He obeyed her request; treading on Time's heels hot Love swiftly sped, plying his feet into the wind, high in the clouds scoring the air with winged step, and carried his flaming bow; the quiver too, filled with gentle fire, hung down over his shoulder. As when a star stretches straight with a long trail of sparks, a swift traveller through the unclouded sky, bringing a portent for a warhost or some sailor man, and streaks the back of the upper air with a wake of fire — so went furious Eros in a swift rush, and his wings beat the air with a sharp whirring sound that whistled down from the sky. Then near the Assyrian rock he united two fiery arrows on one string, to bring two wooers into like desire for the love of a maid, rivals for one bride, the vinegod and the ruler of the sea.
Meanwhile one came from the deep waters of the sea-neighbouring roadstead, and one left the land of Tyre, and among the mountains of Lebanon the two met in one place. Maron loosed the panther sweating from the yoke of his awful car, and brushed off the dust

and swilled the beasts with water of the fountain, cooling their hot scarred necks. Then Eros came quickly up to the maiden hard by, and struck both divinities with two arrows. He maddened Dionysos to offer his treasures to the bride, life's merry heart and the ruddy vintage of the grape; he goaded to love the lord of the trident, that he might bring the sea-neighbouring maid a double lovegift, seafaring battle on the water and varied dishes for the table. He set Bacchos more in a flame, since wine excites the mind for desire, and wine finds unbridled youth much more obedient to the rein when it is charmed with the prick of unreason; so he shot Bacchos and drove the whole shaft into his heart, and Bacchos burnt, as much as he was charmed by the trickling honey of persuasion. Thus he maddened them both; and in the counterfeit shape of a bird circling his tracks in the airy road as swift as the rapid winds, he rose with paddling feet, and cried these taunting words: “If Dionysos confounds men with wine, I excite Bacchos with fire!”The vinegod turned his eye to look, and scanned the tender body of the longhaired maiden, full of admiration the conduit of desire; his eye led the way and ferried the newborn love. Dionysos wandered in that heartrejoicing wood, secretly fixing his careful gaze on Beroe, and followed the girl's path a little behind. He could not have enough of his gazing; for the more he beheld the maid standing there, the more he wanted to watch. He called to Helios, reminding the chief of stars of his love for Clymene, and prayed him to hold back his car and check the stalled horses with the heavenly bit, that he might prolong the sweet light, that he might go

slow to his setting and with sparing whip increase the day to shine again. Pressing measured step by step in Beroe's tracks the god passed round her as if noticing nothing; while Earthshaker stole from Lebanon with lingering feet, and departed with steps slow to obey, turning again and again, his mind shifting like the sea and rippling with billows of ever-murmuring care.
Unsated, in the delicious forests of Lebanon, Dionysos was left alone beside the lonely girl. Dionysos was left alone! Tell me, Oreiad Nymphs, what could he wish for more lovely than to see the maiden's flesh, alone, and free from lovesick Earthshaker? He kissed with a million kisses the place where she set her foot, creeping up secretly, and kissed the dust where the maiden had trod making it bright with her shoes of roses. Bacchos watched the girl's sweet neck, her ankles as she walked, beauty which nature had given her, the beauty which nature had made: for no ruddy ornament for the skin had Beroe smeared on her round rosy face, no meretricious rouge put a false blush on her cheeks. She consulted no shining mirror of bronze with its reflection a witness of her looks, she laughed at no lifeless form of a mimic face to estimate her beauty, she was not for ever arranging the curls over her brows, and setting in place some stray wandering lock of hair by her eyebrows with cunning touch. But the natural beauties of a face confound the desperate lover with far sharper sting, and the untidy tresses of an unbedizened head are all the more dainty, when they stray unbraided down the sides of a snow-white face.
Sometimes athirst when beaten by the heat of

