Book 44

44. I have woven the forty-fourth book, where you may behold women raving, and the swollen menace of Pentheus.

And now, leaving behind the Daulantian tribe of the Illyrian land and the plain of Haemonia and the height of Pelion, he came near to Hellas, and beside the Aonian shore he set up his dances. And hearing the strain of the bellowing pipe the shepherd set up revels for Tanagraean Pan; and a spring made music, where, striking the surface of the ground, the watery hoof of a horse carved out the eponymous water; and Asopus danced, dragging his fire-breathing streams and whirling his floods; and with her father Ismenus Dirce danced, tossing her circling waters. And once a Hamadryad, springing up from a leafy cluster, half-seen, sang shrilly high upon her tree, glorifying the name of cluster-bearing Dionysus; and a fountain Nymph, sandalless, cried out in the same voice. And the mountain-roaming clatter of the untanned oxhide crashed upon the hostile ears of Pentheus; and the lawless king grew enraged at the wine-bearing Bacchus, and armed a warlike host, and bade the townsmen fence about the gates of the seven-gated city; and they barred them one after another, but suddenly of themselves the bolts of the gates were thrown open, and in vain the servants flung the long bars upon the gate, striving against the airy winds. No gatekeeper then, beholding a Bacchant, reined her back; and the shield-bearing spearmen trembled at the old weaponless Sileni; and with one-tongued shouting, when the king cried out, heedless of his threat, they often danced, and with their well-made oxhides they performed the shield-shaking leap of a circling dance, a counterfeit mimicry of the noise-loving Corybantes. And in the mountains the raging she-bears cried out fearfully; and tossing her jaw and her high-flying rush the leopard was lifted; and some lion, gently sporting, sent a soft growl to a she-lion of its own age. And now of itself the court of Pentheus was shaken, springing up like a ball from its unbending foundations; and the gate shuddered, leaping with an earth-shaking quiver, a forewarning of the coming woe; and of itself the stone altar of Oncaean Athena trembled, which Cadmus once built, when with slow-yielding spring the city-bearing hoof of the tower-building heifer sank to rest; and about the divine image of the city-guardian goddess god-sent sweat gushed in self-flowing drops, bringing dread to the dwellers; and from foot to head the statue of Ares, messenger of things to come, ran with gore. And the dwellers were shaken; and in fear there trembled the mother of haughty Pentheus, and she raved in her mind, remembering an earlier blood-red dream that foretold bitter things, since formerly above her bed, from the time when Pentheus seized his father's sovereignty, all night, as she slept amid drowsy whispers, the phantoms of a counterfeit dream terrified Agave, leaping through the unerring well-horned gate; for she dreamed that Pentheus, a dancing dainty wayfarer, having dressed his male body in a woman's robe, cast the purple-backed mantle of kings upon the ground, lightly bearing a thyrsus and no longer the bearer of a sceptre; and Cadmean Agave thought she saw him again seated aloft, high upon a shady tree; and the high-topped plant, where bold Pentheus sat, the wild beasts ringed about, and with savage rush they heaved up the tree, levering it with threatening tusk, with rough jaws; and as the tree was shaken headlong, rolling of himself, Pentheus was whirled round in a spiral, and the raging she-bears mangled him as he crashed down; and a wild she-lion, rushing at his face, tore off his hand from the root, and the beast, raving unrestrained, setting her foot on the throat of the half-cut Pentheus, with her sharp claws sheared through his neck, and lifted the bloody head with her ravening paw as he was piteously torn, and showed it to Cadmus as witness, brandishing it, and broke into a sinful human voice: I am your beast-slaying daughter; I am the mother of most blessed Pentheus, your child-loving Agave. So great a beast I have slain; and of my lion-killing victory receive this head, the first prey of my prowess; so great a beast my sister Ino never slew, nor did Autonoe slay; but you, the tokens of Agave's child, fix up before your hall, your daughter's best-wrought work. Such a grim-faced dream, pale-green, Agave saw. Then, sore frightened, pushing away the wing of Sleep, at dawn she called the god-speaking son of Chariclo, and told the prophet of things to come her murderous dreams; and Teiresias the seer bade her sacrifice a male bull, a helper against the blood-red dream, at the god-invoking altar of Zeus the averter of ill, beside the tree of a tall pine, where Cithaeron spreads high-headed; and to the Hamadryad Nymphs he bade her offer a female sheep beside the thicket. And he knew the cunning beast and the hunting Agave to be the travail of her own womb