And now the god, laying aside the false image of the bull, had confessed himself and was occupying the Cretan fields. Meanwhile her father, unaware, ordered Cadmus to search for his stolen daughter and added exile as punishment if he didn't find her—in this same action both dutiful and cruel.

After wandering the world (for who could catch Jupiter's thefts?), Agenor's son, a fugitive, avoided both his homeland and his father's anger. As a suppliant he consulted Phoebus' oracle and asked what land he should inhabit. Phoebus said, "A cow will meet you in the fields alone, one that has endured no yoke and is free from the curved plow. Let her be your guide, take your road, and where she rests on the grass, there build walls and call that land Boeotia."

Scarcely had Cadmus descended from the Castalian cave when he saw a heifer going slowly, unguarded, wearing no sign of servitude on her neck. He followed and traced her footsteps with measured pace and silently worshiped Phoebus, author of his path. Already he'd passed the shallows of Cephisus and the fields of Panope. The cow stopped and, raising her beautiful head with high horns toward the sky, filled the air with lowings. And looking back at her companions following her tracks, she lay down and rested her side in the tender grass.

Cadmus gave thanks and pressed kisses to the foreign earth and greeted the unknown mountains and fields.

---

He was about to make sacrifice to Jupiter. He ordered his servants to go and fetch water for libation from a living spring. An ancient forest stood, violated by no ax, and in its middle a cave, dense with brush and wicker, making a low arch with stones fitted together, abundant with plentiful waters. Hidden in this cave was a serpent of Mars, remarkable for its golden crest. Its eyes flashed with fire, its whole body swelled with venom, and three tongues flickered, and teeth stood in triple rows.

When the people from Tyre reached this grove with unlucky step and lowered their urns into the water, which made a sound, the sea-blue serpent lifted its head from the deep cave and sent out horrible hissing. The urns slipped from their hands, blood left their bodies, and sudden trembling seized their stunned limbs.

The serpent wound its scaly coils in rolling circles and curved itself into immense arcs with its leaping motion. More than half its length raised up into the light air, it looked down on the whole grove. Its body was as large as the constellation that separates the twin Bears, if you looked at the whole thing. Without delay it seized the Phoenicians—whether they were preparing weapons or flight, or fear itself prevented both. Some it killed with bites, some with long embraces, some it slew with the deadly corruption of its poisonous breath.

---

The sun had made the shadows very small, highest in the sky. Agenor's son wondered what was delaying his companions and sought out the men. His covering was a lion's hide torn off, his weapons were a spear with gleaming iron and a javelin—and a spirit better than any weapon. When he entered the grove and saw the dead bodies and the victorious enemy above them with its enormous bulk, licking their sad wounds with its bloody tongue, he said, "Most faithful hearts, I'll either be the avenger of your death or your companion." He spoke and with his right hand lifted a millstone and hurled it with great effort. With its impact, high walls with lofty towers would have been shaken, yet the serpent remained unwounded. Defended by its scales like a breastplate and by the hardness of its black hide, its skin repelled the powerful blows.

But that same hardness didn't conquer the javelin too. Fixed in the middle curve of its flexible spine, it stood firm, and all the iron descended into its vitals. The serpent, fierce with pain, twisted its head back to its own back, looked at the wound, and bit the fixed shaft. When it had loosened this with much force in every direction, it barely pulled it out of its back, though the iron stuck in its bones.

Then truly, when a fresh cause was added to its usual anger, its throat swelled with full veins, white foam flowed around its plague-bearing jaws, the earth rang with scraped scales, and a black breath that came from its Stygian mouth infected the corrupted air.

Now it coiled itself in an immense circle made of spirals, now it stood straighter than a long beam, now it was carried with vast force like a river swollen by rains and knocked over the opposing forests with its chest. Agenor's son gave way a little and sustained its attacks with the lion's spoils and held back its pressing mouth with his extended spear point. The serpent raged and gave futile wounds to the hard iron and fixed its teeth on the sharp point.

And now blood began to flow from its venomous palate and stained the green grass with its spray. But the wound was light because it pulled back from the blow and gave its injured neck backward and prevented the stroke from lodging by withdrawing and didn't let it go deeper—until Agenor's son, following up, pressed the iron thrust into its throat. As it went backward, an oak blocked it, and its neck was pinned together with the tree.

