In the fifteenth, I sing the sturdy Nicaia, the rosy-armed beast-slayer defying Love.
As he spoke thus, cloud-wise rolled up the burnt-faced Indians around the flood of the honey-breathing river. One of them walking near stood pressing his two feet down in the slime, half-showing, and wetting his navel in the water, curved into the river and stretching his crouched back, and with hollowed hands lapped up the honeydripping water. Another by the flood, possessed by fiery thirst, bathing in the purple wave his fore-thrust cheek, spreading his breast above the bank of the river, with opening mouth drew in the juice of Bacchos. Another prone bringing close his mouth to the neighbouring fount, and pressing wet hands on the sandy bottom, with thirsting lips welcomed the thirsty water. Others drew up the potations with a shard for a cup, lifting the base of a broken two-ear jar. And a great swarm drank at the ruddy stream, ladling out with ivy-wood cups a mass of the river-dew, as they held the rustic pot of the shepherds. And as the enemies belched vinously from wide-yawning throat, as their eyes gazed, the cliffs were doubled, and they thought to see through their eyelids a pair of waters in one yoke. And the bubbling outflow of the wineloving river gushed up a brown stream of carousal ; and the fragrant banks poured up streams of the sweet drink of wine.
Thus the enemy were made drunken by the untempered stream. Then a certain man of the Indians, driven by the gadfly of mind-robbing drink, dashed into the herd; and by a leafy thicket found a threatening bull, which he brought back pulling him along in bonds, when he had dragged at the sharpened end of the two horns with daring hands, thinking that he drew under the yoke of servitude bullshaped Dionysos by the twin horns. Another, holding the horrid jaw of an iron sickle, shore through the neck of mountainranging goat, cleaving it with the whetted hook, thinking he was cutting the throat of horned Pan with his talon of crooked bronze. Another threshed out a horn-armed brood of cattle if harvesting the bullfaced shape of satyrs ; one again pursued a tribe of long-antlered deer, as if he were destroying a line of Bassarids, when he saw the patterned shape of the dappled creatures : for his sight was driven astray by the freckled fawnskins of like looks : and staining all his breast-piece with bloody drops, the black Indian was reddened by the spouting gore. And one shouting loudly attacked a neighbouring tree, flogging it on both sides ; and observing the leafy tendrils shaken by the spring breezes, he battered off the shoots of the tender clusters, slicing through the leaves of the thickest tree, as if cutting with his sabre through the tresses of unborn Dionysos, battling with foliage instead of combating with Satyrs, and took a bootless delight in his shadowy conquest. […] his shoulder-strap : then beating on both skins he crashed out a double tune in the brass-rattling sound. Another, thrilled by the note of the many-holed pipes, danced about with quick-circling steps, and putting a reed to his inexperienced lips practised the tune of the double Mygdonian pipes : then leaping to the neighbouring root of an ancient tree, he drew at a green shoot of the rich-dropping olive, soaked with dewy moisture, as though pressing his lip to a drop of Maronian wine. Others with swords, with spears, with helmets, their wits set a-rioting by the mind-robbing wine, mimicked the […] of the […] Corybants, twirling their steps for the dance-in-armour, and all in a whirl the shields were beaten by alternate thump of hand or the plunging iron. Another eyeing the orgies of the Muse with her choir, skipt a mimicking dance with the Satyr. And one hearing the roll of the banged oxhide, took on a gentle mood, and with rattle-loving desire, threw to the winds his terrible quiver, all frantic: a second chieftain of the womanmad Indians caught by the untwined hair some highnecked Bacchant, and dragging the untamed virgin to violent wedlock, held tight on the ground, and stretched in the dust with lust-maddened hands unsealed her belt, wild with vain hope: for suddenly with head erect a […] crept from her bosom, near-neighbour to the groin, and darted at the enemy’s throat, and about his neck twined a circling belt with spirals of his tail: the black-skinned man, fleeing with frightened feet, shook off the hot sting of unhallowed love, and wore on his throat the necklace of snaky spine.
While the Indians were running drunken on the hills, just then sweet Sleep plying his vigorous wing, […] the wavering eyes of the persistent Indians, and put them to bed, tormented in mind by immoderate wine, doing grace to Pasithea’s father, Dionysos. One lay sleeping on his back, with face turning upwards, straining his drink-shaken breath through a sleepy nostril. Another rested his heavy head on a stone, as he lay sluggish on the gravelly bank ; he was babbling in the daydreams of a vagrant mind, and laying his fingers stiff and straight about his temples. Another was stretched out prone, with his two hands hanging down to balance his two thighs. Another had leant his head on the wrist of his hand, and was drooling wine ; another had gathered his loins rolled together, like a snake coiling round, and lay slumbering on his side. And the company of the enemy who had rushed to the woody ridge—one slept under an oak, one in the undergrowth of an elm ; another fallen on his flank, and leaning against an oak, had put the left hand over forehead and eyebrows ; and a great swarm, heavy with wine in their slumber were chattering carcasses, sending into the air the unbridled din of sounds without sense, signifying nothing. One with shaking head, leaned his broad back on the trunk of an aged laurel. Another in heavy stupor upon a deep-strown bed, while the twining saplings of topleaf palm or prolific olive whistled above and fanned him with the winds. One was outstretched on the ground in the outpoured dust, washing the tips of his feet in the pouring river. Another shaken in the throes of intoxication, a new experience, leaned his heavy head against a neighbouring pine : another panted until the sinews of his forehead throbbed.
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