While Morrheus slumbered, the vision of a dream came flying from the deluding gates of ivory to cajole him, and uttered a comforting but deceitful speech :
“Bridegroom Morrheus, welcome Chalcomede a willing bride! Welcome your bride in your own bed after your battles! In the day when you saw me you delighted your eyes—in the night, sleep by the side of your loving Chalcomedeia! Even in sleep marriage has its charm, even in dreams it has a passion of sweet desire. I would fain hold you in my arms, and dawn is near.”’
With these words, the vision flew away ; Morrheus leapt out of his sleep and saw the beginning of Dawn, the thief of love. He thought Chalcomede desired him, and at once said silently to himself, feeding his delusive hope of love :
‘Threefold light you bring, O daughter of the mist! You bring Chalcomede, and you bring the daylight, and you drive night away ! O Chalcomede, do you appear to me also, and comfort wakeful Morrheus, you, rosier yourself than rose-crowned Dawn: no such roses are brought by the Seasons to our meadows. Charming maiden, your cheeks present a meadow of the Springtime which time knows not how to wither. Your flowers are in bloom when the fruitwasting Autumn Seasons are here: your lilies can be seen even in winter; your body is all one blushing anemone never-fading, which the Graces tend and the winds never destroy. Your name you have adorned by the triumphs of your spear; your name fits your valour—not in vain are you called Chalcomede, for brazen Ares begat you, tumbling on the bed of love-begetting Cypris. All the world calls you Chalcomede, but I alone call you Chrysomede, because you have the beauty of golden Aphrodite; I believe you come from Sparta, for as I think, Aphrodite Steelcorselet was the mother of Chalcomede.”’
So he spoke on his wakeful bed. But when farshooting Dawn with crimson face leapt up sending forth her light as the forerunner of battle, Ares musterhost armed the Indian nation; then the Indians fully equipped ran from their wellwheeled beds to gather round the chariot of Deriades.
But the Bacchoi, with invincible Dionysos still amissing, poured forth downcast on the plain. No longer in confident heart they marched to the fight, but they were stricken with fear. No longer with manbreaking madness the women in bronze corselets rushed frantic to the field, no more they scattered foam from their bellowing throats with deep growlings ; but in silence undisturbed the untanned calfskins lay unbeaten. Their torches sent forth no shining flame of martial brands nor belched the deathbringing smoke ; but under the goad of the divine lash the warriors turned to women. The Satyrs made no noise, no sound echoed as of yore from the pipes to awaken the conflict. The Seilenoi went to battle in sober silence with their wits about them ; they had not painted their faces with crimson like fresh blood, nor purpled their yellow skin to deceive and affright, nor daubed their foreheads with white chalk as usual. The Pans had drunk no hot blood fresh from the veins of a lioness of the wilds, and rushed not swift as the wind frenzied into the conflict, but they were mild with fear: hesitating they pawed the ground with gentle noiseless hooves, and ceased the terrible leaps of their highland dance.
But Deriades proudly grappled with the men’s battle, shaking his pointed horn like a helmet plume ; Morrheus leapt raging against the company of women. For Chalcomedeia did not stand beside the Bacchant women to make him pitiful, and check the blade which darted against the women purpled with blood ; but now the lovely young girl, a new bowfamed Amazon, took hand in the fight beside the front ranks in the plain, clad in light robes and a shining tunic. For that is what wise Thetis told her to do, that she might save the whole host, so distressed while Dionysos was being plagued.
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