by Nonnus
[351] “Still and all with these great sufferings I feed a comfortable hope, by the promises of Zeus, that with my other sisters I shall pass from the earth to the stars’ Atlantean vault, and dwell in heaven myself a star with my sisters six. Then do you too calm your own sorrows. Unforeseen, for you also the terrible thread of Fate immovable is rolling the eddy of your wandering lot of life, and the seal is set. Have a heart to endure in exile the unbending shackle of necessity, and feed the prevailing hope which foreruns things to come, if Io with the first seed has rooted your race, if you have got from Libya Poseidon’s blood in your family. Abide among foreigners like Dardanos, there make your home; dwell in a city of strangers like your own father Agenor, like Danaos your father’s brother. For another man also who carried his home on his back, one of the divine stock of Io, a heavenly sprout dropt from Zeus, named Byzas, who had drunk the seven-mouth water of self-begotten Nile, inhabited the neighbouring land, where alone the Bosporos shore flows the water once traversed by the Inachian heifer. To all those who dwelt about he showed a light, when he had turned aside the neck of that mad bull unbending.”
[372] So she spoke, lulling to sleep the anxieties of Cadmos. But Father Zeus sent his quick messenger Maia’s son on outspread wings to Electra’s house, that he might offer Harmonia to Cadmos for the harmony of wedlock – that maiden immigrant from heaven, whom Ares the wife-thief begat in secret love with Aphrodite. The mother did not nurse it – she was ashamed of the baby which told its own tale of the furtive bed; but away from the bosom of the sky she carried the suckling, lying in her arm, to the fostering house of Electra, when the childbed Seasons had just delivered her baby still wet, when her breasts were tight and swollen with the gushing white sap. Electra received the bastard daughter with equal rights, and joined the newborn girl on one breast with her newborn Emathion, held with equal love and care her two different nurslings in her arm. As a shaggy lioness of the wilds, mother of twin young suckling-cubs in the jungle, with her milky dew fits twin teats to the pair of cubs, and gives her twin young each a share of her teats, and licks their skin and the neck as yet hairless, nursing the young birthmates with equal care: so Electra then with loving breast foster-mothered her brace of newborn babes, the boy and girl, and cherished them with equal care. Often she pressed to her with open hand and loving arm her baby son and his age-mate girl, on this side and that taking turns of the sap from her rich breast; and she set on her knees the manly boy with the womanly girl, letting out the fold of her lowered gown so as to join thigh parted wide from neighbouring thigh; or singing songs for a sleep-charm, lulled both her babies to slumber with foster-mother’s art, while she stretched her arm enclosing the children’s necks, made her own knee their bed, fluttered the flap of her garment fanning the two faces, to keep the little ones cool, and quenched the waves of heat as the hand made wind poured out its breath against it.
[409] While Cadmos sat near the prudent queen, into the house came Hermes in the shape of a young man, unforeseen, uncaught, eluding the doorkeeper with his robber’s foot. About his rosy face on both sides locks of hair uncovered hung loose. A light bloom of ruddy down ran about the edge of his round cheeks on either side, fresh young hair newly grown. Like a herald, he held his rod as usual. Wrapt in cloud from head to toe, with face unseen he reached the rich table when the meal was at an end. Emathion saw him not though close at hand, nor did Harmonia herself and Cadmos at her board, nor the company of serving men; only god-fearing Electra perceived Hermes the eloquent. Into a corner of the house he led her in surprise to tell his secrets, and spoke in the language of men:
[425] “Good be with you, my mother’s sister, bedfellow of Zeus! Most blessed of all women that shall be hereafter, because Cronion keeps the lordship of the world for your children, and your stock shall steer all the cities of the earth! This is the dower of your love. And along with Maia my mother you shall shine with the Seven Stars in the sky, running your course with Helios, rising with Selene. Children’s friend, I am Hermes, one of your own family, wing-spreading Messenger of the immortals. From heaven I have been sent by your bedfellow, the guests’ protector ruling in the heights, on behalf of your own god-fearing guest. Then do you also obey your Cronion, and let your daughter Harmonia go along with her yearsmate Cadmos as his bride, without asking for bridal gifts. Grant this grace to Zeus and the Blessed ones; for when the immortals were in distress, this stranger saved them all by his music. This man has helped your bedfellow in trouble, this man has opened the day of freedom for Olympos! Let not your girl bewitch you with mother-loving groans, but give her in marriage to Cadmos our Saviour, in obedience to Cronion and Ares and Cythereia.”
