BOOK XLI

The forty-first tells how Aphrodite bore Amymone a second Cypris to the son of Myrrha. Already he had planted in the earth the clustering vintage of his glorious fruit under the beetling crags of Lebanon, and intoxicated all the winebearing bottoms of the land. He saw the wedding-chamber of Paphia ; there with newgrown shoots of the gardenvine he roofed a deep-shaded grove, then presented the viny gift to Adonis and Cythereia. There was also a troop of Graces ; and from the luxuriant coppice high leapt the ivy in his girdle of cultivated vine, and climbed aloft embracing the bouring land of Beroe, that handmaiden of law ! recite the lay of Amymone, the war between Cronides of the deep" and well-besung Lyaios, the war of waters and the strife of the vine. harbour of the Loves, firmbased on the sea, with fine islands and fine verdure, with a ridge of isthmus narrow and long, where the rising neck between two seas is beaten by the waves of both. On one side it spreads under the deepwooded ridge of Assyrian a fiiy as (Tv vya ravpov, ofuXtt tcvpr6s JiporpttSg cSva no 7€iSacu»'o; dXlrpo ta nuMa Xifonrif dpKTwr)v TTapd Trcjav, ottt; poBvKVfiOVOf a#rrT Lebanon in the blazing East, and there comes for its people a lifesaving breeze, whistling loud and shaking the cypress trees with fragrant winds. There the ancient shepherd shared his domain and made his music along with the fisherman ; there was the dwelling of the farmers, where often near the woodland, Deo sickle in hand met Pan playing on his pipes ; and the husbandman bending his neck over the plowpole, and showering the corn behind him into the newcut furrows with backturned wrist, the bowed plowman gripping his yoke of bulls, had converse with his neighbour the shepherd along the foothills of the woodland pasture. The other part by the seas the city possesses, where she offers her breast to Poseidon, and her watery husband embraces the girl's pregnant neck with wet arm, putting moist kisses on the bride's lips; his bedfellow in her bride-gifts from his hand out of the deep, the seabred flocks of the waters, the fishes of many colours for her banqueting-table, which dance on the table of Nereus in the brine, in the region of the Bear, where the northerly coast receives the deep waves into its long channel. About the southern neck of this delightful country sandy roads lead to the southern hills and the Sidonian land, where are all manner of trees and vines thick with foliage in the gardens, and a highway stretches that no traveller can miss, overshadowed with long leafy branches. The sea bending its course beats on the shore about the darkfaced west, while the bight of Libya is fanned by the dewy whistle of Zephyros as he rides with shrill-sounding heel over the western channels, where is a flowery land, where nurseries snakes for legs.

bloom hard by the sea, and the fragrant forest pervaded by humming winds sings from its leafy trees. Dawn, whom Nature by her own breeding, in when the atoms were mingled in fourfold combination, and the seedless ooze shaped a clever offspring by commingling water mth fiery heat and air, and quickened the teeming mud with the breath of life. To these Nature gave perfect shape : for they had not the form of primeval Cecrops, who crawled and scratched the earth with snaky feet that spat poison as he moved, dragon below, but above from loins to head he seemed a man half made, strange in shape and of twyform flesh ; they had not the savage form of Erechtheus," whom Hephaistos begat on a furrow of Earth with fertilizing dew ; but now first appeared the golden crop of men brought forth in the image of the gods, with the roots of their stock in the earth. And these dwelt in the city of Beroe, that primordial seat which Cronos himself builded, at the time when invited by clever Rheia he set that jagged supper before his voracious throat, and having the heavy weight of that stone within him to play the deliverer's part, he shot out the whole generation of his tormented children. Gaping wide, he sucked up the storming flood of a whole river, and swallowed it in his bubbling chest to ease his pangs, then threw off the burden of his belly ; so one after another his pregnant throat pushed up and disgorged his twiceborn sons through the dehvering channel of his gullet.

