When he had ended his speech, up rose horned Seilenos, and antediluvian Maron got up on heavy foot, with his eyes on the great mixer of shining gold : not because the golden was the better, but because this alone contained the oldest wine and the finest stuff, filling it to the brim. His passion for this lovely wine made him young again, and the Bacchic aroma was too much for his gray hair. He twirled his feet round testing his strength, to see if heavy old age had made his limbs forget how to dance. The old man tried to appease the soul of Staphylos by the words that poured sober enough out of his shaggy beard :
“I am Maron, comrade of Lyaios who cannot mourn. I know not how to shed tears; what have tears to do with Dionysos? Reels and jigs are the gifts I offer at your tomb. Accept me smiling : Maron knows no cares, Maron knows not groans, nor the burden of melancholy sorrow. He is the lovely lackey of Dionysos who cannot mourn. Be gracious to your Maron, even if you have drunk the water of Lethe! Grant me this boon, that I may drink that store of old wine, and let Seilenos drink the new stuff of a new vintage !
“I will dance for Staphylos after death, as if he were living, for I rate the dance above the steamloving table. For you I dance, Staphylos, both living and not breathing, and strike up a funeral revel. I am a servant of Bacchos, not of Phoibos, and I never learnt to sing dirges, such as Lord Apollo sang in Crete shedding tears for Atymnios the beloved. I am a stranger to the Heliads. I am alien to Eridanos, not connected with Phaéthon the charioteer who perished; I am no burgher of Sparta, I wear not the mourning flowers or shake the dainty petals of the lamenting iris.
“To-day, if you sit by the side of Minos as an equal judge, or if you possess the flowery court of Rhadamanthys, and pick your dainty way in the groves and meadows of Elysium, listen to your Maron: instead of cups, without libation, I mouth out for you a drinkoffering fullofsense. Be gracious to your Maron, and grant me a victory of wine, the victory to be famous among all! Then I will pour over your tomb the first spoils of my golden cups, the first lovely drops from the bowl after I win my prize for victory!”
So saying, Maron danced with winding step, passing the changes right over left, and figuring a silent eloquence of hand inaudible. He moved his eyes about as a picture of the story, he wove a rhythm full of meaning with gestures full of art. He shook his head and would have tossed his hair, but hair he had none ; both head and face were bare. He did not what an old man of Titan blood might have done, show the Titan race in his speaking picture, not Cronos or Phanes more primeval still, nor the breed of Titan Helios as old as the universe itself: no, he left all the confusion of that ancient stuff—he depicted with wordless art the cupbearer of Cronides offering the goblet to Zeus, or pouring the dew divine to fill up the bowl, and the other immortals in company ever enjoying cup after cup. His poet’s theme was the sweet potion. Aye, he danced also the maiden Hebe herself drawing the nectar ; when he looked at the Satyrs, with voiceless hands he acted Ganymedes, or when he saw the Bacchant women, he showed them goldenshoe Hebe in a picture having sense without words.
So Maron sketched his designs in pantomime gestures, lifting rhythmic feet with the motions of an artist, as he trod the winding measures of his unresting dance. Then he stood still trembling, and watched with shifty eye who should beat whom, who would go home with the larger bowl full of wine.
Now Seilenos danced : his hand without speech traced the cues of his art in all their intricate mazes. This is what he acted with gesturing hands: how once a great quarrel arose between Cyrene’s son and Dionysos over their cups, and the Blessed gathered together. There was no boxing, no running, no quoit in that contest: cups were the well-used tools ready for Phoibos’s son and Dionysos, and a couple of mixingbowls, one containing old wine, one with the gift of the sprigloving bee all fresh. Cronides sat in the seat of judgement. The competitors had before them a luscious match for a honeydrop victory ; cups were the tools; and like another Hermes with golden wings, lovely Eros himself came forward to preside in the ring, holding in one hand both ivy and an olive-branch. He offered to Bacchos the flowering ivy, to Aristaios the olive-branch like the garlands of Pisa, the holy ornament of Pallas.
First Aristaios made his mixture with the travail of the bee, and offered the immortals his mingled honey in the cup, a potion cleverly compounded ; he passed the goblet to each in turn one after another, and made their hearts glad. But after a first taste of the bubbling liquid, surfeit came at once: a third cup was filled and declined, and they would not touch a fourth. They found fault with the honey for this quick surfeit. Then richly-clad Dionysos drew from his mixer, full of sweet drink, lifted two cups and offered one with each hand, the first to Cronides, the second to Hera, then a third goblet to Earthshaker his father’s brother. Then he mixed for the gods one and all with Father Zeus; they were all delighted, except disconsolate Phoibos alone, who was jealous, and the god smiled as he handed him the goblet. They enchanted their minds with cups in great abundance ; drinking made them thirstier than before, they asked again for more, and could not get enough. Then the immortals loudly cheered, and gave Bacchos the chief prize for his delicious potion of wine. And Eros the ever-out-of-reach, the conductor of the game, drunken himself, crowned the hair of Lyaios with a vine-and-ivy garland.
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