Now Bacchos quitted the horsebreeding soil of ancient Phoroneus, and mounted in his round car behind the team of panthers passed in revelry over the Thracian land. But Inachian Hera had not softened her rancorous rage for Argos maddened; she remembered the frenzy of the Achaian women and prepared again to attack Bacchos. She addressed her deceitful prayers to Allmother Earth, crying out upon the doings of Zeus and the valour of Dionysos, who had destroyed that cloud of numberless earthborn Indians; and when the lifebringing mother heard that the son of Semele had wiped out the Indian nation with speedy fate, she groaned still more thinking of her children. Then she armed all round Bacchos the mountainranging tribes of giants, earth's own brood, and goaded her huge sons to battle:
" My sons, make your attack with hightowering rocks against clustergarlanded Dionysos — catch this Indianslayer, this destroyer of my family, this son of Zeus, and let me not see him ruling with Zeus a

bastard monarch of Olympos! Bind him, bind Bacchos fast, that he may attend in the chamber when I bestow Hebe on Porphyrion as a wife, and give Cythereia to Chthonios, when I sing Brighteyes the bedfellow of Encelados, and Artemis of Alcyoneus.
Bring Dionysos to me, that I may enrage Cronion when he sees Lyaios a slave and the captive of my spear. Or wound him with cutting steel and kill him for me like Zagreus, that one may say, god or mortal, that Earth in her anger has twice armed her slayers against the breed of Cronides — the older Titans against the former Dionysos, the younger Giants against Dionysos later born."
With these words she excited all the host of the Giants, and the battalions of the Earthborn set forth to war, one bearing a bulwark of Nysa, one who had sliced off with steel the flank of a cloudhigh precipice, each with these rocks for missiles armed him against Dionysos; one hastened to the conflict bearing the rocky hill of some land with its base in the brine, another with a reef torn from a brinegirt isthmus. Peloreus took up Pelion with hightowering peak as a missile in his innumerable arms, and left the cave of Philyra bare: as the rocky roof of his cave was pulled off, old Cheiron quivered and shook, that figure of half a man growing into a comrade horse. But Bacchos held a bunch of giantsbane vine, and ran at Alcyoneus with the mountain upraised in his hands: he wielded no furious lance, no deadly sword, but he struck with his bunch of tendrils and shore off the multitudinous hands of the Giants; the terrible swarms of groundbred serpents were shorn off by

those tippling leaves, the Giants' heads with those viper tresses were cut off and the severed necks danced in the dust. Tribes innumerable were destroyed; from the slain Giants ran everflowing rivers of blood, crimson torrents newly poured coloured the ravines red. The swarms of earthbred snakes ran wild with fear before the tresses of Dionysos viper-enwreathed.
Fire was also a weapon of Bacchos. He cast a torch in the air to destroy his adversaries: through the high paths ran the Bacchic flame leaping and curling over itself and shooting down corrosive sparks on the Giants' limbs; and there was a serpent with a blaze in his threatening mouth, half-burnt and whistling with a firescorched throat, spitting out smoke instead of a spurt of deadly poison.
There was infinite tumult. Bacchos raised himself and lifted his fighting torch over the heads of his adversaries, and roasted the Giants' bodies with a great conflagration, an image on earth of the thunderbolt cast by Zeus. The torches blazed: fire was rolling all over the head of Encelados and making the air hot, but it did not vanquish him — Encelados bent not his knee in the steam of the earthly fire, since he was reserved for a thunderbolt. Vast Alcyoneus leapt upon Lyaios armed with his Thracian crags; he lifted over Bacchos a cloudhigh peak of wintry Haimos — useless against that mark, Dionysos the invulnerable. He threw the cliflP, but when the rocks touched the fawnskin of Lyaios, they could not tear it, and burst into splinters themselves. Typhoeus towering high had stript the mountains of Emathia (a younger Typhoeus in all parts like the older, who once had lifted many a rugged strip

of his mother earth), and cast the rocky missiles at Dionysos. Lord Bacchos pulled away the sword of one that was gasping on the ground and attacked the Giants' heads, cutting the snaky crop of poisonspitting hair; even without weapon he destroyed the selfmarshalled host, fighting furiously, and using the treeclimbing longleaf ivy to strike the Giants.
Indeed he would have slain all with his manbreaking thyrsus, if he had not retired of his own will out of the fray and left enemies alive for his Father.
Then he would quickly have gone to Phrygia with speeding foot, but another task held him back; that after so many had died he might kill one murderous creature, Pallene's deathdealing father." He once had an unlawful passion for his daughter; he used to thwart her marriage and hinder every match. Wooers innumerable who would have wed her he killed, a great harvest of them; the places of wrestling were noisy with their murders and red with their blood, until Bacchos came as the champion of Justice. There was Pallene, ever so near to wedlock, and her father full of unholy passion: Bacchos came near, and proposed to make the wicked match with his horrible daughter, offering all manner of gifts. To this request of Lyaios, the dreadful man declared how wrestling must win the bride. He led him into the place of contest, so ill-omened for strangers, where the audacious girl stood ready spear in hand bearing her bridal shield on her shoulders.
Then Cypris presided over the ring. In the midst was Eros naked, holding out to Bacchos the

