, as bright-eyed Mycenae held the name of Mycene, girded with a wall-crown, by the rules of the Cyclopes, and as, beside the southern Nile, Thebe was named after primeval Thebe; so she longed to mark out a city named after Beroe, following the city-loving sting of the answering Loves. And, taking thought of the line of Solon's evil-averting laws, she stretched a sidelong eye toward broad-streeted Athens, holding zeal for her sister the judge; and in haste she whistled through the airy arch with her sandal to the house of all-mothering Harmonia, where the nymph dwelt in a house like the four-yoked pattern of the cosmos, self-built; and four doors of the strong hall, unbreakable, were girt about by the four winds; and the handmaids guarded the round house, the image of the cosmos, here and there; and as the portals were divided, the handmaid Dawn ran round the gate of the East-wind, and Sunset, nurse of the Moon, the portal of Zephyr, and the South held the fiery bar of the Southwind, and the North, the handmaid, dense with clouds, sprinkled with hail, spread open the gate of Boreas. There Charis, leaping forth, companion of the foam-born, knocked at the Eastern portal of the East-wind; and within, as the saffron gate of the East was struck, Astynomeia the messenger ran up, and, beholding Cypris standing beside the forecourt of the hall, with returning feet came as forerunner to her mistress. She, busy at the much-wrought loom of Athena, was weaving a robe with the shuttle; and as the tunic was woven, first she set the navel-earth in the midst, and round the earth she made the heaven a sphere, marked with the pattern of the stars, and fitted the conjoined sea to the yoked earth; and she wrought the rivers in varied colours, and upon a human brow a bull-shaped, horned, green-tinted image took form; and along the lowest hem of the well-spun tunic she circled Ocean, running round with the rim of the cosmos. And her handmaid came, and near the female loom announced Aphrodite standing at the forecourt. And the goddess, when she heard, throwing down the threads of the tunic, shook from her loom-toiling hands the wondrous shuttle; and swiftly, covering her body with a snowy robe, brighter than gold she rose above her wonted seat, receiving Cythereia, and, springing up from her throne, she honoured Aphrodite approaching from afar. And long-robed Eurynome set the Paphian on a throne near her mistress; and with troubled face, watching Cypris with a downcast, witnessing look, all-nourishing Harmonia soothed her with a friendly word: "Root of life, Cythereia, plant-sower, midwife of birth, hope of the whole cosmos, at the nod of your counsel the unerring Fates spin the many-turning threads . . . . . . prophesy to me who ask, and, as nurse of life, as nurturer of the immortals, as contemporary of the coeval cosmos, tell me: to which of cities are the organs of royal speech, the unshaken reins of the toil-loosing laws, reserved? For, since, stirred by the sting of his long-time desire, holding the goad of Hera's, of his sister's, weddings, longing through the time of three hundred years, I yoked Zeus in marriage; and a thanks worthy of my works, the wage of his marriage-chamber, he nodded with prudent head, that to one of the cities which I obtained he would entrust the ordinances of Justice; and I long to know whether to the land of Cyprus or to Paphos these gifts are reserved, or to Corinth, or to Sparta, whence Lycurgus came, or even to the manly fatherland of my own daughter Beroe. But have regard for justice, and grant harmony to the cosmos, you who were born Harmonia, life-giving; for to you the nurse of law-administering men sent me in haste, the starry maiden; and the more, lawful Hermes relinquished this privilege, that I alone might save by the ordinances of marriage the violated men whom I sowed." So she spoke, and the goddess emboldened her and answered with a word: "Be bold, do not fear, mother of the Loves; for in seven tablets I hold the oracles of the cosmos, and the tablets are named after the seven planets. The first is named after the well-rolling Moon; the second is called the golden tablet of Hermes, gleaming, on which all the rites of the laws are wrought; the third, rosy, bears your name; for it carries the type of your star, the Morning star; and of the seven-wayed planets, the fourth is the