the fiery Dog of heaven, the girl sought out a neighbouring spring with parched lips; the girl bent down her curving neck and stooped her head, dipping a hand again and again and scooping the water of her own country to her mouth, until she had enough and left the rills. When she was gone, Dionysos would bend his knee to the lovely spring, and hollow his palms in mimicry of the beloved girl: then he drank water sweeter than selfpoured nectar. And the unshod deep-bosomed nymph of the spring, seeing him struck by the sting of desire, would say;
" Cold water to drink, Dionysos, is of no use to you; for all the stream of Oceanos cannot quench the thirst of love. Ask your own father! Europa's bridegroom traversed that wide gulf and yet did not quench the fire of longing, but he suffered still more on the waters. Witness wandering Alpheios, whom you see the servant of waterfaring love, in that trailing water through water in all those floods he escaped not hot love, though he was a watery traveller!" So said the unveiled Naiad, and laughed at Lyaios, diving into her spring, which had one colour with her body. And the god grudging at Poseidon ruler of the waves felt fear and jealousy, since the maiden drank water and not wine. He uttered his voice to the unhearing air, as if the girl were there to hear and obey:
" Maiden, accept the nectar — leave this water that maidens love! Avoid the water of the spring, lest Seabluehair steal your maidenhood in the water — for a mad lover and a crafty one he is! You know

the love of Thessalian Tyro and her wedding in the waters; then you too take care of the crafty flood, lest the deceiver loose your girdle just as the weddingthief Enipeus did. O that I also might become a flood, like Earthshaker, and murmuring might embrace my own Tyro of Lebanon, thirsty and careless beside the lovestricken spring!"
So the god spoke; and changing his form for another he plunged into the shady thicket where the maiden was, Euios wholly like a hunter; in a new and unknown aspect he joined the softhaired unyoked maid, like a youth, moulding a false image of modesty with steady looks on his face. Now he surveyed the peak of a lonely rock, now he spied into the longbranching trees on the uplands, turning an eager eye on a pine or again inspecting a firtree, or an elm — but with cautious countenance and stolen glances he watched the girl so close to him, lest she should turn and run away; for beauty and the eyes of a girl of his own age have little consolation to a lad who gazes at her for the loves which the Cyprian sends.
He came near to Beroe and would have spoken a word, but fear held him fast. God of jubilation, where is your manslaying thyrsus? Where your frightful horns? Where the green snaky ropes of earthfed serpents in your hair? Where is your heavybooming bellow? See a great miracle — Bacchos trembling before a maid, Bacchos before whom the tribes of the giants trembled! Love's fear has conquered the destroyer of giants. He mowed down all that warmad nation of the Indians, and he fears one weak lovely girl, fears a tender woman. On the

mountains he quieted the terrifying roar of lions with his beast-ruling fennel, and he trembled before a woman's threat. A word strayed into his trembling mouth to the tip of his tongue close behind the lips — it came from his heart and crept back to his heart again, but the bittersweet fear held it in shamefast silence, and drew back the voice, as it tried to issue into the light. Too late he spoke, and hardly then, when he burst the chain of shame from his lips and undid the procrastinating silence, and asked Beroe in a voice of pretence,
" Artemis, where are your arrows? Who has stolen your quiver? Where did you leave the tunic you wear, just covering the knees? Where are those boots quicker than the whirling wind? Where is your company in attendance? Where are your nets? Where your fleet hounds? You are not making ready for chase of the pricket, for you do not wish to hunt where Cypris is sleeping beside Adonis." So he spoke, feigning astonishment, and the maiden smiled in her heart; she lifted a proud neck in unsuspicious pleasure, rejoicing in her youthful freshness, because she, a mortal woman, was likened to a goddess in beauty, and did not see the trick of mindconfusing Dionysos. But Bacchos was yet more affected, because the girl in her childish simplicity knew not desire; he wished she might learn his own overpowering passion, since when the girl knows, there is always hope for the lad that love will come at last, but when women do not notice, man's desire is only a fruitless anxiety.
" Thus day after day, midday and afternoon, morning and evening, the god lingered in the pinewood, waiting for the girl and ever willing to wait;