bridal wreath. Wrestling was to win the bride: Peitho clad her delicate body in a silvery robe, foretelling victory for Lyaios's wooing. The girl stript the clothes off her muscular limbs; she laid down the fierce wedding-spear. There stood the daughter of Sithon, daintier now, unshod, unveiled, unarmed, revealed a woman, but a red band girt the rounded curve of her firm breasts. Her body was uncovered, but for the long tresses of the abundant hair which flowed loose over the girl's neck. Her legs were visible, and the curve of her thighs uncovered with the part above the knee bare, but a white wrap fitted close over the thighs to cover her nakedness. Her skin had been well rubbed with fat oil, and her arms more than all, that she might slip out easily if her body were pressed in a grasp too strong to loosen.
She came up to Lyaios her eager wooer with rough threatening words, and threw her two arms with a swing linking them round his neck; Bacchos just threw back his neck with the woman's fetters about it, and shook it loose again, throwing off the girl's tender fingers. Then he put his two arms round her waist like a girdle, and shook her from side to side by movements of his feet. He grasped a rosy palm, and felt comfort for his love as he squeezed the snowwhite hand. He did not wish so much to give the maid a throw as to touch the soft flesh, entranced with his delightful task; he used all his guile, panting with labouring breath, as if he were a mortal, delaying victory on purpose. Lovely Pallene tried a trick of the ring to lift the body of Lyaios, but her woman's

arms were not equal to raise that great weight; she tired, and let go the masculine limbs of Dionysos immovable. Then the god took a like hold of the lovely girl, and joining his two arms about his adversary lifted her as if she were his own wand, and threw her aslant round and over his shoulder; then with gentle hand swung off the sturdy girl and laid her at full length quiet on the ground. He let his eyes furtively wander, scanning the limbs of the girl covered with her glorious hair in the dust, the luxurious tresses of the untidy head dabbled in dirt.
But the girl jumped up again from the dust and stood up steady on her feet once more. Then Dionysos with an agile movement mercilessly set his knee against Pallene's belly, and holding her tried to roll her over on the ground with a sideways heave, changed his arms to a grasp round her waist, bent his head to one side and shifted his fingers behind to the middle of her back, and tried to hook ankle or shin, or to catch the knee. At last the god fell back of himself rolling on the ground and let a feeble hand conquer him: a charming physic it was for his love, when he lay beautiful in that happy dust on his back, bearing upon his own belly that lovely burden — he lay still, and did not throw off the girl, but held her fast with soul-consoling bonds of desire. She pulled herself from the manly hands of lovemad Dionysos, and lifted herself to her feet with a twist of her legs in a quick supple movement; but the god with a slight effort simply rolled over and laid the rosy girl flat on the ground. So there lay the girl on the ground stretching her arms abroad, and as she lay along the ground he joined his arms neatly in a clasp about her neck.

Then with swift feet her father leapt between them. The girl wanted to try again, but he held her back, and put an end to this wedding-contest for a bride by yielding love's victory to Dionysos, for fear he might kill her in that immovable grip. So after the victory in this contest, with the consent of Zeus, Eros crowned his brother with the cluster that heralds a wedding; for he had accomplished a delectable wedding-bout. It was indeed a contest like that when Hippomenes once conquered flying Atalanta, by rolling golden marriage-gifts in front of her feet.
But when Bacchos had ended the wrestlingmatch for his bride, still dripping with the sweat of his wedding contest he struck down Sithon with a stab of his sharp thyrsus, Sithon the murderer of wooers; and as the father rolled in the dust he gave his daughter the thyrsus that slew him, as a love-gift.

That was a wedding of many songs: the bridechamber was never silent, Seilenoi chanted, Bacchants danced, drunken Satyrs wove a hymn of love and sang the alliance which came of this victorious match. Companies of Nereids under the foothills of the neighbouring isthmus encircled Dionysos with wedding dances and warbled their lay; beside the Thracian sea danced old Nereus, who once had Bromios for a guest; Galateia tript over the wedding-sea and carolled Pallene joined with Dionysos; Thetis capered although she knew nothing of love; Melicertes crowned the seagirt wedding-reef of the isthmus chanting Euoi for Pallene's bridal; many a Hamadryad of Athos kindled a Thracian torch for the bridal in fiery Lemnos close by. And while the bride mourned her father, the Euian bridegroom comforted her with lover's tender talk: “O Maiden, lament not for your father so wicked in his love! Maiden, lament not for one that wooed your maidenhood! What father ever begat and then married his own daughter? Leave your empty mourning, because now that Sithon your father is slain Justice dances and laughs, and kindles a wedding-torch with her virgin hands; she who knows not marriage still is singing your marriage, as she beholds a new Oinomaos dead. Oinomaos died indeed, but although her father had perished, Hippodameia took her joy with her husband newly-wedded. Then you too must throw to the winds your regret for your father, and take your joy united with your vinegod

lover, now that you have escaped a father's disgrace. I need not tell you of Sithon's hateful love and your marriage delayed; how he took in hand a murderous blade to kill your wooers, and let you grow old without a taste of Aphrodite, scattered your hopes of a husband and left your bed solitary. Look at the rotting relics of your pretenders' bodies, whom the Paphian adorned and the furious Avenger slew! See those heads hung before your doors like firstfruits of harvest, still dripping with the gore of those inhospitable bridal feasts! You are no mortal daughter of Sithon. I believe a heavenly being begat you, your own Thracian Ares. I believe Cythereia brought you to birth; and you have marks of both parents imprinted, the temper of Ares and the radiance of Aphrodite. Or I believe your father was Lord Hermes of the ring, when he entered the delicate bed of Peitho who brings marriage to pass, and he taught you the wrestling which leads the way to love.”
So he consoled her with words that healed her sorrow, and stilled the lovely tears of the mourning maiden. And he lingered for some time beside his wedded bride, taking his joy in the love of this new marriage.
Then he left the halls of Pallene and Thracian Boreas, and went on to Rheia's house, where the divine court of the prolific Cybele stood on Phrygian soil. There grew Aura the mountain maiden of Rhyndacos, and hunted over the foothills of rocky Dindymon. She was yet unacquainted with love, a comrade of the Archeress. She kept aloof from the notions of unwarlike maids, like a younger Artemis, this daughter of Lelantos; for the father of this

