Now old Hydaspes poured out a gushing cry, and shouted for help to a watery brother, as he uttered these menacing words from his manyfountained throat :
“Lazy brother, how long is your stream to crawl in silence? Rear your waves, and overwhelm Dionysos, that we may swallow his host of footmen under the waters! It is a disgrace for you and me when the warriors of Bromios pass through my flood with unwetted shoes. You also, Aiolos ’—grant me this boon, arm your stormy winds to be champions against my foes, to fight with the Satyrs, because their host has marched through the waters and made a highroad of Hydaspes for landchariots, because they drive a watery course through my stream! Arm your winds against my ferryman Lyaios! Let the Satyrs’ host be caught in the flood, let my river receive the chariot, let the charioteers be rolled in my flood, let the riders be swallowed in the mad waves! I will not suffer this unnatural passage to be unavenged : for both you and me it is a disgrace, when the warriors of Bromios have made a path for footmen and drivers high and dry! . . . I will destroy the water-traversing lions of Dionysos !
“Tell me, why was my river made a highway? Why does the Naiad in the watery depths of my flood hear whinnying, why does the horse’s hoof crush the fish’s back? I am ashamed to mingle with other rivers, when women cross me with unwetted shoes. Never have Indians been so bold as to scrape my streams with towering chariots, never has Deriades scored his father’s water with his huge equipage, seated on the nape of highcrested elephants !
As he spoke, he curved his own stream, and leapt upon Bacchos with a volley of foaming surf. A storm of watery trumpets bellowed from the battling waves; the river moaned as it raised the water high, battling against the Satyrs. Amid the roaring tumult, the Bassarid in her rich garb shook the cymbals out of her hands, swung her feet round, shook off the yellow trusses of the stitched shoes from her paddling foot, while the windswept waves rose to the head of the swimming Bacchant and drenched her curling hair. Another overwhelmed threw off her soaking robes, and gave her fawnskins to the swelling water, as the mass of the curving stream rolled over her chest, black against the rosy nipple. A Satyr paddling the flood with his hands waggled his wet tail straight out through the water. Maron carried swiftly along by the rushing water, paddled the drunken feet of his old legs, and left in the waves his leather bottle full of delicious wine. The syrinx of Pan was floating on the surface and rolling of itself on the waves, tossed about beside the double pipes ; the hair of shaggy Seilenos flowed over his neck and jumped about in rivalry.
The river moaned, dragging the mud in its rush and pouring its alien water yellow over the land, a challenge to watery war for Dionysos. The tumultuous flood, met by a counterblast of wind, piled up high as the clouds and soaked the air, as it leapt down upon Dionysos with foaming surf. Not so furiously roared the war-mad water of Simoeis, not so defiantly rushed Camandros to overwhelm Achilles with rolling flood, as then Hydaspes pursued the army of Bacchos.
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