Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis

Contents

1. Αʹ Book I

   The book is prefaced by verse summaries of the poem's first twenty-four books. The narrative begins with Zeus, in the form of a bull, carrying Europa across the sea to Crete, while Typhon steals his thunderbolts and assaults the heavens, scattering the constellations. Disguised as a herdsman, Cadmus, wandering in search of his sister, charms the monster with the music of his pipes.

2. Βʹ Book II

   While Cadmus's piping holds Typhon spellbound, Zeus recovers his thunderbolts from the cave. The Giant ravages the earth and storms Olympus with heaped crags and serpent heads, and Zeus meets him in a battle fought for the sky itself until Typhon falls. Zeus promises Cadmus the hand of Harmonia and sends him to Apollo's oracle at Delphi; the gods return to Olympus, and Themis hangs the Giant's arms at its gates.

3. Γʹ Book III

   Spring opens the sailing season, and Cadmus puts out from Cilicia and comes to Samothrace, the island of Electra, mother of Harmonia. Her son Emathion receives him and with Electra sets a feast to Corybantic pipes, cymbals and the lyre; at Electra's question he recounts his descent from Io and his search for Europa. Hermes then reveals himself to Electra and asks her, at Zeus's bidding, to give her daughter to Cadmus without bride-price.

4. Δʹ Book IV

   Harmonia refuses a homeless stranger for husband until Aphrodite persuades her. On the voyage a fellow passenger takes Cadmus for Eros or Ares and Harmonia for Aphrodite. In Greece Cadmus brings the gift of writing and, guided by Apollo's oracle at Delphi, reaches the site of Thebes. There he slays the serpent of Ares, sows its teeth, and, on Athena's counsel, throws a stone among the earthborn warriors, who kill one another.

5. Εʹ Book V

   Cadmus sacrifices the cow from Delphi to Athena Onca, founds Thebes and marries Harmonia in the presence of the gods. Of their daughters, Autonoe bears Actaeon, who sees Artemis bathing, is changed into a stag and torn apart by his own hounds, envying Teiresias as he dies. At the close Zeus sees Persephone bathing and is seized with desire for her.

6. Ϛʹ Book VI

   Alarmed that all the gods of Olympus woo her daughter, Demeter consults the astrologer Astraeus, then hides Persephone in a cave guarded by serpents. Zeus enters in the form of a snake and fathers Zagreus, the horned first Dionysus, whom the Titans, prompted by Hera, cut to pieces as he changes shape. In his anger Zeus burns the world and then drowns it in a flood, until Poseidon splits a Thessalian mountain to let the waters drain.

7. Ζʹ Book VII

   Aion, grey-haired, kneels before Zeus and pleads for mankind, whose life has no relief from toil because wine does not yet exist. Zeus promises a son to bring that gift. Wounded by Eros, he sees Semele bathing in the Asopus and comes to her in the shape of an eagle, then in a series of transformations; he ends by revealing himself and promising her an immortal son.

8. Ηʹ Book VIII

   Semele, carrying the child of Zeus, is drawn to the music of the countryside, while Envy stirs Hera to jealousy. Hera visits Semele disguised as her old nurse, questions which god has seduced her, and persuades her to ask her lover to come to her in his full majesty. Zeus appears with his thunderbolts and Semele is consumed; Hermes carries the unborn child to its father, and Semele is raised to heaven.

9. Θʹ Book IX

   Zeus sews the unborn Dionysus into his thigh and gives birth to him, and the child is named Dionysus and Eiraphiotes. Hermes entrusts him to the daughters of Lamus, whom Hera drives mad, and then to Ino, whose Sidonian maid Mystis first performs his rites. When Hera finds him, Hermes carries him to Rhea in Phrygia, where the Corybantes guard him and the boy hunts lions and yokes panthers. Ino's flight and Athamas's marriage to Themisto close the book.

10. Ιʹ Book X

    Driven mad, Athamas whips his flocks, takes a goat for Ino, and kills his son Learchus, while Ino leaps into the sea with the infant Melicertes. The scene moves to Lydia, where Dionysus, by the river Pactolus, falls in love with the youth Ampelos. The two wrestle, Dionysus letting the boy win, and in the footrace that follows Cissus slips on the sand and Ampelos takes the prize.

