But Nicaia, the leader of the rites of Lyaios, seeing the pain and disgrace of distracted Aura, spoke to her thus in secret pity :
“Aura, I have suffered as you have, and you too lament you your maidenhood. But since you carry in your womb the burden of painful childbirth, endure after the bed to have the pangs of delivery, endure to give your untaught breast to babes. Why did you also drink wine, which robbed me of my girdle ? Why did you also drink wine, Aura, until you were with child ? You also suffered what I suffered, you enemy of marriage ; then you also have to blame a deceitful sleep sent by the Loves, who are friends of marriage. One fraud fitted marriage on us both, one husband was Aura’s and made virgin Nicaia the mother of children. No more have I a beastslaying bow, no longer as once, I draw my bowstring and my arrows ; I am a poor woman working at the loom, and no longer a wild Amazon.”
She spoke, pitying Aura’s labour to accomplish the birth, as one who herself had felt the pangs of labour. But Leto’s daughter, hearing the resounding cries of Aura, came near the bride again in triumph, taunted her in her suffering and spoke in stinging words :
“Virgin, who made you a mother in childbed ? You that knew nothing of marriage, how came that milk in your breast ? I never heard or saw that a virgin bears a child. Has my father changed nature ? Do women bear children without marriage ? For you, a maiden, the friend of maidenhood, bring forth young children, even if you hate Aphrodite. Then do women in childbed under the hard necessity of childbirth no longer call on Artemis to guide them, when you alone do not want Archeress the lady of the hunt ? Nor did Eileithyia, who conducts your delivery, see your Dionysos born from his mother’s womb ; but thunderbolts were his midwives, and he only half-made ! Do not be angry that you bear children among the crags, where Rheia queen of the crags has borne children.” What harm is it that you bear children in the mountains, you the mountaineer wife of mountainranging Dionysos !
She spoke, and the nymph in childbirth was indignant and angry, but she was ashamed before Artemis even in her pains. Ah poor creature ! she wished to remain a maiden, and she was near to childbirth. A babe came quickly into the light ; for even as Artemis yet spoke the word that shot out the delivery, the womb of Aura was loosened, and twin children came forth of themselves ; therefore from these twins the highpeaked mountain of Rheia was called Dindymon. Seeing how fair the children were, the goddess again spoke in a changed voice :
“Wetnurse, lonely ranger, twinmother, bride of a forced bridal, give your untaught breast to your sons, virgin mother. Your boy calls daddy, asking for his father ; tell your children the name of your secret lover. Artemis knows nothing of marriage, she has not nursed a son at her breast. These mountains were your bed, and the spotted skins of fawns are swaddling-clothes for your babies, instead of the usual robe.”
She spoke, and swiftshoe plunged into the shady wood. Then Dionysos called Nicaia, his own Cybeleid nymph, and smiling pointed to Aura still upbraiding her childbed ; proud of his late union with the lonely girl, he said :
“Now at last, Nicaia, you have found consolation for your love. Now again Dionysos has stolen a marriage bed, and ravished another maiden : woodland Aura in the mountains, who shrank once from the very name of love, has seen a marriage the image of yours. Not you alone had sweet sleep as a guide to love, not you alone drank deceitful wine which stole your maiden girdle ; but once more a fountain of nuptial wine has burst from a new opening rock unrecognized, and Aura drank. You who have learnt the throes of childbirth in hard necessity, by Telete your danceweaving daughter I beseech you, hasten to lift up my son, that my desperate Aura may not destroy him with daring hands — for I know she will kill one of the two baby boys in her intolerable frenzy, but do you help Iacchos : guard the better boy, that your Telete may be the servant of son and father both.”