The tree was bent by the serpent's weight and groaned as its timber was lashed by the lowest part of its tail.

---

While the victor considered the size of his conquered enemy, a voice was suddenly heard. It wasn't easy to know from where, but it was heard: "Why, son of Agenor, do you gaze at the slain serpent? You too will be gazed at as a serpent."

For a long time he lost his color along with his mind, equally terrified, and his hair stood stiff with cold dread. Look—Pallas, his supporter, came gliding down through the upper air and ordered him to plow the earth and plant the serpent's teeth—seeds of a future people.

He obeyed, and as he opened a furrow with a pressed plow, he scattered on the ground the commanded teeth—mortal seeds. Then (greater than belief) the soil clumps began to move, and first from the furrows appeared a spear point, then helmets with painted crests nodding, then shoulders and chests and arms loaded with weapons rose up, and a harvest of shield-bearing men grew. Just as when curtains are raised in festive theaters, figures usually rise and first show their faces, then gradually the rest, drawn up with smooth movement, stand fully revealed and place their feet on the bottom edge.

Terrified by this new enemy, Cadmus prepared to take up arms. "Don't take them up!" one of the people the earth had created shouted. "And don't insert yourself into civil wars!" And so, with a rigid sword, he struck one of his earth-born brothers in close combat. He himself fell from a javelin at a distance. The one who'd given him death didn't live longer than him and breathed out the air he'd just received. All the crowd raged with the same example, and the sudden brothers fell in mutual wounds by their own warfare.

And now the young men, allotted a brief span of life, were beating their bloody mother with their warm chests. Five survived, one of whom was Echion. At Minerva's warning, he threw his weapons on the ground and sought and gave the pledge of brotherly peace. The Sidonian stranger had these as companions in his work when he founded the city ordered by Phoebus' oracle.

---

Now Thebes stood firm. Now, Cadmus, you could seem fortunate in your exile. Mars and Venus had become your in-laws. Add to this your lineage from such a wife, so many sons and daughters and, dear pledges, your grandchildren—these also now young men. But certainly a person's last day must always be awaited, and no one should be called blessed before death and final funeral rites.

Your first cause of grief among so many fortunate circumstances, Cadmus, was your grandson—horns added to an alien forehead, and you, hounds sated with your master's blood. But if you look closely, you'll find Fortune's crime in that case, not wrongdoing. For what wrongdoing did his mistake have?

---

There was a mountain stained with the slaughter of various beasts. Already midday had contracted the shadows of things, and the sun stood equally distant from each goal. When the young Hyantian spoke to his companions wandering through the pathless hunting grounds with calm voice and shared in their work:

"Our nets are wet, friends, and our iron with beasts' blood, and the day has had enough good fortune. When tomorrow's Aurora brings back light carried on saffron wheels, we'll take up our planned work again. Now Phoebus stands equally distant from each goal and splits the fields with his heat. Stop the present work and take up the knotted nets!"

The men did as ordered and stopped their labor.

There was a valley dense with pine and sharp cypress, named Gargaphie, sacred to girt Diana. In its farthest recess was a woodland cave, worked by no art—nature had imitated art with its own design. For from living pumice and light tufa it had drawn a natural arch. A spring sounded on the right, clear with thin water, surrounded by a grassy edge around its open pools.

Here the goddess of the forests, tired from hunting, used to bathe her virgin limbs with liquid dew. When she'd entered there, she handed to one of her weapon-bearing nymphs her javelin and quiver and relaxed bow. Another received her draped robe on her arms. Two removed the bindings from her feet. But more skilled than these, Ismenia Crocale gathered up her scattered hair over her neck into a knot, though her own was loose. Nephele and Hyale and Rhanis and Psecas and Phiale drew the water and poured it from capacious urns.

While the Titan goddess was bathing there in her accustomed water, look—Cadmus' grandson, having postponed part of his labors, wandering through the unknown grove with uncertain steps, came to the sacred place. The fates were carrying him thus.

As soon as he entered the cave dripping with springs, the nymphs, as they were, naked, seeing a man, beat their breasts and filled all the grove with sudden shrieks and, surrounding Diana, covered her with their bodies. Yet the goddess herself was taller than them and stood out head and shoulders above them all.

