The twenty-fourth has the infinite mourning of the Indians, and the shuttle and distaff of Aphrodite working at the loom.
Father Zeus turned aside the menace of his angry son, for he massed the clouds and flung out a thunderclap ; he stayed the flaming attack of Dionysos, and calmed the anger of boundless Ocean. Hera also made an infinite noise resound through the air, to restrain the wrath of Dionysos’s fiery power.
Then old Hydaspes held out a wet hand to merciful Bacchos, and appealed to the fiery son of Zeus in words that bubbled out of his lips :
“‘Spare me, Dionysos, the river fed from Zeus ! Be gracious to my fertilizing waters! for your own goodly fruitage of grapes has grown up from water. I have sinned, Dionysos, nurseling of fire! for the gleam of your torches has proclaimed your divine lineage. But love for my children constrained me. To keep faith with Deriades my son I brought up my threatening surf, to help perishing Indians I rolled my waves.
“I am ashamed to appear before my father, because the murmuring stream which I draw is mingled with blood, and I pollute Poseidaon with clots of gore ; this it was, only this that armed me to strive against Dionysos. By your father, protector of guests and suppliants, have mercy on Hydaspes, now hot and boiling with your fire !
“The Naiads flee from my stream: one dwells in a watery home at my source, one leaves the deep for the thicket, and stays with Hadryads in the woods ; another migrates to the Indos, another escapes on dusty feet to hide among the thirsty rocks of Caucasos, or passing to Choaspes dwells in strange rivers and in her father’s water no longer.
“Destroy not my canes, the growth of my streams, which grow up to support the shoots and grapes of your vine! Do not the reeds tied together carry your well-watered fruit? Burn not my reeds, which make your Mygdonian hoboys, or your musical Athena may reproach you one day: she who invented the Libyan double pipes, to imitate with their tootle the voices of the Gorgons’ grim heads. Spare the harmonious tune of the panspipes which guides your own mystic song! Cease wasting the river stream with your fennel, when the stream of the river makes your fennels to grow!
“The stream you have crossed is no stranger to your name ; for I have washed another Dionysos in my bath, with the same name as the younger Bromios, when Cronion entrusted Zagreus to the care of my nursing nymphs; why, you have the whole shape of Zagreus. Grant this favour then, although so long after, to him from whom you are sprung ; for you came from the heart of that firstborn Dionysos, so celebrated. Respect the water of your Lamos who cherished your childhood ; remember Maionia your own country, for Hydaspes is brother of your charming Pactolos. Grant now this one boon to all these rivers, my brothers, and withdraw your flame. Burn not with fire my watery stream, for the watery fire of your Zeus, the lightning, came out of water! Calm your anger, because fall at your knees: see, I have smoothed my flood into peaceful prayer! If Typhoeus in rebellion had bent his bold neck and submitted, your father Zeus, Lord in the highest, would have checked his lightning, his overwhelming threat would have been cast aside and forgotten.”
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