Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

BOOK XV

  In the fifteenth, I sing the sturdy Nicaia, the rosy-armed beast-slayer defying Love.

  As he spoke thus, cloudwise rolled up the burnt-faced Indians around the flood of the honeybreathing river. One of them walking near stood pressing his two feet down in the slime, half-showing, and wetting his navel in the water, curved into the river and stretching his crouched back, and with hollowed hands lapped up the honeydripping water. Another by the flood, possessed by fiery thirst, bathing in the purple wave his forethrust cheek, spreading his breast above the bank of the river, with opening mouth drew in the juice of Bacchos. Another prone bringing close his mouth to the neighbouring fount, and pressing wet hands on the sandy bottom, with thirsting lips welcomed the thirsty water. Others drew up the potations with a shard for a cup, lifting the base of a broken two-ear jar. And a great swarm drank at the ruddy stream, ladling out with ivy-wood cups a mass of the river-dew, as they held the rustic pot of the shepherds. And as the enemies belched vinously from wide-yawning throat, as their eyes gazed, the cliffs were doubled, and they thought to see through their eyelids a pair of waters in one yoke. And the bubbling outflow of the wineloving river gushed up a brown stream of carousal; and the fragrant banks poured up streams of the sweet drink of wine.

  [25] Thus the enemy were made drunken by the untempered stream. Then a certain man of the Indians, driven by the gadfly of mindrobbing drink, dashed into the herd; and by a leafy thicket found a threatening bull, which he brought back pulling him along in bonds, when he had dragged at the sharpened end of the two horns with daring hands, thinking that he drew under the yoke of servitude bullshaped Dionysos by the twin horns. Another, holding the horrid jaw of an iron sickle, shore through the neck of a mountainranging goat, cleaving it with the whetted hook, thinking he was cutting the throat of horned Pan with his talon of crooked bronze. Another threshed out a hornarmed brood of cattle as if harvesting the bullfaced shape of satyrs; one again pursued a tribe of long-antlered deer, as if he were destroying a line of Bassarids, when he saw the patterned shape of the dappled creatures: for his sight was driven astray by the freckled fawnskins of like looks: and staining all his breastpiece with bloody drops, the black Indian was reddened by the spouting gore. And one shouting loudly attacked a neighbouring tree, flogging it on both sides; and observing the leafy tendrils shaken by the spring breezes, he battered off the shoots of the tender clusters, slicing through the leaves of the thickest tree, as if cutting with his sabre through the tresses of unshorn Dionysos, battling with foliage instead of combating with Satyrs, and took a bootless delight in his shadowy conquest.

  [52] Another enemy troop went mad. For a spear, one took a heavybanging drum, and hung it up by his shoulder-strap: then beating on both skins he crashed out a double tune in the brassrattling sound. Another, thrilled by the note of the many-holed pipes, danced about with quickcircling steps, and putting a reed to his inexperienced lips practised the tune of the double Mygdonian pipes: then leaping to the neighbouring root of an ancient tree, he drew at a green shoot of the richdropping olive, soaked with dewy moisture, as though pressing his lip to a drop of Maronian wine. Others with swords, with spears, with helmets, their wits set a-rioting by the mindrobbing wine, mimicked the orgies of the carryshield Corybants, twirling their steps for the dance-in-armour, and all in a whirl the shields were beaten by alternate thump of hand or the plunging iron. Another eyeing the orgies of the Muse with her choir, skipt a mimicking dance with the Satyrs. And one hearing the roll of the banged oxhide, took on a gentle mood, and with rattleloving desire, threw to the winds his terrible quiver, all frantic: a second chieftain of the womanmad Indians caught by the untwined hair some highnecked Bacchant, and dragging the untamed virgin to violent wedlock, held her tight on the ground, and stretched in the dust with lust-maddened hands unsealed her belt, wild with vain hope: for suddenly with head erect a serpent crept from her bosom, near-neighbour to the groin, and darted at the enemy’s throat, and about his neck twined a circling belt with spirals of his tail; the blackskinned man, fleeing with frightened feet, shook off the hot sting of unhallowed love, and wore on his throat the necklace of snaky spine.

