After these caresses, the bride started up ; she shook off limbloosing sleep, the witness of the unpublished nuptials, saw with surprise her breasts bare of the modest bodice, the cleft of her thighs uncovered, her dress marked with the drops of wedlock that told of a maidenhood ravished without bridegift. She was maddened by what she saw. She fitted the bodice again about her chest, and bound the maiden girdle again over her rounded breast — too late ! She shrieked in distress, held in the throes of madness ; she chased the countrymen, slew shepherds beside the leafy slopes, to punish her treacherous husband with avenging justice — still more she killed the oxherds with implacable steel, for she knew about charming Tithonos, bridegroom of Dawn, the lovelorn oxherd, knew that Selene also the driver of bulls had her Latmian Endymion who was busy about the herds of cattle ; she had heard of Phrygian Hymnos too, and his love that made him rue, the lovelorn herdsman whom another maiden slew : still more she killed the goatherds, killed their whole flocks of goats, in agony of heart, because she had seen Pan the dangerous lover with a face like some shaggy goat ; for she felt quite sure that shepherd Pan tormented with desire for Echo had violated her asleep : much more she laid low the husbandmen, as being also slaves to Cypris, since a man who tilled the soil, Iasion, had been bedfellow of Demeter the mother of sheaves. The huntsmen she killed believing an ancient story ; for she had heard that a huntsman Cephalos, from the country of unmothered Athena, was husband of rosecrowned Dawn. Workmen of Bacchos about the vintage she killed, because they are servants of Lyaios who squeeze out the intoxicating juice of his liquor, heavy with wine, dangerous lovers. For she had not yet learnt the cunning heart of Dionysos, and the seductive potion of heady love, but she made empty the huts of the mountainranging herdsmen and drenched the hills with red blood.
Still frantic in mind, shaken by throes of madness, she came to the temple of Cypris. She loosed the girdle from her newly spun robe, the enemy Latmian herdsman (though his country and legend alike vary) was her love, and she cast him into an unending sleep. of the cestus, and flogged the dainty body of the unconquerable goddess ; she caught up the statue of marriage-consummating Cythereia, she went to the bank of Sangarios, and sent Aphrodite rolling into the stream, naked among the naked Naiads ; and after the divine statue had gone with the scourge twisted round it, she threw into the dust the delicate image of Love, and left the temple of Cybelid Foamborn empty. Then she plunged into the familiar forest, wandering unperceived, handled her net-stakes, remembered the hunt again, lamenting her maidenhood with wet eyelids, and crying loudly in these words :
“What god has loosed the girdle of my maidenhood ? If Zeus Allwise took some false aspect, and forced me, upon my lonely bed, if he did not respect our neighbour Rheia, I will leave the wild beasts and shoot the starry sky ! If Phoibos Apollo lay by my side in sleep, I will raze the stones of worldfamous Pytho wholly to the ground ! If Cyllenian Hermes has ravished my bed, I will utterly destroy Arcadia with my arrows, and make goldchaplet Peitho my servant ! If Dionysos came unseen and ravished my maidenhood in the crafty wooing of a dream-bridal, I will go where Cybele’s hall stands, and chase that lustmad Dionysos from highcrested Tmolos ! I will hang my quiver of death on my shoulders and attack Paphos, I will attack Phrygia — I will draw my bow on both Cypris and Dionysos ! You, Archeress, you have enraged me most, because you, a maiden, did not kill me in my sleep still a virgin, yes and did not defend me even against my bedfellow with your pure shafts !
