But you will say, ‘“Perseus killed a monster of the sea; with the Gorgon’s eye he turned to stone a leviathan of the deep!’ What was the good, if Polydectes, looking upon deadly Medusa’s eye, changed his human limbs to another kind and transformed himself into stone? The terrible exploits of Bacchos were not one Gorgon, not an airsoaring seabeaten cliff, not a Polydectes. No, Bacchos reaped the stubble of snakehaired giants, a conquering hero with a tiny manbreaking wand, when he cast the battling ivy against Porphyrion, when he buffeted Encelados and drove off Alcyoneus with a volley of leaves : then the wands flew in showers, and brought the earthborn down in defence of Olympos, when the coiling sons of Earth with two hundred hands, who pressed the starry vault with manynecked heads, bent the knee before a flimsy javelin of vineleaves or a spear of ivy. Not so great a swarm fell to the fiery thunderbolt as fell to the manbreaking thyrsus.
Let us compare them, friends. Helios marvelled when he saw the sweat of Dionysos, as he slew Indians on the eastern soil: over the western gulf, Selene in the evening saw Perseus on wings outspread, after he had had a small task to do with a curving piece of bronze: as much as Phaéthon has glory above the Moon, so much better than Perseus I will declare Bacchos to be. Inachos was witness of both, when the heavy bronze pikes of Mycenai resisted the ivy and deadly fennel, when Perseus sickle in hand gave way to Bacchos with his wand, and fled before the fury of Satyrs crying Euoi; Perseus cast a raging spear, and hit frail Ariadne unarmed instead of Lyaios the warrior. I do not admire Perseus for killing one woman, in her bridal dress still breathing of love. But rainy Zeus did not raise Danaé to his heaven, to glorify a few loving drops of creative dew in that furtive union. Semele did mount into heaven to touch one table with Zeus and the Blessed, to sit beside her son Dionysos of the vine; but Danaé received no home in Olympos. She the bride of Zeus went voyaging in a chest over the sea, regretting the deceitful rain of wedded love, after the unstable happiness of a passing shower.
I know that Andromeda is to be seen in Olympos ; but she is unhappy still even in the sky. Often the poor creature thus complained with reproachful voice :
What good was it, bridegroom Perseus, that you brought me into the sky? A precious bridegift was your Olympos to me! The Seamonster chases me even here among the stars! After earth and all that terror of the sea, I still have chains like the old ones, even among the stars! Your heavenly sickle has not saved me. In vain Medusa’s eye softens for me in Olympos as it shines among the stars. The Monster chases me still, and you do not stretch your light wings! my mother Cassiepeia is vexed and presses me, because the poor thing must dive herself through the air into the brine, trembling at the Nereids and she deems the Bear happy in his course, never drenched in the Ocean never touching the sea; old Cepheus is unhappy still, when he sees Andromeda’s fear, and the Monster of Olympos coming, after what happened here on earth!
Complaints like these the nymph often would utter in her heavy chains ; she called on Perseus, and her husband helped her not. And if Perseus is proud of Andromeda too in the stars, do but cast your eye towards that side of the heavens, where the brilliant Ophiuchos is conspicuous holding up his encircling Serpent; and you will see the circlet of Ariadne’s Crown, the Sun’s companion, which rises with the Moon and proclaims the desire of crownloving Dionysos.
I know also the war of Minos, which a woman’s Europa, besieged Megara, whose king, Nisos, had a purple lock which was the luck of the city and prevented it from being taken. His daughter Scylla fell in love with Minos, cut off the lock while Nisos slept, and so gave Minos the victory. It is the widespread tale of Maiden Castle. battle accomplished, handling the lovegirdle instead of the shieldstrap, when Cypris wore a gleaming helmet, when Peitho shook a brazen spear and turned into Pallas Athena to stand by Minos in the fray, when the bridal swarm of unwarlike Loves shot their arrows in battle ; I know how tender Desire sacked a city, when the Cydonian trumpet blared against Nisos of Megara and his people, when brazen Ares shrank back for very shame, when he saw his Rout and his Terror supporting the Loves, when he beheld Aphrodite holding a buckler and Desire casting a lance, while daintyrobe Eros wrought a fairhair victory against the fighting meninarms. For Scylla, while her uncropt father was lying asleep, had cut off from his hair the purple cluster which had grown there from his birth, and by severing one tress from the sceptred head with her iron shears, sacked a whole city.
So Minos citysacker by his own bare beauty won the prize of the battle ; he conquered not by steel, but by love and desire. But when Lyaios armed for battle, no Desire tamed the fray of Indian spearmen, no Paphian armed to support Lyaios, or conquered by beauty, no girl mad with passion gave by herself the prize of battle to Dionysos, no lover’s trick, no curls of Deriades’ hair, but the changes and chances of Indian wars far-scattered gave him the glory of victory ever renewed.
If you boast of Heracles and the Inachos, I will examine all his labours.
I know he threw his arm from one side and circled the lion’s neck entangled in mighty grip, explaining; they are detailed in every handbook of mythology. and so without weapon brought death, in that spot where the breath passes through the gullet of the lifesufficing throat. I see nothing surprising in that. There was Cyrene, a champion in the leafy forest with her lionslaying hands, that girl did an exploit quite as good, when she also mastered a male lion with a woman’s grip which he could not shake off. Bacchos too when still a young lad, while playing in the mountains, grasped a deadly lion by the shaggy throat with one hand, dragged him away and presented him to his mother Rheia, pressing down the maned neck of the gaping beast—dragged him still alive, and fastened him under the yokestrap, put on the guiding bridle over slavish cheeks, then seated high in the car whipt the back of the frightful creatures. Troops of panthers also and the ravening tribe of bears were slaves to the baby hands of Dionysos.
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