Book 42

42. I have woven the fortieth a second time, where I sing the pleasant love of Bacchus and the desire of the Earth-shaker.

So speaking she persuaded him; and with high-soaring sandal hot Eros, unattainable, plying his wind-borne foot, high in the clouds scored the air with his winged sole, bearing his flaming bow. And slung from his shoulder his quiver too, full of gentle fire, was loosened. And as, through the cloudless sky, a swift wayfarer, the upright star stretches itself with a long-drawn spark, bearing a portent either to an army at war or to some sailor, and writes upon the back of heaven with a trailing track of fire; so then bold Eros, borne with a sharp whirring, hurling the windy hum of his quivering wings, whizzed down from the air; and beside the Assyrian rock he joined two fiery shafts upon one string, drawing into a like longing, by love of the maiden, two suitors of like-zealous weddings, the vine-clustered god and the charioteer of the sea. Then the one, leaving the deep wave of the sea-neighbouring harbour, the other, past the foot of Tyre, within the heights of Lebanon, met at one place. From his grim car Maron loosed the sweating leopard from its harness, and shook off the dust and washed with spring water, cooling the hot, chafed neck of the beasts. There, coming unattained, Eros, upon the neighbouring maiden, struck both gods with his twin arrow, making Dionysus frenzied to bring treasures to the bride, the gladness of life and the wine-dark cluster of autumn, and stinging into love the steersman of the trident to bring a double love-gift to the sea-neighbouring maiden, the watery war of ships and the varied banquets of the table. And he inflamed Bacchus the more, since wine rouses the mind to desire, and much more than the young, with maddening goad, he held the bewitched, unbridled, obedient youth; Eros shot Bacchus, fixing the whole shaft in his heart; and he inflamed him as much as he bewitched, dripping the honey of persuasion. And he stung them both; and through the airy path, wheeling his course, fellow-runner with the dappled winds, the bastard bird hovered on his swimming sandal, shouting such a mocking word: if Dionysus stirs men with wine, I rouse Bacchus with fire. And the vine-god, stretching his eye opposite, measured the tender body of the fair-tressed bride, holding a wonder that channelled into desire; and, as it began, his eye became the forerunning passage of the Loves. Dionysus wandered within the heart-delighting wood, secretly stretching a guarded eye toward Beroe, and step by step he went behind into the maiden's path; nor was there satiety in his gazing; for as long as he beheld the maiden standing, so much the more he wished to look. And, recalling the love of Clymene, he besought the captain of the stars, the Sun, on his back-strained car, to draw tight with airy rein his halted horse and lengthen the sweet light, so that day might come slowly to its setting, nursing again the recurring day with a sparing whip. And, measuring his step on Beroe's footprints, foot by foot, as if not knowing her, he ran about; and from Lebanon stealthily hiding the trace of his hesitating foot, the Earth-shaker gave way with a turning, slow-yielding sole, and held an unsteady mind like the sea, foaming with the waves of loud-roaring care. And, insatiate of the sweet Lebanon wood, Dionysus was alone beside the lonely bride, Dionysus was alone. Tell, you mountain Nymphs. What else more dear did he wish than, alone, to see the maiden's skin, free of the ill-loving Earth-shaker? And he kissed with countless kisses, creeping secretly, the place where she set her foot, and the dust she trod as the maiden, illuminating it with rosy sandal; and Bacchus gazed at her sweet neck, and the ankles of the maiden as she walked, and the beauty which Nature granted the bride, the beauty which Nature found; and not in golden adornment, anointed, did Beroe redden the rosy circles of her face, empurpling her false cheeks with a bastard spark, nor in the clear witness of answering bronze did her beauty laugh, judging itself in the lifeless image of mimicking sight, nor, with an artful rule, often equalling the tips of her hair beside her brows, did she set in place the migrant cluster of her wandering tresses. But the woman-maddening man is far more, with a sharp goad, stirred by the splendours of an unkempt face, and the dirty locks of an unadorned head are the more tender, when, unplaited and wandering, they range in rows beside the snowy face. And once, thirsting, she went to a neighbouring spring, scourged by the vapour of the heavenly fiery Dog, with parched lips; and bending her head down she stooped, arching herself, and often into her mouth the maiden with deep-cupped hands drew her native water, until, sated, she left the streams; and as she withdrew, Dionysus, bending his knee at the lovely