Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [90] So Lycurgos was tormented by the warring plants; but now a trouble appeared worse than any. For Rheia of the mountains armed against Arabia the seagod, Earthshaker who splits the foundations of the earth with a crash, and hurls them about. Then Earthshaker the ruler of the sea struck with his trident, and knocked away the great bar which held up the wide floor of the land, while the caverns of the earth were beaten by internal winds, subterranean winds, for blasts in the hidden parts hollow out grinning chasms with moving shock. The unshakable soil of Arabia quaked, cloudcapt palaces were dissolved by the shattering shock; trees fell to the earth, and the firm ground about Arabian Nysa struck by the trident shook and danced. The elm lay on the ground, the laurel’s leaves were in the dust, the pine self-uprooted lay beside the fir.

  [105] While Earthshaker with wild subterranean blasts shook the roots of the hollows and caverns below, a new calamity came: the woodranging Nysian women, lashed by the whip of dragonhair Megaira, bellowed like bulls and murdered their children. One would rush forward and throw her boy flying into the air, sliding headlong from the air into the dust. Another dragged her own baby along the ground, and forgot the breast. Another stained her hand with childslaying steel, and carved her son like another mad Agaue. So they rushed on their own children, the newborn sons whom they had brought forth, and cut them piecemeal with the knife. Beside them the Arabian shepherd crouching under Pan’s whip ran amok among the animals.

  [120] So the oxherd, seething by the god’s maddening device, carved up his children, and feasted on his own sons with child-devouring jaws: the belly of delirious drovers was the tomb of their own boys, whom they should have cared for. All the while Lycurgos was beaten by the Nymphs’ hands. He was fast bound with many knots of leafage smothering him. Yet he bent not a knee before Lyaios, held not out a hand to Zeus for mercy in his extremity, feared not the thunder, but glared with fury at the Bassarids. He saw the lightning flash against his head, and would not yield to Lyaios. Blows fell on him from all sides, but he stood unmoved by all this impetuous onslaught of innumerable blows, facing alone Zeus, Poseidon, Rheia, Earth, Nereus, Bacchos, with only Ares to help him; and in his pain he shrieked out unbridled defiance:

  [135] “Make fire, let us burn all this stuff, let all these Bacchic leaves lie in the flames! Let us throw the blazing gardenvines into the sea for Dionysos in the deeps, to show the courage of Arabs! Let Thetis herself catch the scorched fruit in the waves, and quench the burning viny ashes in the sea! Loose these phantasms, this cunning witchery of bonds! I see here witchery of the Nereids and Poseidon. Loose me and bring me to the sea! I will take arms against this prophet-wizard Proteus. Light a torch, that I may go down to the sea in my avenging wrath, and set fire to Melicertes the entertainer of Bromios!”

  [146] So he spoke, threatening Nereus and Dionysos.

  [147] Now Hera came to Arabia, and saved the afflicted son of Enyalios from the leafy battle. She held the iron sword of Ares, and bared the flashing blade of the divine glaive over the Bacchants, scattering in flight the army of Cybelid women. She cut through Ambrosia’s leaves with that iron, and untied the bonds of the vine from Lycurgos. She soothed her brother, Seabluehair Earthshaker, and Zeus her husband and Rheia her mother, to save Lycurgos that he might be numbered with the immortals. For the Arabs on heavy-steaming altars propitiated Dryas’ son as a god with offerings, pouring to Lycurgos, who cared nought for Bacchos, libations of blood, instead of the honey dripping vintage of Dionysos.

  [162] All this Old Time was to accomplish in later days; but now, in order that no other mortal man should be proud like spearbold Lycurgos, and ridicule Dionysos whom none may ridicule, Father Zeus made mad Lycurgos a blind wanderer; to tramp round and round in the city which he no longer knew, to seek some guide for the path where he must tread, or often on lonely travels with stumbling feet.

  [170] That is what was done on the mountains. But in the Erythraian sea, the daughters of Nereus cherished Dionysos at their table, in their halls deep down under the waves. Mermaid Ino threw off her jealousy of Semele’s bed divine, and struck up a brave hymn for winepouring Lyaios. Ino the nurse of Dionysos made music; and Melicertes his fosterbrother ladled out nectar from the bowl, and poured the sweet cups for his agemate.