BOOK IV
Tracking the fourth over the deep, you will see Harmonia sailing together with her agemate Cadmos.
With these words, Finerod Hermes departed, fanning his light wings, and the flat of his extended shoes oared him as quick as the winds of heaven in their course. Nor did the Thracian lady, the pilot of the Cabeiroi,
[12] The maiden leapt up and followed her mother into her high-built chamber. Her mother rolled back the bolt of a sevennookshotten chamber sealed with many seals, and crossed the doorstone: her knees trembled restlessly in loving anxiety and fear. She caught and lifted the girl’s hand and rosy arm with her own snow-white hand – you might almost say that you saw white-armed Hera holding Hebe’s hand.
[20] But when treading the floor with her crimson shoes she reached the farthest curve of the resplendent room. Atlas’s daughter seated the sorrowful maiden upon a handsome chair; then she in her turn sank upon a silver-shining stool, and declared Cronion’s message to the incredulous girl, and explained everything which she had heard from the Olympian herald disguised as a land in human form. When the maiden heard of this marriage of much wandering and this unstable husband, this homeless man under their roof, she declared she would have no stranger, and refused all that Cadmos’s patron proposed on Zeus his father’s behalf, that cattle-drover Hermes! She would rather have one of her own city as husband, and away with a carryhouse mate and a wedding without wedding-gifts! Then clasping her foster-mother’s hand with her own sorrowing palm, bathed in tears she burst into reproachful speech:
[36] “Mother mine, what has possessed you to cast off your own girl? Do you join your own daughter to some upstart fellow like this? What gift will this sailor man put into my hand? Will he give me the ship’s hawser for bride-price? I did not know you were keeping your own child, the poor banished maiden, for marriage with a vagrant – you, my kind nurse! I have others to woo me, and better ones, of our own city: why must I have a bedfellow with empty hands, naked and bare, a foreign vagrant, a runaway from his father? But you will say he helped your husband Cronion. Why did not the man get from Zeus an Olympian gift of honour, if indeed he was defender of Olympos, as you say? Why did not Hera the consort of Zeus, betroth virgin Hebe to the champion of Zeus? Your husband Zeus who rules in the heights needs no Cadmos. Cronides forgive me – divine Hermes lied in what he said about Father Zeus. I don’t know how I can believe that he neglected furious Ares the pilot of warfare, and called in a mortal man to be partner in the game – he the master of world and sky! Here is a great marvel – he locked up all those Titans in the pit, and then wanted Cadmos, to destroy only one! You know how my father’s wedded – two had their sisters. Zeus my father’s father possessed the bed of his sister Hera, by the family rule of marriage; both the parents of Harmonia, Ares and Cythereia, who mounted one bed, were of one father, another pair of blood-kindred. What miserable necessity! Sisters may have a brother for bedfellow, I must have a banished man!”
[64] As she spoke, her mother in distress wiped the raindrops from that mourning face: torn between two, she pitied Harmonia and shrank from the threats of Zeus.
[67] But now tricky-minded Aphrodite girt her body in the heart-bewitching cestus-belt, and clothing herself in the loverobe of Persuasion she entered Harmonia’s fragrant chamber. She had doffed her heavenly countenance, and put on a form like Peisinoë, a girl of the neighbourhood. As though in love with Cadmos and suffering from some hidden sickness, with but little brightness in her pale face, she chased away the maids; and when Harmonia was alone she sat by her side and said as in shame with deceitful tongue:
[77] “Happy girl! What a handsome stranger you have in the house! What a man to court you, most blessed of women! What a lovely bedfellow you will see, that no other maiden has won! Surely his blood comes from Assyria! That must be his home, beside the river of that enchanting Adonis, for that lovely young man came from Libanos where Cythereia dances. No, I was wrong! I don’t suppose any mortal womb bred Cadmos; no, he is sprung from Zeus and he has concealed his stock! I know where this young Olympian comes from. If Titan Atlas ever begat Electra as Maia’s sister, here’s cousin Herems without wings come as husband for Harmonia. Then that’s why we sing hymns to Cadmilos! He has only changed his heavenly shape and still he is called Cadmos. Or if he is some other god in human shape, perhaps Apollo is Emathion’s guest in this house.