With this appeal Bacchos departed, triumphant and proud of his two Phrygian marriages, with the elder wife and the younger bride. And in deep distress beside the rock where they had been born, the mother in childbed held up the two boys and cried aloud — “From the sky came this marriage — I will throw my offspring into the sky ! I was wooed by the breezes, and I saw no mortal bed. Winds my namesakes came down to the marriage of the Windmaid, then let the breezes take the offspring of my womb. Away with you, children accursed of a treacherous father, you are none of mine — what have I to do with the sorrows of women ? Show yourselves now, lions, come freely to forage in the woods ; have no fear, for Aura is your enemy no more. Hares with your rolling eyes, you are better than hounds. Jackals, let me be your favourite ; I will watch the panther jumping fearless beside my bed. Bring your friend the bear without fear ; for now that Aura has children her arrows in bronze armour have become womanish. I am ashamed to have the name of bride who once was virgin ; lest I sometime offer my strong breast to babes, lest I press out the bastard milk with my hand, or be called tender mother in the woods where I slew wild beasts !
[She took the babes and] laid them in the den of a lioness for her dinner. But a panther with understanding mind licked their bodies with her ravening lips, and nursed the beautiful boys of Dionysos with intelligent breast ; wondering serpents with poisonspitting mouth surrounded the birthplace, for Aura’s bridegroom had made even the ravening beasts gentle to guard his newborn children.
Then Lelantos’s daughter sprang up with wandering foot in the wild temper of a shaggycrested lioness, tore one child from the wild beast’s jaws and hurled it like a flash into the stormy air : the new-born child fell from the air headlong into the whirling dust upon the ground, and she caught him up and gave him a tomb in her own maw — a family dinner indeed ! The maiden Archeress was terrified at this heartless mother, and seized the other child of Aura, then she hastened away through the wood ; holding the boy, an unfamiliar burden in her nursing arm.
After the bed of Bromios, after the delirium of childbirth, huntress Aura would escape the reproach of her wedding, for she still held in reverence the modesty of her maiden state. So she went to the banks of Sangarios, threw into the water her backbending bow and her neglected quiver, and leapt headlong into the deep stream, refusing in shame to let her eyes look on the light of day. The waves of the river covered her up, and Cronion turned her into a fountain : her breasts became the spouts of falling water, the stream was her body, the flowers her hair, her bow the horn of the horned River in bull-shape, the bowstring changed into a rush and the whistling arrows into vocal reeds, the quiver passed through to the muddy bed of the river and, changed to a hollow channel, poured its sounding waters.
Then the Archeress stilled her anger. She went about the forest seeking for traces of Lyaios in his beloved mountains, while she held Aura’s newborn babe, carrying in her arms another’s burden, until shamefast she delivered his boy to Dionysos her brother.
The father gave charge of his son to Nicaia the nymph as a nurse. She took him, and fed the boy, pressing out the lifegiving juice of her childnursing breasts from her teat, until he grew up. While the boy was yet young, Bacchos took into his car this Bacchos his father’s namesake, and presented him to Attic Athena amid her mysteries, babbling “Euoi.” Goddess Pallas in her temple received him into her maiden bosom, which had welcome for a god ; she gave the boy that pap which only Erechtheus had sucked, and let the alien milk trickle of itself from her unripe breast. The goddess gave him in trust to the Bacchants of Eleusis ; the wives of Marathon wearing ivy tript around the boy Iacchos, and lifted the Attic torch in the nightly dances of the deity lately born. They honoured him as a god next after the son of Persephoneia, and after Semele’s son ; they established sacrifices for Dionysos late born and Dionysos first born, and third they chanted a new hymn for Iacchos. In these three celebrations Athens held high revel ; in the dance lately made, the Athenians beat the step in honour of Zagreus and Bromios and Iacchos all together.
But Bacchos had not forgotten his Cydonian darling, no, he remembered still the bride once his, then lost, and he placed in Olympos the rounded crown of Ariadne passed away, a witness of his love, an everlasting proclaimer of garlanded wedding.
Then the vinegod ascended into his father’s heaven, and touched one table with the father who had brought him to birth ; after the banquets of mortals, after the wine once poured out, he quaffed heavenly nectar from nobler goblets, on a throne beside Apollo, at the hearth beside Maia’s son.
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