and the child-destroying struggle and the head of Pentheus; but in voiceless silence he hid the deceitful image of the dream's victory, lest he anger Pentheus his heavy-wrathed king. Obeying the wise old man, child-loving Agave went to the high-headed mountain, travelling with Cadmus, Pentheus following; and beside the well-horned altar a female sheep, companion of a horned male bull, where there was a grove of Zeus, full of mountain woodland, to Zeus and the Hamadryads as one offering joined Cadmus son of Agenor, kindling a god-pleasing altar, sacrificing to both; and as the fire was kindled the savour, wandering in spirals, swam up with the smoke in a fragrant eddy, and as the bull was slaughtered the upright self-rushing jet of bloody dew crimsoned the reddening hands of Agave with murder . . . And winding round the neck-sinew in a garland a serpent slanted its swollen, arching neck, gentle, coiled about with a curving loop, and with its trailing wreath ringed the head of Cadmus, a mild snake, and its tongue licked round his cheek, spitting friendly venom from its gentle jaws as they opened; and a female snake garlanded the temples of Harmonia, entwined among her golden clusters. And Cronion turned the limbs of the twin snakes to stone, because beside the mouth of the Illyrian serpent-feeding sea Harmonia and Cadmus, with changing face, were destined to take on a stony serpent shape. And holding another fear after the earlier fear of sleep she came home with her son and her father. Such a phantom she once saw, and remembering the ominous dream child-loving Agave was shaken with fear.

And now through the seven-gated city Rumour flew, proclaiming the rites of dance-weaving Dionysus; and there was none without a dance throughout the city; the country streets were garlanded with spring leaves; and shading the chamber of Semele with green cluster the still-smoking thunderbolt of the bridal spark a self-grown tendril made drunk with fragrant fruit. But gazing in horror at the manifold marvels of Bacchus, holding overweening jealousy, king Pentheus surged with rage; and pouring out the proud boast of an empty threat reckless Pentheus cried such a word to his servants: Bring me my Lydian servant, the womanish vagrant, the attendant of Pentheus' table as he feasts, who pours some other drink into the wine-receiving cup, either milk or sweet stream; and the sister of his mother, Autonoe, I will scourge with answering blows, and let us cut the locks of unshorn Dionysus; and casting the sounding cymbals to the winds and the Berecyntian clatter and the Euian drums of Rhea drag off the raving Bassarids, drag off the Bacchants, the wandering handmaids of Bromius, whom in Thebes, hurling them into the watery haunts of Ismenus, mingle, the Naiads with the Aonian river-nymphs, their agemates, and let old Cithaeron receive the Hamadryads, yoked with other Hamadryads, instead of Lyaeus. Bring fire, servants, since by avenging ordinance, if Bacchus came from fire, I will deliver Bacchus to fire; Zeus subdued Semele, I will destroy Dionysus. And if he should make trial of my thunderbolt also, he will learn what an earthly flame I have; for my answering fire has won hotter sparks than the heavenly one; today I will make the vine-god a thing of smoke. And if he should raise a warlike fray, lifting his thyrsus, he will learn what an earthly spear I have; and I will destroy him, bearing his wound neither in the foot, nor the flanks, nor the breast, nor the side; and I will not cleave with a poleaxe the two curving horns of his bull-horned brow, nor will I cut through the middle of his neck; but I will strike him with a bronze spear, pierced into the fold of his thigh, because he falsely claimed birth from the thigh of great Zeus and heaven as his home; and I, instead of a hall, instead of the gate of Zeus, will send him down below to Hades, or, as he rolls and flees, I will hide him in the waves of Ismenus, and there is no need of the sea. I do not accept a mortal man as a bastard god; if it is right to say, I will lie, like Dionysus, about my birth: not from earth-born Cadmus do I draw my blood, but my father, the chieftain of the stars, the Sun begot me, and Echion did not sow me; the Moon-goddess bore me, and Agave did not bring me forth; I am of the race of Cronion, and I am a citizen of heaven; the star-roaming sky is my city; be gracious, Thebes; Pallas is my consort, my wife is immortal Hebe; queenly Hera offered her breast to Pentheus after Ares, and holy Leto bore Pentheus after Phoebus; I will wed Artemis at her desire; she does not flee me, as once she fled Phoebus, the suitor of her maidenhood, shunning the reproach of marriage with a brother. And if the heavenly flame had not burned your Semele, because of her son's reproach Cadmus would have burned his own house, and called fire that kindled on earth a lightning-flash, and named the gleam of his torches the spark of a thunderbolt.