[92] “World-famed maiden, you are more blessed than your mother for Olympian desire and Olympian marriage! Here is a great marvel! Zeus Allwise wedded Electra in secret – Apollo himself woos Harmonia in the light! Happy girl, whom Far-shooter desired! I only wish Apollo would be as eager for marriage with Peisinoë too! I don’t say no to Apollo, like Daphne, I can tell you! I will not feel like Harmonia! No, I will leave my inheritance and house and the parents whom I love – I will go on my travels to marriage with Apollo! I remember once a carving like him. For I once went with our father into the house of oracle, and there I saw the Pythian image; and when I saw your vagrant, I thought I saw the statue of Phoibos again in this place.
[106] “But you will say, Phoibos has a goldgleaming diadem. Cadmos is gold in all his body! If you like, take all my serfs innumerable – for him, I will put in your hands all my gold and silver, I will give royal robes of the Tyrian Sea, and the house of my fathers, if you like; accept, if I dare to say it, my father and mother too, accept all my waiting-women, and give me only this man for my bedfellow!
[114] “Maiden, why do you tremble? You will sail the seas in the spring-time across the narrow water – but with lovely Cadmos I will traverse the infinite Ocean stream in winter! Tremble not at the heavyrumbling briny swell, because love’s cargo will be kept safe on the brine by Aphrodite daughter of the brine. Maiden, you have Cadmos, seek not the throne of Olympos! I desire not the shining Eyrthraean stone of the Indies, nor the all-golden tree of the Hesperides, I delight not in the amber of the Heliades, so much as one shadowy night in which this vagrant shall hold Peisinoë in his arms. If you fetch your lineage from Ares, from Aphrodite, your provident mother has found you a marriage well worthy of theirs. I have never beheld such a flower; spring itself blooms in Cadmos by nature’s gift. I have seen his rosefinger hand, I have seen his glance distilling sweet honey; the cheeks of his lovebegetting face are red as roses; his feet go twinkling, ruddybrown in the middle, and changing colour at the ends into shining snow; his arms are lilywhite. I will pass the hair, or I may provoke Phoibos by blaming the hue of his Therapnaian iris. Whenever he moved his full eyes with their heart-gladdening glance, there was the full moon shining with sparkling light; when he shook his hair and bared his neck, there appeared the morning star! I would not speak of his lips; but Persuasion dwells in his mouth, the ferry of the Loves, and pours out honey-sweet speech. Aye, the Graces manage his whole body: hands and fingers I shrink to judge, or I may find fault with the whiteness of milk.
[143] “Accept me for your companion, unhappy me! but if I touch the boy’s right hand and stroke his tunic I may find comfortable physic for my secret sickness. I may see his neck bare, or press a finger as if unconsciously while he sits; I could gladly die, if he would only slip a willing hand into the orb of my bosom and press my two breasts, and hold his closed lips upon my lips to delight me with brushing kisses. But if I could still hold the boy in my arms, I will pass even to Acheron the River of Pain of my own free will, and with rapture even amid the many lamentations of all-forgetting Lethe. I will tell the dead of my fate, to awaken pity and envy alike in merciless Persephoneia; I will teach those grace-breathing kisses to women unhappy in love who died of that lovely fire, I will make the dead jealous, if women still grudge at the Paphian in Lethe after their doom.