The color that clouds usually have when struck by the opposing sun's rays, or that purple Aurora has—that was the color in Diana's face, seen without clothing. Though she was surrounded by the crowd of her companions, she still stood at an angle and turned her face back. And though she wished she'd had her arrows ready, she took up the water she had and sprinkled the man's face. Scattering his hair with avenging water, she added these words, heralds of coming disaster:

"Now you may tell that you saw me with my garment laid aside—if you'll be able to tell!" With no more threats, she gave the horns of a long-lived stag to his sprinkled head, lengthened his neck, pointed his ear-tips, changed his hands to feet and his arms to long legs, and covered his body with dappled hide. And fear was added. Autonoe's hero fled and marveled at himself being so swift in his running.

But when he saw his face and horns in the water, "Wretched me!" he was about to say—no voice followed! He groaned—that was his voice—and tears flowed down a face not his own. Only his former mind remained.

What should he do? Should he return home and to the royal dwelling, or hide in the forests? Shame prevented the one, fear the other.

---

While he hesitated, the dogs saw him. First Melampus and keen-scented Ichnobates gave the signal with barking—Ichnobates from Cnossos, Melampus of Spartan breed. Then the others rushed, swifter than the rapid wind: Pamphagos and Dorceus and Oribasos, all Arcadians, and strong Nebrophonos and fierce Theron with Laelape, Pterelas swift of foot and Agre useful for scent, Hylaeus fierce, recently wounded by a boar, and Nape conceived from a wolf and Poemenis who'd followed flocks, and Harpyia accompanied by her two sons, and Sicyonian Ladon wearing a tucked-up belly, and Dromas and Canache and Sticte and Tigris and Alce, and Leucon with snowy hair and Asbolos with black, and very strong Lacon and Aello strong in running, and Thoos and swift Lycisce with her Cyprian brother, and Harpalos distinguished by a black spot in the middle of his white forehead, and Melaneus and Lachne with shaggy body, and Labros and Argiodus born of a Cretan father but Spartan mother, and Hylactor with piercing voice, and those it would take time to recount.

This pack, eager for prey, followed through cliffs and crags and rocks without access, and where the way was difficult and where there was no way. He fled through places he'd often pursued through himself. Alas, he fled from his own servants! He wanted to shout: "I am Actaeon! Recognize your master!" Words failed his will. The sky rang with barking.

First Melanchaetes made wounds on his back, next Theridamas, Oresitrophos stuck in his shoulder. They'd gone out later, but by a shortcut through the mountain their path was anticipated. While they held their master, the rest of the pack gathered and sank teeth into his body. Now there were no places left for wounds. He groaned and made a sound, though not a man's, yet one a stag couldn't make. He filled the familiar ridges with sad complaints. Kneeling on front legs like a suppliant, he turned his silent face around like arms, as if begging.

But his companions, ignorant, urged on the swift pack with their usual encouragements and looked for Actaeon with their eyes and called "Actaeon!" in competition as if he were absent (he turned his head at the name), and complained he was absent and, sluggish, wasn't seizing the spectacle of the offered prey.

He'd want to be absent indeed, but he was present. He'd want to see, not also to feel, the savage deeds of his own dogs. They stood around on all sides and, plunging their muzzles into his body, tore apart their master beneath the false image of a stag. Not until life was finished through very many wounds was the anger of quiver-bearing Diana said to be satisfied.

---

Opinion wavered. To some the goddess seemed more violent than just, others praised her and called her worthy of stern virginity. Each side found reasons. Only Jupiter's wife didn't speak so much about whether to blame or approve as she rejoiced in the disaster of the house descended from Agenor and transferred her hatred, gathered from the Tyrian concubine, to the relatives of her race.

Look—a fresh cause added to the earlier one: she grieved that Semele was pregnant with great Jupiter's seed. While she loosened her tongue for quarrels, she said, "What have I really gained from quarrels? She herself must be sought. I'll destroy her herself, if I'm rightly called greatest Juno, if it's fitting that I hold the jeweled scepter in my right hand, if I'm queen and both sister and wife of Jupiter—certainly sister. But I think she's content with a stolen affair, and the injury to my marriage bed is brief. She's conceived—that was lacking—and carries manifest crimes in her full womb and wants to become a mother from Jupiter alone, which scarcely happened to me. Such is her confidence in her beauty! I'll make it deceive her. I'm no daughter of Saturn if she's not plunged by Jupiter himself into the Stygian waters!"