for men can have enough of all things, of sweet sleep and melodious song, and when one turns in the moving dance — but only the man mad for love never has enough of his longing; Homer's book did not tell the truth! Dionysos suffered and moaned in silence, struck with the divine whip, stewing the hidden wound of love in his restless heart. As an ox goes scampering over the flats past the well-known swarm of hillranging bulls, driven from the herd when a gadfly has pierced his hide with sharp sting under the leafy trees unnoticed: how small the sting that strikes, how vast the bulk of the routed beast! he lifts the tail straight over his back and lashes back, bends and scratches his chine on the rocks, and darts a sharp horn at his side striking only the unwounded elastic air — so Dionysos, crowned so often with victory, was pricked by little Love and his allbewitching sting.
At length, seeking a sweet medicine for love, he disclosed to bushybreasted Pan in words full of passion the unsleeping constraint of his desire, and craved advice to defend him against love. Horned Pan laughed aloud, when he heard the firebreathing torments of Bacchos, but, a luckless lover himself, heartbroken he pitied one unhappy in love, and gave him love-advice; it was a small alleviation of his own love to see another burnt with a spark from the same quiver:
" We are companions in suffering, friend Bacchos, and I pity your feelings. How comes it that bold Love has conquered you too? If I dare to say song and dance with trippling feet, yet a time comes when they pall, you can have enough of all — but these Trojans never can have enough of war!"

So, Eros has emptied his quiver on me and Dionysos! But I will tell you the multifarious ways of deception in love.
" Every woman has greater desire than the man, but shamefast she hides the sting of love, though mad for love herself; and she suffers much more, since the sparks of love become hotter when women conceal in their bosoms the piercing arrow of love. Indeed, when they tell each other of the force of desire, their gossip is meant to soothe the pain and deceive their voluptuous longings. And you, Bacchos, must wear a deceptive blush of pretended shame to carry your love along. You must keep an unsmiling countenance as if through modesty, and stand beside Beroe as if by mere chance. Hold your nets in hand, and look at the rosy girl with pretended amazement, praising her beauty; say that not Hera has the like, call the Graces less fair, find fault with the good looks of both Artemis and Athena, tell Beroe she is more brilliant than Aphrodite. Then the girl when she hears your feigned faultfinding, stands there more delighted with your praise; more than mountains of gold she would hear about her rosy comeliness, how her beauty surpasses all the friends of her youth. Charm the maiden to love with a meaning silence. Let your eyelids move, send wink and beck towards her. Open your hand and slap your brow without mercy, and show your feigned amazement by prudent silence. You will say, fear restrains you in the presence of a modest maid; tell me, what will a lonely girl do to you? She shakes no spear, she draws no shaft with that rosy hand; the girl's weapons are those eyes which shoot love, her batteries are

those rose-red girlish cheeks. For lovegifts to be treasures for your bride, do not display the Indian jewel, or pearls, as is the way of mad lovers; for to get love, your own handsome shape is enough — to touch your beautiful body is what women want, not gold!
" I need no other testimony — what gifts did Selene take from softhaired Endymion? What lovegift did Adonis produce for Cypris? Orion gave no silver to Dawn; Cephalos provided no delectable wealth; but the only one it seems who did offer handsome gifts was Hephaistos, being lame, to make up for his unattractive looks, and then he failed to persuade Athena — his birthdelivering axe did not help him, but he missed the goddess he wanted.
" But there is a stronger charm for wedded union, which I will teach you if you like. Twang the lyre which was dedicated to your Rheia, the delicate treasure of Cypris beside the winecup. Pour out the varied sounds together, voice and striker! Sing first Daphne," sing the erratic course of Echo,' and the answering note of the goddess who never fails to speak, for these two despised the desire of gods. Yes, and sing also of Pitys who hated marriage, who fled fast as the wind over the mountains to escape the unlawful wooing of Pan, and her fate — how she disappeared into the soil herself; put the blame on the Earth! Then she may perhaps lament the sorrows and the fate of the wailing nymph; but you must let your heart rejoice in silence, as you see the honey