stormfoot girl was ancient Lelantos the Titan, who wedded Periboia, a daughter of Oceanos; a manlike maid she was, who knew nothing of Aphrodite. She grew up taller than her yearsmates, a lovely rosy-armed thing, ever a friend of the hills. Often in hunting she ran down the wild bear, and sent her swift lance shooting against the lioness, but she slew no prickets and shot no hares. No, she carried her tawny quiver to shoot down hill-ranging tribes of ravening lions, with her shafts that were death to wild beasts. Her name was like her doings: Aura the Windmaid could run most swiftly, keeping pace with the highland winds.
One day in the scorching season of thirsty heat the maiden was asleep, resting from her labours of hunting. Stretching her body on Cybele's grass, and leaning her head on a bush of chaste laurel, she slept at midday, and saw a vision in her dreams which foretold a delectable marriage to come — how the fiery god, wild Eros, fitted shaft to burning string and shot the hares in the forest, shot the wild beasts in a row with his tiny shafts; how Cypris came, laughing, wandering with the young son of Myrrha as he hunted, and Aura the maiden was there, carrying the quiver of huntsman Eros on the shoulder which was ere now used to the bow of Artemis. But Eros went on killing the beasts, until he was weary of the bowstring and hitting the grim face of a panther or the snout of a bear; then he caught a lioness alive with the all-bewitching cestus, and dragging the beast away showed her fettered to his merry mother. The maiden saw in the darkness

how mischievous Eros teased herself also as she leaned her arm on Cythereia and Adonis, while he made his prey the proud lioness, bend a slavish knee before Aphrodite, as he cried loudly, “Garlanded mother of the loves! I lead to you Aura, the maiden too fond of maidenhood, and she bows her neck.” Now you dancers of lovestricken Orchomenos, crown this cestus, the strap that waits on marriage, because it has conquered the stubborn will of this invincible lioness!"Such was the prophetic oracle which Aura the mountain maiden saw. Nor was it vain for the loves, since they themselves bring a man into the net and hunt a woman.
The maiden awoke, raved against the prudent laurel, upbraided Eros and the Paphian — but bold Sleep she reproached more than all and threatened the Dream: she was angry with the leaves and thought, though she spoke not,
" Daphne, why do you persecute me? What has your tree to do with Cypris? I was deluded when I slept under your neighbouring branches, because I thought yours was a plant of chastity; but I found nothing of your reputation or my hope. And so. Daphne, when you changed your shape you found how to change your mind? Surely you are not the servant of conjugal Aphrodite after your death? This is not the tree of a decent girl but of a bride newly wed. One might expect to see such dreams near a myrtle: this dream is worthy of a harlot. Did Peitho plant you, did your laurel- Apollo plant you with his own hand?"
She spoke thus, angry at the plant and Eros and Sleep all together.
And once it happened that Artemis queen of

the hunt was hunting over the hills, and her skin was beaten by the glow of the scorching heat, in the middle of glowing summer, at midday, when Helios blazed as he whipt the Lion's back with the fire of his rough whistling whip; so she got ready her car to cool her hot frame along with the Naiad Nymphs in a bath in some hill burn. Then Artemis hillranger fastened her prickets under the yokestraps. Maiden Aura mounted the car, took reins and whip and drove the horned team like a tempest. The unveiled daughters of everflowing Oceanos her servants made haste to accompany the Archeress: one moved her swift knees as her queen's forerunner, another tucked up her tunic and ran level not far off, a third laid a hand on the basket of the swiftmoving car and ran alongside. Archeress diffusing radiance from her face stood shining above her attendants, as when Selene in her heavenly chariot sends forth the flame of her everwakeful fires in a shower of cloudless beams, and rises in full refulgence among the firefed stars, obscuring the whole heavenly host with her countenance: radiant like her, Archeress traversed the forest, until she reached the place where the heavenfallen waters of Sangarios river are drawn in a murmuring stream.
Then Aura checked her swinging whip, and holding up the prickets with the golden bridles, brought the radiant car of her mistress to a standstill beside the stream. The goddess leapt out of the car Upis

took the bow from her shoulders, and Hecaerge the quiver; the daughters of Oceanos took off the wellstrung hunting-nets, and [another took charge of] the dogs; Loxo loosed the boots from her feet. She in the midday heat still guarded her maiden modesty in the river, moving through the water with cautious step, and lifting her tunic little by little from foot to head with the edge touching the surface, keeping the two feet and thighs close together and hiding her body as she bathed the whole by degrees." Aura looked sideways through the water with the daring gaze of her sharp eyes unashamed, and scanned the holy frame of the virgin who may not be seen, examining the divine beauty of her chaste mistress; virgin Aura stretched out her arms and feet at full length and swam by the side of the swimming divinity. Now Artemis lady of the hunt [stood] half visible on the river bank, and wrung out the dripping water from her hair; Aura the maid of the hunt stood by her side, and stroked her breasts and uttered these impious words: “ Artemis, you only have the name of a virgin maid, because your rounded breasts are full and soft, a woman's breasts like the Paphian, not a man's like Athena, and your cheeks shed a rosy radiance! Well, since you have a body like that desirous goddess, why not be queen of marriage as well as Cythereia with her wealth of fine hair, and receive a bridegroom into your chamber? If it please you, leave Athena and sleep with Hermes and Ares. If it