ZcVJ TOTC KOVpO hjV, Ti TtOV fip Of OV WOT€ Zrjvos do r rqrijp€ ourrtvoyro tetpawoi' tO cf oAoj opTtAdxcvToi', oTc pvxlr)v A tpMnft ' Zeus was then a child, still a baby methinks ; not yet the lightning flashed and cleft the hot clouds with many a dancing leap, not yet bolts of Zeus were shot to help in the Titans' war, not yet the rainy sound of thunderclaps roared heavily with bang and boom through colliding clouds : but before that, the city of Beroe was there, which Time with her first appearing saw when born together with her agemate Earth. Tarsos the delight of mankind was not then, Thebes was not then, nor then was Sardis where the bank of Pactolos sparkles with opulent ooze disgorged, Sardis agemate of Helios. The race of men was not then, nor any Achaian city, nor yet Arcadia itself which came before the moon. Beroe alone grew up, older than Phaethon, from whom Selene got her light, even before all the earth, milking out from Helios the shine of his newmade brightness upon her allmothering breast and the later perfected light of unresting Selene Beroe first shook away the cone of darkling mist, and threw off the gloomy veil of chaos. Before Cyprus and the Isthmian city of Corinth, she first received Cypris within her welcoming portal, newly born from the brine; when the water impregnated from the furrow of Uranos was delivered of deepsea Aphrodite ; when without marriage, the seed plowed the flood with male fertility, and of itself shaped the foam into a daughter, and Nature was the midwife — coming up with the goddess there was that embroidered strap which ran round her loins like a belt, set about the queen's body in a girdle of itself. Then the goddess, moving through the water along the quiet shore, ran out, not to Paphos, not to Byblos, set no worship of Aphrodite.

foot on land by the dry beach of Colias, even passed by Cythera's city itself with quicker circuit : aye, she rubbed her skin with bunches of seaweed and made it purpler still ; paddling x -ith her hands she cleft the birthwaters of the waveless deep, and swam ; resting her bosom upon the sea she struck up the silent brine, marking it udth her feet, and kept her body afloat, and as she cut through the calm, pushed the water behind her with successive thrusts of her feet, and emerged at Beroe. Those footsteps of the goddess coming out from the sea are all Ues of the people of Cyprus. neighbouring roads, the meadows of themselves put out plants of grass and flowers on all sides ; in the sandy bay the beach became ruddy with clumps of roses, the foamy stone teemed with sweetsmelling wine and brought forth purple fruit on its rocky bosom, a shadowing shower of dew with the liquor of the winepress," ... a white rill bubbled with milky juice : the fragrant breeze wafted upwards the curling vapours of scent, selfspread, and intoxicated the paths of the air. There, as soon as she was seen on the brows of the neighbouring harbourage, she brought forth wild Eros, first seed and beginning of generation, quickening guide of the system of the universe ; and the quickleg boy, kicking manfully with his Hvely legs, hastened the hard labour of that body ithout a nurse, and beat on the closed womb of his unwedded mother ; then a hot one even before birth, he shook his hght Cjrprus were shown as the prints of Aphrodite's feet.

wings and with a tumbling push opened the gates of birth. Thus quickly Eros leapt into his mother's gleaming arms, and pounced at once upon her firm breasts spreading himself over that nursing bosom. Untaught he yearned for his food; he bit with his gums the end of the teat never milked before, and greedily drank all the milk of those breasts swollen with the pressure of the lifegiving drops. of princes, the first city seen, twin sister of Time, coeval with the universe, seat of Hermes, land of justice, city of laws, bower of Merryheart, house of Paphia, hall of the Loves, delectable ground of Bacchos, home of the Archeress, jewel of the Nereids, house of Zeus, court of Ares, Orchomenos of the Graces," star of the Lebanon country, yearsmate of Tethys, running side by side with Oceanos, who begat thee in his bed of many fountains when joined in watery union with Tethys — Beroe the same they named Amymone when her mother brought her forth on her bed in the deep waters !