sweet tears of the sorrowing maid. No laugh was ever like that, since women become more desirable with that ruddy flush when they mourn. Sing Selene madly in love with Endymion, sing the wedding of graceful Adonis, sing Aphrodite herself wandering dusty and unshod, and tracking her bridegroom over the hills. Beroe will not run away from you when she hears the honeyhearted lovestories of her home. There you have all I can tell you, Bacchos, for your unhappy love! Now you tell me something to charm my Echo."
Having said his say, he dismissed the son of Thyone comforted. Then Dionysos put on a serious look, the trickster! and questioned the maiden about her father Adonis, as a friend of his, as a fellow-hunter among the hills. She stood still, he brought a longing hand near her breast, and stroked her belt as if not thinking what he did: but touching her breast, the lovesick god's right hand grew numb. Once in her childlike way, the girl asked the son of Zeus beside her who he was and who was his father. With much ado he found an excuse, when he saw before the portals of Aphrodite the vineyard and the bounteous harvest of the land, the dewy meadow and all the trees; and in the cunning of his mind, he made as if he were a farm-labourer and spoke of wedding in words that meant more than they said:
" I am a countryman of your Lebanon. If it is your pleasure, I will water your land, I will grow your corn. I understand the course of the four Horae (seasons). When I see the limit of autumn is here, I will call aloud — Scorpion is rising with his bounteous plenty, he is the herald of a fruitful furrow, let us yoke oxen

to the plow. The Pleiads are setting: when shall we sow the fields? The furrows are teeming, when the dew falls on land parched by Phaethon. And in the showers of winter when I see Arcturos close to the Arcadian wain, I will exclaim — At last thirsty Earth is wedded with the showers of Zeus.' As the spring rises up, I will cry out in the morning — ' Your flowers are blooming, when shall I pluck lilies and roses? Just look how the iris has run over the neighbouring myrtle, how narcissus laughs as he leaps on anemone! ' And when I see the grapes of summer before me I will cry — ' The vine is in her prime, ripening without the sickle: Maiden, your sister has come — when shall we gather the grapes? Your wheatear is grown big and wants the harvest; I will reap the crop of corn-ears, and I will celebrate harvest home for your mother the Cyprus-born instead of Deo.
' Accept me as your labourer to help on your fertile lands. Take me as planter for your Foamborn, that I may plant that lifebringing tree, that I may detect the half-ripe berry of the tame vine and feel the newgrowing bud. I know how apples ripen; I know how to plant the widespreading elm too, leaning against the cypress. I can join the male palm happily with the female, and make pretty saffron, if you like, grow beside bindweed. Don't offer me gold for my keep; I have no need of wealth — my

wages will be two apples and one bunch of grapes of one vintage.'
All this he said in vain; the girl answered nothing, for she understood nothing of the mad lover's long speech.
But Eiraphiotes thought of trick after trick. He took the hunting-net from Beroe's hands and pretended to admire the clever work, shaking it round and round for some time and asking the girl many questions — “What god made this gear, what heavenly art? Who made it? Indeed I cannot believe that Hephaistos mad with jealousy made hunting-gear for Adonis!”
So he tried to bewilder the wits of the girl who would not be so charmed. Once it happened that he lay sound asleep on a bed of anemone leaves; and he saw the girl in a dream decked out in bridal array. For what a man does in the day, the image of that he sees in the night; the herdsman sleeping takes his horned cattle to pasture; the huntsman sees nets in the vision of a dream; men who work on the land plow the fields in sleep and sow the furrow with corn; a man parched at midday and possessed with fiery thirst is driven by deceiving sleep to a river, to a channel of water. So Dionysos also beheld the likeness of his troubles, and let his mind go flying in mimic dreams

