Now the long Indian War was ended, the gods returned again to Olympos with Zeus the Lord of all ; the Bacchants cheered in triumph around Dionysos the invincible, crying Euoi for the conflict, and many thronged round Deriades piercing him everywhere with their spears.”
Orsiboe wailed on the battlements with a loud lamentable dirge, sorrowing for her husband who lay so newly slain ; she scratched her cheeks with her fingernails in sorrow, and heedlessly tore out bunches of her curling hair, and poured smoking ashes on her head. Cheirobie lamented for her dead father, and scored her black arms, rent her white robe and bared all her breast ; Protonoe unshod tore her cheeks and smeared her face all over with dirty dust, weeping for both husband and father, with twofold agony, and cried in tones of sorrow —
“Husband, how young you have lost your life ! You have left me a widow in the house ere I have borne a child, no baby son I have to console me ! I never saw my husband come home a second time after victory, but he slew himself with his own steel, and gave his name to the stream, and died among strangers, that I should have to call the watery Orontes my husband, childless, self-slain, never returned ! I wail for both Deriades and Orontes, both perished by one watery fate : Deriades the death of many men was buried in the wave, the flood swallowed Orontes. But I am not like my mother ; for Orsiboe sang her hymn over her daughters’ weddings accomplished, she saw the marriage of Protonoe, she received Orontes as goodson, she joined Cheirobie to an unconquered husband, whom Bacchos trembled at great as he is ; Cheirobie has her dear husband alive, no thyrsus, no flood has brought him down — but I it seems doubly suffer, my husband gone and my father perished.
“Cease to comfort your child, my nurse, all in vain. Let me have my husband, and I will not bewail my father ; show me a child to console me for my husband’s loss ! Who will take me and bring me to the broad stream of Hydaspes, that I may kiss the wave of that honey dropping river ? Who will take me and bring me to the sacred vale of Daphne, that I may embrace Orontes even in the waters ? O that I too could be a lovely stream ! O that I might also become a fountain there, watered by my own tears, a watery bride where my husband dead rolls his beautiful waters ! Then I shall be like Comaitho, who in olden days was enamoured of a lovely river and still has the joy of holding Cydnos her husband in her arms, as I hear is a favourite story among those Cilician men. So says Morrheus my goodbrother. But I am not like runaway Periboia ; I will not pass charming Orontes whom I love, I will not draw back my winding water and avoid a watery spouse. If it. was not ordained that I should die near his neighbour Daphne, may Hydaspes my father’s father drown me in his waves, and save me from sleeping in the arms of a horned Satyr, and seeing Phrygian revels, rattling their cymbals in my hands, joining their sportive rites ; that I may not see Maionia and Tmolos, the house of Lyaios or the all-burdensome yoke of slavery ; that men may not say — The daughter of Deriades the spearbold king, taken captive after the war, is now a servant to Dionysos.’
When she had finished the women groaned piteously with her, those who had lost a son or a brother, whose fathers were dead or husband untimely taken, with the down on his chin. And Cheirobie tore the hair from her head and scored her cheeks ; she was tormented by double sorrow, and she groaned not so much for her father as she was indignant against her husband, for she had heard the enamoured passion of her husband and the delusive guile of chaste Chalcomedeia. She rent her dress and spoke :
“By sparing his spear Morrheus killed my father, and no one avenged his death. For desire of that hateful Chalcomede he did not rout the women on the field — nay, he still shows favour to the Bassarids. Tell me, Fates; what jealousy destroyed the Indian city ? What jealousy came down suddenly upon both daughters of Deriades ? Dying on the battlefield, Orontes made his wife Protonoe a widow to mourn uncared-for ; Cheirobie still living was repudiated by her husband. And I have more cruel things to suffer than my sister. Protonoe had a husband who defended her that nursed him ; Cheirobie had a husband who destroyed his country, a useless warrior, the lackey of Cyprogeneia, a strong man unstable, a partisan of Lyaios. Even my marriage was my enemy, for the Indian city was sacked because my Morrheus fell in love. I was robbed of my father for my husband’s sake ; I so proud once, and daughter of a king, I once the mistress of the Indians, I too shall be one of the servants ; perhaps I shall be so unhappy as to give the title of mistress to Chalcomedeia the serf! Traitor Morrheus, to-day India is your home ; to-morrow unbidden you will go to the Lydian land, a menial of Dionysos because of Chalcomede’s beauty. Husband Morrheus, make no secret of your union with Chalcomede ; for you fear no longer the threatening tongue of Deriades. Begone ! the serpent calls you back, the one that chased you away with hisses from the wedding which you failed to force !
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