love but springing for him the bitter death-drawing snare of the Erinyes.
And woes of lamentation shall the whole land hear—all that Aratthos and the impassable Leibethrian gates of Dotion enclose: by all these, yea, even by the shore of Acheron, my bridal shall long be mourned. For in the maws of many sea-monsters shall be entombed the countless swarm devoured by their jaws with many rows of teeth; while others, strangers in a strange land, bereft of relatives, shall receive their graves.
For one Bisaltian Eion by the Strymon, close marching with the Apsynthians and Bistonians, nigh to the Edonians, shall hide, the old nurse of youth, wrinkled as a crab, ere ever he behold Tymphrestus’ crag: even him who of all men was most hated by his father, who pierced the lamps of his eyes and made him blind, when he entered the dove’s bastard bed.
And three sea-gulls the glades of Cercaphus shall entomb, not far from the waters of Aleis: one the swan of Molossus Cypeus Coetus, who failed to guess the number of the brood-sow’s young, when, dragging his rival into the cunning contest of the wild figs, himself, as the oracle foretold, shall err
and sleep the destined sleep; the next, again, fourth in descent from Erechtheus, own brother of Aethon in the fictitious tale; and third, the son of him that with stern mattock ploughed the wooden walls of the Ectenes, whom Gongylates, the Counsellor, the Miller, slew and brake his head in pieces with his curse-expelling lash, what time the maiden daughters of Night armed them that were the brothers of their own father for the lust of doom dealt by mutual hands.
And two by the mouth of the streams of Pyramus, hounds of Deraenus, shall be slain by mutual slaughter, and fight their last battle at the foot of the towers of the daughter of Pamphylus. Anda steep sea-bitten fortress, even Magarsus, shall stand between their holy cairns, so that even when they have gone down to the habitations of the dead, they may not behold each other’s tombs, bathed in blood.
And five shall come to the Horned Isle of Wasps and Satrachus and the land of Hylates, and dwell beside Morpho the Lady of Zerynthus.
One shall be he that shall be banished by his father’s taunts from the cave of Cychreus and the waters of Bocarus; even he my cousin, as a bastard breed, the ruin of his kin, the murderer of the colt begotten by the same father; of him who spent his sworded frenzy on the herds; whom the hide of the lion made invulnerable by the bronze in battle and who possessed but one path to Hades and the dead—that which the Scythian quiver covered, what time the lion, burning sacrifice to Comyrus, uttered to his sire his prayer that was heard, while he dandled in his arms his comrade’s cub. For he shall not persuade his father that the Lemnian thunderbolt of Enyo—he the sullen bul! that never turned to flee—smote his own bowels with the gift of his bitterest foe, diving in a sorrowful leap on the sword’s edge in self-wrought slaughter. Far from his fatherland his sire shall drive Trambelus’ brother, whom my father's sister bare, when she was given to him who razed the towers as first-fruits of the spear. She it was that the babbler, the father of three daughters, standing up in the council of his townsmen, urged should be offered as dark banquet for the grey hound, which with briny water was turning all the land to mud, spewing waves from his jaws and with fierce surge flooding all the ground.
But, in place of the woodpecker, he swallowed in his throat a scorpion and bewailed to Phorcus the burden of his evil travail, seeking to find counsel in his pain.
The second who comes to the island is a countryman and a landsman, feeding on simple food, one of the sons of the oak, the wolf-shaped devourers of the flesh of Nyctimus, a people that were before the moon, and who in the height of winter heated in the ashes of the fire their staple of oaken bread; he shall dig for copper and from the trench drag the soil, mining with mattock every pit. His father the tusk of Oeta slew, crushing his body in the regions of the belly. In sorrow, wretched man, he learnt the truth of the saying that the all-devising fate of men rolls many a thing betwixt the life and the draught of the cup. That same tusk, all flecked with glistening foam, when he had fallen took vengeance on his slayer, smiting with unescapable blow the dancer’s ankle-bone.
And the third is the son of him who took from the hollow of the rock the arms of the giant; even he into whose secret bed shall come self-invited that heifer of Ida who shall go down to Hades alive, worn out with lamentation, the mother of Munitus, whom one day, as he hunts, a viper of Crestone shall kill, striking his heel with fierce sting; what time into his father’s hands that father’s father’s mother, taken captive, shall lay the young cub reared in the dark: she on whom alone the wolves! which harried the people of Acte set the yoke of slavery in vengeance for the raped Bacchant, those wolves whose head a cloven egg-shell covers, to guard them from the bloody spear; all else the worm-eaten untouched seal watches in the halls, a great marvel to the people of the country. Which things shall rear a ladder to the trace of the stars for the twin half-mortal Lapersii Whom, Saviour Zeus, never mayst thou send against my fatherland to succour the twice-raped corncrake, nor may they equip their winged ships and from the stern end set their naked swift foot in the landing-place of the Bebryces!
Neither may those others who are mightier than these lions, the unapproachable in valour, whom Ares loves and divine Enyo and the goddess that was born on the third day, Boarmia Longatis Homolois Bia. The walls which the two working craftsmen, Drymas and Prophantus, Lord of Cromna, built for the king that brake his oath, would not avail for one day against the ravaging wolves, to keep out their grievous ruinous assault, even though they have before the towers the mighty Canastraean, the native giant, as a bar against the foemen, eager to smite with well-aimed shaft the first harrier of the flocks. His spear shall a bold falcon first handsel, swooping a swift leap, best of the Greeks, for whom, when he is dead, the ready shore of the Doloncians builds of old a tomb, even Mazusia jutting from the horn of the dry land.
But we have one, yea one beyond our hope, for gracious champion, even the god Drymnius Promantheus Aethiops Gyrapsius, who, when they who are destined to suffer things dread and undesirable shall receive in their halls their fatal guest, the swooping robber, the wandering Orthanes, and when at banquet and festival they shall seek to propitiate the inexorable Lord of Cragos, shall put in the midst of their talk grievous wrangling.
Cite This Text