11. ΙΑʹ Book XI

    After the games Ampelos and Dionysus swim a race in the gold-bearing Pactolus. Ampelos then mounts a wild bull, is thrown and gored to death, and Dionysus pours out a long lament over his body, recalling how Poseidon carried off the Phrygian Pelops. Eros consoles him with the tale of Calamus and Carpus, and the Seasons set out for the house of Helios.

12. ΙΒʹ Book XII

    In the western palace of Helios the Season of autumn asks Helios when the vine will grow, and is shown the tablets of Harmonia, inscribed with the destinies of the world. The dead Ampelos is changed into the first vine. Dionysus squeezes a cluster in his hands, tastes the new wine and hails it as the drink of Zeus; he cuts a winepress in the rock, and the satyrs tread the first vintage and fall into a drunken revel before he teaches Maeonia his rites.

13. ΙΓʹ Book XIII

    Iris brings Zeus's command to Rhea's cave and, warmed with wine, delivers it to Dionysus: he must drive the impious Indians and their king Deriades out of Asia and teach the nations his rites and the vine. Rhea sends Pyrrhichus to gather the army, and the catalogue of his mortal forces begins, contingent by contingent: Aristaeus with the Arcadians, Achates from Sicily, and the warriors of Mycale and the Maeander, gathering in Mygdonia.

14. ΙΔʹ Book XIV

    Rhea summons the divine forces of the expedition: the Cabeiri Alcon and Eurymedon, the Idaean Dactyls and Corybantes, Centaurs, satyrs, and the Bacchants, among them the god's nurses, each listed by name. Dionysus goes to war crowned with snakes and armed with the thyrsus and a horn of wine. The first clash with the Indians takes place by a lake, whose water he turns to wine, and an astonished Indian praises its taste.

15. ΙΕʹ Book XV

    The Indians drink from the lake of wine, and in their drunkenness attack cattle and goats, fall asleep and are taken prisoner. The book then tells of the huntress Nicaea, a virgin devoted to Artemis, and the herdsman Hymnus who loves her. When he declares his passion she shoots him dead, and wolves, bears and lions, Pan and Apollo join the countryside's refrain of lament.

16. ΙϚʹ Book XVI

    Eros avenges Hymnus by wounding Dionysus with love for Nicaea as she bathes. The god follows her through the hills, pleading to trees, dogs and Pan, but she refuses him. He turns the spring where she drinks into wine and takes her as she lies asleep; on waking she thinks of hanging herself, but bears a daughter, Telete, and Dionysus founds the city of Nicaea, named after her.

17. ΙΖʹ Book XVII

    Dionysus resumes the march against Deriades, driving Rhea's chariot through Asia, and lodges with the rustic herdsman Brongus. Battle is joined with Orontes, son-in-law of Deriades, whose Indians fall upon Centaurs and Bacchants. When the god's vine-cluster splits his breastplate but leaves him unhurt, he falls on his own sword and gives his name to the river. The book ends as Blemys, chief of the Red Sea Indians, submits and is settled by Meroe.

18. ΙΗʹ Book XVIII

    Rumour spreads Dionysus's name through Assyria, and King Staphylus and his son Botrys welcome him to their palace with a feast. During the night Dionysus dreams of a lion bound with vine shoots and blinded by lightning, and the next day Staphylus sends him on his way with gifts. The book closes as Dionysus reads the death of Staphylus in the mourning faces of his wife Methe, the old Pithus and their son Botrys.

19. ΙΘʹ Book XIX

    Dionysus consoles Methe and Botrys with wine and holds funeral games in honour of Staphylus. Oeagrus and Erechtheus compete in song, and Maron and Silenus in a mimed dance; before dancing Maron addresses the dead king in a long speech. Silenus falls in the contest and is changed into a river of his own name, and Maron greets him in his new watery form.

