Then alone, sleepless, noiseless, Morrheus hurriedly left Cheirobié sleeping alone in her chamber, and crept round and round in distress with ever-returning feet. Once when at war near the Tauros among the Cilicians, he had heard the lore of an old sage, and learnt of the sting of starry loves in the heavens. Surveying therefore the heavenly domain spread abroad in the skies, he noticed Europa’s bridegroom, the Olympian Bull; then he turned his wandering eye to the polar region, and observed Callisto and the restless course of the Waggon, and recognized that the female received a female bed-fellow, who was disguised under the false likeness of the Archeress with limbs unrecognizable. Rising over the Bull he saw Myrtilos, the fire-breathing Charioteer, because he once helped a marriage, at the race for Hippodameia, and made a counterfeit peg of rounded wax, so that Pelops got his marriage. Near Cassiepeia he saw that Eagle spreading his wings who bedded with Aigina, and wished for such another delusive device, that he might himself undo the maidenhead of unwedded Chalcomede. Then with unsleeping gaze he began to speak :
“I have heard how Zeus the Ruler on High once took the shape of a Satyr, and wooed the maiden Antiope under a deceitful shape, in the mock love of a dancing bridal. I wish I had such a shape myself, to dance unrecognized into the host of horned Satyrs and to enjoy the bed of wineloving Chalcomede. I know, Cythereia, why you are angry with the sons of India; as neighbours of the Sun your arrows plague them, you have not yet forgotten how your captivity was discovered by those nets. Phaéthon was not my father—why do you plague me, Aphrodite? Bullgazer Pasiphaé was no mother of mine, Ariadne no sister. O ye rocks, utter your stony voice! Chalcomede I desire, and she denies ! Away my quiver, away with you, my murderous bow and windswift arrows! Ares did not save me when Aphrodite took up arms : little Love has vanquished me, whom proud Bacchos could not kill!
Such were the vain cries of lovesick Morrheus through the night. Nor did the wing of sweet bewildering Sleep give rest to loveshy Chalcomede ; for she longed to die, being in terror of mad Morrheus —she feared the hot man might bind her in forced wedlock while Bacchos was far away. She turned her step in the night to the Erythraian sea, and cried out to the deaf waves : acquainted with love once threw yourself of your own free will over and over into the sea, and so escaped the bed of womanmad Damnameneus. I call your chaste lot happy. For Aphrodite daughter of the brine armed the maddened bridegroom against you, and the sea guarded you even though it was the Paphian’s mother: you died in the waves a virgin still; O may the water of the sea cover Chalcomede also, willing enough, while she is still unacquainted with the marriage that Morrheus desires ; that I may be called a new loveshy Britomartis, whom once the sea received and returned to the land, where she rejected the bodily love of Minos. Earthshaker enamoured did not affright me, as he did the chaste Asterié, whom he hunted to and fro in the sea, riding restless before the changing wind, until Apollo rooted her in the waves immovable. Receive me, O sea, receive me in your hospitable breast! Receive me like Melis; receive me also, a later Britomartis, refusing marriage, that I may escape Morrheus and your Aphrodite ; pity Chalcomede, O saviour of maidens ! ” So in her distracted mind she cried aloud by the neighbouring sea; and she would have thrown herself rolling headlong into the waves, but Thetis gave her help, to please Dionysos. She changed her shape, and stood before Chalcomedeia in the form of a Bacchant woman with comfortable words :
“Courage, Chalcomede ! fear not the bed of Morrheus. You have in me a lucky omen of your untouched maidenhead, bringing witness that no marriage shall come near your bed. I am Thetis, like you an enemy of marriage. I love maidenhood, as Chalcomede herself; yet Father Zeus drove me from heaven and would have dragged me into marriage, but that old Prometheus stopt his desires, by prophesying that I should bear a son stronger than Cronion; he wished that Thetis’s boy should not some time overpower his father and drive out Cronides as high Zeus drove out Cronos. Be astute, and save us! For if you contrive your own death, without learning what marriage is without a bridegroom, the wild Indian will destroy the whole company of Bassarids. No, you must delude him, and you will save from death your army, which is now in flight while Dionysos is under the lash. Just pretend an unreal desire for love. ‘Then if Morrheus should drag you to bed while you refuse marriage, you need no helper against Cypris, for you have a huge serpent to protect and save your girdle. After the Indian War, Dionysos will take your Serpent and place him in the shining circle of the stars, an everlasting herald of your untouched maidenhood, near his own brilliant Crown, when he completes the great starry sign of Cydonian Ariadne ; and your serpent shall be equal to the northern Serpent, and shine upon mortals along with shining Ophiuchos. By and by you shall praise Thetis of the sea, when you espy your fiery star shining along with Selene. Have no fear about marriage. No bedfellow shall loose the firm knot of your maidenhood : I swear it by Dionysos, who has touched my board, I swear it by your thyrsus, and by Aphrodite of the sea.”’
She ended her consolation ; and then hid the girl in a cloud, that the guards might not see her, or some spy walking cunningly in the night with secret foot, or some bold goatherd womanmad, and drag the maiden in the evening to a wayside wedding.
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