So spoke the king, and the warriors advanced, the arms-bearers, striving against the empty winds; and the host was unspeakably great within the pine-clad wood, seeking the tracks of the unseen Lyaeus. While king Pentheus was giving orders to the dwellers, meanwhile Dionysus too, watching the lightless night, cried out such a word toward Olympus to the circling Moon: O child of the Sun, much-turning, all-nurturing Moon, Selene, helmsman of the silver chariot, if you are many-named Hecate, and by night with fire-bearing hand you brandish the revel-rout's pine-torch, come, night-walker, dog-nourisher, since it delights you that the dog-rousing nocturnal echo wails with mournful whimpering; if you are Artemis the deer-shooter, and on the hills hastening in fawn-slaying chase you hunt with Dionysus, be a helper to your brother; for having won the blood of primal Cadmus I am driven outside Thebes, from the fatherland of my mother Semele; for a swift-doomed mortal man, a fighter against the gods, harasses me; so by night, nocturnal one, defend Dionysus the night-reveller as he is driven. And if you are Persephone, the corpse-rouser, and your souls serve the seats of Tartarus, let me see Pentheus a corpse, and of grieving Dionysus let your soul-conducting Hermes lull the tears to rest; and with the lash of your Tisiphone, raving, or of Megaera, with the Tartarean whip put an end to the mind-clouding threat of earth-born Pentheus, since hard-contriving Hera has armed the late-born Titan against young Lyaeus. But subdue the lawless man, that you may honour the title of primal Zagreus, Dionysus. King Zeus, do you too watch the threat of the raving man; hear me, father and mother; and as Lyaeus is put on trial let your bridal lightning be the avenger of Semele.

So he spoke, and the bull-faced Moon cried out from on high: Night-shining Dionysus, plant-tender, comrade of the Moon, care for your vine-cluster; the rites of Bacchus are dear to me, since the earth ripens the travail of your plants, receiving the dewy gleam of the sleepless Moon; but you, Bacchus the dance-beater, stretching out your thyrsus, care for your kindred, and do not tremble at the race of feeble men, whose mind is ever light, whose threats even by constraint the lashes of the Eumenides hold back. With you I arm myself against the foe; and equally with Bacchus I rule over senseless madness; for I am the Moon of Bacchus, not only because I roll the months through the air, but because I rule over madness too and rouse frenzy. I will not let your earthly outrage go unpunished; for already Lycurgus, having threatened Dionysus, he who was once swift-kneed, who sharply pursued the Maenads, wanders blind and lacks a guide. And now about the reeds of the Erythraean banks there lies, on this side and on that, a self-proclaiming witness of your prowess, the dead throng of the Indians, and in his loathing stream father Hydaspes hid the senseless Deriades, struck by your ivy spear; but he, fleeing, fell into his father's heavy-thundering, downcast flood; the Tyrrhenians know your strength, when the upright mast of the ships was changed and a vine-shoot grew, self-formed, and the sail beneath shady leaves of the cultivated vines, a fair-clustered canopy, was grown over, and the forestays hissed with a viper-cluster shooting venom, and casting away their human form and reasoning aim, the foes, with changing face, mindless dolphins, swim in the sea; still they revel for Dionysus even amid the surges, like tumblers leaping over the calm. And the corpse, struck by your sharp thyrsus, Indian Orontes, is hidden in the Assyrian streams, still fearing even in the waters the name of Bacchus.