was Cythereia herself, the pilot of human life, who bore her all white to Assyrian Adonis. Now she had completed the nine circles of Selene's course carrying her burden : but Hermes was there in time on speedy foot, holding a Latin tablet which was herald of the future. He came to help the labour of Beroe, and Themis ' was her Eileithyia — she made a way through invention may be doubted. All this mixture of pedantry and prettiness has for its inspiration the great law school of although not at the time of Solon (see line 165). viw a Sivovaiv cV €VKV9cXoiO fitHvm' the narrow opening of the swollen womb for the child, and unfolded the wrapping, and lightened the sharp, pang of the ripening birth, with Solon's laws in hand. Cypris under the oppression of her travail leaned back heavily against the ministering goddess, and in her throes brought forth the wise child upon the Attic book, as the Laconian women bring forth their sons upon the round leather shield. She brought forth her newborn child from her motherly womb with Hermes the Judge to help as man-midwife. So she brought the baby into the light. The girl was bathed by the four Winds, which ride through all cities to fill the whole earth with the precepts of Beroe. Oceanos, first messenger of the laws for the newborn child, sent his flood for the childbed round the loins of the world, pouring his girdle of water in an everflowing belt. Time, his coeval, with his aged hands swaddled about the newborn girl's body the robes of Justice, prophet of things to come ; because he would put off the burden of age, like a snake throwing off the rope-Hke slough of his feeble old scales, and grow young again bathed in the waves of Law. The four Seasons struck up a tune together, when Aphrodite brought forth her wonderful of the Paphian's child safely born. The lion in playful sport pressed his mouth gently on the bull's neck, and uttered a friendly growl with pouting lips. The horse rattled off, scraping the ground with thuds of galloping feet, as he beat out a birthday tune. The spotted panther leaping on high with bounding feet capered towards the hare. The wolf let out a triumphal howl from a merry throat and kissed the rfdd&a TTtpLTTi ytXarra iXo uUnfi A pMni, he afjJvri napd firjrpos dXov KOa uHO iMfm read oCpvyft, supfxising the loM of a line sheep with jaws that tore not. The hound left his chase of the deer in the thickets, now that he felt a passion strange and sweet, and danced in tripping rivalry with the sportive boar. The bear lifted her forefeet and threw them round the heifer's neck, embracing her with a bond that did no hurt. The calf bending again and again in sport her rounded head, skipt up and licked the lioness's body, while her young lips made a half-completed moo. The serpent touched the friendly tusks of the elephant, and the trees uttered a voice.

her unfailing laugh, when she saw the birthday games of the happy beasts. She turned her round eyes delighted in all directions ; only the boars she would not watch in their pleasures, for being a prophet she knew, that in the shape of a wild boar, Ares with jagged tusk and spitting deadly poison was destined to weave fate for Adonis in jealous madness.'' cherisher of the Golden Age, received Beroe from her mother into the embrace of her arms, laughing, still a babe, ' and fed her with wise breast as she babbled words of law. With her virgin milk, she let streams of statutes gush into the baby's lips, and dropt into the girl's mouth the sweet produce of the Attic bee ; she pressed the bee's riddled travail of many cells, and mixed the voiceful comb in a sapient cup. If the girl tiger's (or some other carnivore's) purrl." For a possible imitation of this passage by Milton, see Paradise Lost iv. differ as to what, if anything. Ares had to do with it.

