Now seeing his foes stupefied, Lord Bacchos spoke with laughing countenance, and uttered his word of command : Indianslaying servants of invincible Dionysos bind them all fast unresisting, the […] of the Indians, take them all prisoners in bloodless conflict ; let the Indian bend a slave’s knee to mighty Dionysos, and do menial service to my Rheia and her company, shaking the purple thyrsus ; let him throw to the storms his silver greaves, and bind his feet in buskine ; let him strip his tresses of highplumed helmet, and crown his head with my ivybond ; let him leave the yell of wars and the din of spears, and uplift the Euian song to grape-laden Dionysos.”
He spoke, and the menials were busy. One of them wound a snaky bond round the enemy’s throat, and dragged the man shackled with a rope of […], Another caught the straggling […] of a cheek, and drew the man along by the deep-bristling chin. One stretching his palms over curly-haired temples, dragged the man captive, unbound, by the shag. Another binding a prisoner’s hands behind the back, girded him with an encircling bond of withies about the neck. Maron staggered along with trembling totterings as he lifted on his aged shoulder an Indian sleep-laden. Another took up a spearman overpowered by sleep, put a halter of vines about his neck, pulled him along and dropped him over the rim of a car with dappled panthers. Another reclining was seized by the wandering swarm, with cries of Euoi they stretched his hands behind him and bound them tight with an inextricable knot, and threw him upon the neck of the elephant which never bends the knee; and many a one took hold of the sling of an Indian’s shield, and kept him shackled by the strap over the shoulder,
Now some Bassarid, foaming under a wit-drowning wave of madness, caught up a shepherd’s crook, and with daring hand dragged off by his curly hair to the yoke-band of slavery, an Indian searcher-out of the deep riches of the sea. At the bidding of Lyaios, iron Erechtheus held on unbending shoulders a […] with fine cuirass; and a Bacchant of the mountains drove away from its intoxicated owner his black-skinned beast, flogging the flanks of some elephant, spoil of the spear. Hymenaios robbed a man of his golden shield, and lifted up the golden buckler, while Bacchos delighted him with ardent gaze all gleaming in the armour of the sleep-owner. The young man in his harness shot out a rich brilliance, like as Diomedes sparkled among the warriors, flashing with the rich target he had taken from Lycian Glaucos. And the army of Bacchants despoiled other adversaries, of sweet sleep and sweet wine its comrade.
There was one with a crook-bow, a maiden denizen of the lonely wood, comrade hale and fresh among the nymphs of Astacia, beautiful Nicaia, a new huntress of Artemis, a stranger to love, unacquainted with Cythereia, ever shooting and tracking the beasts upon the hills. She did not hide in the scented nook of the women’s room. She was ever among the rocks, by lone-faring path, where the bow was her distaff ; she was ever in forest, where winged arrows were her long threads, the upright wood of the net-stakes was a loom for this Athena of the mountains ; she shared the tasks of the chaste Archeress, and she netted the meshes for her wonted hunting among the rocks more gladly than she would make twisted yarn. Never did she touch with shaft the timid dappled fawn, the gazelle she followed not, handled the hare; but the shaggy-breasted lion she fitted about with bloodred bridle, and whipt his flanks, and often lifted spear against a maddened […] ; and she blamed farshooting Archeress, for letting alone the generation of speckled pards and the tribes of lions, and yoking worthless deer to her car. Nor did she care for perfume : rather than honey-mixed bowls she preferred watery draughts from mountain brook, as she poured out cool water; lonely cliffs with nature’s vaulted roof were the maiden’s inaccessible dwelling. Often, her task well done, after the course of her wonted hunting, she sat beside the pards, and remained under one hollow roof at midday near a lioness newly delivered; then the beast gentle with calm brows would lick the girl’s body with unscratching jaws, and with timid throat like a whimpering dog, the greedy mouth of the lioness new-delivered purred softly through self-denying lips, while the lion, thinking her to be […] drooped his head to the ground in supplication, and bent his hairy neck before the nymph.
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