BOOK XXIII

In the twenty-third I sing Indian Hydaspes crossed, and the affray of water and fire. So spoke the Nymph, the Naiad of the waters, and soaked in blood plunged into the bloodstained water of her father. But Aiacos drove the barbarian hordes along the banks into the flood, striking with his sword ; the enemy pursued by the steel died in their rout and choked the river Hydaspes. Many a one in the flood stretched legs and arms in the manner of swimmers, and tried to escape his fate by cutting the stream with inexperienced hands, yet he was swallowed in the water; one upon another swollen big with water there found a floating grave. the shieldstrewn river, surrounded by all that multitude of deadly foes, for Dionysos Indianslayer was beside him at his need, shaking the sharpened wand. Then Aiacos laid low a great host besides, piercing them with unsparing spear ; furious as Ares he was by the side of his corseleted brother Dionysos.

battle, and brought a drowning death to his foes. If some man swam by cutting through the waves on his wellmade shield, he thrust him through the back as he swam. If an Indian showed fight half under water and standing on the mud, he struck breast or neck with his wand, wading in among the drowning men; for he knew the deep bosom of the waters, ever since he fled from the murderous attack of Lycurgos, and ancient Nereus had entertained him in his billowy dwelling. Many on this side and that plunged into the stream in fear of the hillranging son of Zeus. One stood upright with feet held firmly in the slimy mud, selfstuck, immovable, half-visible from loins to head ; then lifting the hidden fork of the thigh he fought better against Bromios in water than on land, for he cast two lances from his two hands®; one he let fly towards the bank, sending it up high, with Aiacos as his target, who was approaching; the other he poised and threw at Lyaios the invulnerable. Another stood firmly, covered to midbelly; and he could not escape, but the sharp wand struck him as he dragged his clogged feet through the fettering mud, and _ his soles were stayed in the sands. There was another, stopt by a wound in the calf; the river just reached his knee, and fought a wet warfare through the bloody water. Another rooted to the bottom was submerged over the chin, and tried to lift his feet so as to get a shoulder clear of the water, trying to escape the terrible flood which dashed in his face. Others with the whole body covered from the toes to the middle of the chest, or with both shoulders in the wet, or with red on the hair of his head,° awaited the threatening attack battle of Achilles by the river in his mind throughout this reading is doubtful.

paige had foretold that his death would bring victory to of the waves. Another with wet lips palpitating and grinning teeth sank into the deathdealing by long spear or sword, struck by a missile rock, pierced by the sharp leafwrapt thyrsus-wand, pointed out to Thureus the heaps of corpses—then in anguish tore his hair, bit his lips deep and was dumb, wild with blazing indignation. Born of barbarian blood and bred in barbarian manners, he quickly followed the example of Indian Orontes and killed himself. Baring his sword, he stript off the corselet, that impregnable defence in battle which kept off the missiles, and undismayed set the blade to his flank, as he uttered a last proud speech before the quick stroke of death: ashamed if I were killed by some unnatural unwarlike hand. I myself drive a willing blade into my own side, that my father may not reproach me brought low by a womanish wand, nor call Satyr or Bacchant darkskinned belly with resolute hands, as if he were piercing a stranger, and died self-slain, another Menoiceus among his foes, ashamed to look again upon Deriades after this battle ; died a willing death with tearless eyes, and showed himself a brazen Aias ὃ but that he was not mad.

when the arms of Achilles were given to Odysseus instead of him. Recovering his senses, he found he had killed sheep, taking them for his enemies, and killed himself for shame. See Soph. Aias. Eridanos, which “ is nowhere at all but said to be so near the Po,” says Strabo v. 1.9. Nonnos seems by this story, to which he recurs several times, finally telling it at length in book xxxviii. The mention of amber in conthe dead with his reluctant flood, and became their tomb. Then one within the river cried out his last sons ? I have often made war against Bactrians, but Median Araxes never destroyed a Median army. Persian Euphrates never drowned his neighbours, the Persians. Often I have had war under the Tauros, but Cydnos never made his bosom the tomb of Cilicians in war. Tanais% never arms icy petrified waters against the Sauromatans on his banks, but often attacked their enemies the Colchians with torrential war, and laid them low with his frozen armament.

