There is a younger legend, that her mother was Kythereia herself, the pilot of human life, who bore her all white to Assyrian Adonis. Now she had completed the nine circles of Selene’s course carrying her burden: but Hermes was there in time on speedy foot, holding a Latin tablet which was herald of the future. He came to help the labour of Beroe, and Themis was her birth-goddess–she made a way through the narrow opening of the swollen womb for the child, and unfolded the wrapping, and lightened the sharp pang of the ripening birth, with Solon’s laws in hand. Kypris under the oppression of her travail leaned back heavily against the ministering goddess, and in her throes brought forth the wise child upon the Attic book, as the Lakonian women bring forth their sons upon the round leather shield. She brought forth her newborn child from her motherly womb with Hermes the Judge to help as man-midwife. So she brought the baby into the light. The girl was bathed by the four Aetai, which ride through all cities to fill the whole earth with the precepts of Beroe. Okeanos, first messenger of the laws for the newborn child, sent his flood for the childbed round the loins of the world, pouring his girdle of water in an everflowing belt. Aion, his coeval, with his aged hands swaddled about the newborn girl’s body the robes of Dike, prophet of things to come; because he would put off the rope-like slough of his feeble old scales, and grow young again bathed in the waves of Law. The four Horai struck up a tune together, when Aphrodite brought forth her wonderful daughter.
[...]
Beroe grew up, and coursed with the Archeress, carrying the nets of her hunter sire. She had the very likeness of her Paphian mother, and her shining feet … Zeus perceiving another unwedded maiden of Assyria, was fluttered again and wished to change his form: certainly he would have carried the burden of love in bull’s form again had not the Bull of Olympos, Europa’s bridegroom, bellowed from out the stars with jealous throat, to think that he might set up there a new star of seafaring armours and make the image of a rival bull in the sky. So he left Beroe, who was destined for a watery bridal, as his brother’s bedfellow, for he wished not to quarrel with the Earthshaker about a mortal wife.
Such was Beroe, flower of the Graces. If ever the girl uttered her voice trickling sweeter than honey and honeycomb, winning Peitho sat ever upon her lips and enchanted the clever wits of men whom nothing else could charm. Her laughing eyes outshone all the company of her young Assyrian agemates as they shot their shafts of love, with brighter graces, like the moon at the full, when showering her cloudless rays and hiding the stars. Her white robes falling down to the girl’s feet showed the blush of her rosy limbs. There is no wonder in that, even if she had such fairness beyond her young yearsmates, since bright over her countenance sparkled the beauties of both her parents.
[...]
The vinegod turned his eye to look, and scanned the tender body of the longhaired maiden, full of admiration the conduit of desire; his eye led the way and ferried the newborn love. Dionysos wandered in that heartrejoicing wood, secretly fixing his careful gaze on Beroe, and followed the girl’s path a little behind. He could not have enough of his gazing; for the more he beheld the maid standing there, the more he wanted to watch.
He called to Helios, reminding the chief of the stars of his love for Klymene, and prayed him to hold back his car and check the stalled horses with the heavenly bit, that he might prolong the sweet light, that he might go slow to his setting and with sparing whip increase the day to shine again. Pressing measured step by step in Beroe’s tracks the god passed round her as if noticing nothing; while Earthshaker stole from Lebanon with lingering feet, and departed with steps slow to obey, turning again and again, his mind shifting like the sea and rippling with billows of ever-murmuring care.
Unsated, in the delicious forests of Lebanon, Dionysos was left alone beside the lonely girl. Dionysos was left alone! Tell me, Oreaid Nymphai, what could he wish for more lovely than to see the maiden’s flesh, alone, and free from lovesick Earthshaker? He kissed with a million kisses the place where she set her foot, creeping up secretly, and kissed the dust where the maiden had trod making it bright with her shoes of roses. Bakchos watched the girl’s sweet neck, her ankles as she walked, beauty which nature had given her, the beauty which nature had made: for no ruddy ornament for the skin had Beroe smeared on her round rosy face, no meretricious rouge put a false blush on her cheeks. She consulted no shining mirror of bronze with its reflection a witness to her looks, she laughed at no lifeless form of a mimic face to estimate her beauty, she was not for ever arranging the curls over her brows, and setting in place some stray wandering lock of hair by her eyebrows with cunning touch. But the natural beauties of a face confound the desperate lover with a sharp sting, and the untidy tresses of an unbedizened head are all the more dainty, when they stray unbraided down the sides of a snow-white face.
Sometimes athirst when beaten by the heat of the fiery Dog of Heaven, the girl sought out a neighbouring spring with parched lips; the girl bent down her curving neck and stooped her head, dipping a hand again and again and scooping the water of her own country to her mouth, until she had enough and left the rills.
When she was gone, Dionysos would bend his knee to the lovely spring, and hollow his palms in mimicry of the beloved girl: then he drank water sweeter than selfpoured nectar … The god grudging at Poseidon ruler of the waves felt fear and jealousy, since the maiden drank water and not wine.
[...]
Dionysos put on a serious look, the trickster! And questioned the maiden about her father Adonis, as a friend of his, as a fellow-hunter among the hills. She stood still, he brought a longing hand near her breast, and stoked her belt as if not thinking what he did: but touching her breast, the lovesick god’s right hand grew numb. Once in her childlike way, the girl asked the son of Zeus beside her who he was and who was his father … and in the cunning of his mind, he made as if he were a farm-labourer …
Eiraphiotes thought of trick after trick. He took the hunting-net from Beroe’s hands and pretended to admire the clever work, shaking it round and round for some time and asking the girl many questions–‘What god made this gear, what heavenly art? Who made it? Indeed I cannot believe that Hephaistos mad with jealousy made hunting-gear for Adonis!’
So he tried to bewilder the wits of the girl who would not be so charmed. Once it happened that he lay sound asleep on a bed of anemone leaves; and he saw the girl in a dream decked out in bridal array …
[...]
‘What worthy gifts will Earthshaker bring? Will he choose his salt water for a bridegift, and lay sealskins breathing the filthy stink of the deep, as Poseidon’s coverlets from the sea? Do not accept his sealskins. I will provide you with Bacchants to wait upon your bridechamber, and Satyrs for your chamberlains. Accept from me as bridegift my grape-vintage too. If you want a wild spear also as daughter of Adonis, you have my thyrsos for a lance–away with the trident’s tooth! Flee, my dear, from the ugly noise of the neversilent sea, flee the madness of Poseidon’s dangerous love!’
[...]
For King of Satyrs and Ruler of the Sea, a maiden was the prize.
She stood silent, but reluctant to have a foreign wedding with a wooer from the sea; she feared the watery bower of love in the deep waves, and preferred Bakchos …
Heaven unclouded by its own spinning whirl trumpeted the call to war; and Seabluehair armed himself with his Assyrian trident, shaking his maritime pike and pouring a hideous din from a mad throat. Dionysos threatening the sea danced into the fray with vineleaves and thyrsos, seated in the lion-drawn chariot of his mother mountainranging Rheia …
[...]
Zeus granted the hand of Beroe to Earthshaker, and pacified the rivals’ quarrel. For from heaven to check the bridebattle yet undecided came threatening thunderbolts round about Dionysos. The vinegod wounded by the arrow of love still craved the maiden; but Zeus the Father on high stayed him by playing a tune of thunder, and the sound from his father held back the desire for strife. With lingering feet he departed, with heavy pace, turning back for a last gloomy look at the girl; jealous, with shamed ears, he heard the bridal songs of Amymone in the sea. The syrinx sounding from the brine proclaimed that the rites were already half done. Nereus as Amymone’s chamberlain showed the bridal bed, shaking the wedding torches, the fire which no water can quench. Phorkys sang a song; with equal spirit Glaukos danced and Melikertes romped about. And Galateia twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses.
[...]
O Beroe, root of life, nurse of cities, the boast of princes, the first city seen, twin sister of Time, coeval with the universe, sea of Hermes, land of Dike, bower of Euphrosyne, house of Paphia, hall of the Erotes, delectable ground of Bakchos, home of the Archeress, jewel of the Nereides, house of Zeus, court of Ares, Orchomenos of the Charites, star of the Lebanon country, yearsmate of Tethys, running side by side with Okeanos, who begat thee in his bed of many fountains when joined in watery union with Tethys–Beroe the same they named Amymone when her mother brought her forth on her bed in the deep waters!
– Nonnos of Panopolis, The Dionysiaka
Tagged: dionysos, heroes, may you never thirst
