The while the frantic Bacchanal

The beaconing pine-torch on her wand

Whirls around with rapid hand,

And drives the wandering dance about,

Beating time with joyous shout,

And casts upon the breezy air

All her rich luxuriant hair;

Ever the burthen of her song,

“Raging, maddening, haste along

Bacchus’ daughters, ye the pride

Of golden Tmolus’ fabled side;

While your heavy cymbals ring,

Still your ‘Evoë! Evoë!’ sing!”

Evoë! the Evian god rejoices

In Phrygian tones and Phrygian voices,

When the soft holy pipe is breathing sweet,

In notes harmonious to her feet,

Who to the mountain, to the mountain speeds;

Like some young colt that by its mother feeds,

Gladsome with many a frisking bound,

The Bacchanal goes forth and treads the echoing ground.

TIRESIAS

Ho! some one in the gates, call from his place

Cadmus, Agenor’s son, who, Sidon’s walls

Leaving, built up this towered city of Thebes.

Ho! some one say, “Tiresias awaits him.”

Well knows he why I am here; the covenant

Which I, th’ old man, have made with him still older,

To lift the thyrsus wand, the fawn-skin wear,

And crown our grey hairs with the ivy leaves.

CADMUS

Best friend! with what delight within my palace

I heard thy speech, the speech of a wise man!

Lo! I am here, in the God’s sacred garb;

For needs must we, the son of mine own daughter,

Dionysus, now ’mongst men a manifest God,

Even to the utmost of our power extol.

Where shall we lead the dance, plant the light foot,

And shake the hoary locks? Tiresias, thou

The aged lead the aged: wise art thou,

Nor will I weary night and day the earth

Beating with my lithe thyrsus. Oh, how sweetly

Will we forget we are old!

TIRESIAS

Thou’rt as myself:

I too grow young; I too essay the dance.

CADMUS

Shall we, then, in our chariots seek the mountains?

TIRESIAS

It were not the same homage to the God.

CADMUS

The old man still shall be the old man’s tutor.

TIRESIAS

The God will guide us thither without toil.

CADMUS

Of all the land, join we alone the dance?

TIRESIAS

All else misjudge; we only are the wise.

CADMUS

Too long we linger; hold thou fast mine hand.

TIRESIAS

Lo! thus true yoke-fellows join hand with hand.

CADMUS

I, mortal-born, may not despise the Gods.

TIRESIAS

No wile, no paltering with the deities.

The ancestral faith, coeval with our race,

No subtle reasoning, if it soar aloft

Even to the height of wisdom, can o’erthrow.

Some one will say that I disgrace mine age,

Rapt in the dance, and ivy-crowned my head.

The Gods admit no difference: old or young,

All it behoves to mingle in the rite.

From all he will receive the common honour,

Nor deign to count his countless votaries.

CADMUS

Since thou, Tiresias, seest not day’s sweet light,

I, as thy Seer, must tell thee what is coming.

Lo, Pentheus, hurrying homewards to his palace,

Echion’s son, to whom I have given the kingdom.