BOOK XXIV

The twenty-fourth has the infinite mourning of the Indians, and the shuttle and distaff of Aphrodite working at the loom. Fatuer Zeus turned aside the menace of his angry son, for he massed the clouds and flung out a thunderclap ; he stayed the flaming attack of Dionysos, and calmed the anger of boundless Ocean. Hera also made an infinite noise resound through the air, to restrain the wrath of Dionysos’s fiery power. ful Bacchos, and appealed to the fiery son of Zeus in words that bubbled out of his lips : Be gracious to my fertilizing waters! for your own goodly fruitage of grapes has grown up from water. I have sinned, Dionysos, nurseling of fire! for the gleam of your torches has proclaimed your divine lineage. But love for my children constrained me. To keep faith with Deriades my son I brought up my threatening surf, to help perishing Indians I rolled because the murmuring stream which I draw is mingled with blood, and I pollute Poseidaon with clots of gore ; this it was, only this that armed me to strive against Dionysos. By your father, protector of guests and suppliants, have mercy on Hydaspes, now hot and boiling with your fire !

in a watery home at my source, one leaves the deep for the thicket, and stays with Hadryads in the woods ; another migrates to the Indos, another escapes on dusty feet to hide among the thirsty rocks of Caucasos, or passing to Choaspes dwells in strange rivers and in her father’s water no longer. streams, which grow up to support the shoots and grapes of your vine! Do not the reeds tied together carry your. well-watered fruit? Burn not my reeds, which make your Mygdonian hoboys, or your musical Athena may reproach you one day: she who invented the Libyan double pipes, to imitate with their tootle the voices of the Gorgons’ grim heads.2 Spare the harmonious tune of the panspipes which guides your own mystic song! Cease wasting the river stream with your fennel, when the stream of the river makes your fennels to grow! to your name ; for I have washed another Dionysos in my bath, with the same name as the younger Bromios, when Cronion entrusted Zagreus ° to the care of my nursing nymphs; why, you have the whole shape of Zagreus. Grant this favour then, although so long after, to him from whom you are to do with the Hydaspes, outside of Nonnos’s own fancy or that of some Alexandrian whom he may be imitating.

hence Dionysos is Zagreus reborn. sprung ; for you came from the heart ¢ of that firstborn Dionysos, so celebrated. Respect the water of your Lamos® who cherished your childhood ; remember Maionia your own country, for Hydaspes is brother of your charming Pactolos. Grant now this one boon to all these rivers, my brothers, and withdraw your flame. Burn not with fire my watery stream, for the watery fire of your Zeus, the lightning, came out of water! Calm your anger, because 1 fall at your knees: see, I have smoothed my flood into peaceful prayer! If Typhoeus in rebellion had bent his bold neck and submitted, your father Zeus, Lord in the highest, would have checked his lightning, his overwhelming threat would have been cast aside and forgotten.” torch. A wind from the north began to ruffle the waters with winter’s lash, bringing bleak airs and cooling the firestruck stream of the river, and honoured Helios and Bacchos and Zeus together by quenching the unquenchable divine fire of the surf.

Hydaspes, Deriades with the courage of Ares armed the Indians for a vast effort of battle, as a Battledown of his name should do. He posted his companies beside the river, that the warriors might repel by force the Bacchoi as they still climbed up. Nor did the allseeing eye of Zeus fail to see him: quickly he swooped down from Heaven to hold a shield before Dionysos. With Zeus came all the gods who dwell in Olympos, one after another, in a flying leap, to help their own. the sake of Aigina’s bed, sailed now as an eagle flying high; and like a bird of prey caught up Aiacos in gentle talons, and carried him to the Indian land for battle with Deriades. Apollo ® the father saved Aristaios the son from the broad gulf, riding brilliant in his car drawn by the bane-averting swans ; for he remembered the bower of lionslaying Cyrene. Hermes ° Longwing caught up and held his own child, the son of Penelope, hornstrong hairy Pan. Urania ¢ saved Hymenaios from destruction, because he had the same name as her own creative son, and scored the airy paths like a moving star, to please Dionysos, her brother of the grapes. Calliope ὁ lifted Oiagros upon her shoulders. Hephaistos took care of his sons the Cabeiroi, and caught up both, like a flying firebrand. Pallas Athena the Attic goddess saved Erechtheus the Indians’ bane, the citizen of god-founded Athens. All the denizens of Olympos who cared for their beloved oaks, rescued Hadryad nymphs; and most especially laurel-Apollo appeared and saved the laurel-nymphs 2; and Leto his mother stood by her son and helped them, for she still honoured the tree which helped her childbirth.” The company of Bassarids and the ivycrowned women were saved from the roaring turmoil of the deeps, by the daughters of Cydnos, the river that Muse) and Hymenaios the mortal (of Boeotia or elsewhere) are really not namesakes but the same person, a godling made up out of the unintelligible marriage-cry ὦ ὑμὴν loved the West Wind, since they knew the ways of the floating waters ; these his father had given to Bacchos for victory in the Indian War, Naiads well skilled in warfare, whom Cilician Typhoeus had taught battle while he was fighting against Cronion.

