Deriades, the gigantic Indian chieftain, was fighting furiously in the mad battle and attacking the servants of Bromios, now casting a long spear, now striking with the hilted sword; or he rushed about throwing boulders from the mountain torrents and shooting arrows sharper still.
In this manner the women within the walls were harried by the spears of Deriades; and there was a din from both sides of many tongues. The paved streets of the city were empurpled by the red gore, as the women were slain therein amid great tumult. The old men were seated unmoving upon the high precipitous walls, watching the fray; the women also upon the rooftops gazed at the whole thyrsusbearing throng, and many a longrobed maiden from her chamber above leaning upon her nurse marked this female warfare, and lamented with tears the slaughter of some girl of her own years. But no man took and forced any lovely nymph; for the king had commanded his womanmad people to eschew meddling or marrying with the captives of the spear, lest in

thinking of the Paphian they should be slack in the fight.
But a girl rolling upon the ground was bared, her dress was pulled aside, and armed with her own radiance, wounded she wounded her lusting slayer; her beauty was her bolt, and dying she conquered; her naked thighs were as weapons, and sped the arrows of the Loves against her slayer. Then he would have felt desire for a lifeless corpse, as Achilles did — seeing a new Penthesileia on the ground, he would have kissed the cold lips of the girl, prostrate in the dust, had he not feared the weight of the threat of Deriades. He looked at the skin of the naked girl denied him, he gazed at her white ankles, at the parting of the uncovered thighs, touched her limbs, handled often the swelling rosy breast even now like an apple; he would even have mingled with her in love — but at last, tired, he let these foolish words of desire escape him:
" Maiden of the rosy arms, wounded yourself you have wounded your lovesick slayer, slain you conquer the living, you pierce your own destroyer with the arrows of your eyes! The spear has been conquered by your beauty; for the radiance of your face deals confusion as much as the barbs of javelins. Your bosom is as a bow, since your breasts are more potent archers of the Loves than arrows are. A strange incredible desire is in me, when I pursue a girl's dead love to attain a perished wedlock! A thing without breath goads me, the breathing. If I dare ask it, let those lips have breath and speech, maiden, that I may hear a word from your sweet

mouth, speaking something like this: ' You killed me, you plundered me, rolling upon the ground! Then let a girl be, scoundrel. Touch not my tunic, when your steel has cut me! Why do you hold the side which you have wounded? Stroke no more the cruel wound which you gave me! ' Away my spear, away the boldness of my hand, because it left alone Seilenoi with hoary bristling hair and all the ugly generation of Satyrs, and instead of old men, instead of shaggy chests, it vanquished a tender girl! But now I touch the wound in your so desirable flesh, what ridge of the pasturing woodlands must I traverse to summon old lifebringing Cheiron to help your wound? or where can I find medicines, the secrets of the Healer's painassuaging art? Would that I had what they call the herb centaury, that I might bind the flower of no-pain upon your limbs, and bring you back safe and living from Hades whence none returns! What magic hymn have I, or song from the stars, that I may chant the ditty with Euian voice divine, and stay the flow of blood from your wounded side? Would I had here beside me the fountain of life, that I might pour on your limbs that painstilling water and assuage your adorable wound, to bring back even your soul to you again! O Glaucos, guiding the revolutions of innumerable years, if it be lawful, leave the abyss of the barren sea, and show me the life-sufficing plant, show that which you tasted once with your lips, and now enjoy life incorruptible, circling with the course of infinite time!" This said, he passed on, hiding in his heart his desire for the dead.

Then arose the bride Protonoe, who still mourned Orontes dead, to avenge her slain husband. She dashed through the crowd of women, and one might have thought her another manlike Atalante among the Erythraians. And Cheirobie seizing a shield and the spear of Morrheus attacked the Bassarids, and seemed like that Gorge, who once when well-walled Calydon was attacked wielded the oxhide shield of Toxeus her brother, and fought though a woman while Meleagros sulked. And Orsiboe appeared with her battlestirring husband, imitating the boldness of warlike Deianeira, when beside the inhospitable rock of Parnassus she faced the Dryopes and fought, a woman turned Amazon. Many women were shut up in the wide palace courtyards, and there was infinite lamentation in the turmoil under those roofs. Many a battlestirring maiden entered the fight in the street, other women on the roofs provided themselves with stony missiles; and the crowds within kept up the din of warfare.
While Ares raged throughout the battlestirring city, destroying the hill-ranging Lydian tribes of Bassarids, Chalcomedeia stood alone in front of the wall. She had turned back to retire from the battle, and waited to see if love-maddened Morrheus would