---

She rose from her throne and, hidden in a tawny cloud, approached Semele's threshold. She didn't remove the cloud before she'd disguised herself as an old woman and put gray hair on her temples and furrowed her skin with wrinkles and carried her bent limbs with a trembling step. She also made her voice an old woman's. She herself was Beroe, Semele's Epidaurian nurse.

So when, with conversation engaged and after talking long, they came to Jupiter's name, she sighed and said, "I hope it's Jupiter, but I fear everything. Many have entered chaste bedrooms using the names of gods. Yet it's not enough for him to be Jupiter. Let him give a pledge of love, if he's truly himself. However great and of whatever kind he is when he's received by lofty Juno, so great and such, ask him to give you his embrace and put on his emblems first!"

With such words Juno had molded ignorant Cadmus' daughter. She asked Jupiter for a gift without naming it. To her the god said, "Choose! You'll suffer no refusal. So that you may believe more, let the powers of the Stygian torrent be witness too—that god is fear even to gods."

Happy in her harm and too powerful and about to perish by her lover's compliance, Semele said, "Give yourself to me such as Saturn's daughter usually embraces you when you enter Venus' pact."

The god wanted to stop her mouth as she spoke, but the hasty words had already gone into the air. He groaned, for she couldn't not have wished this, nor could he not have sworn. Most sad, he climbed the high heaven and with his face drew following clouds to which he added rainstorms mixed with lightning and thunder and the inevitable thunderbolt.

Yet as much as he could, he tried to remove strength from himself. He didn't arm himself with that fire by which he'd struck down hundred-handed Typhoeus—too much savagery in that. There's another, lighter thunderbolt to which the Cyclopes' right hands added less savagery and flame, less anger. The gods above call it second-rate weaponry. He took this and entered Agenor's house.

Her mortal body didn't bear the heavenly tumult and was burned by the marriage gifts. The infant, still unfinished, was snatched from his mother's womb and (if it's credible) was sewn, tender, into his father's thigh and completed his mother's time.

His aunt Ino secretly raised him in his first cradle, then the Nyseian nymphs hid him, given to them, in their caves and gave him milk for nourishment.

---

While these things were happening on earth by fated law and the cradle of twice-born Bacchus was safe, they say Jupiter, relaxed with nectar, had set aside heavy cares and exchanged idle jokes with carefree Juno and said, "Your pleasure is surely greater than what falls to males."

She denied it. They decided to ask the opinion of learned Tiresias. Both kinds of Venus were known to him. For once, with a blow of his staff he'd violated the bodies of two great serpents mating in a green forest. And, marvelous, changed from male he'd spent seven autumns as a woman. In the eighth he saw the same ones again and said, "If the power of your blow is so great that it changes the striker's lot to the opposite, I'll strike you now too." After striking the same snakes, his former shape returned and his birth image came back.

Taken therefore as judge of this playful dispute, he confirmed Jupiter's words. Saturn's daughter is said to have grieved more heavily than was just and not in proportion to the matter, and she condemned her judge's eyes to eternal night. But the all-powerful father (for no god is allowed to undo what a god has done) gave knowledge of the future in exchange for the stolen light and lightened the punishment with honor.

---

He, most famous throughout the Boeotian cities, gave irreproachable responses to the people who consulted him. Blue Liriope, whom once Cephisus had embraced in his curved stream and, enclosed in his waters, had raped, was first to test his credibility and true voice.

The nymph, delivered from her full womb, brought forth a most beautiful infant, one who even then could be loved, and called him Narcissus. Consulted about whether he would see the long years of mature old age, the prophetic seer said, "If he doesn't know himself."

For a long time the prophet's words seemed vain, but the outcome and the matter proved them true—both the manner of death and the novelty of madness. For Cephisus' son had added one year to thrice five. He could seem both boy and young man. Many young men, many girls desired him, but in his tender form was such hard pride that no young men, no girls touched him.

A vocal nymph saw him driving frightened deer into nets—she who neither learned to be silent when someone spoke nor learned to speak first herself: echoing Echo.

Echo still had a body then, she wasn't just a voice. Yet chattering, she had no other use of her mouth than she has now—the ability to repeat the last words from many. Juno had done this because when she could have caught nymphs often lying beneath her Jupiter on the mountain, Echo cleverly detained the goddess with long conversation while the nymphs fled.

