Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [61] He spoke, and a second time armed himself, wild as before; again the uproar of battle rose on the plain — there after the seafight he met Dionysos in arms. He had forgotten the former victory of Bromios, when his neck was entangled in leafy bonds and he offered his prayers of many supplications to Bacchos, who saw it all. Again he was a soldier fighting against the gods; doubtful only whether to kill or make Bromios a slave. Thrice he cast a spear, and missed, striking nothing but air; but when the fourth time in his arrogance Deriades rushed upon wineface Bacchos, and cast his spear through the air at a mark which could not be hit, he called his goodson to help him — and Morrheus was no longer to be seen, but Athena had changed her deceptive shape and stood beside the vinegod. Deriades saw her, and his knees trembled with overwhelming fear: he understood that the human shape which bore the likeness of Morrheus was all a deception, and recognized the deluding trick of wise Athena. But Dionysos was glad when he saw Athena, and knew in his heart that she had been helping him in disguise.

  [82] Then the grapy deity was maddened with anger. He rose lofty and huge, like the rock of Parnassos, and pursued swiftrunning Deriades; he raced off light and quick as the hurrying winds, but when they reached the place where ancient Hydaspes rolled his warbreeding water in wild bubbling waves, he stood immense on the river bank as having now an ally, his father, roaring loud, to shoot with his waters against Dionysos in battle: there the vine-deity cast his fleshcutting thyrsus and just grazed the skin of Deriades. Struck with the mandestroying ivy bunch he slipt headfirst into his father’s flood, and bridged all that water himself with his long frame.

  [96] Now the long Indian War was ended, the gods returned again to Olympos with Zeus the Lord of all; the Bacchants cheered in triumph around Dionysos the invincible, crying Euoi for the conflict, and many thronged round Deriades piercing him everywhere with their spears.

  [101] Orsiboe wailed on the battlements with a loud lamentable dirge, sorrowing for her husband who lay so newly slain; she scratched her cheeks with her fingernails in sorrow, and heedlessly tore out bunches of her curling hair, and poured smoking ashes on her head. Cheirobie lamented for her dead father, and scored her black arms, rent her white robe and bared all her breast; Protonoe unshod tore her cheeks and smeared her face all over with dirty dust, weeping for both husband and father, with twofold agony, and cried in tones of sorrow —

  [113] “Husband, how young you have lost your life! You have left me a widow in the house ere I have borne a child, no baby son I have to console me! I never saw my husband come home a second time after victory, but he slew himself with his own steel, and gave his name to the stream, and died among strangers, that I should have to call the watery Orontes my husband, childless, self-slain, never returned! I wail for both Deriades and Orontes, both perished by one watery fate: Deriades the death of many men was buried in the wave, the flood swallowed Orontes. But I am not like my mother; for Orsiboe sang her hymn over her daughters’ weddings accomplished, she saw the marriage of Protonoe, she received Orontes as goodson, she joined Cheirobie to an unconquered husband, whom Bacchos trembled at great as he is; Cheirobie has her dear husband alive, no thyrsus, no flood has brought him down — but I it seems doubly suffer, my husband gone and my father perished.

  [131] “Cease to comfort your child, my nurse, all in vain. Let me have my husband, and I will not bewail my father; show me a child to console me for my husband’s loss! Who will take me and bring me to the broad stream of Hydaspes, that I may kiss the wave of that honeydropping river? Who will take me and bring me to the sacred vale of Daphne, that I may embrace Orontes even in the waters? O that I too could be a lovely stream! O that I might also become a fountain there, watered by my own tears, a watery bride where my husband dead rolls his beautiful waters! Then I shall be like Comaitho, who in olden days was enamoured of a lovely river and still has the joy of holding Cydnos her husband in her arms, as I hear is a favourite story among those Cilician men. So says Morrheus my goodbrother. But I am not like runaway Periboia; I will not pass charming Orontes whom I love, I will not draw back my winding water and avoid a watery spouse. If it was not ordained that I should die near his neighbour Daphne, may Hydaspes my father’s father drown me in his waves, and save me from sleeping in the arms of a horned Satyr, and seeing Phrygian revels, rattling their cymbals in my hands, joining their sportive rites; that I may not see Maionia and Tmolos, the house of Lyaios or the all-burdensome yoke of slavery; that men may not say—’ The daughter of Deriades the spearbold king, taken captive after the war, is now a servant to Dionysos.’”