appear from any quarter. He was then turning his enamoured eye all round; and when he perceived the maiden, he came windfoot, plying his nimble knees in the race for love. As he pursued her, the breeze lifted her robe. Morrheus was charmed even more by the naked beauty of her body, as he gazed at the white nymph running unveiled before him. She deluded him still as she cried with modest voice, trembling at his quickening speed —
If truly you would have my bed, bridegroom Morrheus, put off your steel corselet. Even Ares dances daintily clad to his wedding, when he mingles with Cypris, decked in a snowy robe like Apollo. Be like him, that Cypris and Desire may join us both with one band when we mount the marriage bed, valiant Eros bind Morrheus and Aphrodite bind Chalcomede. I do not want in my bed a husband of bronze, red with blood and dirty with dust. Nay, cleanse your body in the river, that you may shine like Phaethon bathed in the Ocean stream; throw away your warlike shield, throw away the spear, that your deathdealing point may not strike me. Pray put off that terrifying helmet from your hair, because the crest of the nodding plume disturbs me. Let me not see only the pretended shape of a steel countenance. What desire can warm me if your shape is hidden?
♦ I will never more set foot in Maeonia. After Morrheus, if that is your pleasure, never will I receive Bacchos in my chamber to sleep by my side. I will be an Indian like you, my friend! Instead of Lydian Aphrodite, I will honour the Erythraian with my sacrifices, I will be the secret bedmate of Morrheus; let a brave Indian have me as Aphrodite's

champion in battle. For Desire has aimed double shots against you and me both alike, and joined us in the same pangs, piercing the heart of Morrheus and the bosom of Chalcomedeia. I suffer, as I hide my longing for you — for a modest maiden does not invite a man to be her lover." By these words the woman cajoled the lovepining soldier, all in deceit; but lovesick Morrheus laughed, and said:
" What wonder is it, if Morrheus the helmeted soldier should keep his spear of bronze in the bronze lassie's chamber, to embrace you holding my bronze when there is bronze in your name? Never mind, I will reject my deadly spear, I will not touch my oxhide. I will do your pleasure and bathe me, that I may dance to you with unblooded hands. I will be a different bedfellow, Ares naked holding Aphrodite naked after the battle! The daughter of Deriades I renounce: myself I will drive my jealous bride unwilling out of the house. No longer will I attack the Bassarids, if you say so, but I will fight against my own countrymen; I will take the vine-wreathed thyrsus and destroy Indians, not lifting a spear of bronze. I will throw away all my armour and brandish your little leaves, the champion of your king Dionysos!"
Saying this, Morrheus threw the ashplant from his hand, and undid the crest from his sweating head, and cast off the strap of his oxhide soaking and drenched with the drops of conflict, from the shoulder which knew it well. He unloosed also the coat of mail from his chest, the bloodstained corselet.
Then Cypris showed Ares the armour of enamoured Morrheus lying on the ground, conquered

by the unarmed beauty of Chalcomedeia, and a word she said in mockery of her paramour — “ Ares, you are beaten! Morrheus has renounced war, and bears no corselet and no sword; no, for love of a winsome woman he has cast the arms from his hands. You do the same — renounce your own valiant spear, strip off your shields and bathe in the sea! For Cypris.
out battle plays the champion better than Ares. She needs no shield, she never wants the ashplant; for my beauty is a spear for me, my fine shape also is my sword, the gleams of my eyes are my arrows. My breast lets fly a better shot than a javelin; for Morrheus has turned from a bold warrior to an amiable chamberlain! Do not go near Sparta, where the warlike people have a bronze image of armed Aphrodite, lest spear in hand she strike you with your own steel! You cannot shoot so straight as eyebrows do; your spikes do not wound men as eyeshots do. Look at your servants, the lackeys of the Loves, and bow your bold neck to Cythereia the unconquerable. You are conquered. Ares! For Morrheus has left his spear of bronze and donned the wedding fawnskin of Chalcomede.”
So smiling Aphrodite laughed, in mockery at Ares her lover and his battles.
Then Morrheus left his coat uncared-for on the seashore, glowing with sweet anxieties. Naked he bathed: the cool sea cleansed his body, but the Paphian's tiny dart was hot within him. In the waters he prayed to Erythraian Aphrodite of India, for he had learnt that Cypris is the daughter of the sea; but he came out still black from his bath, for his body was as nature had made it grow, and the

