Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [610] Then the Myrmidons laid hands on the twenty-measure tripod as the servants of the victorious prince; and Actaion quickly lifted the cauldron, his father’s second prize, and carried it away with sorrowful hand.

  [614] Then Bacchos set the contest of the footrace. For the first man he offered as treasures of victory a silver mixing-bowl and a woman captive of the spear; for the second he offered a Thessalian horse with dappled neck; for the last, a sharp sword with well-wrought sling-strap. He rose and made the announcement, calling for quickfoot runners:

  [620] “Let these be the prizes for men who can run!”

  [621] At these words, came Dictaian Ocythoos, falls counted (in which A throws B off his feet while still standing himself). The name inferred from what follows. A line has dropt out. wagging his experienced knees. Next ran up fleet Erechtheus, a man full of craft, and dear to Victorious Pallas; after him fleetfoot Priasos, one from the arable land of Cybele. Off they went from scratch. Ocythoos led, light as the stormwind on his feet, going straight ahead and keeping his lead. Close behind came Erechtheus second at full speed, with his breath beating on the back of Ocythoos close by, and warming his head with it: as near as the rod lies between the web and the breast of a girl who loves the shuttle, when she holds it at measured distance with skilful hand working at the loom, so much was he behind Ocythoos, and he trod in his footmarks on the ground before the dust could settle in them. Then it would have been a dead heat; but Ocythoos saw this rival running pace for pace with himself, so he made a spurt and ran past the fellow by a longer distance, as much as a man’s pace. Then Erechtheus anxious for victory addressed a prayer to Boreas and cried out:

  [640] “Goodson, help your own Erechtheus and your own bride, if you still cherish a sweet passion for my girl, your sweetheart! Lend me the speed of your swift wings for one hour, that I may pass kneequick Ocythoos now in front!”

  [644] Boreas heard his supplicating voice, and made him swifter than the rapid gale. All three were moving their legs like the wind, but the balance was not equal for all: as far as Erechtheus was behind Ocythoos running before him with swift foot, so far behind, near stormswift Erechtheus, was Priasos the proud son of Phrygia. So they ran on, until just as the end of the race was coming for their bounding feet, kneeswift Ocythoos slipt in the dirt, where was an infinite heap of dung from those cattle which had been slaughtered by the Mygdonian knife of Dionysos beside the tomb. But he sprang backwards with a quick-whirling spring of his foot and jumped back again, then off he went — and he would have quickly passed the travelling step of his rival running in front if there had been even a little space to run: whereby he would either have made a dead heat by a spurt or he would have passed the Athenian.

  [660] Swift Erechtheus then lifted the Sidonian mixing-bowl, that treasure adorned with curious workmanship on the surface; Ocythoos took off the Thessalian horse; Priasos quietly walked in third, and received the sword with silver sling-strap. The company of Satyrs laughed in mocking spirit when they saw the Corybant smeared all over with dirt, and spitting out the dung that filled his throat.

  [667] Now Dionysos brought out a lump of crude ore and laid it before him, and summoned competitors to put the weight. For the first, he brought and offered two spears and a helmet with horsehair crest; for the second, a brilliant round body-girdle; for the third, a flat bowl; and for the fourth a fawnskin, which the craftsman of Zeus had fastened with a golden brooch. Then he rose, and made his announcement among them in a rousing tone:

  [674] “This contest calls for competitors with the weight!”

  [675] At these words of Bromios up rose shakeshield Melisseus; second after him came footlifting Halimedes, and third, Eurymedon, and fourth, Acmon. The four stood in a row side by side. Melisseus took the lump, swung it well and threw: the Seilenoi laughed loudly at the fellow’s miserable throw! Second, Eurymedon rested his hand on the weight [and threw it farther] . Then highcrested Acmon took the lump, swung it well with experienced wrist, and cast the heavy missile hurtling through the air; the missile travelled through the air like the wind, and passed Eurymedon’s mark by a longer measure, whirling swiftly. Then Halimedes, towering high on his feet, sent the weight travelling through the air to the mark: the mass whistled amid the stormwinds in the sky when hurled by that strong hand — for it flew like an arrow straight from a bow, twirled by unstable breezes; down from the sky to the earth it fell after its long leap, and rolled along the ground still under the impulse of the accomplished hand, moving of itself, until it had passed all the marks. The spectators of the contest crowded and cheered all together, amazed at the unchecked movement of the weight bounding along.

  [697] Halimedes proudly received the double prize, and went off with the highplumed helmet shaking the pair of spears. Acmon came shuffling up and lifted the body-belt shining with gold; third Eurvmedon took up his treasure, the brand-new bowl with two handles; Melisseus with downcast countenance lifted the dappled fawnskin.

  [703] Now Dionysos put prizes ready for champions of the bow, the offering for good archery. He led out for the contest a hardy sevenyear mule, and made it stand before the company; and laid down a well-finished goblet as prize of victory to be kept for the less competent man. Then Euryalos planted a ship’s tall mast in the ground, upright above the sandy soil, and fastened a wild pigeon by a string to the top of the mast, winding a light cord about the two feet. The god called to all those assembled for the games, inviting any to shoot at the flying mark:

  [714] “Whoever shall pierce the skin of the pigeon, let him receive this valuable mule as witness to his victory: whoever shall draw at the mark and miss the pigeon, leaving the bird unwounded by the barbed arrow’, but shall touch the string with his feathered shaft, he will be a worse shot and he shall receive a worse prize; for instead of the mule he shall carry off the goblet, that he may pour a libation to Archer Apollo and Winegod Dionysos.”

  [722] Such was the proclamation of wealthy Lyaios. Then Hymenaios the longshot, with his flowing hair, came forward [and after him Asterios. The lot fell to Asterios;] and he taking aim straight at the mast in front of him, with his Cnossian bow and the string pulled back from it, let fly the first shot, and hit the string. When the shaft cut the string, the bird flew away up into the sky and the cord fell to the ground. Archer Hymenaios followed round the bird’s high course with his eye and watched for him over the clouds; he had his bowstring quite ready, and let fly a swift shot through the air at his highflying mark, aiming at the pigeon. The winged arrow sped travelling through the air visible on high, grazing the surface of the cloud in the middle, whistling at the winds. Apollo held the shot straight, keeping faith with his lovesick brother Dionysos; the point hit the flying pigeon and struck it upon the breast as it sped, and the bird fell through the air quick as the wind to the earth, with heavy head, and half-dead the pigeon beat about with its wings in the dust, fluttering about the feet of Dionysos weaver of dances.

  [743] Then the god leapt up on the young man’s victory, and clapt his hands to applaud Hymenaios; and the company one and all who were present at the contest were astonished at the long shot of Hymenaios near the clouds. Dionysos laughing led forward with his own hands the mule which was due as a prize to Hymenaios, and gave it to him; and the comrades of Asterios lifted his prize, the goblet.

  [750] Now Bacchos invited those present to a friendly match at casting the javelin, and brought forward Indian prizes, a pair of greaves, and a stone from the Indian sea. He rose and made his announcement, and called for two warriors, bidding them show a fictitious image of bloodless battle, with not-killing steel in sport:

  [756] “This contest summons two javelin-men, and knows only Ares gentle and Enyo tranquil.”

  [758] So spoke Bromios, and Asterios came up armed, shaking his weapons of steel; and Aiacos stept forward, holding a bronze spear and shaking a shield gorgeously adorned, like a lion in the country charging a bull or a shaggy boar. Both these spearmen of Ares marched forward cove
red with steel corselets. Asterios cast a furious spear with the vigour of Minos his father, and he wounded the right arm grazing the skin. Aiacos, doing a deed worthy of his father Zeus Lord in the highest, aimed his iron spear at the gullet and tried to pierce the throat right in the middle; but Bacchos checked him and caught the deadly blade, that he might not strike the neck with the cast spear. Then he made them both stop, and called out with wild voice —

  [773] “Drop those spears! Yours was a friendly battle. This is a peaceful war, a contest without wounds.”

  [775] So he spoke. Aiacos proudly received the prize of battlestirring victory, and took the golden greaves, which he handed over to his servant. Asterios carried off the second prize, the Indian stone taken by force of arms.

  BOOK XXXVIII

  When the thirty-eighth takes its turn, you have the fate of unhappy Phaethon in the chariot, with a blazing brand.