  [178] So he remained in the hall deep down in the waves, with the broad main for his dwelling, a visitor under the waters, and he lay sprawled among the seaweed in Thetis’s bosom; he embraced never satisfied Cadmos’s daughter, Ino his nurse, mother of a noble son, sister of his own mother, and often he held in the loving prison of his arms Palaimon his yearsmate, his foster-brother. The Mimallon with quiet shoe no longer trod the noisy turns of the dance, for Bacchos was not there; she was hunting for tracks of Lyaios now under the sea. The Satyr so full of energy showed a face unsmiling, and languished in sorrow strange to him. The Pans wandered wild through the woods with hillranging hoof, Pans in search of Dionysos, and heard no word of him. Seilenos danced no more, threw away his cymbals unheeded, lay with downcast looks. Cronian Macris the nurse of nevermourning Dionysos trilled her lament, she who used to share the basket of the well-spoked car of Bacchos. So they were all restless and sad. But Scelmis left the caves of the waveless deep, and drove his father’s unwetted car, to tell them the tidings in their sorrow that Dionysos was coming back.

  [200] While Bacchos enjoyed the hospitality of the sea, the windfoot courier of vineplanting Bromios traversed the Caucasos mountains to the Indian city. He had the shape of a bull, a borrowed form bearing horns, the very image of the horns of Selene; the skin of a mountain goat was thrown over his body, and hung over one shoulder from the collar-bone draping his right side down to the fork of the thigh; he shook a pair of long ears like the ears of an ass beside his two cheeks, and he was covered with hair, with a self-wagging tail that grew out from between his loins.

  [211] The swarthy Indians crowded about him laughing, until he approached the place where huge Deriades, that king of men, sat in his chariot-and-pair. He checked the steps of his towering elephants, and laughing spoke to the Satyr in words of raillery:

  [216] “What doubleshaped men bullform Dionysos sends to Deriades! what playthings for a soldier! Monsters, not creatures having a wholly human shape! They have the form of beasts! for with a double shape they are bastards, bulls and men at once — they have the bull’s body and the man’s face.”

  [227] So he spoke, and made the summoning signal for war, by striking a hearty blow with his sword upon the round boss which was seen in the middle of his richly-ornamented shield: the metal struck boomed out a sound of havoc from the oxhide.

  [231] Then the swiftcoursing herald of Bromios opened his amazed lips, and gave his message to the grim king:

  [233] “Deriades, sceptred king, the god Dionysos commands the Indians to accept the wine of his care-forgetting vintage, and to pour libations to the immortals, without war, without battle. If they refuse, he takes up arms, until Hydaspes bend a servile knee to the wands of the Bassarids. You have heard a truthful message: now give some answer to my address, which I may deliver to Dionysos.”

  [240] When he had done, the monarch roared in a furious voice:

  “Ha, what a word the bold man-beast has spoken! It would be shameful to strike down a herald with violent hand, one who comes without valiant spear and holds no oxhide shield. I have heard the exploits of your chief: Ganges has heard the weakness of Bromios and the manly courage of Lycurgos. I know your king, the bastard god, when he fled and slipt into the deep for refuge from destruction. Yes, your Bacchos is called the fiery, because he rose from flanks of his mother Thyone struck by Zeus; and water is stronger far than fire. My father Indian Hydaspes, if it be his pleasure, could quench the fiery breath of the thunderbolt of Zeus with his bubbling flood.

  [248] “Turn your foot, if you please, to the marches of the Median land; go there and proclaim the dances of Dionysos. Pass into Bactrian soil, where Mithras is a god, the Assyrian Phaethon of Persia; for Deriades has learn
t no dances of the eternal Blessed, he honours not Helios and Zeus or the company of shining stars. I know nothing of Cronos, or of Cronides who destroyed his father, nor Cronos the master-deceiver, who swallowed his own children, and shore away from Aither the hive of begetting love. I do not acknowledge your gifts, what you call your vintage; I accept no other drink than golden Hydaspes. My wine is the spear, my potion too the shield! No Semele brought me forth in firestruck bridal, or received the flames of death in her chamber; but my breeding came of Enyo in brazen armour, who never has surfeit of battles. I care nothing for the blessed offspring of Zeus; for me there are only two gods, Earth and Water.

  [265] “Go and give this answer to battleshy Dionysos. Go untouched, and evil go with you; go before I draw my bow, go with a curse if you would escape my spear! Arm for battle your half-and-half beasts and your uncorseleted women, and fight with Deriades! Then after our Indian victory I will drag you away along with Dionysos, the captive of my spear. But I will not make you my envoy. You cannot do such service in the house for me, but I will allow you to fan me at my table with your long ears.”

