When the thirty-eighth takes its turn, you have the fate of unhappy Phaethon in the chariot, with a blazing brand.
The games were over. The people retired into the recesses of the forest, and entered their huts. The rustic Pans housed themselves under shelter in the ravines, for they occupied at evening time the natural caverns of a lioness in the wilds. The Satyrs dived into a bear’s cave, and hollowed their little bed in the rock with sharp finger-nails in place of cutting steel ; until the lightbringing morning shone, and the brightness of Dawn newly risen showed itself peacefully to both Indians and Satyrs. For then Time rolling in his ambit prolonged the truce of combat and strife between Indians and Mygdonians ; there was no carnage among them then, no conflict, and the shield which Bacchos had borne for six years lay far from the battle covered with spiders’ webs.”
But as soon as the Seasons brought the seventh year of warfare, a foreboding sign was shown to wine-faced Bacchos in the sky, an incredible wonder. For at midday, a sudden darkness was spread abroad, and a midday obscurity covered Phaethon with its black pall, and the hills were overshadowed as his beams were stolen away. Many a stray brand fell here and there scattered from the heavenly car ; thousands of rainshowers deluged the surface of the earth, the rocks were flooded by drops from the sky, until fiery Hyperion rose again shining high on his chariot after his hard struggle.
Then a happy omen was seen by impatient Bacchos, an eagle flying high through the air, holding a horned snake in his sharp talons. The snake twisted his bold neck, and slipt away of itself diving into the river Hydaspes. Trembling silence held all that innumerable host. Idmon alone stood untrembling, Idmon the treasury of learned lore, for he had been taught the secrets of Urania, the Muse who knows the round circuit of the stars : he had been taught by his learned art the shades on the Moon’s orb when in union with the Sun, and the ruddy flame of Phaethon stolen out of sight from his course behind the cone of darkness, and the clap of thunder, the heavenly bellow of the bursting clouds, and the shining comet, and the flame of meteors, and the fiery leap of the thunderbolt. Having been taught all these doings by Urania the goddess he stood with dauntless heart, while the limbs of every man were loosened. But Idmon that ancient seer encouraged all the host, with laughing countenance, and words of confident persuasion upon his lips : “I know,” he said, “that victory is near, and soon it will end this long struggle.”
Erechtheus also inquired of the accomplisht Phrygian prophet, when he saw the portents of Highest Zeus, whether they were favourable to the enemy or to Indian-slaying Dionysos. He did not so much wish for the end of the conflict, but rather to hear the message from Olympos, the theme of mystical tales, and the orders of circling stars, and the round moon, and the sunset at midday which has no light of Phaethon because this is stolen away. Always the citizens of ancient Athens are ready to hear discourses concerning the gods.”
Nor was the old seer neglectful ; but shaking his Euian thyrsus instead of the Panopeian laurel, he uttered these words of interpretation with his mouth :
Do you wish, Erechtheus, to hear the heart-consoling tale which only the gods know who dwell in Olympos ? Well, I will speak, as my laurelled Apollo has taught me. Tremble not at the lightning, fear not the travelling brand, nor the darkened course of Helios, nor the bird of Olympos, first harbinger of Lyaios’s victory to come ; as that horned snake, torn by the sharp pointed claws of the robber bird and pierced by its talons, slipt into the waters of the river, and old Hydaspes swallowed the reptile corpse, so Deriades shall be swallowed in the flood of his father’s stream under the likeness of his bullhorned sire.”
“Thus spoke the old prophet ; and at the diviner’s words all the host was glad, but beyond others the citizen of unmothered Athene mingled gladness with wonder, as full of joy in his sweet hopes as if he were triumphing in Marathon itself after the war with Deriades.
And now to Dionysos, alone among the rocks Areopagus, which he loved, came Hermes his brother from heaven as messenger of Zeus, and spoke assuring him of victory :
“Tremble not at this sign, even though night came at midday. This sign, fearless Bacchos, your father Cronion has shown you to foretell your victory in the Indian War. For I liken Bacchos the light-bringer to the sun shining again, and the bold black Indian to the thick darkness. That is what is meant by the picture in the sky. For as the darkness blotted out and covered the light of shining day, and then Helios rose again in his fireshining chariot and dispersed the gross darkness, so you also shall shake from your eyes far far away the darksome sightless gloom of the Tartarian Fury, and blaze again on the battlefield like Hyperion. So great a marvel ancient eternal Time our foster-father has never brought, since Phaethon, struck by the steam of fire divine, fell tumbling half-burnt from Helios’s lightbearing chariot, and was swallowed up in the Celtic river ; and the daughters of Helios are still on the banks of Eridanos, lamenting the audacious youth with their whimpering leaves.”
At these words, Dionysos rejoiced in hope of victory ; then he questioned Hermes and wished to hear more of the Olympian tale which the Celts of the west know well : how Phaethon tumbled over and over through the air, and why even the daughters of Helios were changed into trees beside the moaning Eridanos, and from their leafy trees drop sparkling tears into the stream.
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