20. Κʹ Book XX

    In Botrys's palace the feasting continues; Dionysus clothes Methe and the bearded Pithus in new robes, and the company sleeps. In a dream Eris, in the shape of Rhea, rebukes the god for idling and drives him back to war. He comes to Lycurgus, son of Ares, in Arabia; Hera sends a false Ares to urge the king on, and Lycurgus attacks with an axe. Dionysus escapes into the sea, and Zeus warns Lycurgus not to threaten Nereus.

21. ΚΑʹ Book XXI

    Lycurgus seizes the nymph Ambrosia, whom Earth turns into a vine that coils about his neck while the Bacchants beset him. Beneath the sea Dionysus is received by Nereus, Thetis, Ino and Melicertes while his followers search for him on land. Meanwhile his herald, sent to Deriades, is rejected with insults, and the Indians lay an ambush in the forest by the Hydaspes.

22. ΚΒʹ Book XXII

    The Bacchic host reaches the Hydaspes, where springs run with milk and wine and the beasts join the dance. A nymph from a tree warns Dionysus of the ambush hidden in the woods, and the battle that follows is told at length. Aeacus fights in the waters of the river, prefiguring his grandson Achilles at the Scamander, and a Naiad rises to rebuke him for staining her father's stream.

23. ΚΓʹ Book XXIII

    Aeacus and Dionysus continue the slaughter in the Hydaspes, and the Indians drown as they flee. The army crosses the river on foot and by chariot. Hydaspes calls on his brother and on Aeolus to help him drown the invaders, and when Dionysus sets the river ablaze Ocean raises a speech of protest, threatening to flood the stars of heaven.

24. ΚΔʹ Book XXIV

    Zeus calms Ocean, and the scalded Hydaspes begs Dionysus for mercy, recalling that his reeds prop up the vine; the god relents. In the Indian city Deriades's people mourn their dead, the women tearing their cheeks and an old father mourning four sons killed by Aeacus. A minstrel sings of Aphrodite's attempt at Athena's craft of weaving, and the army camps for the night.

25. ΚΕʹ Book XXV

    A second set of verse summaries introduces the remaining books. The poet then opens the war's seventh year with a new invocation, weighing Dionysus's deeds against those of Perseus, Minos and Heracles and calling on Homer as his model. The Indians mourn; an old blind man regains his sight from the wine of the Hydaspes; and the shield forged for Dionysus on Olympus is described, scene by scene, until nightfall.

26. ΚϚʹ Book XXVI

    Athena, in the likeness of the dead Orontes, appears to Deriades in a dream and taunts him for sleeping while his son-in-law lies unavenged. Roused, the king gathers his allies, and the book catalogues the peoples of India who come to his aid, with the wonders of their lands: honey-bearing trees, singing birds and serpents that drip honey. The army crowds into the city, and Deriades feasts its leaders.

27. ΚΖʹ Book XXVII

    At dawn Deriades harangues his army and vows to make a slave of the horned son of Semele; Dionysus answers his troops with threats against the Hydaspes and against Helios, the Indian king's ancestor. On Olympus Zeus calls the gods to take sides. Athena, Apollo and Hephaestus join Dionysus, while Hera leads Ares, Hydaspes and Demeter, jealous of the gift of wine, to the side of the Indians.

28. ΚΗʹ Book XXVIII

    The battle resumes: Phaunos and Aristaeus fight side by side, and Aeacus carries a shield wrought on Lemnos. The Bacchic army rides panthers, lions, bulls and bears, wielding ivy and thyrsus against bronze. The Cyclopes, among them Argilipus and Steropes, burn the Indians with firebrands that imitate the thunderbolt, Morrheus misses the Curete Melisseus with a stone, and the Corybantes dance in arms round Deriades's chariot.

29. ΚΘʹ Book XXIX

    Hera fills Deriades with fresh courage, and Morrheus scatters the satyrs and Sileni with his arrows. Hymenaeus, son of Phlegyas, fights on horseback beside the admiring Dionysus. The Cabeiri Alcon and Eurymedon, sons of Hephaestus, drive a fire-breathing team into the fray, and the Corybantes clash sword on shield. At the close Ares abandons the battle and drives his chariot from Lebanon to Paphos, Cythera and Lemnos in search of Aphrodite.

