Works of Nonnus

by Nonnus

  [486] Thus he pleaded, but the maiden was angry and would not listen; so he left her, pouring out his last words into the air —

  [488] “Happy son of Myrrha, you have got a fine daughter, and now a double honour is yours alone; you alone are named father of Beroe and bridegroom of the Foamborn.”

  [491] Thus Earthshaker was flogged by the blows of the cestus; but he offered many gifts to Adonis and Cythereia, bride gifts for the love of their daughter. Dionysos burning with the same shaft brought his treasures, all the shining gold that the mines near the Ganges had brought forth in their throes of labour; earnestly but in vain he made his petition to Aphrodite of the sea.

  [497] Now Paphia was anxious, for she feared both wooers of her much wooed girl. When she saw equal desire and ardour of love in both, she announced that the rivals must fight for the bride, a war for a wedding, a battle for love. Cypris arrayed her daughter in all a woman’s finery, and placed her upon the fortress of her country, a maiden to be fought for as the dainty prize of contest. Then she addressed both gods in the same words:

  [506] “I could wish had I two daughters, to wed one as is justly due to Earthshaker, and one to Lyaios; but since my child was not twins, and the undefiled laws of marriage do not allow us to join one girl to a pair of husbands together change and change about, let battle be chamberlain for one single bride, for without hard labour there is no marriage with Beroe. Then if you would wed the maid, first fight it out together; let the winner lead away Beroe without brideprice. Both must agree to an oath, since I fear for the girl’s neighbouring city where I am known as Cityholder, that because of Beroe’s beauty I may lose Beroe’s home. Make treaty before the marriage, that seagod Earthshaker if he lose the victory shall not in his grief lay waste the land with his trident’s tooth; and that Dionysos shall not be angry about Amymone’s wedding and destroy the vineyards of the city. And you must be friends after the battle: both be rivals in singlehearted affection, and in one contract of goodwill adorn the city of the bride with still more brilliant beauty.”

  [526] The wooers agreed to this proposal. Both took a binding oath, by Cronides and Earth, by Sky and the floods of Styx; and the Fates formally witnessed the bargain. Then Strife grew greater to escort the Loves, and Turmoil also; Persuasion the handmaid of marriage, armed them both. From heaven came all the dwellers on Olympos, with Zeus, and stayed to watch the combat upon the rocks of Lebanon.

  [534] Then appeared a great portent for lovestricken Dionysos. A stormswift falcon was in chase of a feeding pigeon; he drooped his breeze-impregnated wings, when suddenly an osprey caught up the pigeon from the ground and flew to the deep, holding the bird high in gentle talons. When Dionysos beheld this, he cast away hope of victory; nevertheless he entered the fray. Father Cronion was pleased with the contest of these two, as he watched from on high the match between his brother and his son with smiling eye.

  BOOK XLIII

  Look again at the forty-third, in which I sing a war of the waters and a battle of the vine.

  So battlestirring Ares, who leads the channel for Love, shouted the warcry to prepare for the bridal combat. Enyo laid the foundations of the war for a wedding: and lusty Hymenaios was he that kindled the quarrel for Earthshaker and Dionysos — he danced into the battle, holding the bronze pike of Amyclaian Aphrodite, while he drooned a tune of war on a Phrygian hoboy. For King of Satyrs and Ruler of the Sea, a maiden was the prize. She stood silent, but reluctant to have a foreign wedding with a wooer from the sea; she feared the watery bower of love in the deep waves, and preferred Bacchos: she was like Deianeira, who once in that noisy strife for a bride preferred Heracles, and stood there fearing the wedding with a fickle bullhorn River.