  THE games were over. The people retired into the recesses of the forest, and entered their huts. The rustic Pans housed themselves under shelter in the ravines, for they occupied at evening time the natural caverns of a lioness in the wilds. The Satyrs dived into a bear’s cave, and hollowed their little bed in the rock with sharp finger-nails in place of cutting steel; until the lightbringing morning shone, and the brightness of Dawn newly risen showed itself peacefully to both Indians and Satyrs. For then Time rolling in his ambit prolonged the truce of combat and strife between Indians and Mygdonians; there was no carnage among them then, no conflict, and the shield which Bacchos had borne for six years lay far from the battle covered with spiders’ webs.

  [15] But as soon as the Seasons brought the seventh year of warfare, a foreboding sign was shown to winefaced Bacchos in the sky, an incredible wonder. For at midday, a sudden darkness was spread abroad, and a midday obscurity covered Phaethon with its black pall, and the hills were overshadowed as his beams were stolen away. Many a stray brand fell here and there scattered from the heavenly car; thousands of rainshowers deluged the surface of the earth, the rocks were flooded by drops from the sky, until fiery Hyperion rose again shining high on his chariot after his hard struggle.

  [26] Then a happy omen was seen by impatient Bacchos, an eagle flying high through the air, holding a horned snake in his sharp talons. The snake twisted his bold neck, and slipt away of itself diving into the river Hydaspes. Trembling silence held all that innumerable host. Idmon alone stood untrembling, Idmon the treasury of learned lore, for he had been taught the secrets of Urania, the Muse who knows the round circuit of the stars: he had been taught by his learned art the shades on the Moon’s orb when in union with the Sun, and the ruddy flame of Phaethon stolen out of sight from his course behind the cone of darkness, and the clap of thunder, the heavenly bellow of the bursting clouds, and the shining comet, and the flame of meteors, and the fiery leap of the thunderbolt. Having been taught all these doings by Urania the goddess he stood with dauntless heart, while the limbs of every man were loosened. But Idmon that ancient seer encouraged all the host, with laughing countenance, and words of confident persuasion upon his lips: “I know,” he said, “that victory is near, and soon it will end this long struggle.”

  [46] Erechtheus also inquired of the accomplisht Phrygian prophet, when he saw the portents of Highest Zeus, whether they were favourable to the enemy or to Indian-slaying Dionysos. He did not so much wish for the end of the conflict, but rather to hear the message from Olympos, the theme of mystical tales, and the orders of circling stars, and the round moon, and the sunset at midday which has no light of Phaethon because this is stolen away. Always the citizens of ancient Athens are ready to hear discourses concerning the gods.

  [55] Nor was the old seer neglectful; but shaking his Euian thyrsus instead of the Panopeian laurel, he uttered these words of interpretation with his mouth:

  [58] “Do you wish, Erechtheus, to hear the heart-consoling tale which only the gods know who dwell in Olympos? Well, I will speak, as my laurelled Apollo has taught me. Tremble not at the lightning, fear not the travelling brand, nor the darkened course of Helios, nor the bird of Olympos, first harbinger of Lyaios’s victory to come; as that horned snake, torn by the sharp pointed claws of the robber bird and pierced by its talons, slipt into the waters of the river, and old Hydaspes swallowed the reptile corpse, so Deriades shall be swallowed in the flood of his father’s stream under the likeness of his bullhorned sire.”

  [70] Thus spoke the old prophet; and at the diviners words all the host was glad, but beyond others the citizen of unmothered Athene mingled gladness with wonder, as full of joy in his sweet hopes as if he were triumphing in Marathon itself after the war with Deriades.

  [75] And now to Dionysos, alone among the rocks which he loved, came Hermes his brother from heaven as messenger of Zeus, and spoke assuring him of victory:

  [78] “Tremble not at this sign, even though night came at midday. This sign, fearless Bacchos, your father Cronion has shown you to foretell your victory in the Indian War. For I liken Bacchos the light-bringer to the sun shining again, and the bold black Indian to the thick darkness. That is what is meant by the picture in the sky. For as the darkness blotted out and covered the light of shining day, and then Helios rose again in his fireshining chariot and dispersed the gross darkness, so you also shall shake from your eyes far far away the darksome sightless gloom of the Tartarian Fury, and blaze again on the battlefield like Hyperion. So great a marvel ancient eternal Time our foster-father has never brought, since Phaethon, struck by the steam of fire divine, fell tumbling half-burnt from Helios’s lightbearing chariot, and was swallowed up in the Celtic river; and the daughters of Helios are still on the banks of Eridanos, lamenting the audacious youth with their whimpering leaves.”