" A sign of a wonder-child, see Ed. Norden, Die Geburt KpvvT€TO beifJLaivovaa iraAiy ar fUi KaooMVt . thirsting asked for a drink, she gave the speaking Pythian water kept for Apollo, or the stream of Ilissos, which is inspired by the Attic Muse when the Pierian breezes of Phoibos beat on the bank. She took the golden Cornstalk" from the stars, and entwined it in a cluster to put round the girl's neck like a necklace. The dancing maidens of Orchomenos, handmaids of the Paphian, drew from the horsehoof fountain of imagination, dear to the nine Muses, delicate water to wash her. carrying the nets of her hunter sire. She had the very likeness of her Paphian mother, and her shining feet. When Thetis came up out of the sea to skip with snowy dancing foot, she saw another silverfoot Thetis, and hid in shame, fearing the raillery of wedded maiden of Assyria, was fluttered again and wished to change his form : certainly he would have carried the burden of love in bull's form again, skimming away with his legs in the water, paddling along, bearing the woman unwetted on his back, had he not been held back by the memory of that Sidonian bullhorned wedding, and had not the Bull of Olympos, Europa's bridegroom, bellowed from out the stars with jealous throat, to think that he might set up there a new star of seafaring amours and make the image of a rival bull in the sky. So he left Beroe, who was destined for a watery bridal, as his brother's will once more be told, this time with truth, that someone else, viz. Beroe, is more beautiful than the Nereids. " Silverfoot " is Thetis's stock epithet.

are much the same, and Berytus is more or less equivalent to yvwrw A itrcv aKoiriv, tirixSovdj wtpl vfift fft TrAt cTt Tjj- Acufcoi & napa a vpa vtiara bedfellow, for he wished not to quarrel with Earthshaker about a mortal wife. the girl uttered her voice trickling sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, winning Persuasion sat ever upon her lips and enchanted the clever wits of men whom nothing else could charm. Her laughing eyes outshone all the company of her young Assyrian agemates as they shot their shafts of love, with brighter graces, like the moon at the full, when showering her cloudless rays and hiding the stars. Her white robes falling down to the girl's feet showed the blush of her rosy limbs. There is no wonder in that, even if she had such fairness beyond her young yearsmates, since bright over her countenance sparkled the beauties of both intelligence she sent her imagination wandering swiftly round, and driving her mind to wander about the whole earth surveyed the foundations of the brilliant cities of ancient days. She saw how Mycene girt about with a garland of walls by the Cyclopian masons took the name of twinkle-eye Mycene ; how Thebes beside the southern Nile took the name of primeval Thebe ; and she decided to design a city named after Beroe, being possessed with a passion to make her city as good as theirs.

She observed there the long column of Solon's Laws, that safeguard against wrong, and turned aside her eye to the broad streets of Athens, and envied her sister the just Judge. With hurrying shoe, she whizzed along the vault of heaven to the hall of Allmother Harmonia, where that nymph dwelt Kal Noriov TTVpoan-a Mttrrjfifipiat ff fv Xff » laraficvrjv iJyyciAc napd npoOvpoif A pMf7f9, BioK Xov laronovwv dn€a€iaaro KtpK&a X! ipunr in a house, self-built, shaped like the great universe with its four quarters joined in one. Four portals were about that stronghold standing proof against the four winds. Handmaids protected this dwelling on all sides, a round image of the universe : the doors were allotted — Antolia was the maid who attended the East Wind's gate ; at the West Wind's was Dysis the nurse of Selene ; Mesembrias held the bolt of the fiery South ; Arctos the Bear was the servant who opened the gate of the North, thick with clouds and sprinkled with hail.

the Foamborn, and running ahead she knocked at the eastern gate of Euros. As the rap came on the saffron portal of sunrise, Astynomeia an attendant ran up from within ; and when she saw Cypris standing in front of the gatehouse of the dwelling, she went with returning feet to inform her mistress beforehand. She was then busy at Athena's loom, weaving a patterned cloth with her shuttle. In the robe she was weaving, she worked first Earth as the navel in the midst ; round it she balled the sky dotted with the shape of stars, and fitted the sea closely to the embracing earth ; she embroidered also the rivers in a green picture, shaped each with a human face and bull's horns ; and at the outer fringe of the wellspun robe she made Ocean run all round the world in a loop. The maid came up to the woman's loom, and announced that Aphrodite stood before the gatehouse. When the goddess heard, she dropt the threads of the robe and threw down the divine shuttle from her hands busy at the loom. Quickly she WTapped a snow-white " The names mean Rising, Setting, She of Midday.