please you, take up the bow and arrows of the loves, if your passion is so strong for a quiver full of arrows. I ask pardon of your beauty, but I am much better than you. See what a vigorous body I have! Look at Aura's body like a boy's, and her step swifter than Zephyros! See the muscles upon my arms, look at my breasts, round and unripe, not like a woman. You might almost say that yours are swelling with drops of milk! Why are your arms so tender, why are your breasts not round like Aura's, to tell the world themselves of unviolated maidenhood?”
So she spoke in raillery; the goddess listened downcast in boding silence. Waves of anger swelled in her breast, her flashing eyes had death in their look. She leapt up from the stream and put on her tunic again, and once more fitted the girdle upon her pure loins, offended. She betook herself to Nemesis, and found her on the heights of Tauros in the clouds, where beside neighbour Cydnos she had ended the proudnecked boasting of Typhon's threats.
A wheel turned itself round before the queen's feet, signifying that she rolls all the proud from on high to the ground with the avenging wheel of justice, she the allvanquishing deity who turns the path of life. Round her throne flew

a bird of vengeance, a griffin flying with wings, or balancing himself on four feet, to go unbidden before the flying goddess and show that she herself traverses the four separate quarters of the world: highcrested men she bridles with her bit which none can shake off, such is the meaning of the image, and she rolls a haughty fellow about as it were with the whip of misery, like a self-rolling wheel." When the goddess beheld Artemis with pallid face, she knew that she was offended and full of deadly threatenings, and questioned her in friendly words:
'Your looks, Archeress, proclaim your anger. Artemis, what impious son of Earth persecutes you? What second Typhoeus has sprung up from the ground? Has Tityos risen again rolling a lovemad eye, and touched the robe of your untouchable mother? Where is your bow, Artemis, where are Apollo's arrows? What Orion is using force against you once more? The wretch that touched your dress still lies in his mother's flanks, a lifeless corpse; if any man has clutched your garments with lustful hands, grow another scorpion to avenge your girdle. If bold Otos again, or boastful Ephialtes, has desired to win your love so far beyond his reach, then slay the pretender to your unwedded virginity. If some prolific wife provokes your mother Leto, let her weep for her children, another Niobe of stone. Why should not I make another stone on Sipylos? Is

your father pestering you to marry as he did with Athena? Surely Cronion has not promised you to Hermes for a wife, as he promised pure Athena to Hephaistos in wedlock? But if some woman is persecuting you as one did to your mother Leto, I will be the avenger of the offended Archeress.' She had not finished, when the puppybreeding maiden broke in and said to the goddess who saves from evil:
" Virgin all vanquishing, guide of creation, Zeus pesters me not, nor Niobe, nor bold Otos; no Tityos has dragged at the long robes of my Leto; no new son of Earth like Orion forces me: no, it is that sour virgin Aura, the daughter of Lelantos, who mocks me and offends me with rude sharp words. But how can I tell you all she said? I am ashamed to describe her calumny of my body and her abuse of my breasts. I have suffered just as my mother did: we are both alike — in Phrygia Niobe offended Leto the mother of twins, in Phrygia again impious Aura offended me. But Niobe paid for it by passing into a changeling form, that daughter of Tantalos whose children were her sorrow, and she still weeps with stony eyes; I alone am insulted and bear my disgrace without vengeance, but Aura the champion of chastity has washed no stone with tears, she has seen no fountain

declaring the faults of her uncontrolled tongue. I pray you, uphold the dignity of your Titan birth. Grant me a boon like my mother, that I may see Aura's body transformed into stone immovable; leave not a maiden of your own race in sorrow, that I may not see Aura mocking me again and not to be turned — or let your sickle of beaten bronze drive her to madness!"She spoke, and the goddess replied with encouraging words: “Chaste daughter of Leto, huntress, sister of Phoibos, I will not use my sickle to chastise a Titan girl, I will not make the maiden a stone in Phrygia, for I am myself born of the ancient race of Titans, and her father Lelantos might blame me when he heard: but one boon I will grant you, Archeress. Aura the maid of the hunt has reproached your virginity, and she shall be a virgin no longer. You shall see her in the bed of a mountain stream weeping fountains of tears for her maiden girdle.” So she consoled her; and Artemis the maiden entered her car with its team of four prickets, left the mountain and drove back to Phrygia. With equal speed the maiden Adrasteia pursued her obstinate enemy Aura. She had harnessed racing griffins under her bridle; quick through the air she coursed in the swift car, until she tightened the curving bits of her fourfooted birds, and drew up on the peak of Sipylos in front of the face of Tantalos's daughter with eyeballs of stone. Then she approached the haughty Aura. She flicked the proud neck of the hapless girl with her snaky whip, and struck her with the round wheel of justice, and bent the foolish

unbending will. Argive Adrasteia let the whip with its vipers curl round the maiden's girdle, doing pleasure to Artemis and to Dionysos while he was still indignant; and although she was herself unacquainted with love, she prepared another love, after the bed of Pallene, after the loss of Ariadne — one was left in her own country, one was a stone in a foreign land like the statue of Achaian Hera — and more than all for the ill success with Beroe's bed.
" Nemesis now flew back to snowbeaten Tauros until she reached Cydnos again. And Eros drove Dionysos mad for the girl with the delicious wound of his arrow, then curving his wings flew lightly to Olympos.
And the god roamed over the hills scourged with a greater fire. For there was not the smallest comfort for him. He had then no hope of the girl's love, no physic for his passion; but Eros burnt him more and more with the mindbewitching fire to win mad obstinate Aura at last. With hard struggles he kept his desire hidden; he used no lover's prattle beside Aura in the woods, for fear she might avoid him. What is more shameless, than when only men crave, and women do not desire? Wandering Bacchos felt the arrow of love fixt in his heart if the maiden was hunting with her pack of dogs in the woods; if he caught a glimpse of a thigh when the loving winds lifted her tunic, he became soft as a woman. At last buffeted by his tumultuous desire for Aura, desperate he cried out in mad tones —

