And Flashhelm Perseus when he saw the ranks of the Bassarids and the gear of Lyaios, laughed terribly and cried —
“It’s nice to see you there with that thyrsus, that greenleaf shaft, inarching against me armed with your wretched foliage, playing at war ! If you have in you the blood of Zeus, show your breeding ! If you have the water of golden Pactolos River, I have a golden Father — my father is Zeus of the Rains. See the crimson foundations of my mother’s chamber, still keeping relics of that snowstorm of wealth ! Go, flee now from famous Argos, since these buildings belong to steadfast Hera, your mother’s destroyer, lest she make you the maddener mad, lest I see you once more driven with frenzy at last.”
He spoke, and advanced to the fight. Allvanquishing Hera marshalled the battle, and scattered the Bacchants with Medusa’s reaper; she dashed upon Bacchos like the lightning, a godsent leaping fire, and cast at Bromios her gleaming flashing lance. But Dionysos laughing replied in a wild voice —
Not so much of a flash you make in that blade of yours, with no iron ; you cannot scare me, though your point is on fire ! Even the lightning of Zeus does not hurt me ; for when I was half-made and still a baby the thunders bathed me, pouring breath which burnt not upon inviolate Dionysos. You too, Perseus of the sickle, proud as you are, make an end ! This is no battle for a feeble Gorgon, the prize is not a lone girl in heavy chains, Andromeda. Lyaios is your enemy, the offspring of Zeus, to whom alone long ago Rheia offered the Life-giving breast ; for whom long ago the flame of marriage-lightning was a gentle midwife ; the admiration of East and of West, before whom the armies of India gave way ; at whom Deriades trembled, and Orontes with his towering giant-stature fell ; to whom bold Alpos bent his knee, that son of Earth with huge body rising near the clouds ; to whom the Arabian nation kneels down, and the Sicilian mariner still sings the changeling shape of sea-scouring Tyrrhenian pirates, when once I transformed their human bodies and now instead of men they are fishes dancing and leaping in the sea.
“You have heard the groaning of sevengate Thebes ; I need not remind you of Pentheus in dire madness and Agaue who slew her child ; you need no tale or witness how your Argos has felt Lyaios, and the wives of Achaia themselves are still mourning for their children. Very well, fight, my friend, and soon you shall praise Bacchos with his weapons of leafage, when you see the wings of your shoes yielding to my unconquerable buskins. Never shall you scatter my battling Bassarids, never will I cease casting my vine-wand, until I show Argos your throat pierced by my spear of ivy and your sickle beaten by my leaves. Zeus my father will not save you, nor Brighteyes my sister, nor your own Hera, however she hates the steadfast Dionysos : but I will kill you, and boastful Mycene shall see beheaded the man who beheaded Medusa. Or I will bind you in a chest with greater bonds, and throw you to float again on the sea you know so well ; you may land again at Seriphos by and by, if you like. If you are so proud of your golden birth, you may take the golden Aphrodite, that good-for-nothing, to help you.”
When he had ended, he went on fighting : the Bacchants fell to, the Satyrs joined the battle. Over the head of Bromios Perseus flew in the air, flapping his light wings ; but Iobacchos lifted his body and rose wingless on high near to the heavens with larger limbs over flying Perseus, and brought his hand near the sevenring sky, and touched Olympos, and crushed the clouds : Perseus quivered with fear as he saw the right hand of Dionysos out of reach and touching the sun, catching hold of the moon.
So he left Dionysos and fought with the mad Bacchants. He shook in his hand the deadly face of Medusa, and turned armed Ariadne into stone. Bacchos was even more furious when he saw his bride all stone. He would have sacked Argos and razed Mycene to the ground and mowed down the whole host of Danaans, yes even wounded invulnerable Hera herself, who was fighting unrecognized in the false borrowed shape of a mortal, a seer, and Swiftshoe Perseus would have perished, fate or no fate, — but Hermes appeared behind him with winged shoes and pulled him back by his golden hair, and calmed him with friendly words to avert the ruin :
“Trueborn offspring of Zeus, if bastard for jealous Hera ! You know how I saved you from the fires that fell from heaven, and entrusted you to those Nymphs, the daughters of river Lamos, when still a little child ; how again I carried you in my arms to the house of Ino your fostering nurse. Then show gratitude, my brother, to your saviour the son of Maia, and still this feud of brothers — for both Perseus and Dionysos are offspring of one sire. Do not reproach the people of Argos, nor the sickle of Perseus, for he arms not willingly for this war. But Hera has armed him, and she is fighting openly in the shape of the seer Melampus. Retire and leave the strife, or Hera irreconcilable may overwhelm you again in her might. But you will urge the fate of your bride. She has died in battle, a glorious fate, and you ought to think Ariadne happy in her death, because she found one so great to slay her, one sprung from heaven and of no mortal stock, one who killed the seamonster and beheaded horsebreeding Medusa. The Fates’ threads obey not persuasion. For Electra died, the bedfellow of heavenly Zeus ; Europa herself disappeared after the Olympian bed, the sister of your Cadmos, she who was wedded to Zeus ; your mother perished too, while she still carried you in her womb ; Semele entered not the gates of Olympos before death, but after she had received her fate. And your bride even in death shall enter the starspangled sky, and she will be seen near Maia my mother among the seven travelling Pleiads. What could Ariadne wish more welcome than to live in the heavens and give light to the earth, after Crete ? Come now, lay down your thyrsus, let the winds blow battle away, and fix the selfmade image of mortal Ariadne where the image of heavenly Hera stands. Do not sack the city where the stock of your parents remains, but still your thyrsus, and respect the country of cowhorn Io. You will praise the women of Achaia by and by, when they shall build an altar to bullface Hera and your charming bride.”
So he spoke, and leaving Argos the land of horses returned to the sky, after he had mingled a league of friendship between Perseus and Dionysos. Nor did Argive Hera remain long in that place ; but putting off her pretended mortal body she took her divine form and returned to Olympos. Then old Melampus addressed the Icarian host, he the offspring of divine Pelasgian Lynceus founder of the race : —
Obey your seer, and shake your tambours in honour of wineface Bacchos, shake your bronze tambours and the Euian cymbals of Rheia, that he may not wipe out the whole Inachian race, that he may not destroy the young men after the little children, that he may not kill the wives after their offspring. Come, do sacrifice to Bacchos and Zeus, and please the god’s heart, and dance before Perseus and Dionysos.”
They did as he bade them. The people gathered together, and struck up a song with nightly dances for Bacchos and performed the holy rites : in the pious dance the tambours rattled, the feet beat the ground, the torches blazed. All the people in company smeared their cheeks with white mystic chalk. Kettledrums rattled, the double tap sounded as the bronze was beaten. Altars were red with bulls slaughtered in rows one after another, a multitude of sheep were killed. At the burning altar men made their peace with Bacchos, women won his grace. Women’s voices resounded in the air echoing in turn the song of salvation ; Inachian women and Mainad women cast their deluding fury to the winds.
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