brine changed not the man's body or his colour, itself red though it was." So he washed his skin in a vain hope; for he had wished to become snow-white, and so desirable to the virgin maid. He dressed himself in a snowy linen robe, such as soldiers always wear inside the mailcoat.
Chalcomede stood on the shore in silence without a word, full of her scheme. She turned aside from Morrheus unclad, withdrawing her modest looks, ashamed before the uncovered body of a man; for the girl was abashed being a woman to look on a man after the bath.
But when Morrheus had seen a lonely spot suitable for lying down, he stretched out a daring hand towards the modest girl and caught the chaste maiden's inviolate dress. And now he would have seized her and girt her about with a strong man's arms, and ravished the maiden votary in the flame of a bridegroom's desire; but a serpent darted out of her immaculate bosom to protect the virgin maid, and curled about her waist guarding her body all round with its belly's coils. A sharp hiss issued unceasing from his throat and made the rocks resound. Morrheus trembled for fear when he heard the bellow, coming out from the throat for all the world like a trumpet, and saw this champion of unwedded maidenhood. The coiled defender terrified the man of war; he curled his tail round the man's neck in twisted coils, with his wild mouth for a lance, and many a snaky shaft came darting poison against him, some darting through her uncoifed hair, some from her snakeprotected loins, some from her breast, wild warriors hissing death.
While Morrheus remained in front of the towering

city, trying without success to drag the resourceful Chalcomede to his lust, the armed company of Bassarids was saved from the spear of untiring Deriades. For swiftwing Hermes came in haste from Olympos, wearing a semblance like the face of Bromios and summoned the whole company of Bacchants in his mystic voice. When the women heard the divine Euian sounds, they gathered into one place; Swiftshoe brought them from the threeways and led the whole tribe of Mainalids by crooked winding lanes until he was near the walls. Then furtive Hermeias the warrior by night, dth his allcharming rod shed refreshing sleep on the unresting eyes of the guards in order. Suddenly for the Iildians there was darkness, for the unseen Bacchants there was light unexpected. The women made no noise as Hermes led them secretly through the city without his wings. With his divine hand he opened the forbidding lock of the precipitous gates, and for the Bacchants the sun was there.
When Lightbringer Hermes had dispersed this night-by-day, haughty Deriades thwarted in his threats searched for the swarms of Bassarids who had just walked out of the city. As one dreaming in the night of boundless riches is happy in his unattainable hopes, and lifts in full hands the flood of wealth which will soon be gone, feeding the deceptive hope of his dream-fortune; but when rosy dawn appears, the fortune of his dreams fades and vanishes like a vision, and he awakes with empty hands, holding nothing, and loses the shadowy happiness of his delusive dream: so then Deriades, while darkness covered the streets, was happy, thinking that he held the captive Bassarids ready to come hurrying to him

within closed gates, although his victory was a useless deceptive shadow; but when the light came, and he saw no Bacchants, all was gone like a dream, and he cried in a mournful voice, indignant with Zeus and Phaethon and Dionysos, as he searched for the fugitive Mainalids. But around the walls the Bassarids unveiled shouted with Euian voice. Then Deriades set out in pursuit for the second time.
Zeus awoke on the peaks of Caucasus and threw off the wing of sleep. He understood the beguiling trick of Hera the mischiefmaker when he saw the Seilenoi in flight, when he saw the Bacchant women hurrying in herds from the threeways and the walls, and behind them the Indian chieftain Deriades, cutting down Satyrs and mowing down women; he saw his own son lying upon the ground, and the nymphs all round him in a ring, but he lay in the whirling dust heavy-headed, half-fainting, breathing hard, sputtering white foam to witness his frenzy. Then Zeus disclosed Hera's mischievous contrivance, and reproached his deceitful consort with stinging words. And now indeed he would have imprisoned Sleep in the darksome pit of gloom to dwell along with murky Iapetos," but for the prayers of Night the vanquisher of gods and men. So Zeus calmed his savage resentment with difficulty, and cried out to Hera:
" Have you not yet been cruel enough to my Semele, invincible Hera? Must you still be bitter against her though dead? So even the bridal flame itself could not assuage your unending rancour, when it scattered abroad the bed of Thyone struck by Zeus! How long will you oppress Dionysos the