'Apfiovir) yeyavTa fiiooaoos' ciy a yap a r robe about her body, and brighter than the gold took her place on her usual seat to await Cythereia. As soon as Aphrodite appeared in the distance, she leapt from her throne to show due respect. Eurynome in her long robe led the Paphian to a seat near her mistress ; Harmonia the Nurse of the world saw the looks and dejected bearing of Cypris that showed her distress, and comforted her in midwife of nature, hope of the whole universe, at the bidding of your will the unbending Fates do spin their complicated threads ! [Tell me your trouble."] and tell me, as nourisher of life, nurse of immortals, as coeval with the universe your agemate ; which of the cities has the organ of sovereign voice ? which has reserved for it the unshaken reins of troublesolving Law ? I joined Zeus in wedlock with Hera his sister, after he had felt the pangs of longlasting desire and desired her for three hundred years : in gratitude he bowed his wise head, and promised as a worthy reward for the marriage that he would commit the precepts of Justice to one of the cities allotted to me. I wish to learn whether the gift is reserved for land of Cyprus or Paphos or Corinth, or Sparta whence Lycurgos came, or the noblemen's country of my own daughter Beroe. Have a care then for Justice, and grant harmony to the world, you who are Harmonia the saviour of life ! For I was sent here in haste by the Virgin of the Stars herself, the nurse of law-abiding men ; resses more formally to receive her visitor.

UapSevo aartpotaaa- to hi nXio¥ hfvoftot and what is more, law-loving Hermes has passed on this honour to me, that I alone by enforcing the laws of marriage may preserve the men whom I with an encouraging speech : For I have oracles of history on seven tablets, and the tablets bear the names of the seven planets. The first has the name of revolving Selene ; the second is called of Hermes, a shining tablet of gold, upon which are wrought all the secrets of law ; the third has your name, a rosy tablet, for it has the shape of your star in the East ; the fourth is of Helios, central navel of the seven travelUng planets ; the fifth is called Ares, red and fiery ; the sixth is called Phaethon, the planet of Cronides ; the seventh shows the name of highmoving Cronos. Upon these, ancient Ophion ' has engraved in red letters all the divers oracles of fate for the universe. But since you ask me about the directing laws, this prerogative I keep for the eldest of cities.

Whether then Arcadia is first or Hera's city, whether Sardis be the oldest, or even Tarsos celebrated in song be the first city, or some other, I have not been told. The tablet of Cronos will teach you all this, which first arose, which was coeval with Dawn." oracles of the wall, until she saw the place where Ophion's art had engraved in ruddy vermilion on the tablet of Cronos the oracle to be fulfilled in time about Beroe's country. " Beroe came the first, coeval with " tjTiAjSaiv, an older name for the planet Mercury. '' The planet Jupiter. noiKiXa natrroirji €xapaaa€To hathaXa f4jff fiavTirroXoi indtaaiy, on npamara ¥9 9m rpiTiXoa, Kal aToix€lov ofio vyov d vyi §il(a$ ' Alluding to the (late) theory that the tvdTe the chariot race refer to the twelve mootlia. Here not Erichthonios, invents chariots. ' This does not mean that Endjmkm (ratfcMMttnd Imm into an astronomer w ho calculated the times of the mtMm% Ehases) was so had an arithmetician that be had lo OOHlt «l is fingers, as our children do. The andcnts of flOWH katm the universe her agemate, bearing the name of the nymph later born, which the colonizing sons of the Ausonians, the consular Hghts of Rome, shall call Berytos, since here fell a neighbour to Lebanon. . . ." « But when the deity had scanned the prophetic beginning of the seventh tablet, she looked at the second, where on the neighbouring wall many strange signs were engraved with varied art in oracular speech : how first shepherd Pan will invent the syrinx, Heliconian Hermes the harp, tender Hyagnis the music of the double pipes with their clever holes, Orpheus the streams of mystic song with divine voice, Apollo's Linos eloquent speech ; how Areas the traveller will find out the measures of the twelve months, and the sun's circuit which is the mother of the years brought forth by his fourhorse team ; how wise Endymion with changing bends of his fingers will calculate the three varying phases of Selene ; how Cadmos will combine consonant with vowel and teach the secrets the clumsiness of their written figures, they found it convenient to have a number of conventional gestures with the fingers to signify numerals for purposes of calculation. A rough method, of which no details are known, is mentioned" by Ar. Wasps 656, but long before Nonnos's day (see Juvenal x. 249 and Mayor ad loc.) a kind of arithmetical deaf-and-dumb alphabet had been invented, details of which are preserved by the Venerable Bede, in the section De ratione computandi at the beginning of his w ork De temporum ratione pp. 256 ff.). By this, the fingers of the left hand alone can while by holding the hands against various parts of the body, higher numbers up to 1,000,000 can be indicated. See also G. Loria, Le Scienze esatte nelV antica Grecian 743-747, and only ; the brilliant Grrrk innovatioo waa lo these signs which rrprcsentrd oootooanta exist in Greek, for voweU. lliey that complete alphalx-t of human htvtory.