until he was joined to her in a wedding of shadow. He awoke — and found no maiden, and wished once again to slumber: he carried away the empty largess of that short embrace, as he slept on the leaves of the anemone which perishes so soon. He reproached the dumb leaves there spread; and sorrowfully prayed to Sleep and Love and Aphrodite of the evening," all at once, to let him see the same vision of a dream once more, longing for the deceptive phantom of an embrace. Bacchos often slept near the myrtle and never dreamt of marriage. But sweet pain he did feel; and limb-relaxing Dionysos found his own limbs relaxed by lovestricken cares.
In company with Beroe's father, the son of Myrrha, he showed his hunting-skill. He cast his thyrsus, and wrapt himself in the dappled skins of the newslain fawns, ever with his eye secretly on Beroe; as he stood, the maiden covered her bright cheeks with her robe, to escape the wandering eye of Dionysos. She made him burn all the more, since the servants of love watch shamefast women more closely, and desire more strongly the covered countenance.
Once he caught sight of the unyoked girl of Adonis alone, and came near, and changed his human form and stood as a god before her. He told her his name and family, the slaughter of the Indians, how he found out for man the vine-dance and the sweet juice of wine to drink; then in loving passion he mingled audacity with a boldness far from modesty, and his flattering voice uttered this ingratiating speech;
" Maiden, for your love I have even renounced my home in heaven. The caves of your fathers are

better than Olympos. I love your country more than the sky; I desire not the sceptre of my Father Zeus as much as Beroe for my wife. Your beauty is above ambrosia; indeed, heavenly nectar breathes fragrant from your dress! Maiden, when I hear that your mother is Cypris, my only wonder is that her cestus has left you uncharmed. How is it you alone have Love for a brother, and yet know not the sting of love? But you will say Brighteyes had nothing to do with marriage; Athena was born without wedlock and knows nothing of wedlock. Yes, but your mother was neither Brighteyes nor Artemis. Well, girl, you have the blood of Cypris — then why do you flee from the secrets of Cypris? Do not shame your mother's race. If you really have in you the blood of Assyrian Adonis the charming, learn the tender rules of your sire whose blessing is upon marriage, obey the cestus girdle born with the Paphian, save yourself from the dangerous wrath of the bridal Loves! Harsh are the Loves when there's need, when they exact from women the penalty for love unfulfilled.
" YoY you know how Syrinx disregarded fiery Cythera, and what price she paid for her too-great pride and love for virginity; how she turned into a plant with reedy growth substituted for her own, when she had fled from Pan's love, and how she still sings Pan's desire! And how the daughter of Ladon, that celebrated river, hated the works of marriage and the nymph became a tree with inspired whispers, she escaped the bed of Phoibos but she crowned his hair with prophetic clusters. You too should beware of a god's horrid anger, lest hot Love should afflict you in heavy wrath. Spare not your

girdle, but attend Bacchos both as comrade and bedfellow. I myself will carry the nets of your father Adonis, I will lay the bed of my sister Aphrodite.
" What worthy gifts will Earthshaker bring? Will he choose his salt water for a bridegift, and lay sealskins breathing the filthy stink of the deep, as Poseidon's coverlets from the sea? Do not accept his sealskins. I will provide you with Bacchants to wait upon your bridechamber, and Satyrs for your chamberlains. Accept from me as bridegift my grape-vintage too. If you want a wild spear also as daughter of Adonis, you have my thyrsus for a lance — away with the trident's tooth! Flee, my dear, from the ugly noise of the neversilent sea, flee the madness of Poseidon's dangerous love! Seabluehair lay beside another Amymone, but after the bed the wife became a spring of that name. He slept with Scylla, and made her a cliff in the water.
He pursued Asterie, and she became a desert island; Euboia the maiden he rooted in the sea. This creature woos Amymone just to turn her too into stone after the bed; this creature offers as gift for his wedding a drop of water, or seaweed from the brine, or a deepsea conch. And I, distressed for your beauty as I stand here, what have I for you, what gifts shall I offer? The daughter of golden Aphrodite needs no gold. Shall I bring you heaps of treasure from Alybe? Silverarm cares not for silver! Shall I bring you gleaming gifts from brilliant Eridanos? Your beauty, your blushing whiteness,