  [158] When she had finished the women groaned piteously with her, those who had lost a son or a brother, whose fathers were dead or husband untimely taken, with the down on his chin. And Cheirobie tore the hair from her head and scored her cheeks; she was tormented by double sorrow, and she groaned not so much for her father as she was indignant against her husband, for she had heard the enamoured passion of her husband and the delusive guile of chaste Chalcomedeia. She rent her dress and spoke:

  [167] “By sparing his spear Morrheus killed my father, and no one avenged his death. For desire of that hateful Chalcomede he did not rout the women on the field — nay, he still shows favour to the Bassarids. Tell me, Fates; what jealousy destroyed the Indian city? What jealousy came down suddenly upon both daughters of Deriades? Dying on the battlefield, Orontes made his wife Protonoe a widow to mourn uncared-for; Cheirobie still living was repudiated by her husband. And I have more cruel things to suffer than my sister. Protonoe had a husband who defended her that nursed him; Cheirobie had a husband who destroyed his country, a useless warrior, the lackey of Cyprogeneia, a strong man unstable, a partisan of Lyaios. Even my marriage was my enemy, for the Indian city was sacked because my Morrheus fell in love. I was robbed of my father for my husband’s sake; I so proud once, and daughter of a king, I once the mistress of the Indians, I too shall be one of the servants; perhaps I shall be so unhappy as to give the title of mistress to Chalcomedeia the serf! Traitor Morrheus, to-day India is your home; to-morrow unbidden you will go to the Lydian land, a menial of Dionysos because of Chalcomede’s beauty. Husband Morrheus, make no secret of your union with Chalcomede; for you fear no longer the threatening tongue of Deriades. Begone! the serpent calls you back, the one that chased you away with hisses from the wedding which you failed to force!”

  [194] Thus lamented the wife with heavy tears, and Protonoe wailed a second time. Their mother rested an arm on each and dolorously cried —

  [197] “ The hopes of our country have perished! No longer I see Deriades my husband, no longer Orontes my son. Deriades is dead; the city of the Indians is plundered. The unbreakable citadel of my country has fallen: would that I myself may be taken by Bacchos and slain with my dead husband! May he seize and cast me into the swift-flowing Hydaspes, for I refuse the earth. Let my goodfather’s water receive me, may I see Deriades even in the waters; may I not see Protonoe following Dionysos perforce, may I never hear another piteous groan from Cheirobie while she is dragged to a captive wedlock; may I not see another husband after Deriades, my man. May I dwell with the Naiads, since Seabluehair received Leucothea also living and she is called one of the Nereids; and may I appear another watery Ino, no longer white, but blackfooted.” °

  [213] Such were the lamentations of the longrobed women, standing in a row upon the loud-echoing battlements.

  [215] But the Bacchoi rattled their cymbals, having now made an end of warring, and they cried with one voice: “We have won great glory! we have slain the Indian chieftain!”

  [218] And Dionysos laughed aloud, trembling with the joy of victory. Now resting from his labours and the bloody contest, he first gave their due to the crowd of unburied dead. He built round the pyre one vast tomb for all alike with a wide bosom, a hundred feet long. Round about the bodies the melodious Mygdonian syrinx sounded their dirge, and the Phrygian pipers wove their manly tune with mournful lips, while the Bacchant women danced and Gany
ctor trolled his dainty song with Euian voice. The double Berecyntian pipes in the mouth of Cleochos drooned a gruesome Libyan lament, one which long ago both Sthenno and Euryale with one manythroated voice sounded hissing and weeping over Medusa newly gashed, while their snakes gave out voice from two hundred heads, and from the lamentations of their curling and hissing hairs they uttered the “manyheaded dirge of Medusa.”

  [234] Now resting from his labours, he cleansed his body with water, and assigned a governor for the Indians, choosing the godfearing Modaios; they now pacified touched one table with banqueting Bacchoi over a common bowl, and drank the yellow water from the winebreeding river. There was dancing without end. Many a Bassarid skipt about, tapping the floor with wild slipper; many a Satyr stormed the resounding ground with heavy foot, and revelled with side-trippings of his tumbling feet as he rested an arm on the neck of some maddened Bacchant. The foot-soldiers of Bromios danced round with their oxhides and mimicked the pattern of the shieldbearing Corybants, wildly circling in the quick dance under arms. The horsemen in their glancing helmets also stood up for the dance, acclaiming the all vanquishing victory of Dionysos. Not a soul was silent — the Euian tones went up to the sevenzone sky with shouts of triumph from every tongue.

