You sing no longer your song with Satyrs over the wine; no longer you marshal the loves rattle Bassarids ; no longer you go a-hunting with Dionysos on the chase. Alas, that Hades is never kind! Even for a corpse he accepts no glorious gifts of rich metals, that I may make dead Ampelos alive once more. Alas, that Hades is inexorable! If he will consent, rob the trees by river Eridanos and him with all their gleaming wealth ; I will bring him the flashing Erythraian stone of the Indies, and all the silver of rich Alybe—I will give him all golden Pactolos for my dead boy.”
So he lamented his beloved dead ; and looking again upon him as he lay in the dust he cried again to Zeus with mournful voice :
Father Zeus! If you love me, and if you know the trouble of love, give speech again to Ampelos only for one hour, that he may only speak once more to me for the last time and say—‘ Why do you sigh for me, Dionysos, when no sighing will wake me? Ears I have, but I hear not the caller ; eyes I have, but I see not him that sighs. Dionysos nevermourning, shed no tear over me. Nay, leave your mourning ; the Naiads may sigh by that fountain of death, but Narcissos hears not ; Phaethon knows not the sorrowful pains of the Heliads.’
Alas, that my father begat me not a mortal, that I might be playfellow with my boy even in Hades, that I might not leave Ampelos my darling to fall in Lethe alone! Apollo more blest in the youth he loved that he bears the boy’s beloved name ; O that also I might be Ampelofan, as Apollo is Hyacinthian ! How long will you sleep, my dear? Not dancing any longer? Why do not you go to-day to the river stream with a fine pitcher to fill with water? The time has come round again for your familiar dance in the woodland glade. If you are angry with lovestricken Dionysos, darling boy, speak to the Seilenoi that I may just hear your voice.
“If a lion killed you, I will destroy them all, yes all that the slopes of Tmolos hold; I will not spare the lions of my own Rheia, but I will kill them, if they were your murderers with their grim jaws. If a panther brought you down, you flower of love ! I will no longer drive my speckled team of panthers ; there are other wild beasts, and Artemis sovran of all creatures drives an antlered car drawn by stags. I will wear a fawnskin and drive a team of fawns. If merciless boars have killed you, I will grasp all together and kill them, and not one boar will I leave alive for the Archeress. If a presumptuous bull killed you, with the point of my thyrsus I will annihilate the whole generation of bulls root and branch.”
So he lamented. But Eros came near in the horned shape of a shaggy Seilenos, holding a thyrsus, with a dappled skin draped upon him, as he supported his frame on a fennel stalk, for a staff the old man’s friend ; and he spoke comfortable words to groaning Bacchos a consolation for Amyclaian Hyacinthos. Ask the gardener, if you like: when a countryman sees a flower on the ground lying in the dust, he plants another new one to comfort him for the dead one. Listen while I tell you a story of the men of old. There was a dainty boy, superior to all his yearsmates, who lived beside the stream of Maiandros, that many-branching river. Tall and delicate he was, swift of foot, with long straight hair, no down on his chin ; on both cheeks was a natural grace playing over his face with its modest eyes; a […] radiance overflowed from his eyelids and his arrows of beauty. He had skin all like milk, but over the white the rose showed upon the surface, two glowing colours together. His own father called him Calamos: his father Maiandros, lurking in the secret places with his water in the lap of earth—who rolls deep through the earth and drags his crooked stream towards the light, crawling unseen and travelling slantwise underground, until he leaps up quickly and lifts his neck above the ground.
Such was lovely Calamos, the quick one. The rosy-armed youth was fond of a charming playfellow Carpos, who had such beauty for his lot as mortal man never had. For if this youth had lived in the older generations, he would have been bridegroom of Eos Fairtress; since he shone lovelier than Cephalos, was handsomer of face than Orion, he alone outdid them with his rosy skin. Deo would not have embraced Iasion as bridegroom with her fruitful arm, nor Selene Endymion! No—this youth with his nobler beauty would soon have espoused both goddesses, one husband for two: he would have taken on the couch of Goldilocks Deo rich in harvests, he would have had beside him also the jealous Mene. Such was the charming friend of Calamos, the flower of love, a real beauty : both comrades of one age were playfellows on the bank of that river of many windings hard by.
“They had a double racecourse, winding out and back, and there they hold races. Calamos ran like the wind, He set an elm for starting-point and an olive-tree for turning-point, and ran from point to point on the edges of the river—but nimbleknee Calamos fell on purpose, and left the victory to charming Carpos of his own will. When the boy bathed, the lad bathed and played with him. Again they had another race in the water like the first ; Calamos swam slowly in the current and let ahead, that he might cut the flood paddling bend and come in second beside the ankles of swimming Carpos, while he watched the free shoulders of the lad in front. The race began from its watery starting-point ; the match was, which could beat which to swim there and back while their hands paddled them, passing round at the turning-points on each bank, first one, then crossing to the other side. The flowing water was their way; Calamos kept close beside his friend as they swam, watching his rosy fingers and sparing the vigour of his own moving hand. Calamos again in the lead checked his speed and gave way to his young friend ; the boy hand-paddling storming along, and lifting his neck above the water. And now Carpos would have got out of the waves, and safe on the shore would have won the river-race as he won the land-race, but a wind beat full in his face and drove a great wave into his open mouth, and drowned the dear boy without pity.
Cite This Text