becomes a skilful a«»tronomrr, and the taryof correct speech ° ; how Solon will invent inviolable laws, and Cecrops the union of two yoked together under the sacred yoke of marriage made lawful with the Attic torch. wonders of the Muse, scanned the various deeds of the scattered cities ; and on the written tablet which lay in the midst on the circuit of the universe, she found these words of wisdom inscribed in many lines of Grecian verse : world, Ausonian Zeus will give to divine Rome the lordship, and to Beroe he will grant the reins of law, when armed in her fleet of shielded ships she shall pacify the strife of battlestirring Cleopatra. For before that, citysacking violence will never cease to shake citysaving peace, until Berytos the nurse of quiet life does justice on land and sea, fortifying the cities with the unshakable wall of law, one city for all cities of the world." of Ophion, returned to her own house. She placed her own goldwrought throne beside the place where her son sat, and throwing an arm round his waist, with quiet countenance opened her glad arms to receive the boy and held the dear burden on her knees ; she kissed both his lips and eyes, touched his mindnatures of man and woman in a durable union. To do Nonnos justice, he did not originate these sillinesses.

rivalry with Antiochos VII. It recovered, became a town of the Roman Empire, and was renowned for its schools, especially of law. Octavian (afterwards Augustus) defeated r€Kvov Afivfiwvrf ofAaydarpio , oC Of hMfm 4 A bewitching bow and fingered the quiver, and spoke in feigned anger these cunning words : Foamborn ! Cronion is a cruel tyrant to my children alone ! After nine full months of hard travail I brought forth Harmonia, suffering the bitter pangs of painful childbirth ; and now she suffers all sorts of grief and tribulation. But Leto has borne Artemis Eileithyia, the Lady of Travail, the ally of womankind. You Amymone's brother, son of the same mother, need not to be told how I got my blood from brine and ether ; but I would perform a worthy deed, and being born of heaven, I will plant heaven on earth beside the sea my mother. Come then — for your sister's beauty draw your bow and bewitch the gods, or say, shoot one shaft and hit with the same shot Poseidon and vinegod Lyaios, Blessed Ones both. I will give you a gift for your long shot which will be a proper wage worthy of your feat Phoibos gave to Harmonia at the door of the bridal chamber ; I will place it in your hands in memory of a city to be, that you may be not only an archer, but a harpist, just like Apollo." " Otherwise unknown, not daughter of Danaos.

' A line has fallen out paraphrasing the word " bow." TTophaXw ISpvjovTa Idpojv oveAi ac AcTraSKur SO