  [16] Heaven unclouded by its own spinning whirl trumpeted a call to war; and Seabluehair armed himself with his Assyrian trident, shaking his maritime pike and pouring a hideous din from a mad throat. Dionysos threatening the sea danced into the fray with vineleaves and thyrsus, seated in the chariot of his mother mountainranging Rheia; and round the rim of the Mygdonian car was a vine self-grown, which covered the whole body of Bacchos, and girdled its overshadowing clusters under entwined ivy. A lion shaking his neck entwined under the yokestrap scratched the earth’s surface with sharp claw, as he let out a harsh roar from snarling lips. An elephant slowly advanced to a spring hard by, striking straight into the ground his firm unbending leg, lapped the rainwater with parched lips and dried up the stream; and as the waters became bare earth, he drove elsewhere the Nymph of the spring thirsty and uncovered.

  [34] Meanwhile, the lord of the waters prepared for conflict. There was confusion among the Nereids; the deities of the waters came from the stretches of the sea to form array. Poseidon’s house, the water of the sea, was flogged with long bunches of leaves; the caverns of the mountains were shaken by the trident, and the vines of Lebanon were rooted up. With wild leaps the Thyiades threw themselves upon a herd of black cattle of Poseidon’s, feeding near the sea. One with a touch cut through the back of a glaring bull, another sheared off from its forehead the two stiff projecting horns, one pierced the belly with destroying thyrsus, another slit the whole side of the creature: halfdead the bull sank down and rolled helpless on his back on the ground — as he rolled in the dust with these fresh wounds, one pulled off his hind legs, one tugged at the forefeet, and threw up the two hooves tumbling over and over straight up in the air.

  [52] Then Dionysos mustered his captains, and made five divisions for the watery conflict. The first line was led by him of the vine, Cilician Oineus, son of Ereuthalion, whom he begat near the Tauros of Phyllis, in the open air. The second was led by blackhair Helicaon, a blond man with rosy cheeks, and long curls of hair hanging down over his neck. Oinopion led the third, Staphylos stood before the fourth, two sons of a tippling sire, Oinomaos; Melantheus was captain of the fifth, an Indian chief and the son of Oinone the Ivy-nymph: his mother had wrapt her boy in leafy tips of the sweet-smelling vine for swaddlings, and bathed her son in the winepress teeming with strong drink. Such was the host armed with missiles of ivy which followed Bacchos the vinegod; and when he had armed them, Bacchos called to the host in stirring tones:

  [70] “Fight, Bassarids! When Lyaios is under arms, let my pipes of horn strike up a warlike tune, answering the booming sound of the conch, let the cymbals of bronze beat a loud noise with double clashings. Let Maron dancing in battle shoot Glaucos with manbreaking thyrsus. Go, tie up the hair of Proteus with ivy, something new for him! Let him leave the Egyptian water of the Pharian Sea, and change his sealskins for a speckled fawnskin, and bow his bold neck to me. Let Melicertes fight against drunken Seilenos, if he can. Teach old Phorcys to leave the seaweedy deeps and dwell in Tmolos holding a thyrsus, and let the old man become a vinegrower on land. Let the Satyr stand fast and brandish his fennel, and with his countryman’s hands transport thirsty Nereus out of the sea; enwreath Palaimon’s hair with bonds of vine from newly planted gardens, and bring that charioteer of the sea from the depths of the Isthmian brine to be a servant for Mother Rheia and to guide her lions with his whip, for I will no longer leave my cousin in the deep: I will behold the host of the spear conquered sea decked out in the fawn skin. Give cymbals to the inexperienced Nereid Nymphs, mingle Hydriads with Bacchants — spare only the hospitable house of goddess Thetis, although she is one of the seabrood. Fit the unshod feet of Leucothea in buskins; let Doris appear on dry land and lift my mystic torch along with the revelling Bacchants; let Panopeia shake off the seaweed of the deep and wreathe her locks in clustering vipers; let Eidothea unwilling receive the rattling tambourine. What harm is there that Galateia should be servant to Dionysos, when she has a passion like his own mad love, that her hands may make a woven robe as a gift for the wedding pomp of Amymone the queen of Lebanon? — No, leave alone the family of Nereus; for I want no handmaids from the sea, or Beroe might be jealous.