  [87] While the Indians were running drunken on the hills, just then sweet Sleep plying his vigorous wing, assaulted the wavering eyes of the persistent Indians, and put them to bed, tormented in mind by immoderate wine, doing grace to Pasithea’s father, Dionysos. One lay sleeping on his back, with face turning upwards, straining his drinkshaken breath through a sleepy nostril. Another rested his heavy head on a stone, as he lay sluggish on the gravelly bank; he was babbling in the daydreams of a vagrant mind, and laying his fingers stiff and straight about his temples. Another was stretched out prone, with his two hands hanging down to balance his two thighs. Another had leant his head on the wrist of his hand, and was drooling wine; another had gathered his limbs rolled together, like a snake coiling round, and lay slumbering on his side. And the company of the enemy who had rushed to the woody ridge — one slept under an oak, one in the undergrowth of an elm; another fallen on his flank, and leaning against an oak, had put the left hand over forehead and eyebrows; and a great swarm, heavy with wine in their slumber were chattering carcasses, sending into the air the unbridled din of sounds without sense, signifying nothing. One with shaking head, leaned his broad back on the trunk of an aged laurel. Another in heavy stupor upon a deep-strown bed, while the twining saplings of topleaf palm or prolific olive whistled above and fanned him with the winds. One was outstretched on the ground in the outpoured dust, washing the tips of his feet in the pouring river. Another shaken in the throes of intoxication, a new experience, leaned his heavy head against a neighbouring pine: another panted until the sinews of his forehead throbbed.

  [119] Now seeing his foes stupefied, Lord Bacchos spoke with laughing countenance, and uttered his word of command: “Indianslaying servants of invincible Dionysos! bind them all fast unresisting, the sons of the Indians, take them all prisoners in bloodless conflict: let the Indian bend a slave’s knee to mighty Dionysos, and do menial service to my Rheia and her company, shaking the purple thyrsus; let him throw to the storms his silver greaves, and bind his feet in buskins; let him strip his tresses of highplumed helmet, and crown his head with my ivybond; let him leave the yell of wars and the din of spears, and uplift the Euian song to grapeladen Dionysos.”

  [132] He spoke, and the menials were busy. One of them wound a snaky bond round the enemy’s throat, and dragged the man shackled with a rope of serpents. Another caught the straggling load of a hairy cheek, and drew the man along by the deepbristling chin. One stretching his palms over curlyhaired temples, dragged the man captive, unbound, by the shag. Another binding a prisoner’s hands clasped behind the back, girded him with an encircling bond of withies about the neck. Maron staggered along with trembling totterings as he lifted on his aged shoulder an Indian sleepladen. Another took up a spearman overpowered by sleep, put a halter of vines about his neck, pulled him along and dropped him over the rim of a car with dappled panthers. Another reclining was seized by the wandering swarm, with cries of Euoi! they stretched his hands behind him and bound them tight with an inextricable knot, and threw him upon the neck of the elephant which never bends the knee; and many a one took hold of the sling of an Indian’s shield, and kept him shackled by the strap over the shoulder.

  [151] Now some Bassarid, foaming under a witdrowning wave of madness, caught up a shepherd’s crook, and with daring hand dragged off by his curly hair to the yokeband of slavery, an Indian searcher-out of the deep riches of the sea. At the bidding of Lyaios, iron Erechtheus held on unbending shoulders a foe with fine cuirass; and a Bacchant of the mountains drove away from its intoxicated owner his black-skinned beast, flogging the flanks of some elephant, spoil of the spear. Hymenaios robbed a man of his golden shield, and lifted up the golden buckler, while Bacchos delighted watched him with ardent gaze all gleaming in the armour of the sleeping owner. The young man in his harness shot out a rich bril
liance, like as Diomedes sparkled among the warriors, flashing with the rich target he had taken from Lycian Glaucos. And the army of Bacchants despoiled other adversaries, possessed of sweet sleep and sweet wine its comrade.