  [274] This said, he dismissed him with threatening looks, after quickly scribbling this message within a tablet with two folding sides:

  [277] “Take arms against Deriades if you can, Dionysos.”

  [278] Such words as these the loudvoiced herald heard, and departed. He found the Seilenoi in high glee: Dionysos had come up out of the waters and joined the Oread Nymphs. The Satyrs skipt, the Bacchants danced about, Maron with his old legs led the music between two Bacchants, with his arms laid round their necks, and bubbles of fragrant wine at his lips. The Mimallon unveiled trilled a song, how the footstep of Dionysos had come that way again.

  [287] Then the vinegod threw off his earlier cares, and entered upon rejoicing; for he had heard in the sea the whole story from Torone’s lord Proteus, the earthshaking shock in Arabia the inhospitable, and how Lycurgos wandered blind with stumbling feet. He heard also the deathbringing madness of the herdsmen’s duress, how the company of countrymen went raging about, how the women in the dells gorged the fruit of their own travail; heard also of the company of Hyades in heaven, heard that Ambrosia had left earth and risen as a star in Olympos, Ambrosia who had attacked undaunted Lycurgos, the battle of the twigs and the war with vines.

  [299] They were enjoying themselves as the herald came back, safe and sound, and greatly desired by Bacchos rejoicing. He reported the highnecked folly of Deriades, and carried the double tablets pregnant with war.

  [303] The Lord lost no time. He read the lines engraved on the witnessing tablet, and resolute, he summoned his warriors to the fray. He called the Rhadamans, whom Minos once sent on their wanderings unwilling from the land of Crete to the Arabian soil; and bade them by Rheia’s advice to build wooden ships for an attack upon India by sea. Quickly he drove his car to the eastern clime of the earth, gleaming in his armour like the Morning Star, crossed over the rocky crest of Caucasos and through the valleys, and over the lightbringing region of the dawnland he went on towards the midday goal of the sun.

  [315] When Deriades heard the rumour of battle with the thyrsus, that the army of mountainranging Dionysos was near at hand, he stationed in ambush his Indians in serried ranks, and sent a detached force across the river, resting all hope for the conflict in the craft and skill of bronze-armoured war. He rowed all these men on shipboard across Indian Hydaspes. So the Indian host was divided into two armies, one on each bank of the river bristling with lances. Thureus was on the edge of the West Wind, Deriades opposite by the wing of the burning East Wind.

  [326] There was on the spot a shady place, where the rocks were surrounded by a wide mass of all kinds of trees and left an empty hollow. No wandering arrow in flight could pierce those trees, if one were shot, and the sun never came down through the midst of those thick branches with sharp thrust, cutting the closewoven leaves with penetrating rays; no deluge of rain from heaven falling through the air passed into those woodland shades, but the showers of Zeus on high scarce wetted the surface of the leaves with their rushing water. There in the spinneys an ambush was hidden among the tall trunks covered with green clusters of highgrowing leafage, unexpected, unshaken, and in the bosom of the forest kept noiseless its moving shoes. No hidden foot tore the leafy bushes, none feared a crouching foot, or sounds of words upon a chattering lip, or pallor on the face; but each had a mind bold and firm, and enjoyed his measured sleep on the ground in his armour with eyelids..., waiting for the march in step of the enemy at hand.

  BOOK XXII

  The twenty-second celebrates the battle and feats of Bromios, all the deeds of Aiacos both on the plain and in the Hydaspes.

  WHEN the footforces of Bacchos came to the crossing of the pebbly river, where, like the Nile, Indian Hydaspes pours his navigable water into a deep-eddying hollow, then sounded the womanish song of the Bassarids, making Phrygian festival for Lyaios of the Night, and the hairy company of Satyrs rang out with mystic voice. All the earth laughed, the rocks bellowed, the Naiads sang alleluia, the Nymphs circled in mazes over the silent streams of the river, and sang a melody of Sicilian tune, like the hymns which the minstrel Sirens pour from their honeytongued throats. All the woodlands rang thereat: the trees found skill to make music like the hoboy, the Hadryades cried aloud, the Nymph sang, peeping up halfseen over her leafy cluster.