spring, hollowing his palms, imitated the lovely maiden, drinking water sweeter than self-poured nectar. And, beholding him stirred by the goad of desire, the deep-bosomed, unsandalled spring-Nymph cried out: "Cold water, Dionysus, you drank in vain; for the whole stream of Ocean cannot quench the thirst of love. Ask your father, that, crossing so great a wave, the bridegroom of Europa did not quench his lovely fire, but laboured still more in the waters; and of the water-faring servant of Eros you have a witness, wandering Alpheus, who, dragging waters through water with so many surges, did not flee hot love, even though he was a watery wayfarer." So speaking she sank into the kindred spring-water, the unveiled Naiad, laughing at Lyaeus. And the god, grudging against Poseidon, lord of the waters, held fear and jealousy, since the maiden drank water instead of wine, and broke into a deaf air with his voice, as if he had the obedient maiden listening: "Maiden, receive the nectar; leave the maiden-loving water; flee the spring-drink, lest the watery dark-haired god steal your maidenhood in the waters, for he is woman-mad and crafty; you know the love of Thessalian Tyro and the water-faring weddings; and you too guard against the crafty stream, lest the false one loose your girdle, as the marriage-thief Enipeus did. Would that I too had become a stream, like the Earth-shaker, and, murmuring, embraced beside the desire-smitten spring my thirsty, unguarded Lebanon Tyro." The god spoke; and changing the altered form of his limbs, where the maiden was, Euios entered the shady wood all like a huntsman; and to the soft-tressed, unyoked maiden, misshapen and unknown, he drew near, like a young man, and steadfast about his face he fashioned a false mimicry of prudent modesty; and now he gazed at the top of a lonely crag, now into the deep-shaded ridge of the long-branched wood, turning his longing eye toward a pine, at other times a fir or an elm he watched; but, guarding his face, with stealthy eyes he beheld the neighbouring maiden, lest, transformed, she should escape him; for to a young man gazing on beauty, the eyes of a maiden of his age are a small comfort of the Cyprian Loves. And he came near Beroe and wished to speak a word, but was fettered by fear: O reveller, where are your thyrsi, the man-slayers? Where the dreadful horns? Where, in your hair, the grey, serpentine bonds of earth-bred dragons? Where the deep-thundering bellow of your mouths? Ah, great wonder, Bacchus trembled before a maiden, whom the tribes of Giants trembled; fear of the Loves conquered the destroyer of the Earthborn; and he who mowed down the race of so many war-mad Indians feared one lovely, defenceless maiden, feared a soft-skinned woman; and in the hills with his beast-taming fennel-wand he soothed the lions' dreadful bellow, and trembled before a woman's threat; and to him a wandering word, beneath his startled mouth, stretched toward his lips' tip, a neighbour to his tongue, darting from his mind and creeping back to his mind; but holding a bittersweet fear, in modest silence he drew back into the light the recurring voice as it hastened. And scarcely, beating beneath his mouth the late-spoken bond, he loosed the delay-working silence of his modesty, and questioned Beroe, pouring a deceiving voice: "Artemis, where are your bow? Who seized your quiver? Where have you left the tunic you wear down to your knee? Where are those sandals of yours, swifter than the wheeling breeze? Where the chorus of handmaids? Where the nets? Where the white hounds? You make ready no deer-rousing course; for you do not wish to hunt, where Cypris sleeps near Adonis." He spoke, holding a deceiving wonder; and in her heart the maiden smiled; and with an inexperienced purpose she lifted her proud neck, exulting in the grace of youth, since, though she was a woman, in form she was like a goddess; nor did she know the guile of mind-wandering Dionysus. And Bacchus grieved the more, since the maiden did not learn desire, having a childlike disposition, and he wished that she might learn his grievous sting, since, when a maiden knows it, a late hope of the Loves is left for the young man of love that is to be, but at a fruitless purpose men long, when women are ignorant. And the god, day upon day, within the pine-wood, at evening, at midday, at morning, at the Evening-star, creeping, remained beside the maiden, and wished still to remain; for of all things there is satiety among men, of sweet sleep and of well-sounding song, and when a man bends into the dancer's course; but for the woman-maddened man alone there is no satiety of desires; the book of Homer lied. And, toiling, Dionysus bellowed beneath in silence, struck by a divine scourge, digesting within the hidden, heart-deep wound of the unsleeping Loves, as when an unattained ox, going within a flat rock, measured