  [169] There was one with a crook-bow, a maiden denizen of the lonely wood, comrade hale and fresh among the nymphs of Astacia, beautiful Nicaia, a new harehuntress Artemis, a stranger to love, unacquainted with Cythereia, ever shooting and tracking the beasts upon the hills. She did not hide in the scented nook of the women’s room. She was ever among the rocks, by lonefaring path, where the bow was her distaff; she was ever in the forest, where winged arrows were her long threads, the upright wood of the net-stakes was a loom for this Athena of the mountains; she shared the tasks of the chaste Archeress, and she netted the meshes for her wonted hunting among the rocks more gladly than she would make twisted yarn. Never did she touch with shaft the timid dappled fawn, the gazelle she followed not, nor handled the hare; but the shaggy breasted lion she fitted about with bloodred bridle, and whipt his gray flanks, and often lifted spear against a maddened bear; and she blamed farshooting Archeress, for letting alone the generation of speckled pards and the tribes of lions, and yoking worthless deer to her car. Nor did she care for perfume: rather than honeymixed bowls she preferred watery draughts from a mountain brook, as she poured out cool water; lonely cliffs with nature’s vaulted roof were the maiden’s inaccessible dwelling. Often, her task well done, after the course of her wonted hunting, she sat beside the pards, and remained under one hollow roof at midday near a lioness newly delivered; then the beast gentle with calm brows would lick the girl’s body with unscratching jaws, and with timid throat like a whimpering dog, the greedy mouth of the lioness newdelivered purred softly through self-denying lips, while the lion, thinking her to be Artemis, drooped his head to the ground in supplication, and bent his hairy neck before the nymph.

  [204] And in the forests was a highland oxherd, hale and fresh, his figure stout-built, tall and upright, beyond the youths of his age. His name was Hymnos, and in the midst of the wild wood he tended his lovely cattle where the nymph was his neighbour: he flourished the herdsman’s truncheon in lovely hands. But he fell deep in love, and no more took joy of his herd, like a rosy Anchises, whose white string of mountainranging bulls Cypris once tended, swinging her girdle to shoo the cattle on. When the herdsman saw the snowywhite girl hunting about the woods, he cared not for his herd of cattle; the calf strayed into the marsh at its own will and grazed alone, wandering from its ancient herdsman now sick in love, and the heifer scampered capering over the hills in search of her keeper. But the young oxherd was wandering, for he saw the rosy round of a maiden’s face.

  [220] And the deceiver Eros excited the longing herdsman, and shook him with yet stronger passion. For as the maiden sped unapproachable on her hunting among the rocks, a light breeze bellied out all her kirtle into the air, and her body showed fair and fresh: white thighs, ruddy ankles, like lily, like anemone, appeared a flowery meadow of snowy limbs; and the young man desire-haunted, with insatiate gaze, watching beheld the unimpeded circuit of her naked thighs. The breeze shook backwards the cluster of her hair, lifting it lightly this way and that, and as the hair was lifted the neck bared in the midst gleamed shining white. And the young man often haunted the mountains following the girl, now touching the shafts or feeling at her bow, now watching the rosy-tinted fingers of the lovely girl, when she aimed the lance he loved; if ever in shooting she drew the horn round with the bowstring, and her hand was bared, unseen the young man with furtive eye surveyed the girl’s white archer-arm, bringing round again and again the eye, love’s conduit, wondering if Hera’s arm were as white as Nicaia’s; and stretched his gaze towards the expanse of evening, to see if the maiden were more white, or Selene.

  [244] So the young man, cherishing under his heart the wound of love, whether near or whether far, kept his mind on the girl: how she drew the arrow for a shot against a mountain bear; how she fastened hand on the lion’s neck, circling about it her two arms in a betraying noose; how again, after toil and sweat, she washed her in the flow of a brook, half-showing, ever more careful of her kirtle, when the breeze would shake it and lift it up to the midnipple, and shoot out the flower of the beauty laid bare. Keeping this in memory, he conjured again the sweet winds, to raise again the deep-folded robe.

  [255] And the young man, restless beside his horned herd, saw the girl in high head hunting hard by; and he shouted out these words with envious voice:

  [258] “O that I were a shaft, or a net, or a quiver! O that I were a beast-hitting lance, that she might carry me in her bare hands! Would that I could become much rather the ox-gut of the back-bent bow, that she might press me to that snowy breast free of the modest stomacher! Aye, heifer; aye, he-calf, free of the modest stomacher! Maiden, you bear a happy lance; your arrows are more blest than shepherd Hymnos, because they touch your palms that breed love. I envy your sweet voiceless netstakes. Not only do I long for your stakes; your very bow I envy, and your quiver that breathes not. O that she would refresh her limbs at midday by the amorous fount, and I may see the high-headed girl, aye heifer, aye he-calf, without the envious tunic! Have you not yet pitied me, Cythereia, for this cruel necessity? I know not Thrinacia, I know not its horned herd, no oxen of the Sun are these I tend in the mountains, no father of mine told the secret bed of Ares.