  [96] At these words, Dionysos rejoiced in hope of victory; then he questioned Hermes and wished to hear more of the Olympian tale which the Celts of the west know well: how Phaethon tumbled over and over through the air, and why even the daughters of Helios were changed into trees beside the moaning Eridanos, and from their leafy trees drop sparkling tears into the stream.

  [103] In answer, friendly Hermes opened his mouth and noised out his inspired tale to Bacchos eagerly listening:

  [105] “Dionysos, joy of mankind, shepherd of human life! If sweet desire constrains you to hear these ancient stories, I will tell you the whole tale of Phaethon from beginning to end.

  [108] “Loudbooming Oceanos, girdled with the circle of the sky, who leads his water earth-encompassing round the turning point which he bathes, was joined in primeval wedlock with Tethys. The watery bridegroom begat Clymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, Helios who spins round the twelvemonth licht-gang, and travels the sevenzone circuit garland-wise — Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire! The torch of love was stronger than the blaze of his car and the shining of his rays, when over the bend of the reddened Ocean as he bathed his fiery form in the eastern waters, he beheld the maiden close by the way, while she swam naked and sported in her father’s waves. Her body gleamed in her bath, she was one like the full Moon reflected in the evening waters, when she has filled the compass of her twin horns with light. Half-seen, unshod, the girl stood in the waves shooting the rosy shafts from her cheeks at Helios; her shape was outlined in the waters, no stomacher hid her maiden bosom, but the glowing circle of her round silvery breasts illuminated the stream.

  [130] “Her father united the girl to the heavenly charioteer. The lightfoot Seasons acclaimed Clymene’s bridal with Helios Lightbringer, the Naiad Nymphs danced around; in a watery bridal-bower the fruitful maiden was wedded in a flaming union, and received the hot bridegroom into her cool arms. The light that shone on that bridal bed came from the starry train; and the star of Cypris, Lucifer, herald of the union, wove a bridal song. Instead of the wedding torch, Selene sent her beams to attend the wedding. The Hesperides raised the joy-cry, and Oceanos beside his bride
Tethys sounded his song with all the fountains of his throat.

  [142] “Then Clymene’s womb swelled in that fruitful union, and when the birth ripened she brought forth a baby son divine and brilliant with light. At the boy’s birth his father’s ether saluted him with song; as he sprang from the childbed, the daughters of Oceanos cleansed him, Clymene’s son, in his grandsire’s waters, and wrapt him in swaddlings. The stars in shining movement leapt into the stream of Oceanos which they knew so well, and surrounded the boy, with Selene our Lady of Labour, sending forth her sparkling gleams. Helios gave his son his own name, as well suited the testimony of his form; for upon the boy’s shining face was visible the father’s inborn radiance.

  [155] “Often in the course of the boy’s training Oceanos would have a pretty game, lifting Phaethon on his midbelly and letting him drop down; he would throw the boy high in the air, rolling over and over moving in a high path as quick as the wandering wind, and catch him again on his arm; then he would shoot him up again, and the boy would avoid the ready hand of Oceanos, and turn a somersault round and round till he splashed into the dark waters, prophet of his own death. The old man groaned when he saw it, recognizing the divine oracle, and hid all in prudent silence, that he might not tear the happy heart of Clymene the loving mother by foretelling the cruel threads of Phaethon’s Fate.

  [167] “So the boy, hardly grown up, and still with no down on his lip, sometimes frequented his mother Clymene’s house, sometimes travelled even to the meadows of Thrinacia, where he would often visit and stay with Lampetie, tending cattle and sheep... There he would long for his father the charioteer divine; made a wooden axle with skilful joinery, fitted on a sort of round wheel for his imitation ear, fashioned yoke-straps, took three light withies from the flowering garden and plaited them into a lash, put unheard of bridles on four young rams. Then he made a clever imitation of the morning star round like a wheel, out of a bunch of white flowers, and fixed it in front of his spokewheeled waggon to show the shape of the star Lucifer. He set burning torches standing about his hair on every side, and mimicked his father with fictitious rays as he drove round and round the coast of the seagirt isle.