“I am like lovelorn Pan, when the girl flees me swift as the wind, and wanders, treading the wilderness with boot more agile than Echo never seen! You are happy, Pan, much more than Bromios, for during your search you have found a physic for love in a mindbewitching voice. Echo follows your tones and returns them, moving from place to place, and utters a sound of speaking like your voice. If only maid Aura had done the same, and let one word sound from her lips! This love is different from all others, for the girl herself has a nature not like the ways of other maidens. What physic is there for my pain? Shall I charm her with lovers' nod and beck? Ah when, ah when is Aura charmed with moving eyelids? Who by lovemad looks or wooing whispers could seduce the heart of a shebear to the Paphian, to Eros? Who discourses to a lioness? Who talks to an oak? Who has beguiled a lifeless firtree? Who ever persuaded a cornel-tree, and took a rock in marriage? And what man could charm the mind of Aura proof against all charms? What man could charm her — who will mention marriage, or the cestus which helps love, to this girl with no girdle to her tunic? Who will mention the sweet sting of love or the name of Cyprogeneia? I think Athena will listen sooner; and not intrepid Artemis avoids me so much as prudish Aura. If she would only say as much as this with her dear lips — ' Bacchos, your desire is vain; seek not for maiden Aura.”
So he spoke to the breezes of spring, while walking in a flowery meadow. Beside a fragrant myrtle he stayed his feet for a soothing rest at midday. He leaned against a tree and listened to the west breeze whispering, overcome by fatigue and

love; and as he sat there, a Hamadryad Nymph at home in the clusters of her native tree, a maiden unveiled, peeped out and said, true both to Cypris and to loving Lyaios:
" Bacchos can never lead Aura to his bed, unless he binds her first in heavy galling fetters, and winds the bonds of Cypris round hands and feet; or else puts her under the yoke of marriage in sleep, and steals the girl's maidenhood without brideprice."
Having spoken she hid again in the tree her age-mate, and entered again her woody home; but Bacchos distressed with lovebreeding dreams made his mind a parade: the soul of dead Ariadne borne on the wind came, and beside Dionysos sleeping sound, stood jealous after death, and spoke in the words of a dream: “ Dionysos, you have forgotten your former bride: you long for Aura, and you care not for Ariadne. O my own Theseus, whom the bitter wind stole! O my own Theseus, whom Phaidra got for husband! I suppose it was fated that a perjured husband must always run from me, if the sweet boy left me while I slept, and I was married instead to Lyaios, an inconstant lover and a deceiver. Alas, that I had not a mortal husband, one soon to die; then I might have armed myself against lovemad Dionysos and been one of the Lemnian women myself. But after Theseus, now I must call you too a perjured bridegroom, the invader of many marriage beds. If your bride asks you for a gift, take this distaff at my hands, a friendly gift of love, that you may give your mountaineering bride what your

Minoian wife gave you; then people can say — ' She gave the thread to Theseus, and the distaff to Dionysos.
” You are just like Cronion changing from bed to bed, and you have imitated the doings of your womanmad father, having an insatiable passion for changing your loves. I know how you lately married your Sithonian wife Pallene, and your wedding with Althaia: I will say nothing of the love of Coronis, from whose bed were born the three Graces ever inseparable. But O Mycenai, proclaim my fate and the savage glare of Medusa! Shores of Naxos, cry aloud of Ariadne's lot, constrained to a hateful love, and say, ' O bridegroom Theseus, Minos's daughter calls you in anger against Dionysos! But why do I think of Cecropia? To her of Paphos, I carry my plaint against them both, Theseus and Dionysos!"
She spoke, and her shade flew away like shadowy smoke. Bold Bacchos awoke and shook off the wing of Sleep. He lamented the sorrow of Ariadne in his dream, and sought for some clever device which could meet all needs and lead him to love. First he remembered the bed of the Astacid nymph long before," how he had wooed the lovely nymph with a cunning potion and made sleep his guide to intoxicated bridals.
While Bacchos would be preparing a cunning device for her bed, Lelantos's daughter wandered about seeking a fountain, for she was possessed with parching thirst. Dionysos failed not to see how thirsting Aura ran rapidly over the hills. Quickly

he leapt up and dug the earth with his wand at the foundation of a rock: the hill parted, and poured out of itself a purple stream of wine from its sweetscented bosom. The Seasons, handmaids of Helios, to do grace to Lyaios, painted with flowers the fountain's margin, and fragrant whiffs from the newgrowing meadow beat on the balmy air. There were the clustering blooms which have the name of Narcissos the fair youth, whom horned Selene's bridegroom Endymion begat on leafy Latmos, Narcissos who long ago gazed on his own image formed in the water, that dumb image of a beautiful deceiver, and died as he gazed on the shadowy phantom of his shape; there was the living plant of Amyclaian iris; there sang the nightingales over the spring blossoms, flying in troops above the clustering flowers.
And there came running thirsty at midday Aura herself, seeking if anywhere she could find raindrops from Zeus, or some fountain, or the stream of a river pouring from the hills; and Eros cast a mist over her eyelids: but when she saw the deceitful fountain of Bacchos, Peitho dispersed the shadowy cloud from her eyelids, and called out to Aura like a herald of her marriage —
Maiden, come this way! Take into your lips the stream of this nuptial fountain, and into your bosom a lover."
Gladly the maiden saw it, and throwing herself down before the fountain drew in the liquid of Bacchos with open lips. When she had drunk, the girl exclaimed: “O Naiads, what marvel is this? Whence comes this balmy water? Who made this bubbling drink,

