And the god roamed over the hills scourged with a greater fire. For there was not the smallest comfort for him. He had then no hope of the girl’s love, no physic for his passion ; but Eros burnt him more and more with the mindbewitching fire to win mad obstinate Aura at last. With hard struggles he kept his desire hidden ; he used no lover’s prattle beside Aura in the woods, for fear she might avoid him. What is more shameless, than when only men crave, and women do not desire ? Wandering Bacchos felt the arrow of love fixt in his heart if the maiden was hunting with her pack of dogs in the woods ; if he caught a glimpse of a thigh when the loving winds lifted her tunic, he became soft as a woman. At last buffeted by his tumultuous desire for Aura, desperate he cried out in mad tones —
“I am like lovelorn Pan, when the girl flees me swift as the wind, and wanders, treading the wilderness with boot more agile than Echo never seen ! You are happy, Pan, much more than Bromios, for during your search you have found a physic for love in a mindbewitching voice. Echo follows your tones and returns them, moving from place to place, and utters a sound of speaking like your voice. If only maid Aura had done the same, and let one word sound from her lips ! This love is different from all others, for the girl herself has a nature not like the ways of other maidens. What physic is there for my pain ? Shall I charm her with lovers’ nod and beck ? Ah when, ah when is Aura charmed with moving eyelids ? Who by lovemad looks or wooing whispers could seduce the heart of a she bear to the Paphian, to Eros ? Who discourses to a honess ? Who talks to an oak ? Who has beguiled a lifeless firtree ? Who ever persuaded a cornel-tree, and took a rock in marriage ? And what man could charm the mind of Aura proof against all charms ? What man could charm her — who will mention marriage, or the cestus which helps love, to this girl with no girdle to her tunic ? Who will mention the sweet sting of love or the name of Cyprogeneia ? I think Athena will listen sooner ; and not intrepid Artemis avoids me so much as prudish Aura. If she would only say as much as this with her dear lips — ‘Bacchos, your desire is vain ; seek not for maiden Aura.’
So he spoke to the breezes of spring, while walking in a flowery meadow. Beside a fragrant myrtle he stayed his feet for a soothing rest at midday. He leaned against a tree and listened to the west breeze whispering, overcome by fatigue and love ; and as he sat there, a Hamadryad Nymph at home in the clusters of her native tree, a maiden unveiled, peeped out and said, true both to Cypris and to loving Lyaios :
“Bacchos can never lead Aura to his bed, unless he binds her first in heavy galling fetters, and winds the bonds of Cypris round hands and feet ; or else puts her under the yoke of marriage in sleep, and steals the girl’s maidenhood without brideprice.”
Having spoken she hid again in the tree her agemate, and entered again her woody home ; but Bacchos distressed with lovebreeding dreams made his mind a parade : the soul of dead Ariadne borne on the wind came, and beside Dionysos sleeping sound, stood jealous after death, and spoke in the words of a dream :
“Dionysos, you have forgotten your former bride : you long for Aura, and you care not for Ariadne. O my own Theseus, whom the bitter wind stole ! O my own Theseus, whom Phaidra got for husband ! I suppose it was fated that a perjured husband must always run from me, if the sweet boy left me while I slept, and I was married instead to Lyaios, an inconstant lover and a deceiver. Alas, that I had not a mortal husband, one soon to die ; then I might have armed myself against lovemad Dionysos and been one of the Lemnian women myself. But after Theseus, now I must call you too a perjured bridegroom, the invader of many marriage beds. If your bride asks you for a gift, take this distaff at my hands, a friendly gift of love, that you may give your mountaineering bride what your Minoian wife gave you ; then people can say — ‘She gave the thread to Theseus, and the distaff to Dionysos.’
“You are just like Cronion changing from bed to bed, and you have imitated the doings of your womanmad father, having an insatiable passion for changing your loves. I know how you lately married your Sithonian wife Pallene, and your wedding with Althaia : I will say nothing of the love of Coronis, from whose bed were born the three Graces ever inseparable. But O Mycenai, proclaim my fate and the savage glare of Medusa ! Shores of Naxos, cry aloud of Ariadne’s lot, constrained to a hateful love, and say, ‘O bridegroom Theseus, Minos’s daughter calls you in anger against Dionysos ! ’ But why do I think of Cecropia ? To her of Paphos, I carry my plaint against them both, Theseus and Dionysos !
