While Perseus, the brave son of Jupiter,
surrounded at the feast by Cepheus' lords,
narrated this, a raging multitude
with sudden outcry filled the royal courts—
not with the clamours of a wedding feast
but boisterous rage, portentous of dread war.
As when the fury of a great wind strikes
a tranquil sea, tempestuous billows roll
across the peaceful bosom of the deep;
so were the pleasures at the banquet changed
to sudden tumult.
Foremost of that throng,
the rash ring-leader, Phineus, shook his spear,
brass-tipped of ash, and shouted, “Ha, 'tis I!
I come avenger of my ravished bride!
Let now your flittering wings deliver you,
or even Jupiter, dissolved in showers
of imitation gold.” So boasted he,
aiming his spear at Perseus.
Thus to him
cried Cepheus: “Hold your hand, and strike him not!
What strange delusions, O my brother, have
compelled you to this crime? Is it the just
requital of heroic worth? A fair
reguerdon for the life of her you loved?
“If truth were known, not Perseus ravished her
from you; but, either 'twas the awful God
that rules the Nereides; or Ammon, crowned
with crescent horns; or that monstrosity
of Ocean's vast abyss, which came to glut
his famine on the issue of my loins.
Nor was your suit abandoned till the time
when she must perish and be lost to you.
So cruel are you, seeking my daughter's death,
rejoicing lightly in our deep despair.—
“And was it not enough for you to stand
supinely by, while she was bound in chains,
and offer no assistance, though you were
her lover and betrothed? And will you grieve
that she was rescued from a dreadful fate,
and spoil her champion of his just rewards?
Rewards that now may seem magnificent,
but not denied to you if you had won
and saved, when she was fettered to the rock.
“Let him, whose strength to my declining years
restored my child, receive the merit due
his words and deeds; and know his suit was not
preferred to yours, but granted to prevent
her certain death.”
not deigning to reply,
against them Phineus stood; and glancing back
from him to Perseus, with alternate looks,
as doubtful which should feel his first attack,
made brief delay. Then vain at Perseus hurled
his spear, with all the force that rage inspired,
but, missing him it quivered in a couch.
Provoked beyond endurance Perseus leaped
forth from the cushioned seats, and fiercely sent
that outwrenched weapon back. It would have pierced
his hostile breast had not the miscreant crouched
behind the altars. Oh perverted good,
that thus an altar should abet the wrong!
But, though the craven Phineus escaped,
not vainly flew the whizzing point, but struck
in Rhoetus' forehead.
As the barb was torn
out of the bone, the victim's heels began
to kick upon the floor, and spouting blood
defiled the festal board. Then truly flame
in uncontrolled rage the vulgar crowd,
and hurl their harmful darts.
And there are some
who hold that Cepheus and his son-in-law
deserved to die; but Cepheus had passed forth
the threshold of his palace: having called
on all the Gods of Hospitality
and Truth and Justice to attest, he gave
no comfort to the enemies of Peace.
Unconquered Pallas is at hand and holds
her Aegis to protect her brother's life;
she lends him dauntless courage. At the feast
was one from India's distant shores, whose name
was Athis. It was said that Limnate,
the daughter of the River Ganges, him
in vitreous caverns bright had brought to birth;
and now at sixteen summers in his prime,
the handsome youth was clad in costly robes.
A purple mantle with a golden fringe
covered his shoulders, and a necklace, carved
of gold, enhanced the beauty of his throat.
His hair encompassed with a coronal,
delighted with sweet myrrh. Well taught was he
to hurl the javelin at a distant mark,
and none with better skill could stretch the bow.
No sooner had he bent the pliant horns
than Perseus, with a smoking billet, seized
from the mid-altar, struck him on the face,
and smashed his features in his broken skull.
And when Assyrian Lycabas had seen
his dear companion, whom he truly loved,
beating his handsome countenance in blood.
And when he had bewailed his lost life,
that ebbed away from that unpiteous wound,
he snatched the bow that Athis used, and said;
“Let us in single combat seek revenge;
not long will you rejoice the stripling's fate;
a deed most worthy shame.” So speaking, forth
the piercing arrow bounded from the cord,
which, though avoided, struck the hero's cloak
and fastened in its folds.—
Then Perseus turned
upon him, with the trusted curving sword,
cause of Medusa's death, and drove the blade
deep in his breast. The dying victim's eyes,
now swimming in a shadowous night, looked 'round
for Athis, whom, beholding, he reclined
upon, and ushered to the other world,—
sad consolation of united death.
And Phorbas the descendant of Methion.
