Companies of Bassarids marched to battle. One shaking the untidy clusters of her tresses to and fro, armed herself with raging madness for battle with the waters, driven wildly along with restless dancing feet. One whose home was in the Samothracian cavern of the Cabeiroi, skipt about the peaks of Lebanon crooning the barbarous notes of Corybantian tune. Another from Tmolos on a lioness newly whelped, having wreathed snakes in her own manly hair, a Maionian Mimallon unveiled, bellowed and set her foot on the lofty slope, with foam on her lips like the seafoam. Seilenoi spluttering drops of Cilician winedew equipt themselves as riders of Mygdonian lions, and danced with a din against the crowd from the sea, brandishing in their hands their viny warpole, as they stretched their hands over the lions’ necks and plucked at the mane and boldly checked their furious mounts by this bristly bridle. A Seilenos tore off a roof from a rocky hole and attacked Palaimon, and drove Ino wandering through the water with his ivy spear. One fought with another : a Bacchant did not shrink but cast a thyrsus hurtling against the trident, she, a Bacchant and a woman ; Nereus defending the sea came on land to fight with foaming arms against a rock-loving Pan ; a mountain Bacchant chased the god of Pallene with blood-dripping ivy, but did not shake him ! Glaucos assailed Dionysos, but Maron shot his thyrsus at him and shook him off. A cloudhigh elephant with earthshaking motions of his limbs stamped about his stiff legs with massive unbending knee, and attacked an earth-bedding seal with his long snout. Satyrs also bustled about in dancing tumult, trusting to the horns on their bull-heads, while the straight tail draggled from their loins for a change as they hurried. Hosts of Seilenoi rushed along, and one of them with his two legs straddling across the back of a bull, squeezed out a tune on his two pipes tied together. A Mygdonian Bacchant rattled her pair of cymbals, with hair fluttering in the brisk winds ; she flogged the bowed neck of a wild bear against a monster of the deep, and the wild panther of the mountains was driven by a thyrsus-goad. One Bassarid possessed with mindrobbing throes of madness skipt over the sea with unwetted feet, as if she were dancing upon Poseidon’s head — she stamped on the waves, threatened the silent sea, flogged the deaf water with her thyrsus, that Bassarid who never sank ; from her hair blazed fire selfkindled over her neck and burnt it not, a wonder to behold. Psamathe sorrowful on the beach beside the sea, watching the turmoil of seabattling Dionysos, uttered the dire trouble of her heart in terrified words :
“O Lord Zeus ! if thou hast gratitude for Thetis and the ready hands of Briareus, if thou hast not forgot Aigaion the protector of thy laws, save us from Bacchos in his madness ! Let me never see Glaucos dead and Nereus a slave ! Let not Thetis in floods of tears be servant to Lyaios, let me not see her a slave to Bromios, leaving the deep, to look on the Lydian land, lamenting in one agony Achilles, Peleus, Pyrrhos, grandson, husband, and son ! Pity the groans of Leucothea, whose husband took their son and slew him — the heartless father butchered his son with the blade of his murderous knife !
She spoke her prayer, and Zeus on high heard her in heaven. He granted the hand of Beroe to Earthshaker, and pacified the rivals’ quarrel. For from heaven to check the bridebattle yet undecided came threatening thunderbolts round about Dionysos. The vinegod wounded by the arrow of love still craved the maiden ; but Zeus the Father on high stayed him by playing a tune on his trumpet of thunder, and the sound from his father held back the desire for strife. With lingering feet he departed, with heavy pace, turning back for a last gloomy look at the girl; jealous, with shamed ears, he heard the bridal songs of Amymone in the sea. The syrinx sounding from the brine proclaimed that the rites were already half done. Nereus as Amymone’s chamberlain showed the bridal bed, shaking the wedding torches, the fire which no water can quench. Phorcys sang a song ; with equal spirit Glaucos danced and Melicertes romped about. And Galateia twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses, for she had learnt well how to sing, being taught by Polyphemos with a shepherd’s syrinx.
After celebrating Beroe’s wedding in the sea, her bridegroom Earthshaker was a friend to her native place. He gave her countrymen victory in war on the sea as a precious treasure in return for his bride. It was a wealthy wedding. Arabian Nereus brought to the bridechamber in the deep a worthy gift of love, a clever work of Hephaistos, Olympian ornaments, for the bride ; necklace and earrings and armlets he brought and offered, all that the Lemnian craftsman had made for the Nereids with inimitable workmanship in the waves — there in the midst of the brine he shook his fiery anvil and tongs under water, blowing the enclosed breath of the bellows with mimic winds, and when the furnace was kindled the fire roared in the deep unquenched. Nereus then brought these gifts in great variety. But Persian Euphrates gave the girl the webspinner’s embroidered wares ; Iberian Rhine brought gold ; old Pactolos came bringing the like offerings from his opulent mines, with cautious hands, for he feared the Lydian master, Bacchos his king, and he feared Rheia his neighbour, the cityholder of his country Mygdonia. Eridanos brought shining gifts, amber from the Heliad trees that trickle riches ; and from the silver rock, all the metals of Strymon and all that Geudis has were brought as a marriage-gift to Amymone by Seabluehair.
And so the dances were over, and Earthshaker was happy in the bridechamber beneath the waters ; but Lyaios never smiled, and his brother Eros came to console him in his jealous mood :
“Dionysos, why do you still bear a grudge against the cestus that makes marriages ? Beroe was no proper bride for Bacchos, but this marriage of the sea was quite fitting, because I joined the daughter of Aphrodite of the sea to a husband whose path is in the sea. I have kept a daintier one for your bridechamber, Ariadne, of the family of Minos and your kin. Leave Amymone to the sea, a nobody, one of the family of the sea herself. You must leave the mountains of Lebanon and the waters of Adonis and go to Phrygia, the land of lovely girls ; there awaits you a bride without salt water, Aura of Titan stock. Thrace the friend of brides will receive you, with a wreath of victory ready and a bride’s bower ; thither Pallene also the shakespear summons you, beside whose chamber I will crown you with a wedding wreath for your prowess, when you have won Aphrodite’s delectable wrestling-match.”
So wild Eros spoke to his lovemad brother Bacchos : then he flapt his whizzing fiery wings, and up the sham bird flew in the skies travelling until he came to the house of Zeus. And from the Assyrian gulf Dionysos went daintily clad into the Lydian land along the plain of Pactolos, where the dark water is reddened by the goldgleaming mud of wealthy lime ; he entered Maionia, and stood before Rheia his mother, offering royal gifts from the Indian sea. Then leaving the stream of this river of deep riches, and the Phrygian plain, and the nation of softliving men, he planted his vine on the northerly plain, and passed from the towns of Asia to the cities of Europe.
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