Then Morrheus parting from that face, the image of the Graces, saved alive eleven of the weak Bassarids, whom he judged to be next after Chalcomede. He bound the Mainalids’ arms behind them in a knot too tight to be undone ; then dragging them with hair flowing loose to the yoke of slavery, he gave them to his goodfather Deriades as servants won by the spear, to be a second brideprice for his wife ; for whose sake he had fought beside peaksoaring Tauros, to win her for his bride, when he joined to himself in the bonds of wedlock the young princess, Deriades’ daughter, his yearsmate Cheirobié. For the Indian chieftain had received no marriage gift for his daughter, no precious gold, no bright stone of the sea ; herds of oxen and flocks of sheep Deriades refused, and joined his daughters in marriage without price, to stirring warriors, taking for goodsons Morrheus and ninecubit Orontes---gave his own children as brides to two champions, Cheirobié to Morrheus and Protonoeia to Orontes. For Morrheus was not like men of this earth, but he resembled the national strength of the earthborn Indians in highnecked body and gigantic limbs; he had the earthborn breed which towering Typhon had, when near the neighbouring rock of firebreeding Arima he displayed his inborn courage for Cydnos to behold. The brideprice which he brought was the sweat of Cilician labours ; a bridegroom without possessions, he possessed his bride by valour. So in those days Assyria bent the knee to the steel that wooed a bride for Morrheus, Cilician Tauros bowed his rocky neck to the yoke of Deriades, bold Cydnos curtseyed, and for that reason in the Cilician land Morrheus is still called Heracles Sandes. But that is an old story ; in this later conflict Morrheus captured the Thyiads with pitiless spear, and triumphant shouted an unbridled speech :
“These are for you, my lord king, treasures for your daughter which I bring first ; later I will give you Bacchos !
To these words of Morrheus the Indian prince replied :
“Cheirobié you had without price, Morrheus of the flashing helmet. You paid me price enough for your shieldbearing marriage by enslaving the Cilician cities in the lofty valour of victory. Now again you bestow new gifts. If it be your pleasure, make prisoners of the Bassarids as well, and fill the whole palace of Cheirobié with handmaids ; but for Bacchos I need not Morrheus; I myself will drag Dionysos to a yoke of slavery laden with galling fetters. Only I bid you take care not to lust after a captive for your bed, that I may not see you just like the womanmad Indians. Do not look upon the eyes and silvery neck of a Bacchant woman, that you may not make my girl jealous by your lusts. But when I have destroyed the whole army of Bromios, I will invade the Maionian land, and thence I will drain the infinite wealth of Lydia, all that Pactolos produces; I will march to vineclad Phrygia, where Rheia dwells who cared for Bromios in boyhood, and I will destroy the wealthy ground of silvery Alybe hard by, that I may bring home shining white sheets from mines that roll in riches. And I will devastate the land of sevengate Thebes, as they call it, and I will burn Semele’s fiery house, where the lady’s chamber still is in hot ruins from that parched bridal.”
So spoke the lawless king Deriades, as he received the whole line of handmaidens, gifts of his warlike goodson from the battle. He handed over the Bacchants to Phlogios and Agraios, dragged along by the hair, their hands all girdled with unbreakable straps in one long line.
These Phlogios led bound, and conducted them through the city as tidings of the royal victory. Some were hung up beside the carved gateway of the palace, with nooses choking their encircled necks. To others he allotted a hot fate of death by fire. Others were entombed in water, in the earthdug hollows of a well, where water is drawn from deep-sunk pools by the hard work of hand over hand. Then they would cry, half-seen, immovable, from the watery depths of the pit, one after another—
“I have heard that the Indians’ god was Earth and Water, and there is reason for that saying : for both are arrayed against me together! I am between death by earth and destruction by water, and I have a double fate near me. A strange chain of mud holds me fast, and I can no longer lift a foot ; my soaking knees are firmly rooted in mire, and I stand immovable ready for the Fates. There was a time when a river pursued me, and I feared not the running water; O that this also were a murmuring stream, that I might here also paddle my hands and cut its dark water too!
So she spoke, and receiving the pouring flood into her open throat, perished slowly by a fate which gave her no burial.
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