The dogs he bred, who fed from his own board,

Rent him in wrath to pieces; for he vaunted

Than Artemis to be a mightier hunter.

So do not thou: come, let me crown thine head

With ivy, and with us adore the god.

PENTHEUS

Hold off thine hand! Away! Go rave and dance,

And wipe not off thy folly upon me.

On him, thy folly’s teacher, I will wreak

Instant relentless justice. Some one go,

The seats from which he spies the flight of birds —

False augur — with the iron forks o’erthrow,

Scattering in wild confusion all abroad,

And cast his chaplets to the winds and storms;

Thou’lt gall him thus, gall to the height of bitterness.

Ye to the city! seek that stranger out,

That womanly man, who with this new disease

Afflicts our matrons, and defiles their beds:

Seize him and bring him hither straight in chains,

That he may suffer stoning, that dread death.

Such be his woful orgies here in Thebes.

TIRESIAS

Oh, miserable! That know’st not what thou sayest,

Crazed wert thou, now thou’rt at the height of madness:

But go we, Cadmus, and pour forth our prayer,

Even for this savage and ungodly man,

And for our city, lest the god o’ertake us

With some strange vengeance.

Come with thy ivy staff,

Lean thou on me, and I will lean on thee:

’Twere sad for two old men to fall, yet go

We must, and serve great Bacchus, son of Jove.

What woe, O Cadmus, will this woe-named man

Bring to thine house! I speak not now as prophet,

But a plain simple fact: fools still speak folly.

CHORUS

Holy goddess! Goddess old!

Holy! thou the crown of gold

In the nether realm that wearest,

Pentheus’ awful speech thou hearest,

Hearest his insulting tone

’Gainst Semele’s immortal son,

Bromius, of gods the first and best.

At every gay and flower-crowned feast,

His the dance’s jocund strife,

And the laughter with the fife,

Every care and grief to lull,

When the sparkling wine-cup full

Crowns the gods’ banquets, or lets fall

Sweet sleep on the eyes of men at mortal festival.

Of tongue unbridled without awe,

Of madness spurning holy law,

Sorrow is the Jove-doomed close;

But the life of calm repose

And modest reverence holds her state

Unbroken by disturbing fate;

And knits whole houses in the tie

Of sweet domestic harmony.

Beyond the range of mortal eyes

’Tis not wisdom to be wise.

Life is brief, the present clasp,

Nor after some bright future grasp.

Such were the wisdom, as I ween,

Only of frantic and ill-counselled men.

Oh, would to Cyprus I might roam,

Soft Aphrodite’s isle,

Where the young loves have their perennial home,

That soothe men’s hearts with tender guile:

Or to that wondrous shore where ever

The hundred-mouthed barbaric river

Makes teem with wealth the showerless land!

O lead me! lead me, till I stand,

Bromius! — sweet Bromius! — where high swelling

Soars the Pierian muses^’ dwelling —