Book 43

43. Seek now the forty-third book, where I sing of the surging War-god and the vine-clad battle.

So Ares, the rouser of strife, the channel-cutter of the Loves, sounded the bridal war-cry, the herald of the marriage fray, and Enyo laid the foundations of a war for a wedding; and brandishing the tumult against Earthshaker and Dionysus Hymenaeus was furious, and dancing into the combat he lifted the bronze spear of Amyclaean Aphrodite, bellowing the harmony of Ares on the Phrygian pipe. For the king of the Satyrs and the charioteer of the sea the maiden was the prize; refusing in silence to take the wandering bed of a sea-dwelling suitor, she dreaded the watery wedding-chamber of the Loves below, and longed rather for Bacchus. She was like Deianeira, who once, when the bridal contest roared about her, desired Heracles, and stood trembling at the inconstant river, in dread of the bull-horned wooing of the stream. And the cloudless upper air, holding a self-prompted course in its whirling spin, trumpeted out a martial strain; and pouring a grim bellow from his raging throat the dark-haired one armed himself with the Assyrian trident, shaking the sea-spear. And threatening the sea Dionysus revelled toward the war-cry with his wine-dark thyrsus, seated on the chariot of his mountain-roaming mother Rhea; and a self-grown vine, springing up beside the rail of the Mygdonian car, covered the whole body of Bacchus, binding his shady locks with twin-yoked ivy; and one of his lions, tossing its tangled neck beneath the yoke, scored the surface of the ground with its sharp claw, sending a rough roar from its snarling lips; and the slow elephant, creeping beside a neighbouring spring, gouged an upright prop with its unbending foot, drew up rain-water with its parched lips, and dried the streams; and when the waters were turned to dust it led away naked and waterless the thirsty fountain Nymph. And the god who rules the waters armed himself; among the Nereids there was tumult; and dripping from their sea-backs the deities went to war; with their long-branched garlands the house of Poseidon was lashed, the water of the deep; and as the leafy hollow of the earthly ground was battered, the cultivated vines of Libanus were heaved up by the trident. And a black-skinned heifer grazing near the sea the frenzied women in furious leaping drove into the Poseidonian herd; and as for the wide-eyed bull, one of them, gripping its back, split the spine, another shattered unshaken the two tips of its forked horn upon the brow; and one cleaved its belly with her threshing thyrsus; another cut clean through the bull's flank; half-dead, flat on its back, of itself the bull rolled and sank to the ground; and as the freshly-gored bull rolled in the dust, one of them seized its hind feet and dragged, another grasped and hauled the forefeet, and with many a whirling fling they spun the cloven double hoof upright into the air.

And Dionysus marshalled the leaders of his host, setting five battalions for the watery War. Of the first rank the leader was Cilician Oeneus, rich in vines, son of Ereuthalion, whom he begot near Taurus when he wedded Phyllis in a rustic country marriage; of the second the leader was black-haired Helicaon, golden-skinned, with rose-red cheeks, and about his neck a curl of his well-twisted hair was trailing down; Oenopion led the third, Staphylus championed the fourth, the two sons of Oenomaus, the wine-loving father; and over the fifth ruled Melanthius, chieftain of the Indians, whom Oenone the daughter of Cissus bore; and about the boy his mother wove the topmost of fragrant garden leaves and wound clustered swaddling-bands all round him, having bathed her son in a vat pregnant with drink. Such, shooting with their ivy-bearing shafts, was the battalion that armed itself, comrade of the vine-clad Bacchus.