what heavenly womb gave him birth? Certainly after drinking this I can run no more. No, my feet are heavy, sweet sleep bewitches me, nothing comes from my lips but a soft stammering sound.” She spoke, and went stumbling on her way. She moved this way and that way with erring motions, her brow shook with throbbing temples, her head leaned and lay on her shoulder, she fell asleep on the ground beside a tallbranching tree and entrusted to the bare earth her maidenhood unguarded.
When fiery Eros beheld Aura stumbling heavyknee, he leapt down from heaven, and smiling with peaceful countenance spoke to Dionysos with full sympathy:
" Are you for a hunt, Dionysos? Virgin Aura awaits you!"
With these words, he made haste away to Olympos flapping his wings, but first he had inscribed on the spring petals — “Bridegroom, complete your marriage while the maiden is still asleep; and let us be silent that sleep may not leave the maiden.”
Then Iobacchos seeing her on the bare earth, plucking the Lethaean feather of bridal sleep, he crept up noiseless, unshod, on tiptoe, and approached Aura where she lay without voice or hearing. With gentle hand he put away the girl's neat quiver and hid the bow in a hole in the rock, that she might not shake off Sleep's wing and shoot him. Then he tied the girl's feet together with indissoluble bonds, and passed a cord round and round her hands that she might not escape him: he laid the maiden down in the dust, a victim heavy with sleep ready for Aphrodite, and stole the bridal fruit from Aura asleep.

The husband brought no gift; on the ground that hapless girl heavy with wine, unmoving, was wedded to Dionysos; Sleep embraced the body of Aura with overshadowing wings, and he was marshal of the wedding for Bacchos, for he also had experience of love, he is yokefellow of the moon, he is companion of the Loves in nightly caresses. So the wedding was like a dream; for the capering dances, the hill skipt and leapt of itself, the Hamadryad halfvisible shook her age-mate fir — only maiden Echo did not join in the mountain dance, but shamefast hid herself unapproachable under the foundations of the rock, that she might not behold the wedding of woman-mad Dionysos.
When the vine-bridegroom had consummated his wedding on that silent bed, he lifted a cautious foot and kissed the bride's lovely lips, loosed the unmoving feet and hands, brought back the quiver and bow from the rock and laid them beside his bride. He left to the winds the bed of Aura still sleeping, and returned to his Satyrs with a breath of the bridal still about him.
After these caresses, the bride started up; she shook off limb-loosing sleep, the witness of the unpublished nuptials, saw with surprise her breasts bare of the modest bodice, the cleft of her thighs uncovered, her dress marked with the drops of wedlock that told of a maidenhood ravished without bridegift. She was maddened by what she saw. She fitted the bodice again about her chest, and bound the maiden girdle again over her rounded breast — too late! She shrieked in distress, held in the throes of madness; she chased the countrymen, slew shepherds beside the leafy slopes, to punish her

treacherous husband with avenging justice — still more she killed the oxherds with implacable steel, for she knew about charming Tithonos, bridegroom of Dawn, the lovelorn oxherd, knew that Selene also the driver of bulls had her Latmian Endymion who was busy about the herds of cattle; she had heard of Phrygian Hymnos too, and his love that made him rue, the lovelorn herdsman whom another maiden slew: still more she killed the goatherds, killed their whole flocks of goats, in agony of heart, because she had seen Pan the dangerous lover with a face like some shaggy goat; for she felt quite sure that shepherd Pan tormented with desire for Echo had violated her asleep: much more she laid low the husbandmen, as being also slaves to Cypris, since a man who tilled the soil, Iasion, had been bedfellow of Demeter the mother of sheaves. The huntsmen she killed believing an ancient story; for she had heard that a huntsman Cephalos, from the country of unmothered Athena, was husband of rosecrowned Dawn. Workmen of Bacchos about the vintage she killed, because they are servants of Lyaios who squeeze out the intoxicating juice of his liquor, heavy with wine, dangerous lovers. For she had not yet learnt the cunning heart of Dionysos, and the seductive potion of heady love, but she made empty the huts of the mountainranging herdsmen and drenched the hills with red blood.
Still frantic in mind, shaken by throes of madness, she came to the temple of Cypris. She loosed the girdle from her newly spun robe, the enemy of the cestus,

and flogged the dainty body of the unconquerable goddess; she caught up the statue of marriage-consummating Cythereia, she went to the bank of Sangarios, and sent Aphrodite rolling into the stream, naked among the naked Naiads; and after the divine statue had gone with the scourge twisted round it, she threw into the dust the delicate image of Love, and left the temple of Cybelid Foamborn empty. Then she plunged into the familiar forest, wandering unperceived, handled her net-stakes, remembered the hunt again, lamenting her maidenhood with wet eyelids, and crying loudly in these words: “What god has loosed the girdle of my maidenhood? If Zeus Allwise took some false aspect, and forced me, upon my lonely bed, if he did not respect our neighbour Rheia, I will leave the wild beasts and shoot the starry sky! If Phoibos Apollo lay by my side in sleep, I will raze the stones of worldfamous Pytho wholly to the ground! If Cyllenian Hermes has ravished my bed, I will utterly destroy Arcadia with my arrows, and make goldchaplet Peitho my servant! If Dionysos came unseen and ravished my maidenhood in the crafty wooing of a dream-bridal, I will go where Cybele's hall stands, and chase that lustmad Dionysos from highcrested Tmolos! I will hang my quiver of death on my shoulders and attack Paphos, I will attack Phrygia — I will draw my bow on both Cypris and Dionysos! You, Archer ess, you have enraged me most, because you, a maiden, did not kill me in my sleep still a virgin, yes and did not defend me even against my bedfellow with your pure shafts!”

