Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 11.83–213: Book 11: Omens of Ampelos' death; he mounts the bull

Then came a great […] to doting Dionysos, showing that Ampelos not long to live: for a horned dragon covered with scales rose from the rocks, carrying across his back a tender young fawn; he crept over the steps, and threw it upon the altar tumbling and rolling helpless and gored with his horrible horn. The hillranging fawn screamed a shrill note as its wandering spirit flew away. A stream of blood reddened the stone altar with bloody dew like so much trickling wine, harbinger of the libation that should follow. When Euios saw the crawling horned robber with the fawn, he knew that a horned creature would destroy the thoughtless youth. He mingled a laugh with his mourning ; his thought was uncertain and divided in two, his heart cleft in halves, as he groaned for the youth so near to death, and laughed for the delectable wine,

None the less he went with the lovely boy to the mountains, to the flats, to the course of their familiar hunting. Bacchos still delighted to look at him ; for loving eyes are never sated with looking. Often as Bromios sat with him at table, the youth would pipe a new strange music, and confused all the notes of his reeds. Even if he broke the tune of his melody, Bacchos made as if the boy were playing well, and sprang from the ground with airy leaps, clapped and clattered with hands together, as the boy yet sang pressed his own lips to his mouth, embraced him lovingly for his beautiful song, as he said, and swore by Zeus that melodious Pan had never sung such another tune nor the clear voice of Apollo.

But Ate the deathbringing spirit of Delusion, saw the bold youth straying on the mountains away from Lysios during the hunt ; and taking the charming form of one of his agemate boys, she addressed Ampelos with a coaxing deceitful speech—all to gratify the stepmother of Phrygian Dionysos.

Your friend, fearless boy, is called Dionysos […]. What honour have you got from your friendship ? You do not guide the divine car of Lyaios, you do not drive a panther ! Your Bromios’s chariot has fallen to Maron’s lot, his hand manages the beast-ruling whip and the jewel-studded reins. What gift like that have you gotten from Lyaios of the thyrsus ? The Pans have their cithern and their melodious tootling pipes ; the Satyrs have the round loud-rattling tomtom from your patron Dionysos; even the mountainranging Bassarids ride on the backs of lions. What gifts have you received worthy of your love, you, loved for nothing by Bacchos the driver of panthers? Atymundos has often been seen on high in the chariot of Phoibos cutting the air; Abaris also you have heard of, whom Phoibos sped through the air perched on his winged roving arrow. Ganymedes also rode an eagle in the sky, a changeling Zeus with wings, the begetter of your Lysios. But Bacchos never became a love-bird or carried Ampelos, lifting your body with talons that would not tear. The Trojan winepourer had the better of you—he is at home in the court of Zeus. Now my boy, look here : but you are still kept waiting for the chariot, just refuse to drive a nervous colt on the road—a horse goes rattling along like a tempest on a whirlwind of legs, and shakes out the driver. Glaucos’s horses went mad and threw him out on the ground. Quickwing Pegasos threw Bellerophontes and sent him headlong down from the sky, although he was of the seed of Earthshaker and the horse himself shared the kindred blood of Poseidon.

Come this way, do, to the herd, where are the […] drovers and lovely cattle—get on a bull, and I will make you conspicuous on his back as the man who can ride a wild bull! Then your […] body king Dionysos will […] you more loudly, […] — you with a bull […] ! There is nothing to fear in such a run: Europa was a female, a young girl, and she had a ride on bull-back, held tight to the horn and asked for no reins.”

This appeal persuaded him, and the goddess flew up into the air. And there was a stray bull suddenly running down from the rocks. His lips were open, and the tongue hung out over his jaws to show his thirst. He drank, then stood looking at the boy just as if he knew him, as if his own keeper were by. He did not hold his horn sideways, but as the mighty bull again and again belched up the drink into his roomy mouth a shower of drops sprinkled the youth, as prophetic of what was to come : for oxen trudging round and round on the ground in everlasting circumambulation about one capstan, irrigate the vine-stock with their water,

The bold boy stood over the bull’s brow stroking the curved horns with fearless hand ; and excited by sweet sting of desire for the woodland creature, he longed to ride the mountainranging bull untamed. He pulled long leafy shoots by a meadow deep-set with rushes, and plaited a sort of whip from the fresh withies with sharper twigs, then bent and twisted some bundles into something like a bridle. He decked out the bull’s body with fresh dewy leaves, wreathed red roses about his back, lifted lilies and daffodils over his brow and hung a ring of purple anemone on his neck; he dipt his hands deep in the neighbouring river and brought up handfuls of yellow mud, to gild the two horns on either side. He laid a dappled skin over his backbone, and mounted the bull. He swung his make-believe whip on the bull’s flanks and flogged his mount as if he were a long-maned colt.

Then he shouted boldly to the bullfaced Moon—

Give me best, Selene, horned driver of cattle ! Now I am both—I have horns and ride a bull !”

So he called out boasting to the round Moon. Selene looked with a jealous eye through the air, to see how Ampelos rode on the murderous marauding bull. She sent him a cattle-chasing gadfly : and the bull, pricked continually all over by the sharp sting, galloped away like a horse through pathless tracts,

The youth when he saw the untamed bull driven by these maddening stings to dash on and on over the highcrested hills, afraid of impending fate, made his prayer in mournful tones :

Swop for to-day, my bull, you shall have a quick run to-morrow ! Don’t kill me high on these deserted rocks, or let me die, so that Bacchos never hears of my fate! Don’t be angry that I gilded your horns, dear bull ; do not grudge that Bacchos keeps my love. But if you must kill me and flout Dionysos, if you have no pity for your sorrowful rider because I am young, because I am friend to Lysios, take me back to the Satyrs and you shall destroy me there, that when I am dead there I may have many tears on my ashes. Yes I beseech you, dearest Bull ! I shall feel consolation if unweeping Dionysos laments my death. If you are traitor to your horned rider, who has a shape like your bullfaced form, get a voice and tell my death to Lyaios. O Bull—enemy of your Demeter and Dionysos both—when Bromios is grieved, bounteous Deo is grieved with him!