When Saturn's daughter sensed this, she said, "This tongue, by which I've been deceived, will be given little power to you and very brief use of voice." She confirmed her threats with the deed. Echo only doubles words at the end of speech and returns words she's heard.

So when she saw Narcissus wandering through remote countryside and burned with desire, she followed his tracks secretly. The more she followed, the warmer she grew with nearer flame—not otherwise than when sulfur spread around the tops of torches seizes the flames brought near.

Oh, how often she wanted to approach with flattering words and apply soft prayers! Nature fought back and didn't allow her to begin, but she was ready for what it did allow—to wait for sounds to which she could send back her own words.

By chance the boy, separated from his faithful band of companions, had said, "Is anyone here?" and "here" Echo answered. He was amazed and sent his gaze in all directions and shouted with loud voice, "Come!" She called the caller. He looked back and, with no one coming again, said, "Why do you flee me?" And he received as many words as he spoke.

He persisted and, deceived by the image of an alternating voice, said, "Here let us meet!" And Echo, never about to answer any sound more willingly, replied, "Let us meet!" She favored her own words and came out of the forest to throw her arms around his hoped-for neck.

He fled and, fleeing, said, "Take your hands from embraces! I'd die before I'd give you power over me!" She replied nothing except "give you power over me!"

Spurned, she hid in the forests and covered her shamed face with leaves and lived from then on in lonely caves. But still her love clung and grew from the pain of rejection. Wakeful cares wasted her miserable body, and thinness drew tight her skin, and all the moisture of her body went into air. Only voice and bones remained. The voice remains. They say the bones took on the shape of stone. From then on she hid in forests and was seen on no mountain, but she's heard by all. Sound is what lives in her.

---

He'd mocked Echo and others born from waves or mountains, and before these, groups of males. Then someone scorned lifted his hands to heaven and said, "So may he love himself! So may he not possess what he loves!" The goddess of Rhamnus agreed with his just prayers.

There was a clear spring, silvery with shining water, which neither shepherds nor goats pastured on the mountain nor any other cattle had touched. No bird nor beast nor branch fallen from a tree had disturbed it. Grass was around it, which the nearby water nourished, and a forest that would never allow the sun to warm the place.

Here the boy, exhausted by eagerness for hunting and heat, lay down, attracted by the appearance of the place and the spring. While he wanted to quench his thirst, another thirst grew. While he drank, seized by the image of his seen beauty, he loved a hope without body. He thought what was a reflection was a body.

He was amazed at himself and clung motionless with the same expression, like a statue formed from Parian marble. Lying on the ground, he gazed at his eyes, twin stars, and his hair worthy of Bacchus, worthy too of Apollo, and his smooth cheeks and ivory neck and the beauty of his face and the blush mixed in snowy whiteness. He marveled at everything by which he himself was marveled at.

Unwisely he desired himself. He who approved was himself approved. While he sought, he was sought. Equally he kindled and burned. How many useless kisses he gave to the deceiving spring! How many times he plunged arms into the middle water, trying to seize the glimpsed neck, and didn't catch himself in them!

He didn't know what he was seeing, but what he saw burned him, and the same error that deceived his eyes spurred them on. Credulous boy, why do you vainly grasp fleeing images? What you seek exists nowhere. What you love, if you turn away, you'll lose! This is the shadow of a reflected image you see. It has nothing of its own. It comes and stays with you. It will depart with you, if you could depart!

Neither care of Ceres nor care of rest could draw him away from there, but stretched on the dark grass, he gazed with insatiable eyes on the false form and perished through his own eyes. Raising himself a little, stretching his arms to the surrounding forests, he said:

"O forests, has anyone loved more cruelly? For you know, and you've been a convenient hiding place for many. In the long ages of your life that you've lived, do you remember anyone who wasted away like this? I'm pleased and I see, but what I see and what pleases me I still don't find"—such error held the lover—"and what makes me grieve more, no vast sea separates us, nor road nor mountains nor walls with closed gates! We're prevented by a tiny bit of water! He himself wants to be held. For as often as I reached kisses to the clear water, he just as often strove toward me with upturned face.

"You'd think he could be touched—so little obstructs lovers. Whoever you are, come out here! Why do you deceive me, unique boy? Where do you go when sought? Certainly neither my form nor age is such that you'd flee, and nymphs have loved me too! You promise me some hope with friendly face. When I reached arms to you, you reached back. When I smiled, you smiled. I've often noted your tears too when I was weeping. You also return signs with a nod. And as much as I suspect from the movement of your beautiful mouth, you speak words that don't reach my ears!

