Such were the sights which the old monarch displayed to watchful Bacchos. He could hardly manage to move through the hall with his divine guest, holding Dionysos by the hand; the other followed with slow obedient foot, and turned his wandering gaze to each thing in order. The god was amazed at the hospitable king’s hall, embellished with gold and starry with glittering decorations.
The king harried his servants and stirred up his serfs, to slaughter a herd of fine fat bulls and flocks of sheep for the Satyrs of bullhorn Dionysos. Then there was quick work, under the menaces of busy Staphylos with relays of serfs. A crowd of servants were hard at it preparing the banquet, bulls were butchered and processions of fat sheep from the pasture. There was dancing too; fragrant air was wafted through a house full of harping, the streets of the city were filled with sweet steamy odours, ample streams of wine made the whole house carouse. Cymbals clanged, panspipes whiffled about the melodious table, double hoboys were drooning, the round of the loudthrumming drum made the hall ring again with its double bangs, there were castanets rattling over that supper !
And there in the midst came Maron, heavy with wine, staggering on unsteady feet and moving to and fro as frenzy drove him. He threw his arms over the shoulders of two Satyrs and supported himself between them, then climbed right up from the ground twisting his legs about them. So he was lifted by the dancing feet of others, with red skin, his whole face emitting ruddy rays and shining between them, the very image of the crescent moon. In his left hand he held a newly flayed skin teeming with the inevitable wine and tied at the neck with a cord; in his right a cup. Bacchant women were all round the old creature as he skips on other men’s feet, with lolling head, every moment threatening to fall but never down. Servants and serfs alike were rolling drunk and danced wildly about, after tasting for the first time the delicious wine they never had before.
Methe also, the wife of King Staphylos, mother of a noble son, was made drunken by the winedew of Bacchos. With heavy head she begged the Bacchants for more drink, dancing round the full mixingbowl of Lyaios. She rolled her head moving this way and that way, shook the hair over her shoulders unsteadily, dipping her head first here, then there, on one side and the other again and again, ever on the point of falling on her slippery feet, until a Bacchant’s hands caught the wild creature and held her up. Staphylos too was drunk; the cheeks of drunken Botrys were red from his tippling cup; still a boy with the down on his face, he with Staphylos his father bound his loosened locks with the unfamiliar ivy and wreathed it like a garland. Then interchanging step with step Botrys danced about with ready feet, changing feet right after left ; and Staphylos went skipping in dancing movement, carrying his feet round and round in a running step, with one arm thrown round the neck of dancing Botrys. Staggering he blest the potion of danceweaving Dionysos, and shook his long hair falling over his shoulder from side to side. Methe was dancing too, with an arm round son and husband both, between Staphylos and Botrys. There was a sight to see, the triple-entwined delight of a close-embracing dance! And Pithos, hale old man, shaking his hoary locks in the wind, stuffed to the teeth with the delicious potation, danced heavy with wine, and twirled a drink-tottering foot ; he whitened his yellow beard with foam from the sweet libations that ran out from his throat.
So they drank the whole day long. Cups were still being filled when shadowy darkness grew black at the fringe, and covered all the western lands, when the twilight air darkened and lit up the spangled stars with faint light, when Phaéthon set under the cone of shadow and left on his way behind a small trace yet of the day, when silent Night shrouded the west in her own colour, and scored the sky across with her own starry cloak. Then after the tipsy bowl and after the feast of the table, Botrys together with his father, and Dionysos dispenser of wine, went off in a line, each to his separate wellstrown bed ; they took the boon of sleep, and had traffic with dreams.
But when the morning twilight, shining messenger of Dawn, cut through the edge of fading mist with rosy sparkles, then long-haired Bacchos leapt up early from his bed, shaken by the hope of victory. For in the night he had destroyed the Indian race with his ivytwined thyrsus, busy in the illusive image of a dream-battle. The noise of Satyrs and the rattle of javelins falling on his ears, shook off the din of his dreamland warfare and scattered that warlike sleep. But dreadful fear was in his heart that the dream foreboded some threatening danger. For in this unreal spectacle he had seen an image of his battle with Lycurgos, prophetic of things to come. In a forest, a bold formidable lion leapt from a rock with deathly jaws upon Bacchos, while he was dancing and still without weapons, and scared him to flight, driving him down to the sea where he hid under water, fleeing from the dangerous beast. He saw another terror besides—how the bold lion chased the thyrsus-bearing women with gaping throat and gored them with his claws ; as the women were torn, their gear fell from their mystic hands and rolled in the dust, their cymbals lay on the ground. Then a Bacchant turned, and muzzled the lion’s jaws by tying a string of vineleaves over his head, and wreathed his neck lightly in a noose. Then crowds of women ran up to the beast one upon another, and scratched with brambles the ugly pads and paws. At last Artemis saved him alive with difficulty, entangled in the clustering meshes ; and from the bosom of the sky a flash of lightning shot into the beast’s face, and made him a blind vagabond of the roads.
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