Eridanos was happier than you, in that he swallowed a foreigner, Phaéthon? in his flood, not one of his own people; he drowned no Gaul, he entombed no Celt, but brings wealth from his trees to the friends who live near him as he rolls along the brilliant amber gifts of the Heliades. Iberian Rhine ὁ does indeed attack his own sons, but as a judge, when he marks off the illicit offspring of his race and kills the stranger-brat ; but you swallow up the lawful sons of your own perishing people—you drown no bastard blood. How dare you mingle with other rivers, with your Father Ocean himself and Tethys your mother, rolling down a flood of gore in bloody streams? Have some nexion with Eridanos suggests that it has béen confused with some North European river. was in Spain or that the Iberians’ territory extended through Gaul to its banks. It was said in late antiquity (see Julian, v. 112; more references and good parallels in Frazer, Folklore of O.T. ii. 454-455) that the ‘‘ Celts ” used to throw their infant children into the Rhine, for a true-born child would float quite safely, but a bastard would drown.

reverence, do not pollute Poseidon with dead bodies. Your river is worse than Bromios, his wands do not beat me so hard as your waves beat me!”’ brought him unhappy fate, were floating in crowds: the helmet under way half visible, sinking little by little and crest trailing on the water, its owner lost. Leathern shields sailed along flat, tossing upon the waves in rows here and there, their long slings afloat like ships’ hawsers. Here a man is dragged down to the depths in his soaking garments by the weight of his corselet and from the battle, if he had not killed that whole army with his fleshpiercing wand, leaving only one to tell the news that all were dead. Thureus alone he left to be a godfearing witness of the victory. vastation of the Indians, she flew from heaven, and quickly along the path on high scored the air with windswift sole. In Anatolia she alighted, and drove Indian Hydaspes to stir up bloody strife against bent the knee, then the company of Bacchoi was fashioning all sorts of machines of navigation and crossed the tranquil waves. The god led them in his landchariot, driving this makeshift vessel over the flood, while the panthers trod the water of Hydaspes without wetting a hoof. The armies made their voyage over a waveless river, one rowing a strongbound Indian raft, one steering a skiff along the watery path, some native boat of networking fishermen which he had seized. Another played the mariner under strange pretences. He lashed together a number of logs with workmanlike knots, and made the timber roots and all serve as a freighter without rudder, without sail, without oars, asking no help from speed-the-ship Boreas—for he held his spear upright and plunged it under water into the deep pools : so navigated the spearpunting shipman of a watercrossing host. There was another new kind of navigation, and another sham boat, when one cut the waters, dry on a floating shield, with the sling for painter, and so pursued his shieldshaking course.

horses swam with their feet while the riders sat on their backs. As the horse swam a wet journey with his agile feet, only his neck rose high and dry out of the water as he carried the rider aloft upon boat. They filled swelling skins with artificial wind, and on these leathery bags crossed Indian Hydaspes, while the skins teeming with wind bore them along. calm river on his goat’s feet; Lycos guided the horses of the sea in his father’s fourhorse chariot unwetted ; and Scelmis drove across the waveless river along with Damnameneus his brother. Some one else leapt on the back of a bull and made him march into the river quick as the wind, guiding him on his way with his crook, as the beast scored the quiet water with his hooves. The old Seilenoi went or wade beside his mount. voyaging on the deep paddling Hydaspes with foot and shouted for help to a watery brother, as he uttered these menacing words from his manyfouncrawl in silence? Rear your waves, and overwhelm Dionysos, that we may swallow his host of footmen under the waters! It is a disgrace for you and me when the warriors of Bromios pass through my flood with unwetted shoes. You also, Aiolos ’—grant me this boon, arm your stormy winds to be champions against my foes, to fight with the Satyrs, because their host has marched through the waters and made a highroad of Hydaspes for landchariots, because they drive a watery course through my stream!