puts to shame all the wealth of the Heliades; the neck of Beroe is like the gleams of Dawn, it shines like amber, [outshines] a sparkling jewel; your fair shape makes precious marble cheap. I would not bring you the lampstone blazing like a lamp, for light comes from your eyes. I would not give you roses, shooting up from the flowercups of a rosy cluster, for roses are in your cheeks." Such was his address; and the girl pressed the fingers of her two hands into her ears to keep the words away from her hearing, lest she might hear again another speech concerned with love, and she hated the works of marriage. So she made trouble upon trouble for lovestricken Lyaios. What is more shameless than love, or when women avoid men who yearn with the heart-eating maddening urge of desire, and only make them more passionate by their modesty? The love within them is doubled when a maiden flees from a man.
So he was flogged by the maddening cestus of desire; and he kept away from the girl, but full of bittersweet pangs, he sent his mind to wander a-hunting with the girl with ungirt tunic. Then out from the sea came Poseidon, moving his wet footsteps in search of the girl over the thirsty hills, a foreign land to him, and sprinkling the unwatered earth with watery foot; and as he hasted along the fertile slope of the woodland, the topmost peaks of the mountains shook under the movement.
. He espied Beroe, and from head to foot he scanned her divine young freshness while she stood. Clear through the filmy robe he noted the shape of the girl with steady eyes, as if in a mirror; glancing from side to side he saw the shining skin of her breasts as if naked, and cursed

the jealous bodice wrapt about in many folds which hid the bosom, he ran his lovemaddened eye round and round over her face, he gazed never satisfied on her whole body. Then mad with passion Earthshaker lord of the brine appealed in his trouble to Cythereia of the brine, and tried with flattering words to make friends with the maiden standing beside the country flock: “One woman outshines all the lovely women of Hellas! Paphos is celebrated no longer, nor Lesbos, Cyprus no longer has a name as mother of beauty; no longer will I sing Naxos which the singers call isle of fair maids; yes, even Lacedaimon is worsted for children and childbirth! No more Paphos, no more Lesbos — the land of the rising sun, Amymone's nurse, has plundered all the glory of Orchomenos, for one single Grace of her own! For Beroe has appeared a fourth grace, younger than the three!”Maiden, leave the land. That is just, for your mother grew not from the land, she is Aphrodite daughter of the brine. Here is my infinite sea for your bridegift, larger than earth. Hasten to challenge the consort of Zeus, that men may say that the lady of Cronides and the wife of Earthshaker hold universal rule, since Hera has the sceptre of snowy Olympos, Beroe has gotten the empire of the sea. I will not provide you with mad-eyed Bassarids, I will give you no dancing Satyr and no Seilenos, but I will make Proteus chamberlain of your marriage-consummating bed, and Glaucos shall be your underling — take Nereus too, and Melicertes if you like; and I will call murmuring Oceanos your servant, broad Oceanos girdling the rim of the eternal

world. I give you as a bridal gift all the rivers together for your attendants. If you are pleased to have waitingmaids also, I will bring you the daughters of Nereus; and let Ino the nurse of Dionysos be your chambermaid, whether she likes it or not! ' Thus he pleaded, but the maiden was angry and would not listen; so he left her, pouring out his last words into the air — “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.” Thus Earthshaker was flogged by the blows of the cestus; but he offered many gifts to Adonis and Cythereia, bridegifts 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.
" Now Paphia was anxious, for she feared both wooers of her muchwooed 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: “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.”
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.
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.