central one of the Sun; the fifth, reddening, fiery, is called Ares; and Phaethon, the wanderer of Cronos's son, is named the sixth; the seventh shows the name of high-going Cronos. On these all the varied decrees of the cosmos, fated, old Ophion engraved with Phoenician letters. But, since you ask me concerning the laws of right-minded men, to the eldest of cities I reserve these privileges: whether, then, Arcadia was earlier, or the city of Hera, whether Sardis was older, or whether even much-sung Tarsus was the first city, or some other, I did not learn; but the Cronian tablet teaches all these things, which was earlier born, which was contemporary with Dawn." She spoke; and led the way to the bright decrees of the wall, until she saw the place where, concerning Beroe's fatherland, a late-fulfilled prophecy the Ophionian craft had written on the Cronian tablet, engraved in wine-dark vermilion: "First-appearing Beroe was contemporary with the coeval cosmos, named after a later-born nymph, whom the migrant sons of the Ausonians, the consular lights of Rome, will call Berytus, since she fell as neighbour to Lebanon . . ." Such a prophetic word she learned. But when the goddess had measured the wondrous beginning of the seventh tablet, she gazed at the second, where, beside the neighbouring wall, varied marvels of every kind of craft were engraved with prophetic words: that first of all there should come to know country-loving Pan the pipe, Heliconian Hermes the lyre, tender Hyagnis the two-voiced strain of the well-pierced flute, Orpheus the god-speaking streams of mystic song, and Linus the Phoebean eloquence, the Arcadian wanderer the twelve-month measures and the course of the Sun, the mother of the begotten years on her four-yoked car, and wise Endymion, bending his shifting fingers, should know the restless cycles of the returning Moon, threefold; and, mingling element with element, the unyoked with the yoked, Cadmus should teach the rites of well-tongued speech, Solon the spotless ordinances, and upon Attic torch Cecrops the twin pair of unbreakable conjunction. And the Paphian, after all the many-turning marvels of the Muse, measured the dense works of the far-spread cities; and over the middle rim of the painted tablet of the cosmos she found there a wise, many-versed word in the Hellene Muse: "When Augustus shall hold the sceptre of the whole earth, to holy Rome the Ausonian Zeus will grant dominion, but to Beroe he grants the reins of the laws, when, armed upon shield-bearing ships, she lulls to rest the war of water-fighting Cleopatra; for before that, city-sacking wickedness will never cease to disturb the city-saving peace, until Berytus, the nurse of serene life, judges both land and sea, with the unbending wall of laws fortifying the cities, one city, the cities of the cosmos." And the goddess, when she had learned all the Ophionian oracle, went back to her own house, returning; and as her son sat she set her golden-wrought seat near him, and, taking him about the middle in her arms, with serene face, embraced the boy in her outstretched, joyful arm, lifting the dear burden on her knees; and both his mouth she kissed and his eyes; and, touching the mind-charming bow and handling the quiver, as if vexed, she broke into a guileful word: "Hope of all life, comfort of the foam-born, the pitiless son of Cronos has alone done violence to my children; for, having filled the nine birth-aiding cycles of the Moon, wielding the sharp shaft of grievous birth, I bore Harmonia, and she suffers varied pains, grieving; but a girl in travail Leto received, Artemis Eileithyia, the helper of women. Child of Amymone, of one womb, I will not teach you how I got blood from the sea and from the sky; but I wished to accomplish a worthy work, that beside my mother the sea, born from heaven, I might fix heaven also upon the earth; but stretching upon the beauty of your sister . . . charm the gods, and the more send an equal shaft, in one ordinance, to Poseidon and to vine-clad Lyaeus, to both the blessed ones; and I will grant you, worthy of your toils, a fitting wage befitting your far-shooting: I will give you a golden bridal lyre, which at the bridal bed Phoebus gave to Harmonia, and I will entrust to you a memorial of the city that is to be, that you may be, even after the archer, a lyre-player, like Apollo.