The Season restless over all these on one tablet, until she came to the place where fiery Hyperion indicated the signs of prophecy to the windswept maiden. There was drawn the shining Lion, there the starry Virgin was depicted in mimic shape, holding a bunch of grapes, the summer-grown flower of fruitage: there the daughter of Time stayed her feet, and this is what she read : […] verse. There the grape-loving goddess revelled, for she […] this prophecy, kept for Lysios Ivybearer,
Zeus gave to Phoibos the laurel,
Red roses to the rosy […],
The gray-leaf olive to Greyeyes,
Corn to Demeter, vine to Dionysos,
That’s what the Eoian maiden saw on the tablets. She departed joyful, and with her Sisters was away to the stream of the eastern Ocean, moving along with Phaethon’s team.
But Dionysos had healing physic for his comrade fallen, of dancing he thought no more. Shaken to the heart by his loving passion, he sounded bitter laments; he left to uncaring silence the […] back of the timbrel unbeaten, and had no joy in the cithern. Before the unsmiling countenance of Dionysos, full of love and piteous pining, the reedy Lydian Hermon held up his course, and his fast-rolling waves which poured on with weather-beaten throb—he cared no more to flow ; Pactolos yellow as saffron with the wealth deep under his flood, stayed his water in mourning, like the image of a sorrowful man: Sangarios the Phrygian stream, in honour of the dead, checked back the course of his banked fountains; the unbreathing image of Tantalo’s daughter, the unhappy mother drowned in sighs wept double tears for mourning Dionysos. The fir whispered softly, moaning to its young friend the pine : even the tree of unshorn Phoibos himself, the laurel, shook her foliage to the sorrowful winds; the glossy olive never felled shed her leaves on the ground, for all that she was Athena’s tree.
Since then Dionysos, who never wept, lamented thus in his love, the awful threads of Fate were unloosened and turned back ; and Atropos Never-turn-back, whose word stands fast, uttered a voice divine to console Dionysos in sorrow :
He lives, I declare, Dionysos ; your boy lives, […] shall not pass the bitter water of Acheron. Your lamentation has found out how to undo the inflexible threads of unturning Fate, it has turned back the irrevocable. Ampelos is not dead, even if he died ; for I will change your boy to a lovely drink, a delicious nectar. He shall be worshipt with dancing beat of tripping fingers, when the double-sounding […] shall strike up harmony over the feast, be it in rhythm or Dorian tune; or on the boards a musical man shall sing him, pouring out the voice of Aonian reeds for Lemnians or the burghers of Marathon. The Muses shall cry triumph for Ampelos the lovely with Lyaios of the Vine. You shall throw off the twisting coronal of snakes from your head, and entwine your hair with tendrils of the vine ; you shall make Phoibos jealous, that he holds out his melancholy iris with its leafy dirge. You too disperse a drink, the earthly image of heavenly nectar, the comfort of the human race, and your friend shall […] the flower glory of the […] boy : if […] […] the bronze of battle, your boy’s country too increases the shining torrent of red juice like a river—she is all proud of her gold, and she likes not steel. If one boasts of a roaring river, Pactolos has better water than Eurotas. Ampelos, you have brought mourning to Dionysos who never mourns—yes, that when your honeydropping wine shall grow, you may bring its delight to all the four quarters of the world, a libation for the Blessed, and for Dionysos heart of merry cheer. Lord Bacchos has wept tears, that he may wipe away man’s tears!
Having spoken, the divinity departed with her […],
Then a great miracle was shown to sorrowful Bacchos witnessing. For Ampelos the lovely dead rose of himself and took the form of a creeping snake, and became the heal-trouble flower. As body changed, his belly was a long long stalk, his fingers grew into top-tendrils, his feet took root, his curl-clusters were grape-clusters, his very fawnskin changed into the many-coloured bloom of the growing fruit, his long neck became a bunch of grapes, his elbow gave place to a bending twig swollen with berries, his head changed until the horns took the shape of twisted clumps of drupes. There grew rows of plants without end ; there selfmade was an orchard of vines, twining green twigs round the neighbouring trees with garlands of the unknown wine-blushing fruit.
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