When he had ended, Dionysos drew back his torch. A wind from the north began to ruffle the waters with winter’s lash, bringing bleak airs and cooling the firestruck stream of the river, and honoured Helios and Bacchos and Zeus together by quenching the unquenchable divine fire of the surf.
While Bacchos was still crossing the waters of Hydaspes, Deriades with the courage of Ares armed the Indians for a vast effort of battle, as a Battle down of his name should do. He posted his companies beside the river, that the warriors might repel by force the Bacchoi as they still climbed up. Nor did the allseeing eye of Zeus fail to see him: quickly he swooped down from Heaven to hold a shield before Dionysos. With Zeus came all the gods who dwell in Olympos, one after another, in a flying leap, to help their own.
Zeus as once before by the river Asopos, for the sake of Aigina’s bed, sailed now as an eagle flying high; and like a bird of prey caught up Aiacos in gentle talons, and carried him to the Indian land for battle with Deriades. Apollo the father saved Aristaios the son from the broad gulf, riding brilliant in his car drawn by the bane-averting swans ; for he remembered the bower of lionslaying Cyrene. Hermes Longwing caught up and held his own child, the son of Penelope, hornstrong hairy Pan. Urania saved Hymenaios from destruction, because he had the same name as her own creative son, and scored the airy paths like a moving star, to please Dionysos, her brother of the grapes. Calliope lifted Oiagros upon her shoulders. Hephaistos took care of his sons the Cabeiroi, and caught up both, like a flying firebrand. Pallas Athena the Attic goddess saved Erechtheus the Indians’ bane, the citizen of god-founded Athens. All the denizens of Olympos who cared for their beloved oaks, rescued Hadryad nymphs; and most especially laurel-Apollo appeared and saved the laurel-nymphs; and Leto his mother stood by her son and helped them, for she still honoured the tree which helped her childbirth.” The company of Bassarids and the ivycrowned women were saved from the roaring turmoil of the deeps, by the daughters of Cydnos, the river that loved the West Wind, since they knew the ways of the floating waters ; these his father had given to Bacchos for victory in the Indian War, Naiads well skilled in warfare, whom Cilician Typhoeus had taught battle while he was fighting against Cronion.
The whole host followed, but where all pressed forward, Euios was in front, cutting the stream in his highland car and never wetting the axle. The Satyrs attended his passage, and with them Bacchant women and Pans passed through the water; but far quicker than the rest came the Telchines behind their seabred horses, driving their father’s car, firmly based on the sea, and they kept close to Dionysos as he sped along. Others were behind, thronging over the ford, but they came up the bank by another road unseen where a god led: for there was an eagle full in view, gently flapping its wings, Zeus, who led them through the mountains, while he carried his son Aiacos aloft with gentle talons traversing the high path of the air.
They leapt about dancing on the Indian crags, along the rocky paths ; then they built shelters undisturbed in the dark forest, and spent the night among the trees. . . . Some went deerhunting with dogs after the long-antlered stags: the Hydriad water-nymphs of plantloving Dionysos mingled with the Hamadryads of the trees. Groups of Bassarids in this Erythraian wilderness suckled cubs of a mountain lioness, and the juicy milk flowed of itself out of their breasts. One searched the hills for the holes of poisonous serpents to satisfy her longing for a wreath of vipers, and showed how well she could hunt. One cast her wand and hit a stormfoot fawn. One approached unseen, and ran down a mad she-bear with maddened leaps. One clutched at the back of some elephant of the mountains, and climbed on the nape of the blackskinned beast. Sometimes an archer fitted a shaft to the string of his rounded bow and shot at an elmtree, or aimed at an olivetree, another hit a pine ; showers of arrows went whizzing and buzzing through the air at the firtrees hard by.
While the noise of their revels resounded among the hills, Thureus returned unhappy to King Deriades with bad tidings. His tears told the carnage of the Indians without words, but at last he let his sorrowful voice be heard :
“May it please your Majesty, Deriades our King, and divine offspring of Enyo! We went as commanded to the opposite hill, and in the forest glades we found the neighbouring thickets empty. There we laid our ambush and waited for thyrsusmad Dionysos to come. When Bacchos came near, the pipes were sounded, the raw drumskin was beaten, on either side was the noise of beaten brass and the wail of the syrinx. The whole forest trembled, the oaktrees uttered voices and the hills danced, the Naiads sang alleluia. I put the men under arms, led them to battle hesitating, trembling, unwilling. And the god, as they call him, shaking the sharpened wand, sent volleys of ignoble leaves upon the Indian nation, slew an infinite host on the plain pierced by the sharp wands, and destroyed what was left of us in the wild waters.
“‘Come now, let us ask our learned Brahmans, that you may learn if this be a god come against us or a mortal man. Do not stir up a useless war by night, do not destroy your hosts fighting in the darkness. Already the misty gloom is stretched over us ; there is the evening star clear before our eyes, shining to check the conflict. If your desire is set upon this formidable fray, hold back the Indians to-day and to-morrow you lead them to battle.”’
His words convinced Deriades, though loath to be convinced. No weakness made him consent; he yielded not to Lyaios, he blamed the setting sun. Proud Deriades retreated mad with sorrow, seated on the neck of his retreating elephants, and withdrew the Indian host from the river. Along with their gigantic king, the Indians everywhere made haste to take refuge in the city, hearing behind their walls of the victory of warmad Dionysos.
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