  [251] But when the revels of the carefree feast were over, and Dionysos had gathered all the spoil after his Indian War, he remembered the land of his ancient home, now he had swept away the foundations of that seven years’ conflict. The whole wealth of the enemy was given to the army as their plunder. One got an Indian jasper, one the jewel of Phoibos’s patterned sapphire and the smooth green emerald; another hurried under the lofty peaks of broad-based Imaios the straight-legged elephants which he had captured by his spear. Here was one by the deepcaverned mountain of Hemodos driving to exile a team of Indian lions, in triumph; there was another pulling a panther to the Mygdonian shore with a chain fast about its neck. A Satyr rushed along with a striped tiger before him, which he flogged in his wild way with a handful of tippling-leaves. Another returned with a gift for his Cybeleid bride, the fragrant plants of seagrown reeds and the shining stone which is the glory of the Erythraian brine. Many a blackskin bride was dragged out of her chamber by the hair, her neck bound fast under the yoke of slavery, spoil of war along with her newly wedded husband. The Bacchant woman god-possessed returned to the hills of Tmolos with hands full of streaming riches, chanting Euoi for the return of Dionysos.

  [275] So Dionysos distributed the spoils of battle among his followers, after the Indian War, and sent returning home the whole host who had shared his labours. The people made haste to go, laden with shining treasures of the Eastern sea and birds of many strange forms. Their return was a triumphal march with universal acclaim to Dionysos the invincible; all revelled, for they left behind them all memory of that toilsome war, to blow away with the north wind, and each came returning home at last with his thank-offerings for victory. Asterios alone did not now return to his own country; instead, he settled near the foot-unwashenBears, about the river Phasis in a cold land by the Massagetic Gulf, where he dwelt under the snowburdened feet of his father’s father, Tauros the Bull, translated to the stars. He avoided the Cnossian city and the sons of his family, hating Pasiphae and his own father Minos, and preferring Scythia to his own country. But Bacchos, followed only by his Satyrs and the Indianslaying Bacchant women, after a war in the Caucasos beside the Amazonian River, visited Arabia the second time, where he stayed and taught the Arabian people who knew not Bacchos to uplift the mystic fennel, and crowned the Nysian hills with the vineclusters of his fruitful plant.

  [298] Leaving the long stretch of Arabia with its deep-shadowy forests he measured the Assyrian road on foot, and had a mind to see the Tyrian land, Cadmos’s country; for thither he turned his tracks, and with stuffs in thousands before his eyes he admired the manycoloured patterns of Assyrian art, as he stared at the woven work of the Babylonian Araehne; he examined cloth dyed with the Tyrian shell, shooting out sea-sparklings of purple: on that shore once a dog busy by the sea, gobbling the wonderful lurking fish with joyous jaws, stained his white jowl with the blood of the shell, and reddened his lips with running fire, which once alone made scarlet the sea-dyed robes of kings.

  [311] He was delighted to see that city, which Earth-shaker surrounded with a liquid girdle of sea, not wholly, but it got the shape which the moon weaves in the sky when she is almost full, falling short of fullness by one point. And when he saw the mainland joined to the brine, he felt a double wonder, since Tyre lies in the brine, having her own share in the land but joined with the sea which has joined one girdle with the three sides together. Unshakable, it is like a swimming girl, who gives to the sea head and breast and neck, stretching her arms between under the two waters, and her body whitened with foam from the sea beside her, while she rests both feet on mother earth. And Earthshaker holding the city in a firm bond floats all about like a watery bridegroom, as if embracing the neck of his bride in a splashing arm.