forward, Euios 7 was in front, cutting the stream in his highland car and never wetting the axle. The Satyrs attended his passage, and with them Bacchant women and Pans passed through the water; but far quicker than the rest came the Telchines behind their seabred horses, driving their father’s car,® firmly based on the sea, and they kept close to Dionysos as he sped along. Others were behind, thronging over the ford, but they came up the bank by another road unseen where a god led: for there was an eagle full in view, gently flapping its wings, Zeus, who led them through the mountains, while he carried his son Aiacos aloft with gentle talons traversing the high path of the air. along the rocky paths ; then they built shelters undisturbed in the dark forest, and spent the night among the trees. . . . Some went deerhunting with dogs after the long-antlered stags: the Hydriad water-nymphs of plantloving Dionysos mingled with the Hamadryads of the trees. Groups of Bassarids in this Erythraian wilderness suckled cubs ° of a mountain lioness, and the juicy milk flowed of itself out of their breasts. One searched the hills for the holes of poisonous serpents to satisfy her longing for a wreath of vipers, and showed how well she could hunt.

India. He might have read of Brahmans in 's One cast her wand and hit a stormfoot fawn. One approached unseen, and ran down a mad she-bear with maddened leaps. One clutched at the back of some elephant of the mountains, and climbed on the nape of the blackskinned beast. Sometimes an archer fitted a shaft to the string of his rounded bow and shot at an elmtree, or aimed at an olivetree, another hit a pine ; showers of arrows went whizzing and buzzing through the air at the firtrees hard by. the hills, Thureus returned unhappy to King Deriades with bad tidings. His tears told the carnage of the Indians without words, but at last he let his sorrowful voice be heard : King, and divine offspring of Enyo! We went as commanded to the opposite hill, and in the forest glades we found the neighbouring thickets empty. There we laid our ambush and waited for thyrsusmad Dionysos to come. When Bacchos came near, the pipes were sounded, the raw drumskin was beaten, on either side was the noise of beaten brass and the wail of the syrinx. The whole forest trembled, the oaktrees uttered voices and the hills danced, the Naiads sang alleluia. I put the men under arms, led them to battle hesitating, trembling, unwilling.

And the god, as they call him, shaking the sharpened wand, sent volleys of ignoble leaves upon the Indian nation, slew an infinite host on the plain pierced by the sharp wands, and destroyed what was left of us in the wild waters. Life of Apollonios of Tyana, or a score of other popular that you may learn if this be a god come against us or a mortal man. Do not stir up a useless war by night, do not destroy your hosts fighting in the darkness. Already the misty gloom is stretched over us ; there is the evening star clear before our eyes, shining to check the conflict. If your desire is set upon this formidable fray, hold back the Indians to-day and to-morrow you lead them to battle.”’ be convinced. No weakness made him consent; he yielded not to Lyaios, he blamed the setting sun. Proud Deriades retreated mad with sorrow, seated on the neck of his retreating elephants, and withdrew the Indian host from the river. Along with their gigantic king, the Indians everywhere made haste to take refuge in the city, hearing behind their walls of the victory of warmad Dionysos.