[160] “I will go with you if you wish, even as your companion, I tremble not before unfamiliar wanderings. Hard-hearted girl, become the lawful wife to Cadmos; I would be chambermaid to you both, Harmonia and husband. – But again I tremble before you, lest some time I awaken anger and jealousy for your bed tho’ you fain would hide it, since even Hera, goddess thou she is and queen of the heavens, grudges Zeus his bastard wives on earth. She was angry with Europa and tormented the wandering Io; she spared not even goddesses; because his mother was angry, Ares persecuted Leto with child in her birthpangs. If you are not jealous to find me a physic for my desire, give me this bedfellow for one dawn, yes I beseech you, for the course of one night too; if you grudge it, kill me with your own hand, that I may know rest from carrying this always night and day, fed on the secret places of my heart, this mighty implacable fire!”
[177] She said her say, and with her girdle drove bedshy Harmonia to her voyage, stung as with a gadfly, and now obedient to desire. She changed her mind, and with divided purpose wished both to have the stranger and to live in her own land. So smitted to the heart with the sting, she spoke:
[182] “Ah me, who ahs changed my heart? Save you, my country! Farewell, Emathion and all my house! Farewell grottoes of the Cabeiroi and Corybantian cliffs; never again shall I see the revelling companies of my mother’s Hecate with their torches in the night. Farewell, maidenhood, I wed my sweet Cadmos! Artemis, be not shocked, I am to cross the swell of the blue brine. But you will say, the deep is pitiless; I care nothing for the maddened surges – let Harmonia and Cadmos drown together, and my mother’s sea may receive us both. I follow my boy, calling upon the goddesses who have wedded theirs! If my bedfellow carries me to the sunrise this voyage, I will proclaim how Orion loved Dawn, and I will recall the match of Cephalos; if I go to the misty sunset, my comfort is Selene herself who felt the same for Endymion upon Latmos.”
[197] Such words the girl uttered in mindwandering plaints, and could not be restrained, her mind ravaged with the sting of desire. With drops of grief her face was wet as she kissed Electra’s hand and eyes, her feet and head and breast, and Emathion’s eyes, with shamefast lips although he was her brother. She embraced all her handmaids, and caressed lamenting the rows of the lifeless carven doors all round, her bed and the walls of her maiden chamber. Last the girl took up and kissed the dust of her country’s soil.
[207] And then Electra took Harmonia by the hand, under the witnessing escort of the gods, and took her undowered to Cadmos as his due, wiping the streaming shower from her face. Early in the morning the traveller received the Cyprian’s daughter with an old waiting-woman, and left the house, having as the queen’s gift a servant to guide him through the city to the sea.
[213] When the Moon saw the girl following a stranger alone the shore above the sea, and boiling under fiery constraint, she reproached Cypris in mocking words: “So you make war even upon your children, Cypris! Not even the fruit of your womb is spared by the goad of love! Don’t you pity the girl you bore, hardheart? What other girl can you pity then, when you drag your own child into passion? – Then you must go wandering too, my darling. Say to your mother, Paphian’s child, ‘Phaëthon mocks you, and Selene puts me to shame.’ Harmonia, love-tormented
exile, leave to Mene her bridegroom Endymion, and care for your vagrant Cadmos. Be ready to endure as much trouble as I have, and when you are wary with lovebegetting anxiety, remember lovewounded Selene.”
[226] While she was speaking, Cadmos hastened his companions over the shore. He released the back-running hawsers of the forthfaring ship, and shook out the sail to the mild spring breeze, and guided the timbered sea-car across the sea-swell, making the two ropes fast to a pin bracing the sheets equally shipshape and Phoinician fashion: for he knew from his fathers the traditional art of seamanship. He remained by the steering-oar, but he kept the girl Harmonia untouched sitting on the poop, his companion, when he saw strangers coming aboard as passengers whom the sailors were then taking in with the fare. One of the passengers seeing these two, mingled his voice with admiration as he said gently: “That sailor looks like Love himself! An no wonder that Aphrodite of the sea has a mariner son. But Eros carries bow and arrow and lifts a firebrand, he’s a little one with wings on him; and this I see is a Sidonian ketch. Perhaps that is the cunning old thief Ares sitting on the poop, and carrying Aphrodite into Libanos, from Thrace, whence he sailed last night. Be gracious, mother of Love! Send me a following wind in a waveless calm over your mother sea stormless!”