Who hailed from far Syene, with his friend
Amphimedon of Libya, in their haste
to join the battle, slipped up in the blood
and fell together: just as they arose
that glittering sword was driven through the throat
of Phorbas into the ribs of his companion.
But Erithus, the son of Actor, swung
a battle-ax, so weighty, Perseus chose
not combat with his curving blade. He seized
in his two hands a huge bowl, wrought around
with large design, outstanding from its mass.
This, lifting up, he dashes on his foe,
who vomits crimson blood, and falling back
beats on the hard floor with his dying head.
And next he slew Caucasian Abaris,
and Polydaemon—from Semiramis
nobly descended—and Sperchius, son,
Lycetus, long-haired Elyces, unshorn,
Clytus and Phlegias, the hero slew;—
and trampled on the dying heaped around.
Not daring to engage his enemy
in open contest, Phineus held aloof,
and hurled his javelin. Badly aimed—by some
mischance or turned—it wounded Idas, who
had followed neither side; vain-hoping thus
to shun the conflict.
Idas, filled with rage,
on Phineus gazed with futile hate, and said,
“Since I am forced unwilling to such deeds,
behold, whom you have made your enemy,
O savage Phineus! Let your recompense
be stroke for stroke.” So speaking, from the wound
he drew the steel, but, faint from loss of blood,
before his arm could hurl the weapon back,
he sank upon his knees.
Here, also, lies
Odytes,—noblest of the Cephenes,
save Cepheus only,—slaughtered by the sword
of Clymenus. And Prothoenor lies
the victim of Hypseus; by his side
Hypseus slaughtered by Lyncidas falls.
And in the midst of this destruction stood
Emathion, now an aged man, revered,
who feared the Gods, and stood for upright deeds.
And, since his years denied him strength for war,
he battled with his tongue, and railed, and cursed
their impious weapons. As that aged man
clings to the altar with his trembling hands,
Chromis with ruthless sword cuts off his head,
which straightway falls upon the altar, whence
his dying tongue denounces them in words
of execration: and his soul expires
amid the altar flames.
Then Broteas
and Ammon, his twin brother, who not knew
their equals at the cestus, by the hand
of Phineus fell; for what avails in deed
the cestus as a weapon matched with swords.
Ampycus by the same hand fell,—the priest
of Ceres, with his temples wreathed in white.
And O, Iapetides not for this
did you attend the feast! Your voice attuned
melodious to the harp, was in request
to celebrate the wedding-day with song,—
a work of peace; as you did stand aside,
holding the peaceful plectrum in your hand,
the mocking Pettalus in ridicule said,
“Go sing your ditties to the Stygian shades.”
And, mocking thus, he drove his pointed sword
in your right temple. As your limbs gave way,
your dying fingers swept the tuneful strings:
and falling you did chant a mournful dirge.—
You to avenge enraged Lycormas tore
a huge bar from the door-post, on the right,
and dashing it against the mocker crushed
his neck-bones: as a slaughtered bullock falls—
he tumbled to the ground.
Then on the left.
Cinyphian Pelates began to wrench
an oak plank from the door-post, but the spear
of Corythus, the son of Marmarus,
pinioned his right hand to the wooden post;
and while he struggled Abas pierced his side.—
He fell not to the floor, but dying hung
suspended from the door-post by his hand.
And of the friends of Perseus, Melaneus
was slain, and Dorylas whose wealth was large
in Nasamonian land. No other lord,
as Dorylas, such vast estates possessed;
no other owned so many heaps of corn.
The missile steel stood fastened in his groin,
obliquely fixed,—a fatal spot—and when
the author of his wound, Halcyoneus
the Bactrian, beheld his victim thus,
rolling his eyes and sobbing forth his soul,
he railed; “Keep for yourself of all your lands
as much as you can cover.” And he left
the bleeding corpse.
But Perseus in revenge
hurled after him a spear, which, in his need,
he ripped out from the wound, yet warm, and struck
the boaster on the middle of his nose.
The piercing steel, passed through his nose and neck,—
remained projecting from the front and back.
And while good fortune helped his hand, he slew
Clanis and Clytius, of one mother born,
but with a different wound he slaughtered each:
for, leveled by a mighty arm, his ashen spear
drove through the thighs of Clytius, right and left,
and Clanis bit the javelin with his teeth.
And by his might, Mendesian Celadon
and Atreus fell, his mother of the tribes
of Palestine, his father was unknown.
Aethion, also, who could well foresee
the things to come, but was at last deceived
by some false omen. And Thoactes fell,
the armour-bearer of the king; and, next,
the infamous Agyrtes who had slain
his father.
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