through the city, which told of the late massacre of their kinsmen Indians. There was infinite wailing then. Dirgefond women tore their cheeks with their nails in mourning ; they rent off the garments from their bodies and bared their chests, beating their circled breasts with this hand and that until the blows made the blood flow. That gray old man on the threshold of old age cut off his snowy hair with the knife of sorrow, when he heard how four sons had perished in their prime, a pitiable death indeed, brought low by Aiacos and his terrible sword alone. Women in heavy affliction mourned one her brother, and one her father; there was a bride bathed in tears lamenting her bridegroom lately wedded with the gods to send him back to her ns uae to en for three hours, and died of grief or killed herself dancing, another Laodameia® with her Protesilaos : the newmade bride unveiled, unkempt, tore the clusters of her hair.

when the full time of her labour was near and she saw now the delivering circle of the tenth moon, sorrowed with many gears for her man’s death in the water, and cried out in lamentable tones against the hateful of my country! Never will I walk beside his water, never—woe’s me—will I touch the river which drowned your body! I swear it by you, and your burden which I carry in my womb, I swear by you and the love which time cannot wither! Who will take me and bring me where my dead husband fell, that I may embrace the dripping body, that the wave may swallow me too and drown me beside my man! O that I had born a son and reared him! But woe is me, my womb still carries the ripening burden. And if I ever do bear a son, and he asks for his father, how can I point to his father when the boy cries for hear. Another mourned for a bridal never hallowed, her wooer lost, who never saw the happy hour of wedding decked with the bridegroom’s garland, who never heard in the bridal chamber the sweet music of love’s quickening pipes.

Bacchos held a feast with his Satyrs and Indianslaying warriors: bulls were slaughtered, rows of heifers were struck with axes and cut up with knives, whole flocks of sheep were killed from the captured Erythraian herds. Seilenoi and Satyrs settled in companies round the table with the god of the thyrsus, all with multitudinous hands partook of the same food. Infinite wine was drunk by all in order ; the servers emptied endless fragrant jars as they drew the nectarean juice of the perfect grape. Lesbian singer wove his lay beside the mixing-bowl, how the older Titans armed themselves against Olympos. He sang the true victory of Zeus potent in the Heights, how broadbeard Cronos sank under the thunderbolt, and Zeus sealed him deep in the dark Tartarean pit, armed in vain with the watery weapons of the storm. land, sat next to the inspired minstrel, and he passed him a fat portion of meat, begging him to sing a pleasant story that never-silent Athens loves, the weaving-match between Athena and Cythereia.

Cypris,® howshe once felt thesting of ambition and fell in love with the distaff, how she tried Athena’s loom with unpractised hands and lifted the shuttle, no longer the girdle of love. The Paphian spun a coarse thread, like the long cord of twisted withies which the old roper makes by his craft in long stretches, to tighten the gaping planks of a ship newly finished. Then all day and all night long by the loom she undid the work of Pallas, and roughened her soft hands with a strange unwonted labour ; she hung the dangling stone from associations of the planet Saturn are mixed. many of the subjects on which he touches in poem ; perhaps he had watched his daughter, if he had one, or some other little girl being taught the most characteristic tasks of a Greek woman. Aphrodite begins by to raw wool into thread, but, not knowing to roperly with her fingers, she cannot get it fine and smooth, __ ut spins it coarse and lumpy, more like a rope of withies than real thread. This finished, she fastens her makeshift product to the beam of the old-fashioned upright loom (a modified form of which is still in use in some parts of Greece) and attaches to each thread a loom-weight of stone to keep it taut. This is the warp; she keeps its component threads the beam,? and parted the threads of the stuff with the comb’s many teeth, and wove the cloth with her shuttle, and so Cypris turned Athena. There was no laughing over that task ; but as the cloth was woven, the monstrous thread pulled across swelled out and thickened the stuff, so that the warpthreads burst of themselves. Witnesses for the double labour of her skill were the Sun, and the lamp, and the Moon of her necessity. The dancers of Orchomenos ὃ who were attendants upon the Paphian had no dancing then to do ; but Pasithea made the spindle run round, Peitho dressed the wool, Aglaia gave thread and yarn to her mistress. And weddings went all astray in human life.

