So she cajoled him, and the shoes carried her high into the air. Dionysos deceived by the goddess threw aside his battlestirring rods, and doffed the plumed helmet from his hair, and laid down his starspangled shield. In one bare hand he carried a vessel full of the purple juice, his pointed horn with the cheerful grape ; he twined his unplaited hair with vine-leaves and ivy. His host under arms and his battlestirring women he left near Mount Carmel with the team of lions, and himself walked on foot to the festival in holiday garb without weapon. The panspipes sounded a cheeryheart melody of banquet, the double pipes whistled a friendly note, the Bassarid waved the Euian tambourines of Lyaios and skipped before the gateway of Lycurgos.
The bold king heard the jubilation of the dance, the hoboy’s note and the Berecynthian tune and the noise of the panspipes, he saw the round tambourine beaten on both sides, and he was furious. When he beheld the vinegod near his porch, he laughed in scorn, and hurled an implacable threat against the leader of the Bassarids, in mocking words :
“Do you see these offerings hung up before my mansion? You too, my friend, give me some decoration for my house, your thyrsus or feet or hands or bloody head. If you have horned Satyrs at your command, horned Bacchos, I will strike you all down with my poleaxe like cattle! There is my hospitable gift for you, that gods and men may tell how the gates of Lycurgos were festooned with the mutilated limbs of Dionysos. I am no Boiotian king, this is not Thebes, this is not Semele’s house, where women have labour by thunderclap and bring forth their baseborn children by lightning. You brandish a vinebound thyrsus, I wield a poleaxe ; and I will cleave your oxforehead down the middle, and break off your curved horns !
With these words, he beat the nurses of Dionysos with his poleaxe and chased them away ; and the dancing women—one shook Rheia’s cymbals from her palm, one put down the tambourine from her rattle-loving hands, another shot away her bunches of grapes, another fell with the cups of nectar; many threw down melodious panspipes and Athena’s breathing hoboy to roll over each other in the dust. As after storm, near the peaceful woods, a shepherd sees the delightful season of cloudless Phaéthon, and wakes a revel while the Nymphs join his dance; then suddenly the water comes rolling from the rocks and the waves are piled up as the river pours down from the mountains, the whistler throws the pipes out of his hands, fearing the bold flood of the river in torrent lest it overwhelm the sheep with swollen stream—so Lycurgos scattered the happy jubilant dancers, and drove the Bacchants unchapleted to the high hills ; he pursued them in no dancing fashion, that disbanded army of women; and in his armour of bronze, carrying the sharp poleaxe, Hera’s treasure, he made war upon Bacchos unarmed. Now the cruel stepmother bore hard on Lyaios—invincible Hera thundered loud and made him quake; the knees of Bacchos trembled, as the jealous resentful goddess armed herself on high. For he thought Cronion was fighting for Lycurgos, when he heard the thunderclaps rolling in the heavens. He took to his heels in fear and ran too fast for pursuit, until he plunged into the gray water of the Erythraian sea.
But Thetis in the deeps embraced him with friendly arm, and Arabian Nereus received him with hospitable hands, when he entered within the loud-resounding hall. Then he comforted him with friendly words, and said :
“Tell me, Dionysos, why are your looks despondent ? No army of earthborn Arabs has conquered you, no pursuing mortal man, you fled from no human spear; but Hera, sister and consort of Zeus Cronides, has armed herself in heaven and fought on the side of Lycurgos—Hera and stubborn Ares and the brazen sky: Lycurgos the mighty was only a fourth. Often enough your father himself, the lord of heaven ruling on high, had to give way to Hera! You will have all the more to boast of, when one of the Blessed shall say—Hera consort and sister of mighty Zeus took arms herself against Dionysos unarmed !
So speaking, Nereus tried to console Bacchos. And while Dionysos was hiding in the bright waves, Lycurgos indignant shouted aloud to the water—
“I wish my father had taught me not war alone, but how to deal with the sea! Then I would take a turn at the fishermen’s game, and fish for Dionysos, and drag this Lydian out of the bosom of the deep to land again for my servant! But since I have not learnt the work of seafaring fishers, and know nothing of the tricks of hunting in the deep with a cunning mesh of nets, you may have Leucothea’s house in the watery deep, until I can dislodge both you and Melicertes as they call him, another of your kin. I want no steel: for that, or this merciless poleaxe which belongs to the land. I want fishermen, to dive into the depth of the Erythraian brine and drag Dionysos from his refuge in the sea.
“Ho Fishermen! searchers of the haunts of Nereus! Spread not your nets for the denizens of the deep, but haul out Dionysos in the meshes ! Let Leucothea be caught along with Lyaios, and let her come back to the land; let bold Palaimon come with them to my house, let him dry his body and be slave to Lycurgos! Then he may leave the courses of his seabred horses round Ephyreia, and yoke my car beside a terrestrial manger, he and Bacchos grooms together. Let there be one house—one house for both, Palaimon and Dionysos.”’
Thus full of fury he railed at the sea, and hoary Nereus, and wished to flog the deep. But Father Zeus cried aloud to Lycurgos in his raging—
“You are mad, Lycurgos, you challenge the winds in vain! Away on your feet, while your eyes can still see! You have heard how a while ago by a trickling spring in the mountains Teiresias only saw Athena naked—he lifted no furious spear and made no attack on the goddess, he only saw, and yet lost the sight of his eyes.”
Such was the rebuke of Zeus who rules on high, spoken through the air when he saw the outrageous impiety of Lycurgos.
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