"That's me! I've sensed it, and my image doesn't deceive me. I burn with love of myself. I both move and bear the flames. What should I do? Should I be asked or ask? What then will I ask for? What I desire is with me—abundance has made me poor. Oh, if I could separate from my own body! A new prayer in a lover—I'd wish what we love were absent.

"And now pain takes away my strength, and not much time of my life remains. I'm extinguished in my early youth. Nor is death heavy to me, about to lay down grief in death. I'd wish this one who's loved could live longer. Now we two, united in soul, will die in one."

He spoke and, not quite sane, returned to the same face and troubled the water with tears. When the image was rendered obscure by the disturbed pool, when he saw it departing, he cried out, "Where do you flee? Stay, and don't desert me, your lover, cruel one! Let me look at what I can't touch and provide nourishment to my miserable madness!"

While he grieved, he drew down his garment from its top edge and beat his naked breast with marble palms. His breast drew a rosy blush when struck, not otherwise than apples usually do, which are white in part and red in part, or as grapes in varied clusters usually draw a purple color, not yet ripe.

When he saw this again in the liquefied water, he bore it no further. But as yellow wax usually wastes away in gentle fire, and morning frost in the warming sun, so, worn thin by love, he melted and was gradually consumed by hidden fire. No longer was there color mixed with white and red, nor vigor and strength and what just recently pleased when seen, nor did the body remain that Echo once had loved.

Yet when she saw this, though angry and remembering, she grieved. As often as the pitiful boy said "Alas!" she repeated with echoing voice "Alas!" And when he struck his arms with his hands, she too returned the same sound of beating. His last words as he gazed into the familiar water were these: "Alas, boy loved in vain!" The place sent back the same words, and when he said "Farewell," "Farewell," Echo said.

He laid down his head, weary, in the green grass. Death closed the eyes that marveled at their master's beauty. Then too, after he was received in the infernal dwelling, he was gazing at himself in the Stygian water.

His Naiad sisters mourned and laid their cut hair before their brother. The Dryads mourned. Echo resounded to the mourners. And now they were preparing the pyre and shaken torches and the bier. Nowhere was his body. They found a saffron flower with white leaves surrounding its center.

---

The known matter had brought deserved fame to the prophet throughout Achaia's cities, and the augur's name was great. Yet Echion's son Pentheus alone, scorner of gods, spurned him and laughed at the old man's prophetic words and reproached him with darkness and the disaster of stolen light.

He, shaking his white temples with hoary hair, said, "How fortunate you'd be if you too were deprived of this light, so you wouldn't see Bacchus' rites! For a day will come, which I prophesy is not far off, when the new Liber, Semele's offspring, will come here. Unless you honor him with temples' honor, you'll be torn and scattered in a thousand places and stain the forests with blood—your mother and your mother's sisters. It will happen! For you won't honor the god with honor, and you'll complain that I saw too much in these shadows."

As he was saying such things, Echion's son pushed him out. His words found confirmation, and the prophet's responses were fulfilled. Liber was present, and the fields roared with festive howling. The crowd rushed—matrons and daughters-in-law mixed with men, and the common people and nobles were carried to the unknown rites.

"What madness, snake-born race, martial offspring, has stunned your minds?" Pentheus said. "Can bronze beaten by bronze, the curved-horned trumpet, and magical tricks prevail so much that those whom no warlike sword, no trumpet has terrified, no battle lines with drawn weapons—are conquered by women's voices and madness stirred by wine and obscene crowds and empty drums?

"Should I marvel at you, old men, who, carried over long seas, placed Tyre here, placed your exiled household gods here—do you now allow it to be captured without war? Should I marvel at you, more vigorous age—O young men, nearer to me, whom it was fitting to hold weapons, not thyrsi, to be covered by helmet, not foliage?

"Be mindful, I pray, of what stock you were created from! Take the spirit of that one who, alone, destroyed many—the serpent! He died for springs and pool. But you—conquer for your fame! He gave death to the brave. You—drive out the soft and keep your ancestral honor!