Time, the ancient who guides our existence, was disturbed, and lamented the bond of wedlock used no more ; Eros unhonoured loosed his fiery bowstring, when he saw the world’s furrow unplowed and unfruitful. Then the harp made no lovely music, the syrinx did not sound, the clear pipes did not sing in clear tones Hymen Hymenaios the marriage-tune ; but life dwindled, birth was hardsmitten, the bolts of indivisible union were shot back. apart with the comb, 253, and proceeds to take more thread on her shuttle, 255, and insert it over and under the warpthreads to form the woof. But it is so thick and rough that as thread after thread is woven into place (and pressed close with the batten, which Nonnos does not mention) the strain is too great and too irregular for the warp-threads, στήμονες her to unravel all she has done, 251, and begin again. Hermes in fun advises her to try the most elaborate and difficult kind of weaving, 304 ff., using many-coloured threads to make a pattern, when she cannot even manage work. Anger and laughter commingled came over her, as she beheld the long rough cords of inexperienced Cythereia. She told the immortals ; and in a passion of jealousy reproached both Cypris and her Heavenly Father! Ino longer manage the gift of the Fates, for your daughter Aphrodite has taken to weaving and stolen my lot. Athenaia has been robbed of her lot not by Hera the Queen, the sister and consort of my Zeus ; but the mistress of the bedchamber, that soft goddess, affronts one armed with shield from her birth, Ageleia the plunderer! When has your cowardly Cythereia fought for Olympos ? what Titans has she destroyed with that womanish girdle, that she eomes fresh from her battles to outrage me? Yes, and you, Archeress—tell me this, when have you seen Athena in your forest ὦ shooting arrows or hunting game? Whocalls upon Brighteyes, when women are came thronging to see Aphrodite working the loom.

They gathered round and stared at the labours of the divine fumbler, amazed at her bungling work ; and Hermes, who loved his joke, said laughing, your girdle! If you handle the thread and throw the shuttle, then raise also the furious spear and the aegiscape of Tritogenia. Ah, Cythereia, I know why you weave at the rattling loom. I understand your secret: no doubt your bridegroom Ares begs from you fine dress for the wedding. Weave your help in childbirth, why should Aphrodite be allowed to invade my sphere; women’s work ? . stuff for Ares, but don’t embroider a shield in the new cloth. What does Aphrodite want with shields? Put in Phaéthon, the shining witness of your loves, who told tales of the furtive robber of your bed“; if you like, put those old nets of yours in the pattern, and let your hand, if it can for shame, make a picture of the god who was the husband’s proxy. And you, Eros, leave your bow and help your mother in her passion for the distaff, twirl the spindle for her and spin the thread. Then I may call you weaver instead of winger, I may see the fiery god pulling the spool past the warp,” instead of the arrows on the leather bowstring. Make Ares of gold beside golden Aphrodite ; let him hold a shuttle instead of waving a shield, and embroider a double cloth with the winds out of those distaff-enamoured hands and use your stitched girdle. Take care once more of marriage ; for the ancient nature of the world has all been going astray since you have been weaving Cythereia thus put to shame before Brighteyes threw down the stuff of the cloth half finished, and away she went to her own Cyprus to be nurse of the human race; and Eros once more ordered all the varied forms of life by the girdle, sowing the circle of the well-plowed earth with the seed of generation.

celebrating how Aphrodite untaught of the distaff, set up her great contest with industrious Athena. °¢ genera] model for this scene. furnished with liquor, they fell on their beds in the wilderness spluttering wine: dropping on dappled fawnskins, or on spreads of leaves, or just spreading goatskins on the ground amid the deep dust. Some stretched their armoured bodies in the soldier’s sleep, and held traffic with battlerousing dreams, where one struck some Indian sitting on horseback, one pierced an Indian’s throat, one slew a footman with his sword, one wounded Deriades, one shot his bolt high in the air and wounded some huge elephant with his dream-arrow. hunting-dogs took turns in guarding Dionysos in the wilderness with sleepless eyes ; all night they kept vigil in the mountain forest, that no assault of black Indians might approach him. Long lines of torches flashed up to Olympos, the lights of the dancing Bacchants which had no rest.