30. Λʹ Book XXX

    With Ares gone, Dionysus and Aristaeus lead the two wings of the attack, and Morrheus complains to Deriades that thyrsi and leaves are defeating his bronze. Eurymedon kills Tectaphus, the Indian once kept alive in prison by his daughter's milk, and Eeria laments over his body. Dionysus routs tribe after tribe, and the archer Melanion, who shoots at the Bacchants from hiding in a tree, is rescued by Hera.

31. ΛΑʹ Book XXXI

    Hera, galled by the sight of Andromeda's chains on the Red Sea shore and jealous of Perseus as of Dionysus, turns against the god while he roams the coast of the Erythraean gulf. She goes down to Persephone in Hades to win a Fury against him, sends Iris in the likeness of Night to persuade Sleep to overcome Zeus, and ends by begging Aphrodite for her embroidered girdle.

32. ΛΒʹ Book XXXII

    Girdled by Aphrodite and adorned with jewels and scent, Hera lulls Zeus to sleep, and at Hera's bidding a Fury drives Dionysus mad. With the god gone from the field, Deriades falls on the Bacchants, and Ares in the shape of the Indian champion Modaeus urges the Indians on. Aeacus alone holds his ground; the nymphs hide in the Hydaspes, the Indus and the Ganges, and the Bassarids weep for their absent lord.

33. ΛΓʹ Book XXXIII

    The Grace Pasithea sees Dionysus raging like a bull and carries her grief to Olympus, where Aphrodite answers by sending Eros against the Indian leader Morrheus. He falls in love with the Bacchant Chalcomede, who leads him on with feigned desire and the story of Daphne. Thetis then promises the girl a serpent to guard her maidenhood, one that Dionysus is to set among the stars.

34. ΛΔʹ Book XXXIV

    Morrheus wanders sleepless, unable to choose between killing Chalcomede and carrying her off, until his servant Hyssacus questions him. The book recalls how Morrheus won Deriades's daughter Chirobia by conquering Cilicia, and shows him bringing captured Bacchants to the king as gifts. It ends with Deriades driving the Bacchants inside the city walls, where some lay down their frenzy and long for the loom again.

35. ΛΕʹ Book XXXV

    Deriades slaughters the Bacchants in the streets of the Indian city, and one warrior, like Achilles over Penthesileia, is drawn to a dead girl's beauty. On the shore Chalcomede lures Morrheus to bathe, and a serpent springs from her breast to defend her. Zeus wakes and rebukes Hera, and at his bidding her milk cures Dionysus, who rallies his captains, grieving for the unburied Opheltes and the wounded Asterius.

36. ΛϚʹ Book XXXVI

    The Olympians take sides and fight among themselves: Ares against Athena, Artemis against Hera, Hermes against Leto, Poseidon against Helios, Hephaestus against the river Hydaspes. On the plain the Bacchant Charopeia brings down the giant Colletes with a stone, and Dionysus meets Deriades in single combat. Morrheus then persuades the king to try a battle at sea, and both sides agree a truce of three months to bury their dead.

37. ΛΖʹ Book XXXVII

    The funeral games for Opheltes fill the truce. Satyrs and Pans led by Phaunos fell timber for the pyre, and Dionysus sets prizes for a chariot race, in which Achates jeers at Phaunos, and for boxing, wrestling, running, the discus and archery. The book ends with an armed duel between Asterius and Aeacus: Asterius grazes Aeacus's right arm, and Dionysus seizes Aeacus's spear before it reaches his opponent's throat and gives each a prize.

38. ΛΗʹ Book XXXVIII

    In the seventh year of the war the sun is darkened at midday and an eagle drops a horned snake into the Hydaspes; the seer Idmon reads the sign. Hermes then tells Dionysus the story of Phaethon: the boy's plea, Helios's instruction on the zodiac and the planets, the runaway chariot and the burning earth, the rain of Zeus that puts out the fire, and the stars, river and weeping trees that keep his memory.

39. ΛΘʹ Book XXXIX

    Hermes returns to the sky, and the fleet of the Rhadamanes arrives, led by Lycus, to fight the Indians on the water. Deriades summons ships from the islands and rouses his men; an Athenian captain vows Athenian songs for Boreas and Oreithyia in return for victory at sea. The naval battle follows, with Cyclopes among the crews, until Eurymedon sets his own ship alight and sends it burning through the Indian line, and Deriades runs for the land.

40. Μʹ Book XL

    Athena, in the shape of Morrheus, shames the fleeing Deriades back into the fight, where he dies at Dionysus's hand; the Indian women lament him. Dionysus then turns home through Arabia and Assyria to Tyre, admiring its purple and its site half in the sea. There Heracles Astrochitōn tells him how the city was founded, and the two gods exchange a golden bowl and a robe of stars.

41. ΜΑʹ Book XLI

    From Lebanon the poem turns to Beroe, the city that is now Beirut: its setting between mountain and sea, and the birth of its namesake to Aphrodite and Adonis. The child is reared on law, and her beauty stirs even Zeus. Aphrodite reads the city's future on the tablets of Phanes in Harmonia's house and asks Eros to shoot both Poseidon and Dionysus with love for the girl.

42. ΜΒʹ Book XLII

    Eros strikes Dionysus and Poseidon with twin arrows from one bowstring, and both come to woo Beroe. Dionysus, advised by Pan, approaches her in the guise of a Lebanese farmer and pleads his suit through the seasons and the fruits he would bring. Aphrodite sets a contest between the rivals; a hawk, a dove and a sea-eagle foretell the outcome, and Zeus with the gods watches from above.

43. ΜΓʹ Book XLIII

    Dionysus and Poseidon fight for Beroe, the sea-god with his trident and the Bacchic army with vines, lions and elephants. Proteus changes shape as the Indians try to bind him, and Zeus with his thunder ends the battle in Poseidon's favour. Eros consoles Dionysus with the promise of a bride in Thrace, and the god passes through Lydia, bringing Rhea gifts from India, before crossing into Europe.

44. ΜΔʹ Book XLIV

    Dionysus comes through Illyria and Thessaly to Thebes, and its gates open of themselves before Pentheus's guards. The king, defiant, mocks the god's divine birth; Agave is troubled by a dream, and Dionysus calls on Selene. The book closes on a dream Dionysus sends to Autonoe, telling her that her son Actaeon has become the bridegroom of Artemis.

45. ΜΕʹ Book XLV

    Autonoe and Agave, gripped by the frenzy, run to the hills, and Teiresias and Cadmus put on the Bacchic dress. Teiresias warns Pentheus with the tale of the Tyrrhenian pirates turned into dolphins, and recalls the giant Alpos, whom Dionysus slew on his mountain. The book ends with fire running through Pentheus's palace that no water can quench.

46. ΜϚʹ Book XLVI

    Pentheus scoffs at the god as the son of a lying mother, and Dionysus leads him, dressed as a woman, to spy on the maenads on Cithaeron. Agave uproots the tree in which he hides and, deaf to his pleas, kills him for a lion. The god eases the mourners with wine, sends Cadmus and Harmonia to Illyria and their serpent form, and goes on to Athens.

47. ΜΖʹ Book XLVII

    Athens welcomes Dionysus with wine and dancing. Icarius, his host in Attica, is killed by the peasants he made drunk, and his daughter Erigone hangs herself. On Naxos Ariadne wakes to find Theseus gone and laments, until Dionysus takes her as his bride. At Argos Perseus fights the god and turns Ariadne to stone; Hermes ends the strife and bids the Argives honour Dionysus with rites.

48. ΜΗʹ Book XLVIII

    In the last book Hera stirs Earth to send her Giants against Dionysus, and he destroys them. In Thrace he wrestles Pallene for her hand, then pursues the huntress Aura, who scorns love: he takes her as she sleeps, and the twins she bears include Iacchus. The epic ends with Athens honouring Zagreus, Bromios and Iacchus, Ariadne's crown set in the sky, and Dionysus seated among the gods on Olympus.