  [16] The fountain, though but water, turned white and poured a stream of snowy milk; in the hollow of the torrent the Naiads bathed in milky streams and drank the white milk. The rough rock spilled out wine from red nipples, and stained itself deep, as the must welled over the unplanted hill in showers sweet to drink; the pleasant gifts of the honeydropping bee dribbled from holes of themselves without need of hives; from newsprouting bushes of spikyhair thorn sprang up softbloom apples; oil poured of itself on the twigs of Athena’s tree, and bathed it in unpressed drops.

  [28] Hares embraced the dancing dogs; long serpents joined in the merry dance, curving down their heads and licking the footprints of snake-hair Dionysos, and one after another blew out gentle hisses from glad throats; there was method in the movements of the happy reptiles, as the interlacing coils of their long spines skipt about Dionysos on fearless feet. Tigers jumped round and round in play on the Indian precipices; a great swarm of hillranging elephants went skipping in the forest glades.

  [39] The Pans then, roaming about the craggy ravines sped on nimble hooves through the trackless hills; in terrible places, where even that light traveller the bird would not dare to fly, or traverse with his pair of beating wings in his lofty course. The lion shook the mane hanging about his jaws, and danced in partnership with the tripping boar. Birds squawked an image of human speech, and borrowing the war-cry half mimicked, they prophesied victory in the Indian struggle, and shook the tail straight out along their green bodies. The panther dancing with equal spirit, leapt high with a bear for partner. Artemis checked the rush of her swift hounds, when she saw the romping leaps of a lioness now tame, and slackened for very shame the string of her bended bow, that she might not shoot the happy beasts with her arrows.

  [55] One there was watching the strange miracles of Bacchos, as he peered out through the top of a thick cluster. He made a round spyhole through the leaves; he let himself see just so much as a man sees when he looks out of the eyeholes made in his helmet; or when a man trained in the tragic chorus utters a terrific roar from his far-resounding throat, and strains his eyesight within through the eyepiece made in the mask which he carries as a deceitful likeness of a man’s face. So this man hiding under the dark bushes watched all the miracles unseen with furtive gaze. He told all to the enemy. Thureus shook with fear, and blamed Morrheus and Deriades for their thoughtlessness: the Indian host trembled, and thinking no more of combat, threw the bronze weapons from frightened hands when they saw the trees moving under the maddening influence.

  [71] And now the Indian host would have plucked from the neighbouring banks green
shoots of olive in token of supplication, and bent a servile neck before Dionysos unconquerable. But Hera ever ready took another shape, and gave courage to the enemy. She deceived the Indian leader; she fastened on Dionysos a song of magical Thessalian spells, and Circe’s posset with invocations of the gods, as if he had poisoned that unpoisoned river. She convinced the enemy, quite ready to be convinced, and told each one not to let himself be driven by fiery thirst to drink of the adulterated water of the mind-stealing river, and so come to grief.

  [82] And now the swarthy Indians would have leapt from their hidden ambush and attacked the army of Bacchos at their meal; but a Hamadryad Nymph peering over a high branch sprang up, leafy to the hips. Holding thyrsus in hand, she looked like a Bacchant, with bushy ivy thick in her hair like one of them; first she indicated the enemies’ plot by eloquent signs, then whispered in the ear of Lyaios of the grapes:

  [90] “Vinegod Dionysos, lord gardener of the fruits! Your plant gives grace and beauty to the Hadryads! I am no Bassarid, I am no comrade of Lyaios, I carry only a false thyrsus in my hand. I am not from Phrygia, your country, I do not dwell in the Lydian land by that river rolling in riches. I am a Hamadryad of the beautiful leaves, in the place where the enemy warriors lie in ambush. I will forget my country and save your host from death: for I offer loyal faith to your Satyrs, Indian though I am. I take sides with Dionysos instead of Deriades; I owe my gratitude to you, and I will pay it, because your Father, mighty Zeus of the raincloud, always brings the watery travail of the rivers, always feeds the trees with his showers of rain. Give me your leaves, and here I will plant them; give me your clusters of grapes which drive our cares away!

  [106] “But my friend, do not hasten to cross the river, or the Indians, who are near, may overwhelm you in the water. Direct your eye to the forest, and see in the leafy thickets a secret ambuscade of men unseen hidden there. But what will those weaklings in their thickets do to you? Your enemies live so long as you still hold back your thyrsus. Silence between us now, that the enemy near may not hear, that Hydaspes may not tell it to the hidden Indians.”