“That lawless sailor sinned : but I myself was blinded when I desired the countryman of chaste Athena. Would that I had not desired him, love-lorn ! For Theseus is as savage as he is charming in love. This is not what he said to me while yet he handled my thread, this is not what he said at our labyrinth ! that the cruel bull had killed him ! Hush, my voice, no more folly, do not kill the delightful boy. Alas, my love ! Theseus “has sailed alone to Athens his happy mother. I know why he left me — in love no doubt with one of the maidens who sailed with him, and now he holds wedding dance for the other at Marathon while I still walk in Naxos. My bridal bower was Naxos, O Theseus my treacherous bridegroom ! I have lost both father and bridegroom : alas my love ! I see not Minos, I behold not Theseus ; I have left my own Cnossos, but I have not seen your Athens ; both father and fatherland are lost. O unhappy me ! Your gift for my love is the water of the brine. Who can be my refuge ? What god will catch me up and convey to Marathon Ariadne, that she may claim her rights before Cypris and Theseus ? Who will take me and carry me over the flood ? If only I could myself see another thread, to guide my way too ! Such a thread I want for myself, to escape from the Aigaian flood and cross to Marathon, that I may embrace you even if you hate Ariadne, that I may embrace you my perjured husband. Take me for your chambermaid, if you like, and I will lay your bed, and be your Ariadne (in Marathon) instead of Crete, like some captive girl. I will endure to serve your most happy bride ; I will ply the rattling loom, and lift a pitcher on envious shoulders, an unfamiliar task, and bring handwash after supper for sweet Theseus — only let me see Theseus ! My mother too once was the menial of a farmer, and bowed her neck for a herdsman, and prattled of love to a dumb bull in the pasture, and brought the bull a calf. She cared not to hear the herdsman make music on his pipe so much as to hear the bellowing bull. I will not touch the crook, I will not stand in the stall ; but I will be ready beside my queen to hear the voice of Theseus, not the bellowing of a bull. I will sing a lovely song for your wedding, and hide my jealousy of your newly wedded bride.
“Stay your voyage by the sands of Naxos, sailor, stay your ship for me ! What — are you angry too ? So you too come from Marathon ? If you are bound for your lovely land, where is the home of love, take this unhappy girl on board that I may behold the city of Cecrops. If you must leave me, pitiless, and go on your voyage, tell your Theseus of mourning Ariadne, how she reproaches the treacherous oath of love unfulfilled. I know why angry Eros has left unfulfilled Theseus the deceiver’s promise. He swore his marriage-oath not by Hera, whom they call the Nuptial goddess, but by the immaculate Athena, the goddess who knows nothing of marriage. He swore by Pallas — and what has Pallas to do with Cythereia ?
Bacchos was enraptured to hear this lament. He noticed Cecropia, and knew the name of Theseus and the deceitful voyage from Crete. Before the girl he appeared in his radiant godhead ; Eros moved swiftly about, and with stinging cestus he whipt the maiden into a nobler love, that he might lead Minos’s daughter to join willingly with his brother Dionysos. Then Bacchos comforted Ariadne, lovelorn and lamenting, with these words in his mindcharming voice :
Maiden, why do you sorrow for the deceitful man of Athens ? Let pass the memory of Theseus ; you have Dionysos for your lover, a husband incorruptible for the husband of a day ! If you are pleased with the mortal body of a youthful yearsmate, Theseus can never challenge Dionysos in manhood or comeliness. But you will say, ‘He shed the blood of the halfbull man whose den was the earthdug labyrinth ! ’ But you know your thread was his saviour : for the man of Athens with his club would never have found victory in that contest without a rosy-red girl to help him. I need not tell you of Eros and the Paphian and Ariadne’s distaff. You will not say that Athens is greater than heaven. Minos your father was not the equal of Zeus Almighty, Cnossos is not like Olympos. Not for nothing did that fleet sail from my Naxos, but Desire preserved you for a nobler bridal. Happy girl, that you leave the poor bed of Theseus to look on the couch of Dionysos the desirable ! What could you pray for higher than that ? You have both heaven for your home and Cronion for your goodfather. Cassiepeia will not be equal to you because of her daughter’s Olympian glory ; for Perseus has left her heavenly chains to Andromeda even in the stars, but for you I will make a starry crown, that you may be called the shining bedfellow of crownloving Dionysos.”
So he comforted her; the girl throbbed with joy, and cast into the sea all her memories of Theseus when she received the promise of wedlock from her heavenly wooer. Then Eros decked out a bridal chamber for Bacchos, the wedding dance resounded, about the bridal bed all flowers grew ; the dancers of Orchomenos surrounded Naxos with foliage of spring, the Hamadryad sang of the wedding, the Naiad nymph by the fountains unveiled unshod praised the union of Ariadne with the vinegod : Ortygia cried aloud in triumph, and chanting a bridal hymn for Lyaios the brother of Phoibos cityholder she skipt in the dance, that unshakable rock. Fiery Eros made a round flowergarland with red roses and plaited a wreath coloured like the stars, as prophet and herald of the heavenly Crown ; and round about the Naxian bride danced a swarm of the Loves which attend on marriage.
The Golden Father entering the chamber of wedded love sowed the seed of many children. Then rolling the long circle of hoary time, he remembered Rheia his prolific mother ; and leaving faultless Naxos still full of Graces he visited all the towns of Hellas. He came near horsebreeding Argos, even though Hera ruled the Inachos. But the people would not receive him ; they chased away the danceweaving women and Satyrs ; they repudiated the thyrsus, lest Hera should be jealous and destroy her Pelasgian seat, if her heavy wrath should press hard on Lyaios ; they checked the old Seilenoi. Then Dionysos, angry, sent madness upon all the Inachian women. The women of Achaia loudly bellowed ; they attacked those they met at the threeways ; the poor creatures sharpened knives for their own newborn babies — one mother drew sword and slew her son, another destroyed her threeyearold child, one again hurled into the air her baby boy still searching for the welcome milk. Inachos was stained with the death of perishing newborn babes ; a mother killed a son, never missed him at her nursing breast, never thought of the pangs of travail. Asterion, where the young men so often cut the flower of their bared brows as firstfruits of growing age, now received the children themselves and no longer locks of hair.
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