She spoke, and then checked her trembling voice overcome by tears. And Aura, hapless maiden, having within her the fruitful seed of Bacchos the begetter, carried a double weight: the wife maddened uncontrollably cursed the burden of the seed, hapless maiden Aura [lamented the loss of her maidenhood; she knew not] whether she had conceived of herself, or by some man, or a scheming god; she remembered the bride of Zeus, Berecyntian Pluto, so unhappy in the son Tantalos whom she bore. She wished to tear herself open, to cut open her womb in her senseless frenzy, that the child half made might be destroyed and never be reared. She even lifted a sword, and thought to drive the blade through her bare chest with pitiless hand. Often she went to the cave of a lioness with newborn cubs, that she might slip into the net of a willing fate; but the dread beast ran out into the mountains, in fear of death, and hid herself in some cleft of the rocks, leaving the cub alone in the lair. Often she thought to drive a sword willingly through the swelling womb and slay herself with her own hand, that self-slain she might escape the shame of her womb and the mocking taunts of glad Artemis. She longed to know her husband, that she might dish up her own son to her loathing husband, childslayer and paramour alike, that men might say — “ Aura, unhappy bride, has killed her child like another Procne.” Then Artemis saw her big with new children, and came near with a laugh on her face and teased the poor creature, saying with pitiless voice:
“I saw Sleep, the Paphian's chamberlain! I saw the deceiving stream of the yellow fountain at

your loving bridal! The fountain where young girls get a treacherous potion, and loosen the girdle they have worn all their lives, in a dream of marriage which steals their maidenhood. I have seen, I have seen the slope where a woman is made a bride unexpectedly, in treacherous sleep, beside a bridal rock. I have seen the love-mountain of Cypris, where lovers steal the maidenhood of women and run away.
Tell me, you young prude, why do you walk so slowly to-day? Once as quick as the wind, why do you plod so heavily? You were wooed unwilling, and you do not know your bedfellow! You cannot hide your furtive bridal, for your breasts are swelling with new milk and they announce a husband. Tell me heavy sleeper, pigsticker, virgin, bride, how do you come by those pale cheeks, once ruddy? Who disgraced your bed? Who stole your maidenhood? fair-haired Naiads, do not hide Aura's bridegroom!
know your furtive husband, you woman with a heavy burden. I saw your wedding, clearly enough, though you long to conceal it. I saw your husband clearly enough; you were in the bed, your body heavy with sleep, you did not move when Dionysos wedded you.
Come then, leave your bow, renounce your quiver; serve in the secret rites of your womanmad Bacchos; carry your tambour and your tootling pipes of horn. I beseech you, in the name of that bed on the ground where the marriage was consummated, what bridegifts did Dionysos your husband bring? Did he give you a fawnskin, enough to be news of your marriage-bed? Did he give you brazen rattles for your children to play with? I think he gave you

a thyrsus to shoot lions; perhaps he gave cymbals, which nurses shake to console the howling pains of the little children.” So spoke the goddess in mockery, and went away to shoot her wild beasts again, in anger leaving her cares to the winds of heaven.
But the girl went among the high rocks of the mountains. There unseen, when she felt the cruel throes of childbirth pangs, her voice roared terrible as a lioness in labour, and the rocks resounded, for dolorous Echo gave back an answering roar to the loud-shrieking girl. She held her hands over her lap like a lid compressing the birth, to close the speedy delivery of her ripening child, and delayed the babe now perfect. For she hated Artemis and would not call upon her in her pains; she would not have the daughters of Hera," lest they as being children of Bacchos's stepmother should oppress her delivery with more pain. At last in her affliction the girl cried out these despairing words, stabbed with the pangs of one who was new to the hard necessity of childbirth: “So may I see Archeress and wild Athena, so may I see them both great with child! Reproach Artemis in labour, O midwife Horae (seasons), be witness of her delivery, and say to Tritogeneia — 'O virgin Brighteyes, O new mother who mother had none!' So may I see Echo who loves maidenhood so much, suffering as I do, after she has lain with Pan, or Dionysos the cause of my troubles! Artemis, if you could bring forth, it would be some consolation to Aura, that you should trickle woman's milk from your man's breast.” So she cried, lamenting the heavy pangs of her

delivery. Then Artemis delayed the birth, and gave the labouring bride the pain of retarded delivery.
But Nicaia, the leader of the rites of Lyaios, seeing the pain and disgrace of distracted Aura, spoke to her thus in secret pity: “ Aura, I have suffered as you have, and you too lament you your maidenhood. But since you carry in your womb the burden of painful childbirth, endure after the bed to have the pangs of delivery, endure to give your untaught breast to babes. Why did you also drink wine, which robbed me of my girdle? Why did you also drink wine, Aura, until you were with child? You also suffered what I suffered, you enemy of marriage; then you also have to blame a deceitful sleep sent by the Loves, who are friends of marriage. One fraud fitted marriage on us both, one husband was Aura's and made virgin Nicaia the mother of children. No more have I a beastslaying bow, no longer as once, I draw my bowstring and my arrows; I am a poor woman working at the loom, and no longer a wild Amazon.”
She spoke, pitying Aura's labour to accomplish the birth, as one who herself had felt the pangs of labour. But Leto's daughter, hearing the resounding cries of Aura, came near the bride again in triumph, taunted her in her suffering and spoke in stinging words:
' Virgin, who made you a mother in childbed? You that knew nothing of marriage, how came that milk in your breast? I never heard or saw that a virgin bears a child. Has my father changed nature? Do women bear children without marriage? For you, a maiden, the friend of maidenhood, bring forth

young children, even if you hate Aphrodite. Then do women in childbed under the hard necessity of childbirth no longer call on Artemis to guide them, when you alone do not want Agrotera the lady of the hunt? Nor did Eileithyia, who conducts your delivery, see your Dionysos born from his mother's womb; but thunderbolts were his midwives, and he only half-made! Do not be angry that you bear children among the crags, where Rheia queen of the crags has borne children." What harm is it that you bear children in the mountains, you the mountaineer wife of mountain-ranging Dionysos!"She spoke, and the nymph in childbirth was indignant and angry, but she was ashamed before Artemis even in her pains. Ah poor creature! she wished to remain a maiden, and she was near to childbirth. A babe came quickly into the light; for even as Artemis yet spoke the word that shot out the delivery, the womb of Aura was loosened, and twin children came forth of themselves; therefore from these twins (Didymoi) the highpeaked mountain of Rheia was called Dindymon. Seeing how fair the children were, the goddess again spoke in a changed voice: “Wetnurse, lonely ranger, twinmother, bride of a forced bridal, give your untaught breast to your sons, virgin mother. Your boy calls daddy, asking for his father; tell your children the name of your secret lover. Artemis knows nothing of marriage, she has not nursed a son at her breast. These mountains were your bed, and the spotted skins of fawns are swaddling-clothes for your babies, instead of the usual robe.” She spoke, and swiftshoe plunged into the