Arm your winds against my ferryman Lyaios! Let the Satyrs’ host be caught in the flood, let my river receive the chariot, let the charioteers be rolled in my flood, let the riders be swallowed in the mad waves! I will not suffer this unnatural passage to be unavenged : for both you and me it is a disgrace, when the warriors of Bromios have made a path for footmen and drivers high and dry! . . . I will destroy the water-traversing lions of Dionysos ! Why does the Naiad in the watery depths of my flood hear whinnying, why does the horse’s hoof crush the fish’s back? I am ashamed to mingle with other rivers, when women cross me with unwetted shoes. Never have Indians been so bold as to scrape my Hom. Jl. xxi. 308. The wind-god. streams with towering chariots, never has Deriades scored his father’s water with his huge equipage, seated on the nape of highcrested elephants ! ” upon Bacchos with a volley of foaming surf. A storm of watery trumpets bellowed from the battling waves; the river moaned as it raised the water high, battling against the Satyrs. Amid the roaring tumult, the Bassarid in her rich garb shook the cymbals out of her hands, swung her feet round, shook off the yellow trusses of the stitched shoes from her paddling foot, while the windswept waves rose to the head of the swimming Bacchant and drenched her curling hair.

Another overwhelmed threw off her soaking robes, and gave her fawnskins to the swelling water, as the mass of the curving stream rolled over her chest, black against the rosy nipple. A Satyr paddling the flood with his hands waggled his wet tail straight out through the water. Maron carried swiftly along by the rushing water, paddled the drunken feet of his old legs, and left in the waves his leather bottle full of delicious wine. The syrinx of Pan was floating on the surface and rolling of itself on the waves, tossed about beside the double pipes ; the hair of shaggy Seilenos flowed over his neck and jumped about in and pouring its alien water yellow over the land, a challenge to watery war for Dionysos. The tumultuous flood, met by a counterblast of wind, piled up high as the clouds and soaked the air, as it leapt down upon Dionysos with foaming surf. Not so furiously roared the war-mad water of Simoeis, not so defiantly rushed Camandros to overwhelm Achilles with rolling flood, as then Hydaspes pursued the army of Bacchos.

whose waters are fed by Zeus? Ifit be my pleasure, Rainy Zeus my father will dry up your flood. You, sprung from the clouds of Cronides my father, persecute the offspring of Cloudgatherer Zeus ! Beware the stroke of my father’s thunderbolt of delivery, beware lest he raise against you the lightning which gave Bromios birth! Take care that you be not dubbed Heavyknee, like Asopos!® Quiet your flood while I yet control my wrath. Your waters rise against fires, and you cannot endure one spark of the you so proud, because she has the blood of Hyperion’s heavenly kin, my father burnt with fire the bold son of Helios ὦ the fiery charioteer, when he drove the team through heaven; Hyperion dispenser of fire had to mourn his own son dead: he did not make war on my father for Phaéthon’s sake, he did not lift fire against fire even if he is lord of fire. If your Oceanos makes you so haughty, consider Eridanos struck by the bolt of Zeus, your brother burnt with fire : a cruel sorrow it was for your watery ancestor, who is girdled by the world’s rim, who pours all those mighty streams of water to possess the earth, when he saw his own son burnt up and made no war on Olympos, nor contended with his flood against the Ree. Appropriate, since in fennel Prometheus fetched fire to firebarbed thunderbolt. Pray spare your waters awhile, or I may see you, Hydaspes, burnt up in fiery flames like Eridanos.”’ angry than ever, and he poured out his highswollen water in yet stronger waves. And now he would have engulfed the whole company of sobered Bacchants, had not Bacchos defended them. From a neighbouring coppice he pulled a firebearing stalk of fennel,’ and holding it towards the Dawn he warmed it at the sun; the combustible stalk conceived a spark in itself and brought forth a woodborn fire.