  [109] “Let Pan my old mountainranger, proud with the longbranching points on his forehead, press P
oseidon with unarmed hand and butt him with sharp horn, strike him full in the chest with those curving prongs, or with a rocky stone, let him break with his hooves the ring of Triton’s backbone where his two natures join. Let Glaucos the attendant of brinesoaken Earthshaker be servant to Bacchos, and lift in his hands the rattling cymbals of Rheia which hang by a strap beside his neck. Not for Beroe alone I fight, but for the native city of my bride. Earthshaker must not strike it, but it must stand unshaken, although it lies in the sea and he is lord of the sea — he must not destroy it with his trident because I will face him in arms: it is as much one as the other — if the sea is its neighbour, it has ten thousand plants of mine, a sign of my victory; for close to the shore [are my vineyards] . But as for Pallas of old, so for the appeal of Bacchos, may a new Cecrops come as umpire, that the vine may be celebrated as citysustainer, like the olive. Then I will make the city of another shape: I will not leave it near the sea, but I will cut off rugged hills with my fennel and dam up the deep brine beside Berytos, making the water dry land and stony with rocks, and the rough road is smoothed by the sharp thyrsus.

  [133] “Come, fight again, Mimallones, confident in your constant victory — my fawnskin is red with the newly-shed blood of slain Giants, the very east still trembles before me, Indian Ares bows his neck to the ground, old Hydaspes shivers, and sheds tears of supplication, tears like his own flood! When I have won my bride of Lebanon after the battle in the sea, I grant one boon to Earthshaker the lover. If he will, he may sing a song at my wedding, only let him not look askance at my Beroe.”

  [143] So spoke Dionysos; and Seabluehair replied in threatening tones and mocked at him:

  [145] “I am ashamed to confront you, Dionysos, because you want to fight the swinger of the trident, when you fled from Lycurgos’s poleaxe! Look here, Thetis! Here is a fine return for life and safety that your fugitive Dionysos gives to the hospitable sea! I am not surprised, Torch bearer: fire killed your mother when you were born, so you act like the fire.

  [149] “Up, my dear Tritons, help — tie up the Bacchants and make them seafarers! May the cymbals that mountain harboured Seilenos holds be swallowed up in the sea, may the wave drag him along, may the Satyr float on the swelling flood and his Euian pipe toss on the rolling water; may Bassarids lay the bed for me instead of Lyaios in my watery hall. — Nay, I want no Satyrs, I drag no Mainads to the deep: Nereids are better. But let the Mimallones quench their thirst in the sea and drown there; instead of flowing draughts of wine let them drink my salt water. Let many a Bassarid driven by the wet pike of Proteus drift and toss aimlessly on the sea, tripping the dance of death for Lyaios. Drag down companies of Ethiopians and ranks of Indians as spoil for the Nereids; bring the daughters of nymph Cassiepeia, that tongue of evil, as slaves for Doris in tardy expiation. Let Oceanos banish viny Seirios from Olympos, the leader of that unresting dance in the winepress, and bathe in his resistless flood the fiery star of Maira.

  [172] “And you, Lydian Bacchos, leave your miserable thyrsus and seek you another weapon; put off your speckled fawnskins, the scanty covering of your limbs. If in that marriage the wooing flame of Zeus was your midwife, now fight with fire, O fireborn! now battle with the thunderbolt of your father against the helmsman of the trident, hurl the lightning and wield your father’s aegis. No champion Deriades faces you now: this is no contest with Lycurgos, no little Arabian fight, but your adversary is the sea so mighty. Heaven still trembles at my spear of the deep, Heaven knows what a battle with the sea is like. Champion Phaethon too in his celestial course felt the point of my trident, when the deep waged formidable war in that starry battle for Corinth. The sea rose to the sky, the thirsty wain bathed in the Ocean, Maira’s dog found salt water at hand to bathe in and cooled his hot chin; the deep bottom of the waters was uplifted in towering waves, the dolphin of the sea met the dolphin of the sky amid the lashing surges!”

