He is strangely moved! What new thing will he say?

PENTHEUS

I have been absent from this land, and hear

Of strange and evil doings in the city.

Our women all have left their homes, to join

These fabled mysteries. On the shadowy rocks

Frequent they sit, this God of yesterday,

Dionysus, whosoe’er he be, with revels

Dishonourable honouring. In the midst

Stand the crowned goblets; and each stealing forth,

This way and that, creeps to a lawless bed;

In pretext, holy sacrificing Mænads,

But serving Aphrodite more than Bacchus.

All whom I’ve apprehended, in their gives

Our officers guard in the public prison.

Those that have ’scaped I’ll hunt from off the mountains,

Ino, Agave who to Echion bare me,

Her too, Autonoe, Antæus’ mother;

And fettering them all in iron bonds,

I’ll put an end to their mad wickedness.

’Tis said a stranger hath appeared among us,

A wizard, sorcerer, from the land of Lydia,

Beauteous with golden locks and purple cheeks,

Eyes moist with Aphrodite’s melting fire.

And day and night he is with the throng, to guile

Young maidens to the soft inebriate rites.

But if I catch him ’neath this roof, I’ll silence

The beating of his thyrsus, stay his locks’

Wild tossing, from his body severing his neck.

He, say they, is the new God, Dionysus,

That was sewn up within the thigh of Jove.

He, with his mother, guiltily that boasted

Herself Jove’s bride, was blasted by the lightning.

Are not such deeds deserving the base halter?

Sin heaped on sin! whoe’er this stranger be.

But lo, new wonders! see I not Tiresias,

The prophet, in the dappled fawn-skin clad?

My mother’s father too (a sight for laughter!)

Tossing his hair? My sire, I blush for thee

Beholding thine old age thus fatuous grown.

Wilt not shake off that ivy? free thine hand

From that unseemly wand, my mother’s father!

This is thy work, Tiresias. This new God

Wilt thou instal ’mongst men, at higher price

To vend new auspices, and well paid offerings.

If thine old age were not thy safeguard, thou

Shouldst pine in chains among the Bacchanal women.

False teacher of new rites! For where ’mong women

The grape’s sweet poison mingles with the feast,

Nought holy may we augur of such worship.

CHORUS

Oh impious! dost thou not revere the Gods,

Nor Cadmus, who the earth-born harvest sowed?

Echion’s son! how dost thou shame thy lineage!

TIRESIAS

’Tis easy to be eloquent, for him

That’s skilled in speech, and hath a stirring theme.

Thou hast the flowing tongue as of a wise man,

But there’s no wisdom in thy fluent words;

For the bold demagogue, powerful in speech,

Is but a dangerous citizen lacking sense.

This the new deity thou laugh’st to scorn,

I may not say how mighty he will be

Throughout all Hellas. Youth! there are two things

Man’s primal need, Demeter, the boon Goddess

(Or rather will ye call her Mother Earth?),

With solid food maintains the race of man.