  [327] Still more Bacchos admired the city of Tyre; where alone the herdsman’s way was near the fisherman, and he kept company with his piping along the shore, and goatherd with fisher again when he drew his net, and the glebe was cleft by the plow while opposite the oars were cutting the waters. Shepherds near the seaside woods gossiped in company [with boatmen, fisher with] woodmen, and in one place was the loud noise of the sea, the lowing of cattle, the whispering of leaves, rigging and trees, navigation and forest, water, ships, and lugger, plowtail, sheep, reeds, and sickle, boats, lines, sails, and corselet. As he surveyed all this, he thus expressed his wonder:

  [338] “How’s this — how do I see an island on the mainland? If I may say so, never have I beheld such beauty. Lofty trees rustle beside the waves, the Nereid speaks on the deep and the Hamadryad hears hard by. A delicate breeze of the south breathes from Lebanon upon Tyrian seas and seaside plowland, pouring a breath of wind which fosters the corn and speeds the ships at once, cools the husbandman and draws the seaman to his voyage. Here harvesthome Deo brings the sickle of the land close to the trident of the deep, and speaks to the monarch of the wet, who drives his car unwetted upon the soundless calm, while she asks him to guide her rival car on the same course, and herself whips the bounteous backs of her aerial dragons. O world-famous city, image of the earth, picture of the sky! You have a belt of sea grown into one with your three sides!”

  [353] So he spoke, and wandered through the city casting his eyes about. He gazed at the streets paved with mosaic of stones and shining metals; he saw the house of Agenor his ancestor, he saw the courtyards and the women’s apartments of Cadmos; he entered the ill-guarded maiden chamber of Europe, the bride stolen long ago, and thought of his own horned Zeus. Still more he wondered at those primeval fountains, where a stream comes pouring out through the bosom of the earth, and after one hour plenty of water bubbles up again with flood self-produced. He saw the creative stream of Abarbaree, he saw the lovely fountain named after Callirhoe, he saw the bridal water of Drosera herself spouting daintily out.

  [366] But when he had noted all this and gratified his curiosity, he went revelling to the temple of the Starclad and there called loudly upon the leader of the stars in mystic words:

  [369] “Starclad Heracles, lord of fire, prince of the universe! O Helios, longshadowed shepherd of human life, coursing round the whole sky with shining disk and wheeling the twelvemonth lichtgang the son of Time! Circle after circle thou drivest, and from thy car is shaped the running lifespace for youth and age! Nurse of wise birth, thou bringest forth the threefold image of the motherless Moon, while dewy Selene milks her imitative light from thy fruitful beam, while she fills in her curving bulls-horn. Allshining Eye of the heavens, thou bringest in thy four-horse chariot winter following autumn, and changest spring to summer. Night pursued by thy shooting torch moves and gives place, when the first morning glimpse comes of thy straightnecked steeds drawing the silver yoke under thy lashes; when thy light shines, the vari
ed heavenly meadow no longer shines brighter dotted with patterns of bright stars. From thy bath in the waters of the eastern Ocean thou shakest off the creative moisture from thy cool hair, bringing the fruitful rain, and discharging the early wet of the heavenly dew upon the prolific earth. With thy disk thou givest increase to the growth of harvest, irrigating the bounteous corn in the life-nourishing furrows.

  [392] “Belos on the Euphrates, called Ammon in Libya, thou art Apis by the Nile, Arabian Cronos, Assyrian Zeus! On thy fragrant altar, that thousand-year-old wise bird the phoenix lays sweetsmelling woods with his curved claw, bringing the end of one life and the beginning of another; for there he is born again, self-begotten, the image of equal time renewed — he sheds old age in the fire, and from the fire takes in exchange youthful bloom. Be thou called Sarapis, the cloudless Zeus of Egypt; be thou Cronos, or Phaethon of many names, or Mithras the Sun of Babylon, in Hellas Delphic Apollo; be thou Gamos, whom Love begat in shadowy dreams, fulfilling the deceptive desire of a mock union, when from sleeping Zeus, after he had sprinkled the damp seed over the earth with the self-wedding point of the sword, the heights brought forth by reason of the heavenly drops; be thou painquelling Paieon, or patterned Heaven; be thou called the Starclad, since by night starry mantles illuminate the sky — O hear my voice graciously with friendly ears!”

  [411] Such was the hymn of Dionysos. Suddenly in form divine the Starclad flashed upon him in that dedicated temple. The fiery eyes of his countenance shot forth a rosy light, and the shining god, clad in a patterned robe like the sky, and image of the universe, with yellow cheek sparkling and a starry beard, held out a hand to Lyaios, and entertained him with good cheer at a friendly table. He enjoyed a feast without meatcarving, and touched nectar and ambrosia: why not indeed, if he did drink sweet nectar, after the immortal milk of Hera? Then he spoke to the Starclad in words full of curiosity: