Then the company of countrymen driven by murderous infatuation charged upon poor Icarios in maniac fury, as if the wine were mixt with a deceiving drug — one holding an iron poleaxe, one with a shovel for a weapon in his hands, one holding the cornreaping sickle, another raising an immense block of stone, while another, beside himself, brandished a cudgel in his hand — all striking the old man : one came near with a goad and pierced his body with its fleshcutting spike.
The unhappy old industrious gardener thus beaten with blows fell to the ground, then leaping upon the table upset the mixing-bowl and rolled half-dead in the flood of ruddy wine : his head sank under the shower of blows from the countrymen, and drops of his red blood mingled with the red wine. Now next-door to death he stammered out these words :
“‘The wine of my Bromios, the comfort of human care, that sweet one is pitiless against me alone ! It has given a merry heart to all men, and it has brought fate to Icarios. The sweet one is no friend to Erigone, for Dionysos who mourns not has made my girl to mourn.”
Before he could finish his words, fate came first and stayed his voice : there he lay dead with eyes wide open, far from his modest daughter. His murderers heavy with wine slumbered careless on the bare ground like dead men. When they awoke, they mourned aloud for him they had unwittingly slain, and in their right mind now they carried his body on their shoulders up to a woody ridge, and washed his wounds in the abundant waters of a mountain brook. So they who had slain buried him they had slain in their senseless fury, the same murderous hands buried the body which they had lately torn.
The soul of Icarios floated like smoke to the room of Erigone. It was a light phantom in mortal shape, the shadowy vision of a dream, like a man newly slain ; the wretched ghost wore a tunic with marks that betrayed the unexplained murder, red with blood and dirty with dust, torn to rags by blows on blows of beating steel. The phantom stretched out its hands and came close to the girl, and pointed out the wounds on the newly mangled limbs for her to see. The maiden shrieked in this melancholy dream, when she saw so many wounds on that head, when the poor thing saw the blood which had lately pom-ed from that red throat. And the shade of her father spoke these words to his sorrowing child :
Wake, poor creature, go and seek your father ! Wake, and search for my drunken murderers ! I am your much-afflicted father, whom the savage country folk have destroyed because of wine with cold steel. I call you happy, my child ; your father was killed, but you heard not the smashing of my beaten head, you saw not the hoary hair stained with gore, the body new-mangled panting on the ground, you saw not the clubs that killed your father. No : Providence kept you far away from your father, and guarded your eyes that they might not see the death of a murdered sire. Look at my clothes, red with blood ! For yesterday country people drunken with cup after cup of wine and dribbling the unfamiliar juice of Bacchos, thronged about me. As the steel tore me, I called on the shepherds, and they heard not my voice : only Echo heard the noise of me and followed with answering tones, and mourned your father with a copy of my lamentable words. Never now will you lift your crook in the midst of the woodlands and go to the meadows and flowery pasture along with a rustic husband, feeding your flock ; never will you handle your hoe to work about the trees and bring water along the channels to make the garden grow. Yet be not too greedy with my honeydripping fruit, but weep for me your father low fallen in death. I shall see you living as an orphan and knowing nothing of marriage.”
So spoke the vision of the dream, and then flew away. But the girl awaking tore her rose-red cheeks, and mourning scored her firm breasts with her finger-nails, and tore long locks of hair from the roots ; then seeing the cattle still standing by her on the rock, the sorrowful maiden cried in a voice of lamentation :
“Where is the body of Icarios ? Tell me, beloved hills ! Tell me my father’s fate, ye bulls that knew him well ! Who were the murderers of my father slain ? Where has my darling father gone ? Is he wandering over the countryside, staying with the countrymen and teaching a neighbour to plant the young shoots of his fair vintage, or is he the guest of some pastoral gardener and sharing his feast ? Tell his mourning daughter, and I will endure till he come. If my father is still alive, I will live with my parent again and water the plants of his garden : but if my father is dead and plants trees no more, I will face death like his over his dead body.”
So she spoke, and ran with swift knee up into the mountain forest, seeking the tracks of her father newly slain. But to her questions no goatherd was bold to reply, no herdsman of cattle in the woodlands pitied the maiden or pointed to a faint trace of her father still unheard-of, no ancient shepherd showed her the body of Icarios, but she wandered in vain. At last a gardener found her and told the sad news in a sorrowful voice, and showed the tomb to her father lately slain.
When the maiden heard it, she was distracted but with sober madness : she plucked the hair from her head and laid it upon the beloved tomb, a maiden unveiled, unshod, drenching her clothes with selfshed showers of ever-flowing tears. Speechless for a time, Erigone kept her lips sealed with silence ; the dog the companion of Erigone shared her feelings, he whimpered and howled by the side of his mourning mistress, sorrowing with her sorrow. Wildly she ran up to a tall tree : she tied upon it a rope with a noose fast about her neck and hung herself high in the air, twisting in self-sought agonies with her two twitching feet. So she died, and had a willing fate ; her dog ran round and round the girl with sorrowful howls, a dumb animal dropping tears of sympathy from his eyes.
The dog would not leave his mistress alone, unguarded, but there he stayed by the tree, and chased off the preying beasts, panther or lion. Then wayfarers passed, and he showed with mute gestures the unwedded maid hanging in the tree with a noose about her neck. Full of pity they came up to the tree on tiptoe, and took down the chaste maiden from the leafy branches ; then hollowed a grave close by with earthdigging shovels. The sorrowing dog knew what they did, and helped them, scratching and scattering the surface of the soil with sharp claws and grubbing with clever feet. So the wayfarers buried the body but lately dead, and they went away on their business quickfoot with a weight of sorrow under their hearts one and all. But the dog remained near the tomb alone, for love of Erigone, and there he died of his own free will.
Father Zeus had pity, and he placed Erigone in the company of the stars near the Lion’s back. The rustic maid holds an ear of corn ; for she did not wish to carry the red grapes which had been her father’s death. And Zeus brought old Icarios into the starspangled sky to move beside his daughter, and called him Bootes, the Plowman, shining bright, and touching the Wain of the Arcadian Bear. The Dog he made also a fiery constellation chasing the Hare, in that part where the starry image of seafaring Argo voyages round the circle of Olympos.
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