The first contains Cronion, light-bearing ravisher of the nymph, and the starry heaven battered by Typhon’s hands.
Tell the tale, Goddess, of Cronides’ courier with fiery flame, the gasping travail which the thunderbolt brought with sparks for wedding-torches, the lightning in waiting upon Semele’s nuptials; tell the naissance of Bacchos twice-born, whom Zeus lifted still moist from the fire, a baby half-complete born without midwife ; how with shrinking hands he cut the incision in his thigh and carried him in his man’s-womb, father and gracious mother at once—! and well he remembered another birth, when his own head conceived, when his temple was big with child, and he carried that incredible unbegotten lump, until he shot out Athena scintillating in her armour.
“Bring me the fennel, rattle the cymbals, ye fit Muses put in my hand the wand of Dionysos whom I sing : but I bring me a partner for your dance in the neighbouring island of Pharos, Proteus of many turns, that he may appear in all his diversity of shapes, since twang my harp to a diversity of songs. For if, as a serpent, he should glide along his winding trail, I will sing my god’s achievement, how with ivy-wreathed wand he destroyed the horrid hosts of Giants serpent-haired. If as a lion he shake his bristling mane, I will cry “Euoi!” to Bacchos on the arm of buxom Rheia, stealthily draining the breast of the lion-breeding goddess. If as a leopard he shoot up into the air with a stormy leap from his, changing shape like a master-craftsman, I will hymn the son of Zeus, how he slew the Indian nation, with his team of pards riding down the elephants. If he make his figure like the shape of a boar, I will sing Thyone’s son, love-sick for Aura the desirable, boar-slayer, daughter of Cybele, mother of the third Bacchos late-born If he be mimic water, I will sing Dionysos diving into the bosom of the brine, when Lycurgos armed himself. If he become a quivering tree and tune a counterfeit whispering, I will tell of Icarios,” how in the jubilant winepress his feet crushed the grape in rivalry.
Bring me the fennel, Mimallons! On my shoulders in place of the wonted kirtle, bind, I pray, tight over my breast a dapple-back fawnskin, full of the perfume of Maronian nectar; and let Homer and deep-sea Eidothea keep the rank skin of the seals for Menelaos. Give me the jocund tambours and the goatskins but I leave for another the double-sounding pipe with its melodious sweetness, or I may offend my own Apollo; for he rejects the sound of breathing reeds, ever since he put to shame Marsyas and his god-defiant pipes, and bared every limb of the skin-stript shepherd, and hung his skin’on a tree to belly in the breezes.
Then come now, Goddess, begin with the long search and travels of Cadmos.
Once on the Sidonian beach Zeus as a high-horned bull imitated an amorous bellow with his changeling throat, and felt a charming thrill ; little Eros heaved up a woman, with his two arms encircling her middle. And while he lifted her, at his side the sea-faring bull curved his neck downwards, spread under the girl to mount, sinking sideways on his knees, and stretching his back submissive, he raised up Europa ; then the bull pressed on, and his floating hoof furrowed the water of the trodden brine noiselessly with forbearing footsteps. High above the sea, the girl throbbing with fear navigated on bull-back, unmoving, unwetted. If you saw her you would think it was Thetis pérhaps, or Galateia, or Earthshaker’s bedfellow, or Aphrodite seated on a Triton’s neck. Aye, Seabluehair marvelled at the waddle- foot voyage; Triton heard the delusive lowing of Zeus, and bellowed an echoing note to Cronos’ son with his conch by way of wedding song ; Nereus pointed out to Doris the woman carried along, mingling wonder with fear as he saw the strange voyager and his horns.
But the maiden, a light freight for her bull-barge, sailed along oxriding, with a horn for steering-oar and trembled at the high heaving of her watery course, while Desire was the seaman. And artful! Boreas bellied out all her shaking robe with amorous breath, love-sick himself, and in secret jealousy,! whistled on the pair of unripe breasts. As when) one of the Nereids has peeped out of the sea, and seated upon a dolphin cuts the flooding calm, balanced there while she paddles with a wet hand and pretends to swim, while the watery wayfarer half-seen rounds his back and carries her dry through the brine, while the cleft tail of the fish passing through the sea scratches the surface in its course,—so the bull lifted his back : and while the bull stretched, his drover Eros flogged the servile neck with his charmed girdle, and lifting bow on shoulder like a pastoral staff, shepherded Hera’s bridegroom with Cypris’ crook, driving him to Poseidon’s watery pasture. Shame purpled the maiden cheek of Pallas unmothered,” when she spied Cronion ridden by a woman. So Zeus clove the course with watery furrow, but the deep sea did not quench his passion—for did not the water conceive Aphrodite by a heavenly husbandry, and bring her forth from the deeps Thus a girl steered the bull’s unboisterous passage, herself at once both pilot and cargo. Selene has gotten an unruly bull, and leaves the sky to traipse over the highseas! Or no—deepwater Thetis drives a coach on a floating racecourse! This sea-bull is a creature very different from the land-bull, has a fish-like shape; must be a Nereid with other looks, not naked now, but in long flowing robes, driving this bull unbridled to march afoot on the waters, a new fashion that! If it is Demeter wheaten-haired, cleaving the gray back of the sea with waterfaring oxhoof, then thou, Poseidon, must have turned landlubber and migrated to the thirsty back of earth, afoot behind the plow, and cut Demeter’s furrow with thy sea-vessel, blown by land-winds, tramping a voyage on the soil Bull, you are astray out of your country ; Nereus is no bull-drover, Proteus no plowman, Glaucos no gardener; no marsh-ground, no meadows in the billows; on the barren sea there’s no tillage, but sailors cut the shipharbouring water with a steering-oar, and do not split with iron; Earthshaker’s hinds do not sow in the furrows, but the sea’s plant is seaweed, sea’s sowing is water, the sailor is the farmer, the only furrow is the ship’s grain and wake, the hooker is the plow.
“But how came you to have dealings with a maid ? Do bulls also go mad with love, and ravish women ? Has Poseidon played a trick, and ravished a girl, under the shape of a horned bull like a river-god? Has he woven another plot to follow the bedding of Tyro, just as he did the other day, when the watery paramour came trickling up with counterfeit ripples like a bastard Enipeus”
So the Hellenic sailor spoke his amazement as he passed by. Then the girl presaged her union with the bull; and tearing her hair, she broke out in lamentable tones :
“Deaf Water, voiceless Coasts! Say to the Bull, if cattle can hear and hearken, Merciless, spare a girl!’ Ye Coasts, pray tell my loving father that Europa has left her native land, seated upon a bull, my ravisher, my sailor, and as I think, my bedfellow. Take these ringlets to my mother, ye circling Breezes. Aye Boreas, conjure thee, receive me on thy pinions in the air, as thou didst ravish thine Athenian bride ! But stay, my voice or I may see Boreas in love, like the Bull !
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