She spoke, and then checked her trembling voice overcome by tears. And Aura, hapless maiden, having within her the fruitful seed of Bacchos the begetter, carried a double weight : the wife maddened uncontrollably cursed the burden of the seed, hapless maiden Aura [lamented the loss of her maidenhood ; she knew not] whether she had conceived of herself, or by some man, or a scheming god ; she remembered the bride of Zeus, Berecyntian Pluto, so unhappy in the son Tantalos whom she bore. She wished to tear herself open, to cut open her womb in her senseless frenzy, that the child half made might be destroyed and never be reared. She even lifted a sword, and thought to drive the blade through her bare chest with pitiless hand. Often she went to the cave of a lioness with newborn cubs, that she might slip into the net of a willing fate ; but the dread beast ran out into the mountains, in fear of death, and hid herself in some cleft of the rocks, leaing the cub alone in the lair. Often she thought to drive a sword willingly through the swelling womb and slay herself with her own hand, that self-slain she might escape the shame of her womb and the mocking taunts of glad Artemis. She longed to know her husband, that she might dish up her own son to her loathing husband, childslayer and paramour alike, that men might say — “Aura, unhappy bride, has killed her child like another Procne.”
Then Artemis saw her big with new children, and came near with a laugh on her face and teased the poor creature, saying with pitiless voice :
“I saw Sleep, the Paphian’s chamberlain ! I saw the deceiving stream of the yellow fountain at your loving bridal ! The fountain where young girls get a treacherous potion, and loosen the girdle they have worn all their lives, in a dream of marriage which steals their maidenhood. I have seen, I have seen the slope where a woman is made a bride unexpectedly, in treacherous sleep, beside a bridal rock. I have seen the love-mountain of Cypris, where lovers steal the maidenhood of women and run away.
“Tell me, you young prude, why do you walk so slowly to-day ? Once as quick as the wind, why do you plod so heavily ? You were wooed unwilling, and you do not know your bedfellow ! You cannot hide your furtive bridal, for your breasts are swelling with new milk and they announce a husband. Tell me heavy sleeper, pigsticker, virgin, bride, how do you come by those pale cheeks, once ruddy ? Who disgraced your bed ? Who stole your maidenhood ? fair-haired Naiads, do not hide Aura’s bridegroom ! I know your furtive husband, you woman with a heavy burden. I saw your wedding, clearly enough, though you long to conceal it. I saw your husband clearly enough ; you were in the bed, your body heavy with sleep, you did not move when Dionysos wedded you.
Come then, leave your bow, renounce your quiver ; serve in the secret rites of your womanmad Bacchos ; carry your tambour and your tootling pipes of horn. I beseech you, in the name of that bed on the ground where the marriage was consummated, what bridegifts did Dionysos your husband bring ? Did he give you a fawnskin, enough to be news of your marriage-bed ? Did he give you brazen rattles for your children to play with ? I think he gave you a thyrsus to shoot lions ; perhaps he gave cymbals, which nurses shake to console the howling pains of the little children.”
“So spoke the goddess in mockery, and went away to shoot her wild beasts again, in anger leaving her cares to the winds of heaven.
But the girl went among the high rocks of the mountains. There unseen, when she felt the cruel throes of childbirth pangs, her voice roared terrible as a lioness in labour, and the rocks resounded, for dolorous Echo gave back an answering roar to the loud-shrieking girl. She held her hands over her lap like a lid compressing the birth, to close the speedy delivery of her ripening child, and delayed the babe now perfect. For she hated Artemis and would not call upon her in her pains ; she would not have the daughters of Hera, lest they as being children of Bacchos’s stepmother should oppress her delivery with more pain. At last in her affliction the girl cried out these despairing words, stabbed with the pangs of one who was new to the hard necessity of childbirth :
“So may I see Archeress and wild Athena, so may I see them both great with child ! Reproach Artemis in labour, O midwife Seasons, be witness of her delivery, and say to Tritogeneia — ‘O virgin Brighteyes, O new mother who mother had none ! ’ So may I see Echo who loves maidenhood so much, suffering as I do, after she has lain with Pan, or Dionysos the cause of my troubles ! Artemis, if you could bring forth, it would be some consolation to Aura, that you should trickle woman’s milk from your man’s breast.”
So she cried, lamenting the heavy pangs of her delivery. Then Artemis delayed the birth, and gave the labouring bride the pain of retarded delivery.
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