Such a word the golden-reined goddess cried to Bromius. While Bacchus still conversed with the circling Moon, meanwhile, granting a favour to Zagreus Dionysus, Persephone armed the Erinyes, and grieving helped her late-born brother Dionysus. And they, at the grievous nod of the head of earthly Zeus, the Eumenides, advanced against the hall of Pentheus, of whom one, leaping forth from the gloomy pit, brandished the Tartarean viper-lash, and drew the stream of Cocytus and the water of Styx, and sprinkled the house of Agave with an earthly drop . . . as if foretelling the wailing and the tears of Thebes; and the goddess brought the Actaean knife from Attica, the ancient blood-stained knife of Itylus, with which once the mother Procne, lion-hearted, with man-slaying Philomela, cutting up her well-beloved offspring with the iron, served it as dear food to child-devouring Tereus; carrying that in her hand, the channel-cutter of slaughters, the Erinys, with her evil-working claws scooping out the dust, hid the Attic sword beside the mountain-grown root of a tall pine, where the Maenads, where Pentheus was destined to die headless; and gathering in a conch the fresh-flowing blood of the newly-slain Gorgon Medusa she anointed the tree with purple Libyan dews. And these things the maddened Erinys contrived among the crags. And with dusky feet into the house of Cadmus stepped night-shining Dionysus, holding a bull-faced form, brandishing the Cronian raving lash of Pan; and driving to bacchic frenzy the unbridled wife of Aristaeus, he called Autonoe, and cried with frenzied voice: Blessed, Autonoe, more than Semele; for over the marriage of your newly-wed son you vie even with Olympus; you have seized the glory of heaven, since Artemis won a dainty husband, Actaeon, and the Moon won Endymion. Actaeon did not die, did not take on the look of a beast, nor the long-pointed horn of a dappled deer, he did not receive a bastard form, and did not falsify his shape, he did not see his own hunting dogs as his slayers; but with the empty-minded tale of evil-tongued mouths the herdsmen lied about the fate of your son, hating the bridegroom of the unwedded goddess. I know whence this trick came; over another's marriage, over a wedding, over the Paphian, women are jealous. But darting on storm-swift sandal hasten to come unhindered to the mountains; coming there you will see Actaeon hunting with Lyaeus, holding Artemis near, and bearing the gleaming nets of the hunt, wearing the hunting-boots, and handling the quiver. Blessed, Autonoe, more than Semele, because as the goddess went to her marriage you became the mother-in-law of the archer-goddess; more fortunate than fair-childed Ino, because of a goddess your son won the bed, which haughty Otus did not win. Bold Orion was not the bridegroom of the archer-goddess. And rejoicing, grown young again for the sake of his son's bride, your Cadmus revels beside your mountain-housed bridal-chamber, shaking his snow-white hair in the airy winds. Awake, and be you too a bride-tender, mother of fair childbirth; this Love is fitting, since holy Artemis took as bridegroom her brother's son and not a stranger as husband. But when the bed-shunning goddess at last bears a child, lifting the son of the chaste archer-goddess show him to jealous Agave with your child-tending arm. What blame is it ever, if the dog-rouser beside her bridal-chamber wished to bear a hunting, hare-killing son, like Actaeon and scaur-loving Cyrene, riding in the swift car of his mother's deer?