Then he threw it into the stream. The river caught fire of this menacing torch, and the water boiled up against the banks ; clouds of smoke went up scattering into the air from burning lotus and shrivelling galingale. Fire consumed the rushes; the reek of the sooty smoke curling in whirling circles intoxicated the heavenly vaults, and all the wood was blackened by the fragrant breezes of the smitten reeds.? hid themselves in the mud ; the soaking slime kindled the wet and boiled, as the swimming spark of fire ran under water, and from the deep channels poured abroad a fiery smoke mixt with watery steam. Companies of Hydriads° were driven naked from their homes under the waves, swift-footed, bare, unveiled. One Naiad, renouncing her native water now on fire, dived unveiled into the unfamiliar Ganges; another with dry limbs sought a home in noisy Indian Acesines?%; another Naiad nymph of persons and things to constellations, which are an ant part of late mythology. He will wet the Great Hom. Od. v. 275, and a hundred later passages; it had ceased to be exactly true about 1000 s.c.); he will make the constellation of the Dolphin into a real swimming in the sea (297), which it once was until it was made a constellation for helping Poseidon to find Am ὩΣ ecard nes, Catast. xxxi.; he will bring again misses the chance to call it by its other name of Nile, see ps.wandering over the mountains, a maiden unveiled and unshod, was received by Choaspes®% near Persia.

menacing words, pouring a watery roar from his manystream throat, and deluging the shores of the world with the flood of words which issued from his everlasting mouth like a fountain: ancient as the world, nurse of commingled waters, selfborn, loving mother of children, what shall we do? Now Rainy Zeus blazes in arms against me and your children. Even as Asopos found the Father Zeus Cronion his destroyer, in the bastard shape of a bird, so Hydaspes has found Bacchos the son. Nay, I will bring my water against the lightnings of Zeus, and drown the fiery sun in my quenching flood, I will put out the stars of heaven! Cronion shall see me overwhelm Selene with my roaring streams. Under the region of the Bear, I will wash with my waters the ends of the axle and the dry track of the Wain.? The heavenly Dolphin, which long ago swam in my Erat. xxxvii., but Nonnos follows Aratos as to the name of this constellation, which is near the feet of Orion and often simply called the River. He will get the Fishes, Pisces (302), back again where they were before they were rewarded for helping the goddess Derceto out of the water, ps.-Erat. xxxviii. He will and Euripides cited by ps.-Erat. xiv. for his transformation into the constellation Taurus. Cepheus and Bodtes (311) are of course the well-known constellations so called, but 312 is obscure, unless it is a reference, against all chronology, mythical and historical, to the great tidal wave which tion of the she-goat Amaltheia which suckled Zeus into the constellation Capra or Capella, ps.-Erat. xiii. The Waterman in 315 is the zodiacal constellation Aquarius.

deep sea, I will make to swim once more, and cover him with new seas. I will drag down from heaven the fiery Eridanos whose course is among the stars, and bring him back to a new home in the Celtic land: he shall be water again, and the sky shall be bare of the river of fire. The starry Fishes that swim on high I will pull into the sea and make them mine again, to swim in water instead of Olympos. water, that I may see the Bull, who once swam over a waveless sea, tossed on stormier waves in the paths of the waters after the bed of Europa. Selene herself, bullshaped and horned driver of cattle, may be angry to see my horned bullshaped form. I will travel high into the heaven, that I may behold Cepheus drenched and the Waggoner in soaking tunic, as Earthshaker once did when about Corinth soaking Ares once boldly shouted defiance of battle against the stars! I will swallow the shining Goat, the nurse of Zeus, and I will offer infinite water to the Waterman as a suitable gift !

has been delivered of a base son in bull shape, to destroy all rivers and all creatures together, all blameless : the thyrsus wand has slain the Indians, the torch has burnt Hydaspes ! ” his deep waves.