the wonted swarm of mountain-roaming bulls, stung from the herd, whom, beside a fair-leaved thicket, the ox-striking gadfly scratched with a sharp goad, unforeseen, and, with his body struck by a small sting, huge as he was, he was driven wild, and upright high on his back he drew back his recurring tail, arching, rubbing the spine of the rocks, and, in answer, he slanted his sharp horn, striking the woundless air; so Dionysus too, whom victory often crowned, little Eros stung, striking with his all-bewitching goad. And late, seeking a sweet remedy in Aphrodite, he revealed to the Cyprian his sleepless compulsion, and asked her counsel, the helper of the Loves. And hearing the fire-breathing toils of Bacchus, horned Pan laughed, but was broken in his purpose, pitying the ill-loved, himself ill in love; and he spoke the Cyprian counsel; and he had a small comfort of the Loves, seeing another inflamed by the spark of one quiver: "Suffering in common, dear Bacchus, I have pitied your cares; how did bold Eros conquer you too? If it is right to say it, upon me and Dionysus Eros emptied his quiver. But I will tell you the many-turning ways of crafty desire. Every woman desires more than a man, but in shame she hides the goad of Eros, herself love-maddened too, and she toils much more, since the sparks of the Loves grow hotter, when women hide the dart of the Loves pierced deep within their hearts. For when they tell one another the compulsion of desires, with toil-loosing converse they steal away their Cyprian cares. But you, Bacchus, the channeller of your Loves, bearing the blush of a mimicking, deceiving modesty, as if holding a prudent, unsmiling look, as if unwilling, stand near Beroe; and, brandishing your nets, with a guileful wonder gaze at the rosy maiden, praising her beauty, that Hera got not so great a one, and call the Graces inferior, and to the form of both, Artemis and Athena, attach blame, and declare Beroe brighter than Aphrodite; and the maiden, hearing your deceiving reproach, stands the more, delighting in the praise; for she does not wish to hear of all golden wealth as much as about her rosy form, that her beauty surpassed the youth of her age. And charm the maiden to love with a prudent silence, sending opposite nods of your moving eyelids; and, striking your open brow with unsparing hand, show a false wonder in prudent silence. But fear holds you near the prudent maiden; tell me, what will one maiden do to you? She brandishes no spear, she stretches no shaft in rosy hand; the maiden's spears are her eyes, the dart-throwers of the Loves, and the maiden's shafts are her rosy cheeks. And as the wedding-gifts of your desire, the treasures for your bride, do not shake out Indian stone or pearls with your hand, as is the custom for the woman-mad; for to the Paphian you tend your own form, sufficient; and of soft-touched beauty, not of gold, do women long. I need no other witness; for of soft-tressed Endymion what gifts did Selene receive? What love-gift did Adonis show to Cypris? Orion gave no silver to the Dawn; Cephalus gave no lovely wealth; but indeed alone Hephaestus, lame as he was, for the sake of an unbewitching form gave varied gifts, and did not persuade Athena; his bridal axe did not avail; but, longing for the goddess, he failed. But I will teach you, better than the yoking of weddings, if you wish, another charm: sound the lyre with your hand, the offering of your Rhea, the tender, wine-pleasing image of Cypris; and with both plectrum and mouth pour a varied echo. First sing of Daphne and the course of unsteady Echo and the after-voicing clatter of the unsilenced goddess, that they hated the gods who desired them; but also sing of Pitys herself, the bed-shunning, fellow-runner of the mountain breezes, fleeing the unwedded weddings of Pan; sing of her death, native, when she perished; reproach the earth. And perhaps she will weep at the pains of the mournful nymph and pity her death; and you, delight your heart in silence, beholding the honey-sweet tears of the mourning maiden; nor is there such laughter, since the more, in wine-dark form, they are lovely, when women lament. Sing of Selene love-mad for Endymion, sing of the marriage of graceful Adonis, tell too of Aphrodite herself, squalid, unsandalled, wandering, tracking her mountain-roaming bridegroom; nor will it escape you, hearing the honey-minded ordinance of your father's Loves. To you I declare all these things, ill-loved Bacchus; but you too teach me the charm for my Echo." So speaking he sent away the joyful son of Thyone. And Dionysus, holding a guileful, unsmiling look, questioned the maiden about Adonis her father, as a friend, as a mountain-roaming fellow-hunter; and as she stood he brought his ill-loving hand near her breast, and the edge of her girdle, as if unwilling, he pressed; and touching her breasts the right hand of woman-mad Dionysus grew numb. And once, in childlike manners, the maiden asked the son of Zeus, who was present, who he was and whose son; and scarcely he found a pretext beside the forecourt of Aphrodite, gazing at the vine-clad orchard and the bounteous cornfields of the earth and the dewy meadow and the varied trees, with crafty manners; and, like a tiller of the soil, about marriage he spoke some word in obscure voice: "I am a tiller of your Lebanon; if you wish, I will water your land, I will swell your fruit. I know the course of the four seasons; and watching the appointed turning-post, the autumnal one, I will cry this: 'The life-giving Scorpion rises, and it is the herald of the fruitful furrow; let us yoke the oxen to the plough.' The Pleiades set; when shall we sow the fields? The furrows are in travail, when the dew falls upon the earth dried by Phaethon. And near the Arcadian Wain, when winter has rained, beholding Arcturus, I will say: 'The thirsty earth is sometimes wedded by the rain of Zeus.' When spring rises, at morning I will cry to you: 'Your flowers have bloomed; when shall I pluck the lilies and roses? Behold, how the hyacinth runs over the neighbouring myrtle, how the narcissus laughs, leaping upon the anemone.' And, seeing the grape-cluster as summer comes, I will say: 'The youthful vine ripens, untouched by the sickle; maiden, the harvest has come; when shall we gather the autumn fruit?' Your corn-ear has grown and craves the reaping; I will reap the corn-bearing crop, and instead of Deo to your mother, the Cyprus-born, I will offer harvest-fruits. And receive me as the tiller, the labourer of your threshing-floor; take me as the gardener of your foam-born mother, that I may fix a life-bearing plant, and of the vines I may know the new-budding unripe grape, handling it with my hands. I know whence the apples sometimes ripen; I know how to plant the long-leaved elm propped against the cypress; I mingle the male palm, rejoicing, with the female, and the crocus, if you wish, I rear fair beside the yew. Bring me no gold for the sake of my tendance; there is no need of wealth; I have my wage: two apples, one cluster of a single autumn's fruit." Such things he spoke in vain, and the maiden did not answer, not understanding the line of words of woman-mad Bacchus. But the Insewn-god devised another guile against guile; and from Beroe's hand he received the hunting-nets as if marvelling at their craft, and, shaking them densely, he whirled them about for a while, and often asked the maiden: "What god made these tools, what heavenly craft wrought them? Who made them? For I have a disbelieving mind, that jealous-mad Hephaestus would make hunting-gear for Adonis." He spoke, leading astray the mind of the unbewitchable maiden. And once, high above the spread leaves of the anemone, he slept sweet sleep; and the maiden came to him in a dream, clad in bridal raiment. For the answering image of a work that one does by day, one beholds by night; the herdsman, sleeping, drives his horned oxen to pasture; to the huntsman a vision of dreams shows nets; and the tillers, sleeping, plough the fields, and sow the corn-bearing furrow; and a man, midday-resting, gripped by burning thirst in the parched heat, deceiving sleep drives toward a stream, toward a channel. So Dionysus too, holding the images of his toils, sent his winged mind in a mimicking dream, and held converse in shadowy weddings. And waking, he did not find the maiden, and wished to sleep again; and he brought back an empty grace of a fleeting bed, sleeping in the petals of the swift-perishing anemone. And he reproached the spread of the voiceless petals; and grieving, he begged sleep together with Eros and the evening Aphrodite to see again the same vision of his dream, longing for the deceiving portion of marriage. And near the myrtle Bacchus often slept, and did not get the bridal sleep. But he had a sweet toil, and, desire-smitten himself, limb-loosing Dionysus was loosed in his limbs by care. And to Beroe's father, the son of Myrrha, a companion, he revealed the art of hunting; and with the dart-throwing thyrsus he put on the dappled skins of newly-slaughtered fawns, secretly watching for Beroe; and as he stood, the maiden, guarding against the restless eye of Dionysus, hid her cheek, gleaming, with her robe. And she inflamed Bacchus the more, since the servants of the Loves gaze the more at women who are still modest, and long the more for the hidden face. And once, beholding the unyoked maiden of Adonis alone, he drew near, and from his human form he changed his shape, and stood before the maiden as a god; and he told her his race and his name, and the slaughter of the Indians, and the vine-clad dance, and the outpouring of sweet-drunk wine, that he found for men; and with affectionate purpose, mingling boldness, alien to modesty, with shamelessness, fawning he spoke such a varied-worded voice: "Maiden, for your love I dwell in heaven no longer; your fathers' caves are better than Olympus. I love your fatherland more than the sky; I long not for the sceptre of Zeus my father so much as for Beroe's wedding; your beauty is higher than ambrosia; of airy fragrant nectar your tunics breathe. Maiden, I hold a wonder, hearing of your mother Cypris, that the love-charm left you unbewitched; and how did you alone have Eros for your brother and not learn the sting of the Loves? But you will say: a grey-eyed maiden, untried in weddings; apart from marriage Athena sprang, and knows no marriage; no grey-eyed one bore you, nor Artemis. But you, maiden, bearing the blood of Cypris, why do you flee the rites of Cypris? Do not shame your mother's race; and of Assyrian, graceful Adonis, if you truly carry the blood, learn the soft, marriage-fulfilling ordinances of your father, and obey the love-charm coeval with the girdle of the Paphian, and beware the hard-to-meet wrath of the nuptial Loves; pitiless are the Loves, when, as a debt, when as a penalty they demand from women the price of fruitless love; for you know how, dishonouring fiery Cythera, the maiden-loving pipe gave the wage of pride, since, become a plant in a bastard reedy form, she escaped Pan's love, but still sings the desires of Pan; and the daughter of Ladon, the much-sung river, hating the works of marriage, made her body a tree, the Nymph, breathing, whistling, and with an oracular cluster, fleeing the bed of Phoebus, she crowned the hair of Phoebus. And you too beware dreadful wrath, lest hot Eros, heavy in wrath, grow angry with you; and not sparing your girdle, tend Bacchus a twofold one, both follower and bedfellow; and lifting the nets of your father Adonis myself I would spread the bed of my sister Aphrodite. What worthy gifts will the Earth-shaker bring you? Will salt water be reckoned to you as wedding-gifts, and will he spread, breathing the foul sea-smell, the skins of seals, the Poseidonian robes of the sea? Do not receive the skins of seals; but for your bridal bed I will grant you Bacchant handmaids, Satyr servants; receive from me wedding-gifts and the vine-clad autumn fruit; and if you wish the furious spear of Adonis, like a maiden, you have my thyrsus for a spear; leave the trident's point. Flee, dear one, the evil noise of the unsilenced sea, flee the Poseidonian sting of the hard-to-meet Loves. The dark-haired god lay beside another Amymone, but the woman, after the bed, became a spring of the same name; and he slept beside Scylla and made her a sea-rock; and he pursued Asterie, and she became a desert island; and the maiden Euboea he rooted in the sea. This one woos Amymone, that he may make her too stone after the bed; this one will grant as the gift of his chambers a little stream or sea-moss or some deep-sea shell. But I, for the sake of your form, stand vexed, what gifts, what gifts to bring you; the child of golden Aphrodite craves no gold. But I will bring you many treasures from Alybe; the silver-armed one rejects silver. To you I will bring gifts gleaming from light-bearing Eridanus; all the wealth of the Heliades your form puts to shame, reddening white, and, weighing equal to the rays of Dawn, like amber Beroe's neck glitters . . . and the flashing stone; the form of your skin confutes the precious marbles; lest I bring you, like a blazing lamp, a fire-stone, your eyes send forth a gleam; lest I bring you roses as gifts, springing from the rosy calyx of the cluster, your cheeks are rosy." Such a word he spoke; and within her ear the maiden, pressing her two hands, fenced off her hearing, lest she hear again another word dear to Eros, hating the works of marriage; and to desire-smitten Lyaeus she mingled toil with toil. What is more cruel than the Loves, than when, with the raging goad of soul-devouring desire, women flee the men who long for them and the prudent ones lead the sting the more? And hidden within, twofold is love, when a maiden flees a man. So he was scourged by the love-stinging love-charm; but he stayed away from the maiden; and to the ungirdled-tunic maiden he sent his wandering mind, running with her as it hunted, holding a bittersweet goad. And, rushing up from the sea, plying his wet footsteps through the thirsty mountain, Poseidon the migrant sought the maiden, sprinkling the dry land with watery sole; and as he still hastened, beside the well-pastured slope of the wood the topmost crests of the mountain quivered with the throb of his feet . . . he gazed at Beroe, and from foot to head he measured the inspired youth of the standing maiden; and sharply, through her thin raiment, as in a mirror, with unerring eyes he marked out the shape of the maiden, as if watching the topmost parts laid bare aslant, the gleaming breasts, and, with the many-woven bonds of the hidden breasts, he reproached the envious girdle, whirling round and round the love-mad eye of his face, gazing insatiate at her whole body; and love-maddened, the Earth-shaker, lord of the sea, for the sea-Cythereia toiling, made supplication, and beside the rustic flock he soothed the standing maiden with a friendly word: "All Hellas of fair women one woman confutes; Paphos is sung no more, Lesbos no more, no more is the name of fair-childed Cyprus spoken; no more shall I sing of Naxos, sung as fair in maidens; but even Lacedaemon herself was conquered in childbirth, in travail; not Paphos, not Lesbos any more; but the nurse of Amymone, the East, has plundered all the glory of Orchomenus, tending one single Grace; for the youngest of the three Graces, Beroe, sprang up as the fourth. Maiden, leave the land, as is right; your mother did not spring from the land, Aphrodite, daughter of the sea; you have my sea, boundless, as a wedding-gift, greater than the land; hasten to contend with the wife of Zeus, that one may say that the bride of Cronos's son and the bedfellow of the Earth-shaker rule everywhere, since of snowy Olympus Hera holds the sceptre, Beroe gained the power of the sea. I will not grant you the mad-eyed Bassarids, I will not give a capering Satyr or a Silenus; but as chamber-servant of your marriage-fulfilling bed I will make Proteus your attendant, and Glaucus your underling; receive Nereus too, and, if you wish, Melicertes; and broad Ocean, roaring, girdled with the rim of the everflowing cosmos, I will call your servant; to you I will grant all the rivers as attendants for a wedding-gift. And if you delight in handmaids too, I will bring you the daughters of Nereus; and let her become, though she refuse, the nurse of Dionysus, your chamber-servant Ino." He spoke; and leaving the angry, hard-persuaded maiden, he spoke a word to the air, pouring a windy voice: "Blessed son of Myrrha, who got a fair-childed lineage, you alone hold a twofold honour; you alone are called both the father of Beroe and the bridegroom of the foam-born." Such things the Earth-shaker was scourged by the goading love-charm; and many gifts he stretched out to Adonis and Cythereia, the wedding-gift of his love for the maiden. And with a like-burning shaft Dionysus, bringing wealth, as much as beside neighbouring Ganges the gold-gleaming travails of the mines brought to birth, many a time in vain besought sea-faring Aphrodite. And the Paphian was stirred, and for her much-wooed maiden feared both suitors; and beholding, of both, the like desire and jealousy of the Loves, she proclaimed a contest for Beroe in a bridal war and a warrior's marriage and a lovely battle. And, covering her wholly in some womanly adornment, Cypris set her upon the citadel of her fatherland, the contested maiden, a tender prize of the Loves; and to both gods she addressed one voice: "I would, if I had got two children, that I might join the one owed to the Earth-shaker, the other to Lyaeus; but since I was not born to twin offspring, nor do the spotless ordinances of marriage bid one bride to be yoked to two alternate bedfellows, let the bride-winning strife be over one wife; for not without toil is Beroe's bed; and over the bride let you both contend in a marriage-leading contest; and whoever shall win, let him lead Beroe without bride-price . . . let the oath be dear to both; since I fear greatly about the neighbouring city of the maiden, where I am called its guardian, lest I destroy the fatherland of Beroe for Beroe's beauty; make your covenants before the wedding, lest after the battle the sea Earth-shaker, robbed of victory, should annihilate the land with the point of his trident, lest, in wrath, Dionysus, over the bed of Amymone, should ruin the vine-clad threshing-floor of the city. And be kindly after the strife; and let both, holding a love's zeal in the ordinance of concord, adorn the bride's fatherland with brighter beauty." So she spoke, and the suitors approved; and to both a firm oath was the son of Cronos and Earth and Aether and the Stygian drops; and the Fates confirmed the covenants; and Strife waxed, the escort of the Loves, and Tumult; and Persuasion, the bride-arrayer, armed them both. And coming down from heaven, the watchers of the contest, all who are dwellers of Olympus, waited with Zeus, witnesses of the Lebanon battle high upon the rock. There a great sign appeared to desire-smitten Dionysus: a storm-swift hawk, loosing its wing pregnant with the breeze, pursued a feeding dove; but a sea-eagle, suddenly snatching it from the earth, flew into the deep, lifting the bird aloft with sparing talons. And Dionysus, seeing it, spat out his hope of victory; yet still he came to the battle. And over the strife of both, with smiling eye the father, the son of Cronos, rejoiced, beholding on high the contest of his brother and his son.