"If the fates forbade Thebes to stand long, would that siege engines and men might destroy its walls, and iron and fire might sound! We'd be miserable without crime, and our lot would need to be lamented, not hidden, and tears would lack shame. But now Thebes will be captured by an unarmed boy whom neither wars help nor weapons nor use of horses, but hair dripping with myrrh and soft garlands and purple and gold woven into embroidered garments.

"I'll force him right now (just stay out of it) to confess his assumed father and invented rites. Did Acrisius have enough spirit to scorn the vain god and close Argos' gates to his coming? Will Pentheus be terrified by the stranger with all Thebes?

"Go quickly!" (He commanded his servants.) "Go and drag the leader here in chains! Let no sluggish delay attend my commands!"

His grandfather and Athamas and the rest of his people seized him with words and tried in vain to restrain him. He grew fiercer with warning and was irritated by restraint, and his rage increased, and the very hindrances harmed him. So I've seen a torrent, when nothing blocked its path, run down more gently with moderate noise, but wherever beams and blocking rocks held it, it went foaming and boiling and more savage from the obstacle.

---

Look, they returned bloody, and when their master asked where Bacchus was, they said they hadn't seen Bacchus. "But we captured this one," they said, "a companion and servant of the rites," and they handed over, with hands bound behind his back, a certain man from the Tyrrhenian people who followed the god's rites.

Pentheus looked at him with eyes that anger had made terrible, and though he scarcely postponed punishment, he said, "O you about to die and give an example to others by your death, tell your name and your parents' names and your homeland, and why you frequent these new rites!"

He, free from fear, said, "My name is Acoetes. My homeland is Maeonia. My parents were from humble stock. My father left me no fields that sturdy oxen might plow, no wool-bearing flocks, no herds at all. He was poor himself too, and used to deceive with line and hooks and draw leaping fish with his rod. His art was his wealth. When he handed down his art, he said, 'Take what I have, successor and heir of my skill,' and dying he left me nothing but the waters. I can call this alone my inheritance.

"Soon, so I wouldn't always stick to the same rocks, I learned to steer a ship with my right hand guiding the tiller and noted with my eyes the rainy star of the Olenian goat and Taygete and the Hyades and Arctos and the houses of the winds and harbors fit for ships.

"By chance, seeking Delos, I reached the shores of the Chian land and approached the coast with my right-side oars and gave light leaps and landed on the wet sand. Night was spent there. Aurora was beginning to redden. I arose and warned them to bring fresh water and showed the path that led to the springs. I myself looked from a high mound to see what wind was promising me and called my companions and headed back to the ship.

"'Look, we're here,' Opheltes, first of my companions, said, and thinking he'd found booty in a deserted field, led a boy of maiden beauty through the shore. He seemed to stagger, heavy with wine and sleep, and could barely follow. I looked at his clothing and face and gait. I saw nothing there that I could believe mortal. I sensed and told my companions, 'What divinity is in that body I'm uncertain, but divinity is in that body! Whoever you are, be favorable and be present to our labors. Give pardon to these too.'

"'Don't pray for us!' Dictys said—no one swifter than he to climb the highest yardarms and slide down, grasping the rope. Libys agreed with this, and fair Melanthus, guardian of the prow, agreed, and Alcimedon and Epopeus, who gave rest and rhythm to the oars with his voice, encourager of spirits—all the others agreed. So blind is eagerness for booty!

"'Yet I won't allow this sacred pine to be violated by such weight,' I said. 'I have the greatest authority here.' I stood in the entrance to block them. Most daring of all their number, Lycabas raged, who'd been driven from a Tuscan city and was paying in exile the penalty for terrible murder. As I stood there, he broke my throat with his youthful fist and would have cast me, knocked out, into the sea if I hadn't clung, though dazed, held back by a rope.

"The impious crowd approved the deed. Then finally Bacchus (for it was Bacchus), as if his sleep had been broken by the shouting and sense returned to his chest from wine, said, 'What are you doing? What's the shouting?' He said. 'Tell me, sailors, by what help did I come here? Where are you preparing to take me?'

"'Put away fear,' Proreus said. 'Tell us what ports you wish to reach, and you'll be set down on the land you request.'

"'Naxos,' Liber said. 'Turn your course there! That's my home. The land will be hospitable to you.'