shady wood. Then Dionysos called Nicaia, his own Cybeleid nymph, and smiling pointed to Aura still upbraiding her childbed; proud of his late union with the lonely girl, he said: “Now at last, Nicaia, you have found consolation for your love. Now again Dionysos has stolen a marriage bed, and ravished another maiden: woodland Aura in the mountains, who shrank once from the very name of love, has seen a marriage the image of yours. Not you alone had sweet sleep as a guide to love, not you alone drank deceitful wine which stole your maiden girdle; but once more a fountain of nuptial wine has burst from a new opening rock unrecognized, and Aura drank. You who have learnt the throes of childbirth in hard necessity, by Telete your danceweaving daughter I beseech you, hasten to lift up my son, that my desperate Aura may not destroy him with daring hands — for I know she will kill one of the two baby boys in her intolerable frenzy, but do you help Iacchos: guard the better boy, that your Telete may be the servant of son and father both.” With this appeal Bacchos departed, triumphant and proud of his two Phrygian marriages, with the elder wife and the younger bride. And in deep distress beside the rock where they had been born, the mother in childbed held up the two boys and cried aloud —
" From the sky came this marriage — I will throw my offspring into the sky! I was wooed by the breezes, and I saw no mortal bed. Winds my namesakes came down to the marriage of the Windmaid, then let the breezes take the offspring of my womb. Away with you, children accursed of a treacherous

father, you are none of mine — what have I to do with the sorrows of women? Show yourselves now, lions, come freely to forage in the woods; have no fear, for Aura is your enemy no more. Hares with your rolling eyes, you are better than hounds. Jackals, let me be your favourite; I will watch the panther jumping fearless beside my bed. Bring your friend the bear without fear; for now that Aura has children her arrows in bronze armour have become womanish. I am ashamed to have the name of bride who once was virgin; lest I sometime offer my strong breast to babes, lest I press out the bastard milk with my hand, or be called tender mother in the woods where I slew wild beasts!"
She took the babes and] laid them in the den of a lioness for her dinner. But a panther with understanding mind licked their bodies with her ravening lips, and nursed the beautiful boys of Dionysos with intelligent breast; wondering serpents with poison-spitting mouth surrounded the birthplace, for Aura's bridegroom had made even the ravening beasts gentle to guard his newborn children.
Then Lelantos's daughter sprang up with wandering foot in the wild temper of a shaggycrested lioness, tore one child from the wild beast's jaws and hurled it like a flash into the stormy air: the new-born child fell from the air headlong into the whirling dust upon the ground, and she caught him up and gave him a tomb in her own maw — a family dinner indeed! The maiden Archeress was terrified at this heartless mother, and seized the other child of Aura, then she hastened away through the wood; holding the boy, an unfamiliar burden in her nursing arm.

After the bed of Bromios, after the delirium of childbirth, huntress Aura would escape the reproach of her wedding, for she still held in reverence the modesty of her maiden state. So she went to the banks of Sangarios, threw into the water her backbending bow and her neglected quiver, and leapt headlong into the deep stream, refusing in shame to let her eyes look on the light of day. The waves of the river covered her up, and Cronion turned her into a fountain: her breasts became the spouts of falling water, the stream was her body, the flowers her hair, her bow the horn of the horned River in bull-shape, the bowstring changed into a rush and the whistling arrows into vocal reeds, the quiver passed through to the muddy bed of the river and, changed to a hollow channel, poured its sounding waters.
Then the Archeress stilled her anger. She went about the forest seeking for traces of Lyaios in his beloved mountains, while she held Aura's newborn babe, carrying in her arms another's burden, until shamefast she delivered his boy to Dionysos her brother.
The father gave charge of his son to Nicaia the nymph as a nurse. She took him, and fed the boy, pressing out the lifegiving juice of her childnursing breasts from her teat, until he grew up. While the boy was yet young, Bacchos took into his car this Bacchos his father's namesake, and presented him to Attic Athena amid her mysteries, babbling “Euoi.” Goddess Pallas in her temple received him into her maiden bosom, which had welcome for a god; she gave the boy that pap which only Erechtheus had sucked, and let the alien milk trickle of itself from her unripe breast.

The goddess gave him in trust to the Bacchants of Eleusis; the wives of Marathon wearing ivy tript around the boy Iacchos, and lifted the Attic torch in the nightly dances of the deity lately born. They honoured him as a god next after the son of Persephoneia, and after Semele's son; they established sacrifices for Dionysos late born and Dionysos first born, and third they chanted a new hymn for Iacchos. In these three celebrations Athens held high revel; in the dance lately made, the Athenians beat the step in honour of Zagreus and Bromios and Iacchos all together.
But Bacchos had not forgotten his Cydonian darling, no, he remembered still the bride once his, then lost, and he placed in Olympos the rounded crown of Ariadne passed away, a witness of his love, an everlasting proclaimer of garlanded wedding.
Then the vinegod ascended into his father's heaven, and touched one table with the father who had brought him to birth; after the banquets of mortals, after the wine once poured out, he quaffed heavenly nectar from nobler goblets, on a throne beside Apollo, at the hearth beside Maia's son.