The eighth has a changeful tale, the fierce jealousy of Hera, and Semele’s fiery nuptials, and Zeus the slayer […], these words Zeus returned to Olympos; but in the high-roofed hall his mind still wandered near his bride, empassioned for Thebes more than for heaven.
For to Cronides Semele’s house was lovely heaven, and the quickfoot Seasons of Zeus became the attendants in the palace of Cadmos. By the espousal drop of the divine union Semele’s body swelled laden with a heavy burden. In witness of the birth of garland-loving Dionysos she took delight in wreaths. She plaited into her flower decked hair the natural tendrils of the maddening ivy like a prophetess of the Bassarids, and provided for the […] who were soon to be born, the later title of the ivy. As she carried the heavy burden of the divinely conceived child, if some old shepherd made melody with his panspipes, and she heard the tune repeated by country-loving Echo near, clad in tunic alone she went rushing wildly out of the house. If the mountainranging tones of the double […] was to be heard, she leapt up, and out of the halls went shoeless, uncalled, to the lonely woods on the hills. If there was clashing of cymbals, she tripped with dancing foot and shuffled a sidelong shoe in winding paces. If she heard the bellow of a broad-horned bull, her throat bellowed mimicry of the creature in. Oft on some hillside pasture she sang with an […] maddened voice, and played harmonious Echo to him ; she answered the tones of the herdsman’s pipe of horn by bending her steps to the dance, and the fruit of her womb (sensible, though yet unborn) joined in his mother’s dance as if he also were maddened by the pipes, and although only half-made sounded a self-taught echo of tune from within her. So in the burden of the manchilding womb grew the messenger of merry-hearted cheer, that understanding baby ; and round about the boy, Cronion’s attendants the Seasons went their rounds about the sky.
Now Envy, surveying the bed of lofty Zeus and Semele’s labour in the divine birth, was jealous of Bacchos while yet in the womb, […] stung with his own […] another […] for Semele has stolen yours ! For her sake he renounces the severzoned sky and treads the bridal floor of seven-gated Thebes! In your place he holds in his arms an earthly bride with child, and is happy! What has become of my mother’s jealousy ? Has even Hera’s wrath become unmanned for this marriage with Semele? Where are the stings of your merciless gadfly ? No heifer now driven in seapanic over the deep—no herdsman Argos with a thick crop of eyes watches the latest bed of lecher Cronides. But what is this palace of Olympos to me ? I will go down to earth, I will leave my father’s heaven and live in my own Thrace, I will no longer look on at my unhappy mother’s wrongs and Zeus the wife-spoiler ! If ever he comes to my country because he wants a Bistonian girl, he shall know what Ares is like when he is angry. I will take my Titandestroying deathdealing spear and chase womanmad Cronion out of Thrace. I will use the excuse that he drags this maiden to his bed, I will be avenger self-appointed of the bed where I was born, because he has frequented earthborn brides and filled the bespangled heavens with his loves !
Goodbye Heaven—where mortals are at home! Shall I climb the pole ? But Callisto circles about Olympos, and there shines the ring named after the highcrested Arcadian Bear, I hate the seven Pleiads in their courses—for in Olympos it irks me that Electra shows her light with Selene. Now why are […] on and set Argos, who had eyes all over him,
Ares was […] perhaps rightly as a Thracian […] of Zeus’s loves, the Pleiad another. Arcas was Callisto’s son. […] You persecuted Apollo in the womb of mother Leto and you leave Dionysos in Hephaistos, you he in the painful birth of Tritogeneia, and Zeus shall be his own midwife for the bastard son of a drab, more mighty still than Athena, and he shall see him from his manly thigh— no need now the pole-axe! Give place, Athena! Cease to cry up that rounded forehead as your birthed Dionysos puts into the shade the clever delivery of that teeming head! Sprung from a mortal stock, he shall be an Olympian like Athena, but self-delivered, and eclipsing the boast of Pallas the motherless,
[…] I am ashamed myself far more, when some mortal man shall say : Zeus granted battles to Ares, and merry-hearted cheer to Dionysos.” Well, I will leave the sky to the bastard brats of Cronides, and quit the heavens a banished god. Let Istros with his frozen flood receive its homeless monarch, before I see Ganymedes come here to pour the wine, that long-haired cowdrover, first in Pergamos then domiciled in Olympos, usurping the untouched cup of heavenly Hebe ; before I can see Semele and Bacchos denizens of Olympos, and Ariadne’s crown translated to the stars to run its course with Helios, to travel with misty Dawn. There I will stay, that I may never behold the sea-monster, the sickle of Perseus, the figure of Andromeda, the glare of Gorgon Medusa, whom Cronides will establish in Olympos by and by.”
He spoke, and disquieted the mind of self-born Constellations. The Northern Crown was the Athena, and the more increased the wrath of jealous Hera. Swift leapt up Envy, and wagging his crooked knees passed on his sidelong roads through the lower air: moved like smoke to human eyes and thoughts, arming his boggart’s mind for deceit and mischief.
Nor did the consort of Zeus abate her heavy anger. She stormed with flying shoe through the heaven bespangled with its pattern of shining stars, she coursed through innumerable cities with travelling foot, seeking if anywhere she could find Deceit the crafty one. But when high above Corybantian Dicte she beheld the childbed water of neighbouring Amnisos, the fickle deity met her there on the hills ; for she was fond of the Cretans because they are always liars, and she used to stay by the fate tomb of Zeus. About her hips was a Cydonian cincture, which contains all the cunning bewitchments of mankind : trickery with its many shifts, cajoling seduction, all the ropes of guile, perjury itself which flies on the winds of heaven.
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