He could scarce finish these words, when his voice failed him. Poor Eérié on the lofty walls could see her just-wounded father, and amid showers of tears she uttered a cry of mourning. She stained her tangled hair with dust, she rent her garments and bared her breast, she beat her head; and cried aloud to her father although now past cure, as if he could still hear :
“My son! illfated father of the daughter who gave you her milk! To-day there is no breath from your lips! You are dead—what milk have I now to give you life, to bring back your soul again, ah me unhappy ! What breast can I offer you now to give you help? I can cajole Aidoneus too! For you, father, only one tribute remains for me to render: I will not leave you alone among the dead. Accept the blood of your slain daughter’s throat as once you took the milk of her breast. Come here, warders of Deriades! Show me another pit in the ground instead of the old one, where I may enter and once more make my dead father live-——But Hades is not like those warders, to let me devise another trick for my father’s help and solace his pains. O if I had that deathdealing sword, that I might fall and perish in my despair by the steel that murdered my father! You man who cut off my father’s head, kill Eérié as you killed Tectaphos, that men may say— ‘Both father and daughter he destroyed with one sword !’”’
So she cried amid her tears. Now the battle grew fiercer : Enyo fanned the flame in both armies. Morrheus killed Dasyllios Tainarides with his sword, driving the blade through the right jawbone : Dasyllios the man of Amyclai, ever unshaken by any assault, who never lost shield to an enemy. He killed also Alcimacheia the highland girl, for beauty and valour alike pre-eminent above her yearsmates. She was daughter to Harpalion famous for his vines ; she had dared to enter the temple of Hera laden with ivy, which that goddess of Argos hated as much as she loved her favourite red pomegranate, dared to beat the fine statue with the vineleaves of her thyrsus, to beat the brazen figure with bunches of grapes—insulting the resentful stepmother of Lyaios! But she did not escape the frightful wrath thus kindled in Hera: no, Lemnian Alcimacheia who defied the gods was buried in a strange land— she did not return from the war, she never again saw Harpalion her father, she never saw her own country, Lemnos, the bridechamber of Jason and Hysipyleia; death was her punishment, and she lay among strangers under a mound of earth. Ah hapless girl! she lost Harpalion, she was severed from Lyaios.
But furious Morrheus was not content with slaying Alcimache, the Mainad who mocked the gods ; he slew also Codone, still a maiden, whose home was the Olympian soil of Elis beside Alpheios, the garland-loving river. Forgive me, ye Fates! He had no pity for the tresses of that head which was soon to wither, none for the rosy glow of that face soiled in the dust ; no pity when he saw the breast with its two round apples, and the firm pressure on the breastband ; no respect for the deep cleft of the thigh. No! all that beauty he killed in the bud. Struck down she fell to the ground ; and Morrheus with nodding plume chased Mainads innumerable in their fine robes. Eurypyle, Sterope, Soé he mowed down with his sword, Staphyle he cleft asunder, ruddy Gigarto he wounded, and pierced Melictaina’s breast above the pink nipple, staining his deadly steel with crimson.
The spiteful Telchines also joined the battle. One held a tall firtree ; one had a cornel, trunk and roots and all; one broke off the peak of a cliff and rushed against the Indians, whirling his darting rock with furious arms and crushing the foe.
Fickle Hera, still heavy against Lyaios, gave courage and spirit to lordly Deriades, and showed a brilliant glow upon his triumphant course for the terror of his foes. When he came forth in arms a fatal glow sparkled from the Indian shield, dazzling flames leapt over the crest of his helmet. Bold as he was, Bacchos trembled when he saw the flashing boss of Deriades’ fireshot shield and the plumes of the helmet burning in the air. Dionysos was amazed when he saw, and had not the heart to meet him ; but he retreated from the battle with unwilling feet, when he understood the device of Hera in arms.
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