And he armed his host, pouring out a host-stirring shout: Bassarids, fight! As Lyaeus arms himself let my horned pipe, striking out a martial note, sound an answering strain to the bellowing conch, and let the drums thunder the brazen-throated din of battle with their twin clappings; and dancing for the War-god let Maron shoot Glaucus with his man-breaking thyrsus; and bind the locks of Proteus with unwonted ivy, and let him leave the Egyptian water of the Pharian sea and, wearing a dappled fawnskin after his sealskins, bend his bold neck for me; and if he can, let Melicertes arm himself against drunken Silenus; and the dweller on Tmolus among its mossy haunts, old Phorcys, teach him to lift the thyrsus, and let the old farmer of the land become a vine-grower; and let a steadfast Satyr, shaking his fennel-wand, draw thirsty Nereus out of the sea with his country hands; and from new-planted gardens wreathe the locks of Palaemon with a wine-dark band, and bring him, serving in the deep of the Isthmian brine, the charioteer of the sea, to mother Rhea, the helmsman of lions with a sea-whip; for I will no longer leave my cousin alone upon the deep. I shall behold the battalion of the sea, won by my spear, adorned with the fawnskin; and to the untried Nymphs, to the Nereids, give cymbals; mingle with the Bacchants the Water-nymphs; but of Thetis, even if she is a child of the sea, guard her house alone, the hospitable goddess; and bind the unsandalled feet of Leucothea to buskins; and appearing on land as a fellow-traveller of Bacchant Euadne let Doris lift my revel-rout's pine-torch; and let deep Panopea, shaking off the seaweed of the brine, wreathe her locks with a viper-cluster; and let Eidothea, unwilling, take the clattering rattles; and since she has love equal to her own love-maddened wooer, what blame is it that Galatea should serve Dionysus, that as a bride-gift she may complete for Amymone's sake a robe with loom-toiling hand for the Libanian queen? But let the race of Nereus be; for I do not wish sea-faring handmaids, lest I rouse jealousy in Beroe. And tossing the long-branched fringe of his hairy brow, let my mountain-roaming Pan, gripping with weaponless hand, strike Poseidon with his sharpened horn, catching him in the midst of the breast with curving points, or upon a crested cliff, and let him tear with his hooves the twofold yoked circle of Triton's prickly backbone. Let Glaucus, the sea-drenched servant of the Earthshaker, serve Bacchus, lifting in his hands the clattering drums of Rhea hung from a neck-strap. Not for Beroe alone do I contend, but also for the very fatherland of our nymph; let not the ruler of the sea, the Earthshaker, shatter it as it stands unshaken, and reduce it to ruin with his trident, sea-girt though it be; since I will arm myself against him as he arms; for both reasons— if it has won the neighbouring sea, it holds the countless plants of Bacchus, the sign of my victory; for of the seaside . . . But, after the more ancient Pallas, with Bacchus as witness let another Cecrops come as judge, that the vine too may be sung as a city-saver, just like the olive. And when I have made the city take another shape, I will not leave it near the sea, but cutting the rugged hills with my fennel-wand I will bridge the deep brine that neighbours Berytus, turning to dry land with crags the rock-bound water of the sea; and the rough road shall be levelled by the sharp thyrsus. But fight again, Mimallones, bold in your accustomed victory; and the fresh-flowing blood of the slain Giants my fawnskin still bears, growing dark with it; even now the East itself trembles before me, and to the ground bends his neck the Indian War, and shedding suppliant tears for Bromius, shedding watery tears, old Hydaspes shuddered. And after the watery struggle, holding the Libanian nymph, one privilege I grant to the Earthshaker, since he longs for it: if he wishes, let him sing the wedding-song of my Loves, only let him not turn an envious eye upon my Beroe.

Such was the word he spoke; and with threatening speech the dark-haired one answered, mocking Dionysus: Ashamed, Dionysus, I arm myself, that you matched yourself against the spearman of the trident, you who fled the axe of Lycurgus; come here, Thetis, look on: your Dionysus, having escaped, gave fair ransom-gifts to the hospitable sea; I never admire this, you torch-bearer; for from a mother-slaying fire you sprang, and so you do deeds worthy of fire. But, dear Tritons, help me, bind the Bacchants, making them sea-faring; and of the mountain-housed bearer let the drums of Silenus be swamped by the sea, dragged off by the wave, and on the swelling stream let the Bacchus-loving pipe of the swimming Satyr drift into a self-coiling voyage; and in my watery hall let the Bassarids spread my bed instead of Lyaeus'. I have no need of Satyrs, I drag no Maenads to the deep; the Nereids are better; but let the thirsty Mimallones be hidden in the sea, and instead of wine-poured drunkenness let them drink the salt water of my brine; and let some Bassaris, driven by the watery point of Proteus, roll of herself and slip into the sea, turning a death-dance of somersaults for Lyaeus. Drag off the battalions of the Aethiopians and the ranks of the Indians, as booty for the Nereids, and of the foul-tongued nymph bring to Doris the slave-children of Cassiepeia, a late-fulfilled penalty; and on his unconquerable stream let Oceanus shift the fiery star of Maera, bathed in his flood, the forerunner of the unsleeping winepress-dance, the vine-clad Sirius, away from Olympus. But you, Lydian Bacchus, leave your feebler thyrsus, seek some other weapon for yourself, and lay aside the dappled fawnskins, the slight covering of your limbs; and if the heavenly bridal flame of Zeus brought you to birth, now make war with fire, fire-nurtured one, now with the thunderbolt of your father do battle against the helmsman of the trident, and lighten the lightning-flash and brandish your father's aegis; for it is no Deriades who awaits you as champion, nor is this the contest of Lycurgus, the small skirmish of the Arabs, but of a sea so vast; and trembling even now at my sea-spear heaven has learned of our deep-sea War; and the high-pathed champion of my trident's point Phaethon once tested, when invincible about Corinth the sea-Ares armed himself for a starry battle; and the sea was lifted up to the sky, and in Oceanus the thirsty Wain was bathed, and in the waters of the neighbouring brine the Dog dipped its hot jaws and was cooled, the Dog of Maera, and the hollows of the deep haunts were heaved on high, towering up the waves, and as the sea was lashed the sea-dolphin met the heavenly Dolphin.