She spoke, and her shade flew away like shadowy smoke. Bold Bacchos awoke and shook off the wing of Sleep. He lamented the sorrow of Ariadne in his dream, and sought for some clever device which could meet all needs and lead him to love. First he remembered the bed of the Astacid nymph long before, how he had wooed the lovely nymph with a cunning potion and made sleep his guide to intoxicated bridals.
While Bacchos would be preparing a cunning device for her bed, Lelantos’s daughter wandered about seeking a fountain, for she was possessed with parching thirst. Dionysos failed not to see how thirsting Aura ran rapidly over the hills. Quickly he leapt up and dug the earth with his wand at the foundation of a rock : the hill parted, and poured out of itself a purple stream of wine from its sweetscented bosom. The Seasons, handmaids of Helios, to do grace to Lyaios, painted with flowers the fountain’s margin, and fragrant whiffs from the newgrowing meadow beat on the balmy air. There were the clustering blooms which have the name of Narcissos the fair youth, whom horned Selene’s bridegroom Endymion begat on leafy Latmos, Narcissos who long ago gazed on his own image formed in the water, that dumb image of a beautiful deceiver, and died as he gazed on the shadowy phantom of his shape ; there was the living plant of Amyclaian iris ; there sang the nightingales over the spring blossoms, flying in troops above the clustering flowers.
And there came running thirsty at midday Aura herself, seeking if anywhere she could find raindrops from Zeus, or some fountain, or the stream of a river pouring from the hills ; and Eros cast a mist over her eyelids : but when she saw the deceitful fountain of Bacchos, Peitho dispersed the shadowy cloud from her eyelids, and called out to Aura like a herald of her marriage —
Maiden, come this way ! Take into your lips the stream of this nuptial fountain, and into your bosom a lover.”
Gladly the maiden saw it, and throwing herself down before the fountain drew in the liquid of Bacchos with open lips. When she had drunk, the girl exclaimed :
“Naiads, what marvel is this ? Whence comes this balmy water ? Who made this bubbling drink, what heavenly womb gave him birth ? Certainly after drinking this I can run no more. No, my feet are heavy, sweet sleep bewitches me, nothing comes from my lips but a soft stammering sound.”
“She spoke, and went stumbling on her way. She moved this way and that way with erring motions, her brow shook with throbbing temples, her head leaned and lay on her shoulder, she fell asleep on the ground beside a tallbranching tree and entrusted to the bare earth her maidenhood unguarded.
When fiery Eros beheld Aura stumbling heavyknee, he leapt down from heaven, and smiling with peaceful countenance spoke to Dionysos with full sympathy :
“Are you for a hunt, Dionysos ? Virgin Aura awaits you !
With these words, he made haste away to Olympos flapping his wings, but first he had inscribed on the spring petals — “Bridegroom, complete your marriage while the maiden is still asleep; and let us be silent that sleep may not leave the maiden.”
Then Iobacchos seeing her on the bare earth, plucking the Lethaean feather of bridal Sleep, he crept up noiseless, unshod, on tiptoe, and approached Aura where she lay without voice or hearing. With gentle hand he put away the girl’s neat quiver and hid the bow in a hole in the rock, that she might not shake off Sleep’s wing and shoot him. Then he tied the girl’s feet together with indissoluble bonds, and passed a cord round and round her hands that she might not escape him : he laid the maiden down in the dust, a victim heavy with sleep ready for Aphrodite, and stole the bridal fruit from Aura asleep. The husband brought no gift ; on the ground that hapless girl heavy with wine, unmoving, was wedded to Dionysos ; Sleep embraced the body of Aura with overshadowing wings, and he was marshal of the wedding for Bacchos, for he also had experience of love, he is yokefellow of the moon, he is companion of the Loves in nightly caresses. So the wedding was like a dream ; for the capering dances, the hill skipt and leapt of itself, the Hamadryad half-visible shook her agemate fir — only maiden Echo did not join in the mountain dance, but shamefast hid herself unapproachable under the foundations of the rock, that she might not behold the wedding of womanmad Dionysos.
When the vinebridegroom had consummated his wedding on that silent bed, he lifted a cautious foot and kissed the bride’s lovely lips, loosed the unmoving feet and hands, brought back the quiver and bow from the rock and laid them beside his bride. He left to the winds the bed of Aura still sleeping, and returned to his Satyrs with a breath of the bridal still about him.
Cite This Text