  [277] “Maiden, do not chase me away, if I do take oxen to pasture! There are herdsmen that lie in heavenly beds. Rosy Tithonos was a bridegroom for whom because of his fine figure lightbringer Eos stayed her car, and caught him up; and he that pours wine for Zeus was an oxherd, whom highsoaring Zeus for his beauty carried off with tender hands. Come hither, tend the kine, and I will call you a younger Selene with another Endymion, this time an oxherd: throw down the lance, take hold of the herdsman’s staff, that one may say— ‘Cythereia is tending the kine of shepherd Hymnos.’”

  [287] So he spoke and prayed, and tore at his knees with womanmad hands, and followed, and trembled to tell her love’s frenzy, yet blamed his own silence.

  [290] One day, taking courage to further an honourable love, he carried away Nicaia’s gear of the chase where it lay, and took her valiant lance, and under a greater sting of longing, angry though the girl was, took also her sweet quiver; he kissed the senseless nets and the arrows that had no breath, and pressing a murderous arrow to his delighted lips, squeezed it with violent hand and put it to his breast; and he said these words with a noiseless voice:

  [298] “In the Paphian’s name, utter voice again, you trees! as in Pyrrha’s time, as in Deucalion’s, reprove this mad girl! And you, Daphne beloved, break into arboreal speech! Would that fair Nicaia had been in former times: Apollo would have pursued the more dainty, and Daphne would not have become a bush.”

  [303] So he spoke; and beside the modest girl, he played on his pipes a wedding tune, witness of his pain. But the maiden spoke out in mockery of the herdsman:

  [306] “A pretty thing, your Pan piping the Paphian’s tune! Often he chanted Eros, and never became Echo’s bridegroom. Ah, how many a song sang Daphnis the oxherd! but with his chanting the maiden hid all the more in untrodden ravines, to escape the tune of the shepherd’s call. Ah, how many a song sang Phoibos! while Daphne heard him, but felt no pleasure at heart.”

  [312] So speaking, she showed her valiant lance to the foolish oxherd. But he, smitten with the maddening sweet sting, not understanding that the Amazon was so heartless, uttered a voice of unhappy passion, harbinger of his own death:

  [316] “Aye, cast your beloved spear, I beseech you, and slay me with your snowy hand, and it is my joy! I fear not your pike, I fear not your sword, wedlock-shirker! So may it provide the quickest end, that I may escape at last the lasting sore of love, the fire that feeds under my heart! May I die, for that fate is my delight! But if you will follow Cypris, and yourself also shoot me a shot from the bow you bear, in the Paphian’s name, do not send it through the neck,
but fix your shot in my heart, where now is the shot of love. Nay rather, let fly your lance at the neck, strike not the heart: I need no second wound. But if it gives you joy, I will endure another shot, that earth may cover me, both keeping the sore of the fire, and wounded by the steel. Kill me the hapless lover, spare not your bowstring. — But you put woman into the steel, when you handle the arrows. — Here I stand, a willing butt, watching with joyous eye the fingers twinkling about the notches, and pulling to its length your honeysweet string, drawing it close to your right breast so rosy! I die Love’s willing carrion, by a sweet fate! I care not about death, I tremble not before a cloud of arrows, watching for your bare hand like snow to touch bow and arrow that I desire. Let fly at me all the shots of your quiver, shoot at me your murdering shots: other and more bitter arrows already volley upon me fire-barbed.

  [342] “But if you kill me outright with your heartsoothing bow, maiden, pray do not burn my body on the usual pile: no other pyre I need; do but sprinkle upon me in death, my girl, sweet dust with your own hand, the last little grace, that one may say, ‘How the maiden pitied him whom she killed!’ And when I am dead, let not my fife, let not my cithern lie on my barrow, cast not there my herdsman’s crook, witness of my trade; but fix your weapon above the tomb of the slain, still drenched in the hapless lover’s gore. And give me another grace, the very last: above my tomb let there be flowers of passion-struck Narcissus, or saffron full of desire, or love’s flower the bind-weed; and in the spring-time plant the soon-dying anemone, proclaiming to all my youth too soon cut short. And if you were not born of the unmerciful sea or the mountains, drop a few tears on me, enough to damp with dew the rosy surface of your precious cheek, and with your own hand grave these words with funeral carmine: ‘Here lies oxherd Hymnos, whom the maiden Nicaia killed without share of her bed, and did the last rites for him when dead.’”