  [192] As he spoke, he shook with his trident the secret places of the sea, roaring surf and swelling flood flogged the sky with booming torrents of water. The army of the brine took up their wet shields. Under the water beside the brinesoaked manger of Cronion, Melicertes shook the spear of the deep, and yoked the Isthmian team; he slung to the side of the seaborne car the spear of the seafaring king, and scored the back of the water with its triple prong — he yoked the Isthmian team, and the roar of Indian lions resounded along with the neighing of the horses.

  [203] He drove his watery course; as the car sped, the hoof unwetted, unmoistened, scored only the surface. The broadbearded Triton sounded his note for the mad battle — he has limbs of two kinds, a human shape and a different body, green, from loins to head, half of him, but hanging from his trailing wet loins a curving fishtail, forked. So Glaucos yoked beside their manger in the sea the team that travels in the swift gale, and as they galloped along dryfoot he touched up the necks of the horses with dripping whip, and chased the Satyrs. In the loud sea-tumult horned Pan, lightly treading upon the untrodden waters and splashing up the brine with his goats-hooves himself unwetted, skipt about quickly beating the sea with his crook and whistling the tune of war on his pipes; then hearing on the waves the shadow of a counterfeit sound carried by the wind, he ran all over the sea with his hillranging feet seeking the other sounds — and so the sea-echo produced by his pipes in the wind was hunted itself. Some one else tore up a firmbased island cliff and threw it at the Hydriads — the rock missed the Nereids and shook the hall of Palaimon among the seaweed.

  [225] Proteus left the flood of the Isthmian sea of Pallene, and armed him in a cuirass of the brine, the sealskin. Round him in a ring rushed the swarthy Indians at the summons of Bacchos, and crowds of the woollyheaded men embraced the shepherd of the seals in his various forms. For in their grasp the Old Man Proteus took on changing shapes, weaving his limbs into many mimic images. He spotted his body into a dappleback panther. He made his limbs a tree, and stood straight up on the earth a selfgrown spire, shaking his leaves and whistling a counterfeit whisper to the North Wind. He scored his back well with painted scales and crawled as a serpent; he rose in coils squeezing his belly, and with a dancing throb of his curling tail’s tip he twirled about, lifted his head and spat hissing from gaping throat and grinning jaws a shooting shower of poison. So from one shadowy shape to another in changeling form he bristled as a lion, charged as a boar, flowed as water — the Indian company clutched the wet flood in threatening grasp, but found the pretended water slipping through their hands. So the crafty Old Man changed into many and varied shapes, as many as the varied shapes of Periclymenos, whom Heracles slew when between two fingers he crushed the counterfeit shape of a bastard bee. Flocks of sea-monsters ringed round the Old Man on his expedition to dry land, water splashed with a heavy roar from the open mouths of the sand-loving seals.

  [253] Ancient Nereus armed himself with a watery spear, and led his regiment of daughters into the Euian struggle. With sea-traversing trident he leapt at the elephants, terrible to behold: many a neighbouring cliff along the shore toppled sideways under the seapike of Nereus. The tribes of Nereids sounded for their sire the cry of battle-triumph: unshod, half hidden in the brine, the company rushed raging to combat over the sea. Restless Ino speeding unarmed into strife with the Satyrs, fell again into her old madness spitting white foam from her maddened lips. Terrible Panopeia also shot through the quiet water flogging the greeny back of a sealioness. Galateia too the sea-nymph lifting the club of her lovesick Polyphemos attacked a wild Bacchant. Eido rode unshaken, unwetted, over the water mounted on the back of a seabred pilot fish.