"The false men swore by the sea and all the gods it would be so, and they ordered me to give sail to the painted ship. Naxos was on the right. As I gave sails to the right, 'What are you doing, madman? What madness holds you, Acoetes?' each one said on his own behalf. 'Head left!' Most indicated by nod what they wanted, some whispered what they wanted with their mouths.

"I was stunned and said, 'Let someone else take the helm!' And I removed myself from service to both crime and art. I was rebuked by all, and the whole crew murmured. Of these, Aethalion said, 'Obviously all our safety rests in you alone!' He approached and took over my work and, leaving Naxos, sought the opposite direction.

"Then the god, mocking, as if he'd only now finally sensed the deceit, looked at the sea from the curved stern and, like one weeping, said, 'These aren't the shores you promised me, sailors! This isn't the land I asked for! What have I done to deserve punishment? What glory is yours if you young men, if many, deceive one boy?'

"I'd been weeping for some time already. The impious gang laughed at my tears and drove the sea with hurrying oars. By himself now (for no god is more present than he) I swear to you I'm telling you truths as great as truths—the ship stood in the sea no different than if a dry dock held it.

"They, amazed, persisted in the beating of oars and lowered sails and tried to run with double effort. Ivy hindered the oars and with curving knots crept and distinguished the sails with heavy clusters. He himself, his brow encircled with grape-bearing vines, shook a spear veiled with vine-leaf fronds. Around him lay the shapes of tigers and empty images of lynxes and the spotted bodies of panthers.

"The men leaped out, whether madness or fear caused this. First Medon began to turn black in his whole body and be bent in his extracted spine's curve. Lycabas began to say to him, 'Into what marvels are you being changed?' And as he spoke, he had a wide mouth and a hooked nose, and his hardened skin drew scales.

"But Libys, while he wanted to turn the opposing oars, saw his hands recoil to a brief span and these no longer to be hands but now able to be called fins. Another, wanting to give his arms to the twisted ropes, had no arms and, bent back with a truncated body, leaped into the waves. The end of his tail was sickle-shaped, like the horns of a divided moon.

"They gave leaps everywhere and sprinkled much spray and emerged again and went back under the waves again and played in the manner of a dance and tossed their wanton bodies and blew out the received sea through their open nostrils. Of twenty just before (for the ship carried that many), I remained alone. Trembling and cold, my body scarcely stable, the god strengthened me saying, 'Drive fear from your heart and make for Dia!' Carried to it, I approached and frequent the rites and am a Bacchant of Bacchus' rites.'

---

'We've offered ears to long circumlocutions,' Pentheus said, 'so that anger might consume its strength through delay. Seize him headlong, servants, and after torturing his body with terrible torments, send him to Stygian night!'

Immediately Tyrrhenian Acoetes was dragged away and shut in solid walls. While the cruel instruments of death commanded—iron and fires—were being prepared, they say the doors opened on their own and chains slipped from his arms on their own, with no one loosening them.

Echion's son persisted. He no longer ordered others to go, but went himself to where Cithaeron, chosen for performing the rites, resounded with songs and the clear voice of Bacchants. As a fierce horse neighs when the bronze-sounding trumpeter gives the signal for war and takes up love of battle, so Pentheus was moved by the air struck with long howls, and his anger rekindled when he heard the clamor.

About mid-mountain, surrounded by ultimate forests, was a plain free of trees, visible from everywhere. Here, while he observed the rites with profane eyes, his mother first saw him, first was driven in mad running, first violated Pentheus with hurled thyrsus and cried, 'O twin sisters, be present! That boar, which wanders as the greatest in our fields—that boar must be struck by me.'

All the frenzied crowd rushed at one and gathered together and followed him trembling—now trembling, now speaking less violent words, now condemning himself, now confessing he'd sinned. Yet wounded, he said, 'Bring help, aunt Autonoe! May Actaeon's shade move your spirits!'

She didn't know who Actaeon was and tore off his right hand as he prayed. Ino tore off the other with her grasp. The unlucky man had no arms to stretch to his mother, but showing wounds with torn-off limbs and truncated, he said, 'Look, mother!' Seeing them, Agave howled and tossed her neck and moved her hair through the air and, grasping his torn-off head with bloody fingers, cried, 'Io, companions, this work is our victory!'

No more swiftly does wind snatch leaves touched by autumn's cold and now hanging badly from the high tree than the man's limbs were torn by wicked hands. Warned by such examples, the Theban women frequent the new rites and give incense and worship the sacred altars.