The carnage was infinite; Hydaspes covered the dead with his reluctant flood, and became their tomb. Then one within the river cried out his last reproach :
“You too, father! why do you drown your sons ? I have often made war against Bactrians, but Median Araxes never destroyed a Median army. Persian Euphrates never drowned his neighbours, the Persians. Often I have had war under the Tauros, but Cydnos never made his bosom the tomb of Cilicians in war. Tanais never arms icy petrified waters against the Sauromatans on his banks, but often attacked their enemies the Colchians with torrential war, and laid them low with his frozen armament. Eridanos was happier than you, in that he swallowed a foreigner, Phaéthon in his flood, not one of his own people; he drowned no Gaul, he entombed no Celt, but brings wealth from his trees to the friends who live near him as he rolls along the brilliant amber gifts of the Heliades. Iberian Rhine does indeed attack his own sons, but as a judge, when he marks off the illicit offspring of his race and kills the stranger-brat ; but you swallow up the lawful sons of your own perishing people—you drown no bastard blood. How dare you mingle with other rivers, with your Father Ocean himself and Tethys your mother, rolling down a flood of gore in bloody streams? Have some reverence, do not pollute Poseidon with dead bodies. Your river is worse than Bromios, his wands do not beat me so hard as your waves beat me!”’
As he spoke, he received the last water, which brought him unhappy fate,
The river was full of armour. The swollen bodies were floating in crowds: the helmet under way half visible, sinking little by little and crest trailing on the water, its owner lost. Leathern shields sailed along flat, tossing upon the waves in rows here and there, their long slings afloat like ships’ hawsers. Here a man is dragged down to the depths in his soaking garments by the weight of his corselet and his arms.
Dionysos would never have recalled his men from the battle, if he had not killed that whole army with his fleshpiercing wand, leaving only one to tell the news that all were dead. Thureus alone he left to be a godfearing witness of the victory.
But when Hera perceived the carnage and devastation of the Indians, she flew from heaven, and quickly along the path on high scored the air with windswift sole. In Anatolia she alighted, and drove Indian Hydaspes to stir up bloody strife against Dionysos. bent the knee, then the company of Bacchoi was fashioning all sorts of machines of navigation and crossed the tranquil waves. The god led them in his landchariot, driving this makeshift vessel over the flood, while the panthers trod the water of Hydaspes without wetting a hoof. The armies made their voyage over a waveless river, one rowing a strong-bound Indian raft, one steering a skiff along the watery path, some native boat of networking fishermen which he had seized. Another played the mariner under strange pretences. He lashed together a number of logs with workmanlike knots, and made the timber roots and all serve as a freighter without rudder, without sail, without oars, asking no help from speed-the-ship Boreas—for he held his spear upright and plunged it under water into the deep pools : so navigated the spearpunting shipman of a watercrossing host. There was another new kind of navigation, and another sham boat, when one cut the waters, dry on a floating shield, with the sling for painter, and so pursued his shieldshaking course.
The cavalry also marched into the river; the horses swam with their feet while the riders sat on their backs. As the horse swam a wet journey with his agile feet, only his neck rose high and dry out of the water as he carried the rider aloft upon his flanks.
Next came the doughty footmen who had no boat. They filled swelling skins with artificial wind, and on these leathery bags crossed Indian Hydaspes, while the skins teeming with wind bore them along.
Now Parrhasian Pan crossed the surface of the calm river on his goat’s feet; Lycos guided the horses of the sea in his father’s fourhorse chariot unwetted ; and Scelmis drove across the waveless river along with Damnameneus his brother. Some one else leapt on the back of a bull and made him march into the river quick as the wind, guiding him on his way with his crook, as the beast scored the quiet water with his hooves. The old Seilenoi went voyaging on the deep paddling Hydaspes with foot and hand.
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