Indianslayer? Do not forget those stones of long ago! I have them still, I have them ready for use — the ones I tied fast on to your feet: there you dangled in the sky and the clouds high above the earth, and suffered tortures! Bold Ares saw you tied up and wrapt in clouds high above the earth, but he could not help his mother. Fiery Hephaistos could not help, for he cannot stand one spark of blazing thunderbolt. I will tie up your hands again in that same old golden chain. Ares I will fasten with galling fetters unbreakable to whirl upon a selfrolling wheel, to run with him, like a Tantalos travelling the skies or a banished Ixion. I will flog him all over with stripes incurable until my son shall conquer the sons of India.
" But how kind you would be to your Cronion, if you will only drive that distracting madness from tormented Dionysos! Do not fail your provoked husband; but go uncaught to the fertile slope of the woodland pastures of India, and offer your breast to Bacchos as once did my mother Rheia; let him draw with his lips older grown your holy drops, and by that draught lead him on the way to Olympos and make heaven lawful ground for the feet of earthborn Dionysos! Anoint with your milk the body of Lyaios, and cleanse the ugly stains of mind-robbing disease. And I offer you a worthy reward; for I will place in Olympos a circle, image of that flow named after Hera's milk, to honour the allfamous sap of your saviour breast. Only I pray you beware of the

menace of Zeus, and stretch again no other net of deceit for Dionysos his beloved son." So saying, he dismissed his resentful consort Hera, to heal the trouble of Bacchos against her will, to be gracious and friendly towards afflicted Dionysos, that her hands might salve the body of Bromios with the milky dew from her godnursing breasts.
Hera did not disobey. She anointed the body of Lyaios with the divine drops of her painhealing teat, and wiped away the stains of the wild divine frenzy. When she saw the manhood and radiance of Dionysos and touched mad Bacchos with grudging hands, she felt a double jealousy although her face hid it. She opened her dress on both sides for his lips, and bared her teats full of ambrosia, pressing the jealous breast to let the milk flow, and brought him back to life. With her great eyes she measured all the youthful strength of longhaired Lyaios, wondering if ever mortal mother brought forth such a shape, if shakespear Ares was so tall as this, if Hermes, if Phaethon was such, or sweetvoiced Apollo; and she wished him in heaven as Hebe's bridegroom, had not Zeus our Lord on High ordained that in days to come twelvelabour Heracles was fated to be her husband.
She then, after healing the madness of Bacchos, returned again to the company of the stars on high, that she might not see the weaponless army of Dionysos fighting with fennel and bundles of vine, and killing warriors with a little manbreaking thyrsus.
Now the son of Zeus did not neglect the battle. He appeared once more and armed his soldiers; he waved the fleshcutting ivy in giantslaying hand, and summoned the host again with cries:

“Courage, to battle once more! Zeus again stands in our front for the fight; he is gracious to Bacchos his son, and the company of the immortals has come from heaven to defend Dionysos. Hera is no longer our enemy. Who will fight with the lightning of Cronides? When will cowardly enemies stand if the thunderbolt is ready? I will show myself equal to my Father. Cronion my father conquered Earth's brood, the Titans, in battle: I also will conquer the earthborn nation of Indians!
” This day after the victory of the vinebearers behold obstinate Deriades a supplicant, and the Indian host bending the neck before peaceful Dionysos, and the river rolling the staggering liquor of Euios! You shall see our adversaries beside the mixing-bowl of Dionysos quaffing ruddy water out of the winerunning-river; and the bold Indian king, fettered with ivy and vineclusters, rolling among leaves and clusters of grapes, wearing fetters like those which the divine Nysiad nymphs, now that the surges of madness are over, still tell of: those witnesses of my prowess, when my strong and potent fruitage throttled with a noose of ivy the man who fought against the gods and frightened Arabia, when Lycurgos was constrained by bonds of vine.
" At last after so many periods of rolling conflict, seize the booty of your enemies, and those shining stones the glory of the sea! Drag off the women by the hair and take them to Rheia my mother! Take your vengeance for our fallen warriors, whose fate afflicts me with sharp pangs. In my heart is both anger and sorrow, that I see Deriades alive and Opheltes unburied, reproaching after death the

idle hand of Lyaios. Codone arms herself no longer, poor Alcimacheia fights no more brandishing her spear; nay, even Aibialos has fallen, and still I hold back my thyrsus. I am ashamed after the battle to think of Arestor,' lest he should hear that Opheltes at the instant of death found none to help him. I cannot traverse the Corybantian city of Crete , lest Agelaos the father should lament for his dead son, if he hears that Antheus perished unavenged. I am ashamed to show myself to Minos, for Asterios lies in his hut suffering and wounded, whom more than any I will succour, since he has in him the blood of Europa; surely I will bring home my own kinsman safe and sound from the war, and give him back to his father, that Cadmos may never hear that Asterios looked in vain for runaway Dionysos. Come, to the battle again! In one I will defend all, when I have killed the one who destroyed so many."