So speaking, with his trident he shook the recesses of the sea, and with sounding surge and swelling flood the water-streams roared, scourging the air. And the host of the brine armed itself with dripping shields; and beside the sea-drenched manger of Cronion of the deep Melicertes brandished his under-sea spear, yoking the Isthmian chariot, and beside the sea-running king's car of the sea-greaves he hung his spear, scoring the sea's surface with its three-fold point, yoking the Isthmian chariot; and with the horse's neighing the roar of the Indian lions clattered together. And he drove a watery course; and as the car was stretched out the dry unwetted hoof grazed the surface of the water. And the broad-bearded Triton clamoured at the frenzied fray, he who in his twofold limbs has a man-shaped form, of alien kind, sea-green, from the loins to the head but half-complete; and trailing from the curve of his watery loins a forked tail is bent round in fishy fashion. And with a watery lash, beside the sea-manger, having yoked his chariot borne by a swift-rushing storm, Glaucus scourged the mane of his unwashed-footed horses and pursued the Satyrs. And in the sea-roaring tumult horned Pan, a light wayfarer over the trackless waters, unwetted, beating the brine with his goatish hooves, leapt restlessly, striking the sea with his crook, piping a war-strain on his syrinx; and amid the surges, hearing the mimic windborne image of his own voice, he ran across the sea-water with his mountain-roaming feet, seeking the other sound; and windborne, that very sea-echo, born of the pipe, was pursued. Another, whirling a well-based island-crag, hurled it upon the Water-nymphs, and the flung stone shook the nursery-court of the Nereid Palaemon. And Proteus, leaving the Isthmian swell of the Pallenian brine, armed himself with a sea-corslet, a sealskin; and round him in a garland streamed the swarthy Indians at Bacchus' bidding, and ranks of curly-haired men embraced the many-shaped herdsman of the seals. But as the old man was hemmed in, his form was ever-changing: for Proteus, weaving a counterfeit shape in his limbs, marked himself as a dappled-backed leopard; and self-formed he stood upright upon the ground as a plant, making his limbs into a tree, and as the leaves shook he hissed a false whisper to the North wind's breeze; and scoring his back, adorned with painted scales, he crept as a serpent, and as his middle hollow was pressed he raised his coil aloft, and with a dancer's quiver the tip of his stretched circling tail was set spinning, and he reared his head, and spitting from his jaws a darting venom he hissed through his gaping throat; and shifting his body into a shadowy form he bristled as a lion, rushed as a boar, flowed as water; and the band of Indians fastened the watery stream with a threatening bond, holding the deceiving water in their slippery hands; and the crafty old man, changing his cunning shape, took on the many-turning wiles of Periclymenus' form, whom Heracles killed, when joining his two fingers he crushed the false likeness of a counterfeit bee. And the land-passage of the old man was ringed about by the herds of sea-monsters, and the water of the sand-loving seal splashed up loud-roaring from his opening throat. And dragging into the Bacchus-loving fray the battalion of his daughters, old Nereus armed himself with a watery spear, leaping down with his sea-faring trident upon the elephants, terrible to behold; and many neighbouring banks along the shore were bent aslant by the sea-point of Nereus. And the offspring of the Nereids joined with their father in the war-cry of battle; and into the fray, high upon the sea, half-seen, unsandalled, the dance of the brine raved in bacchic frenzy. And rushing weaponless into the tumult of the Satyrs restless Ino ran up to her old madness, belching white foam from her frenzied mouth. And grim Panopea, darting across the calm, scourged the grey back of the sea-lioness; and lifting the club of love-sick Polyphemus sea-girt Galatea armed herself against the raving Bacchant; and lifting unshaken on the backs of sea-bred creatures the pilot-fish carried Eido dry through the water. And as a charioteer driving with circling art, slanting his whole horse to the left near the turning-post, bends the right one, and slackening the rein urges it on with the goad, pouring out a horse-driving threat, crouching and bent forward, with his knees fixed on the rail, his loins curved, and driving the willing horse he lashes it a little with sparing, skilful hand, casting his eye behind, and with his face turned back watches against the car of the chariot following behind; so then the Nereids about the watery turning-post of the contest drove their fish, like swift-running horses. And another held a sea-running course in the opposite direction, a charioteer of a dolphin, peering up over the sea, and riding upon the fishy back across the calm held her water-maddened course; and some mad watery wayfarer, a dolphin half-seen, split apart the yoked dolphins.

And the rivers clamoured into the battle of Dionysus, encouraging their lord, and from their ever-flowing throats the watery bellow of gaping Oceanus, the Poseidonian trumpet, messenger of battle, roared; and the seas were arched up, joining the trident in the fray; the Myrtoan ran upon the Icarian, and close at hand the Sardinian on the western, the Iberian was dragged against the Celtic, swelling in its waters, and with the accustomed twin sea the unstable Bosporus mingled its curving water, and the streams of the Aegean, tossing together in a gust, the hollows of the Ionian sea were lashed in pairs, and by the ankles of the Sicilian frenzied brine, towering up with its waves, the Adriatic brine clashed together, cloud-high; and taking a conch beneath the water of the Syrtis Libyan Nereus bellowed with his sea-trumpet; and some land-faring wayfarer, leaping up from the surges, planted his left foot on a peak, and with his right cutting off the highest crests of a mountain with his earth-shaking heel, hurled them down upon the head of an untouched Maenad; and warring with the under-sea trident of Dionysus Melicertes raved in bacchic frenzy with his mother's leaps. And the battalions of the Bassarids advanced against the tumult, of whom one, shaking the wandering cluster of her hair, armed herself for the watery fray with murderous madness, restless, driven to frenzy by the leaping dance of her feet; and another, having settled near Samos at the Thracian cave of the Cabeiri, leapt along the crag of Libanus, tossing out a barbarous strain of the Corybantic din; and another, high upon the child-bearing lioness from Tmolus, binding her masculine hair with a snaky band, a Maeonian Mimallon, unveiled, bellowed beneath, and planted the print of her foot high upon the bank, foaming over the sea with mimic jaws. And the Sileni, gushing forth Cilician dew, the drivers of the Mygdonian lions, armed themselves, and leaping with a clatter upon the deep-sea throng they raised in their hands the vine-shoot of Enyo, and stretched out their hands to the lion's neck, gripping its mane, and the unconquerable bearers they boldly reined in with shaggy bridles. And seizing the sinew of a ravine-cleaving haunt Silenus warred with Palaemon, and the wandering Ino he drove through the water with his ivy spear. One strove with another; and a Bacchant was not ashamed to rush against the trident with her shooting thyrsus, a Bacchant though she was a woman; and shielding the sea against scaur-loving Pan the wandering Nereus contended with splashing arm; and with blood-red ivy a mountain Bacchant drove the Pallenian deity, yet did not overthrow him; and as he came on against Lyaeus Maron shook off Glaucus with his shooting thyrsus. And the cloud-high elephant, with an earth-shaking quiver of its limbs, wheeling its planted foot with the unbending mass of its knee, warred with its long lips against the ground-couched seal; and the Satyrs rushed in tumbling tumult, bull-formed, trusting in their horns, and as they rushed their alien upright tail hung loose along their loins. And the battalions of the Sileni streamed on, of whom one mounted with parted feet upon the loins of a bull pressed out the twin-sounding strain of his interwoven pipes. And tossing her locks together with the dappled storm-blasts a Mygdonian Bacchant clashed her yoked cymbals, and lashed the arched mane of a raging she-bear, facing the under-sea beast; and a wild leopard, mountain-roaming, was driven by the goading thyrsus. And one, possessed by a leap of mind-robbing madness, leapt with unwetted feet upon the sea, as if dancing upon the head of Poseidon; she struck the waves with her foot, and threatened the silent sea, and lashed the deaf water with her thyrsus, a water-borne Bassaris; and from the nymph's locks a self-kindled fire flashed down her neck, without burning, a marvel to behold. And mournful by the shore near the sea, beholding the strife of sea-warring Dionysus, sorely suffering Psamathe broke into a voice full of terror: If you remember the favour of Thetis and of skilful Briareus, if you learned how Aegaeon defended your ordinances, King Zeus, restrain the raving Bacchus; let me not behold the enslavement of Nereus over the death of Glaucus; let not tear-streaked Thetis serve Lyaeus, let me not see her a handmaid beside Bromius, doomed to look on the land of the Lydians after the sea—Achilles, Peleus, Pyrrhus, grandson, husband, son, mourned in a single grief; and pity weeping Leucothea, whose husband took her son and slew him, the son whom the child-slaying points of the heartless father's knife carved up.

So she spoke, and Zeus, who rules on high through the air, heard, and entrusted the wedding of Beroe to the Earthshaker, and soothed the bridal-making fray; for from heaven, checking the unfulfilled bridal War, the threatening thunderbolts ringed Bacchus about. And the vine-god, shaken by the bridal arrow, longed for the maiden; but his father Zeus who rules on high checked his strain, striking the note of his thunder-trumpet, and the ancestral voice reined back his longing for battle. With reluctant feet the sluggish wayfarer drew back, sullen, eyeing the maiden with a backward-cast glance; and with shamed ears, as the marriage was sung over the sea, he listened in jealousy to the wedding-song of Amymone. And the sea-roaring syrinx hymned the half-finished marriage, and rousing in the waters the unquenchable bridal fire Nereus, chamber-attendant, hymned the bridal-bed of Amymone, and Phorcys wove the strain; and with kindred course Glaucus leapt up, Melicertes raved in bacchic frenzy; and Galatea, beating out the yoked dance, restless, wheeled with the leaping quiver of her feet, and sang the marriage-strain, since she had learned to sing fair things when she was taught on the shepherd's pipe of Polyphemus. And having joined the watery wedding of Beroe the bridegroom Earthshaker loved the fatherland of his bride; and to the dwellers of Beroe, as a treasure of his own bed, he granted the sea-victory of the sea-Ares. And the marriage was blessed, since beside the deep bridal-chamber Arabian Nereus brought a worthy love-gift, the skilful work of Hephaestus, Olympian craft, for the bride, bringing a necklace and bearing cups and stretching out spirals, all that for the Nereids with inimitable art the Lemnian workman wrought beside the waves, and in the midst of the brine plied his fiery anvil and his under-sea tongs, drawing the circling breath of his blowing crucible with artificial winds, and as the furnace was kindled the inmost fire roared unquenched amid the surges. Nereus then gave these gifts of many kinds, and to the maiden Persian Euphrates gave the elaborate form of a spider's web; the Iberian Rhine gave gold; and like gifts of wealth-holding mines old Pactolus came bearing in carefully-guarded hands, because he trembled before the champion of the Lydians, Bacchus his king, and trembled before his neighbour Rhea, the city-guardian of his own Mygdonian land; and Eridanus brought as shining gifts the amber of the Heliades from the wealth-pouring trees; and from the silver rock all the metals that Strymon and all that Geudis bears, the dark-haired one gave as a bridal-gift to Amymone.

So beside his under-sea bridal-chamber the new-married Earthshaker rejoiced; and to unsmiling Lyaeus, in his envy, his brother Eros cried out a consoling word: Why, Dionysus, do you still blame the bride-tending girdle? The marriage of Beroe did not befit Bromius, but this was a fitting marriage for the sea, since taking the child of the deep-sea Aphrodite I yoked her to a sea-faring husband; but a more delicate Ariadne I have kept for your chambers, kin from the line of Minos; the worthless Amymone, who bears the blood of the sea, I left for the sea. But leaving the hill of Libanus and the water of Adonis you shall come to Phrygia rich in maidens, where there awaits you the unwetted bed of the Sun's child, Titanian Aura; and having fashioned a crown of battle and the bridal chamber of a maiden, bride-tending Thrace shall receive you, where also spear-wielding Pallene calls you, beside whose bridal-bed I will crown you, victor, with bridal clusters, when you have accomplished the lovely wrestling-match of Aphrodite.

So to his woman-maddened brother Bacchus spoke furious Eros; and sending the fiery whir of his wings the bastard bird was lifted up on his airy course, and came to the house of Zeus. And from the Assyrian gulf soft-robed Dionysus went up to the land of the Lydians beside the bank of Pactolus, where in the gold-gleaming mud the dark water of the rich earth is reddened; and he set foot on Maeonia, and stood before his mother Rhea, offering the royal gifts of the Indian sea. And leaving the streams of the deep-wealthy river and the Phrygian hollow and the race of soft-living men, beside the northern land he planted his own vintage, faring through the cities of Europe after the towns of Asia.