  [270] As a driver in the circus rounding the post with skill, turns about the near horse to hug the post and lets the off horse follow along on a slackened rein, goading him on and yelling horselashing threats — he stoops and crouches, resting his knees on the rail, and leans to the side: as he drives a willing horse with the sparing hand of a master, and a little touch of the whip, as he turns his face casting an eye behind while he watches the car
of the driver behind — so then the Nereids drove their fishes like swift-moving horses about the watery goal of their contest. Another opposite handling her reins on a dolphin’s back peeped out over the water, and moved on her seaborne course as she rode down the quiet sea on the fish in a wild race over the waters; then the mad dolphin travelling in the sea half-visible cut through his fellow-dolphins.

  [286] The Rivers came roaring into the battle with Dionysos, encouraging their lord, and Oceanos gaped a watery bellow from his overflowing throat while Poseidon’s trumpet sounded to tell of the coming strife; the deeps rounded into a swell rallying to the Trident. Myrtoan hurried up to Icarian, Sardinian came near Hesperian, Iberian with swelling waves rolled along to Celtic; Bosporos never still mingled his curving stream with both his familiar seas; the deeps of the Ionian Sea rolling with the stormwind beat together upon the streams of Aegean, and the wild Adriatic brine rose high as the clouds and in towering waves beat on the feet of the raging Sicilian. Libyan Nereus caught up his conch under the water by Syrtis, and boomed on his sea-trumpet. Then one rising from the surge and stepping on land rested his left foot on a rock, and with right broke off the top of the cliff with earthshaking tread and hurled it at a Mainad’s inviolate head; and Melicertes lunging at Dionysos with his trident of the sea went madly along in leaps like his mother’s.

  [307] Companies of Bassarids marched to battle. One shaking the untidy clusters of her tresses to and fro, armed herself with raging madness for battle with the waters, driven wildly along with restless dancing feet. One whose home was in the Samothracian cavern of the Cabeiroi, skipt about the peaks of Lebanon crooning the barbarous notes of Corybantian tune. Another from Tmolos on a lioness newly whelped, having wreathed snakes in her own manly hair, a Maionian Mimallon unveiled, bellowed and set her foot on the lofty slope, with foam on her lips like the seafoam. Seilenoi spluttering drops of Cilician wine-dew equipt themselves as riders of Mygdonian lions, and danced “with a din against the crowd from the sea, brandishing in their hands their viny warpole, as they stretched their hands over the lions’ necks and plucked at the mane and boldly checked their furious mounts by this bristly bridle. A Seilenos tore off a roof from a rocky hole and attacked Palaimon, and drove Ino wandering through the water with his ivy spear. One fought with another: a Bacchant did not shrink but cast a thyrsus hurtling against the trident, she, a Bacchant and a woman; Nereus defending the sea came on land to fight with foaming arms against a rock-loving Pan; a mountain Bacchant chased the god of Pallene with blood-dripping ivy, but did not shake him! Glaucos assailed Dionysos, but Maron shot his thyrsus at him and shook him off. A cloudhigh elephant with earthshaking motions of his limbs stamped about his stiff legs with massive unbending knee, and attacked an earth-bedding seal with his long snout. Satyrs also bustled about in dancing tumult, trusting to the horns on their bull-heads, while the straight tail draggled from their loins for a change as they hurried. Hosts of Seilenoi rushed along, and one of them with his two legs straddling across the back of a bull, squeezed out a tune on his two pipes tied together. A Mygdonian Bacchant rattled her pair of cymbals, with hair fluttering in the brisk winds; she flogged the bowed neck of a wild bear against a monster of the deep, and the wild panther of the mountains was driven by a thyrsus-goad. One Bassarid possessed with mindrobbing throes of madness skipt over the sea with unwetted feet, as if she were dancing upon Poseidon’s head — she stamped on the waves, threatened the silent sea, flogged the deaf water with her thyrsus, that Bassarid who never sank; from her hair blazed fire selfkindled over her neck and burnt it not, a wonder to behold. Psamathe sorrowful on the beach beside the sea, watching the turmoil of seabattling Dionysos, uttered the dire trouble of her heart in terrified words: