Then Dionysos shouted to the river in rage :
“Why do you drive against the son of Zeus, you whose waters are fed by Zeus? If it be my pleasure, Rainy Zeus my father will dry up your flood. You, sprung from the clouds of Cronides my father, persecute the offspring of Cloudgatherer Zeus ! Beware the stroke of my father’s thunderbolt of delivery, beware lest he raise against you the lightning which gave Bromios birth! Take care that you be not dubbed Heavyknee, like Asopos! Quiet your flood while I yet control my wrath. Your waters rise against fires, and you cannot endure one spark of the blazing thunderbolt.
“And if it is Asterié your wife that makes you so proud, because she has the blood of Hyperion’s heavenly kin, my father burnt with fire the bold son of Helios the fiery charioteer, when he drove the team through heaven; Hyperion dispenser of fire had to mourn his own son dead: he did not make war on my father for Phaéthon’s sake, he did not lift fire against fire even if he is lord of fire. If your Oceanos makes you so haughty, consider Eridanos struck by the bolt of Zeus, your brother burnt with fire : a cruel sorrow it was for your watery ancestor, who is girdled by the world’s rim, who pours all those mighty streams of water to possess the earth, when he saw his own son burnt up and made no war on Olympos, nor contended with his flood against the firebarbed thunderbolt. Pray spare your waters awhile, or I may see you, Hydaspes, burnt up in fiery flames like Eridanos.”’
These words made deeproaring Hydaspes more angry than ever, and he poured out his highswollen water in yet stronger waves. And now he would have engulfed the whole company of sobered Bacchants, had not Bacchos defended them. From a neighbouring coppice he pulled a firebearing stalk of fennel, and holding it towards the Dawn he warmed it at the sun; the combustible stalk conceived a spark in itself and brought forth a woodborn fire. Then he threw it into the stream. The river caught fire of this menacing torch, and the water boiled up against the banks ; clouds of smoke went up scattering into the air from burning lotus and shrivelling galingale. Fire consumed the rushes; the reek of the sooty smoke curling in whirling circles intoxicated the heavenly vaults, and all the wood was blackened by the fragrant breezes of the smitten reeds.
The blaze spread to the deeps. Burning fishes hid themselves in the mud ; the soaking slime kindled the wet and boiled, as the swimming spark of fire ran under water, and from the deep channels poured abroad a fiery smoke mixt with watery steam. Companies of Hydriads were driven naked from their homes under the waves, swift-footed, bare, unveiled. One Naiad, renouncing her native water now on fire, dived unveiled into the unfamiliar Ganges; another with dry limbs sought a home in noisy Indian Acesines; another Naiad nymph wandering over the mountains, a maiden unveiled and unshod, was received by Choaspes near Persia.
Oceanos also cried out against Dionysos in menacing words, pouring a watery roar from his manystream throat, and deluging the shores of the world with the flood of words which issued from his everlasting mouth like a fountain:
“O Tethys ! agemate and bedmate of Oceanos, ancient as the world, nurse of commingled waters, selfborn, loving mother of children, what shall we do? Now Rainy Zeus blazes in arms against me and your children. Even as Asopos found the Father Zeus Cronion his destroyer, in the bastard shape of a bird, so Hydaspes has found Bacchos the son. Nay, I will bring my water against the lightnings of Zeus, and drown the fiery sun in my quenching flood, I will put out the stars of heaven! Cronion shall see me overwhelm Selene with my roaring streams. Under the region of the Bear, I will wash with my waters the ends of the axle and the dry track of the Wain. The heavenly Dolphin, which long ago swam in my deep sea, I will make to swim once more, and cover him with new seas. I will drag down from heaven the fiery Eridanos whose course is among the stars, and bring him back to a new home in the Celtic land: he shall be water again, and the sky shall be bare of the river of fire. The starry Fishes that swim on high I will pull into the sea and make them mine again, to swim in water instead of Olympos.
“Tethys, awake! We will drown the stars in water, that I may see the Bull, who once swam over a waveless sea, tossed on stormier waves in the paths of the waters after the bed of Europa. Selene herself, bullshaped and horned driver of cattle, may be angry to see my horned bullshaped form. I will travel high into the heaven, that I may behold Cepheus drenched and the Waggoner in soaking tunic, as Earthshaker once did when about Corinth soaking Ares once boldly shouted defiance of battle against the stars! I will swallow the shining Goat, the nurse of Zeus, and I will offer infinite water to the Waterman as a suitable gift !
“Get ready, Tethys, and you, O Sea! for Zeus has been delivered of a base son in bull shape, to destroy all rivers and all creatures together, all blameless : the thyrsus wand has slain the Indians, the torch has burnt Hydaspes !
So he cried blustering in a flood of speech from his deep waves.
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