Pentheus of the dragon brood,

Not of human flesh and blood;

But potent dire, like him whose pride,

The Titan, all the gods defied.

Me, great Bromius’ handmaid true;

Me, with all my festive crew,

Thralled in chains he still would keep

In his palace dungeon deep.

Seest thou this, O son of Jove,

Dionysus, from above?

Thy wrapt prophets dost thou see

At strife with dark necessity?

The golden wand

In thy right hand.

Come, come thou down Olympus’ side,

And quell the bloody tyrant in his pride.

Art thou holding revel now

On Nysa’s wild beast-haunted brow?

Is’t thy Thyasus that clambers

O’er Corycia’s mountain chambers?

Or on Olympus, thick with wood,

With his harp where Orpheus stood,

And led the forest trees along,

Led the wild beasts with his song.

O Pieria, blessed land,

Evius hallows thee, advancing,

With his wild choir’s mystic dancing,

Over rapid Axius’ strand

He shall pass; o’er Lydia’s tide

Then his whirling Maenads guide.

Lydia, parent boon of health,

Giver to man of boundless wealth;

Washing many a sunny mead,

Where the prancing coursers feed.

DIONYSUS

What ho! what ho! ye Bacchanals

Rouse and wake! your master calls.

CHORUS

Who is here? and what is he

That calls upon our wandering train?

DIONYSUS

What ho! what ho! I call again!

The son of Jove and Semele.

CHORUS

What ho! what ho! our lord and master:

Come, with footsteps fast and faster,

Join our revel! Bromius, speed,

Till quakes the earth beneath our tread.

Alas! alas!

Soon shall Pentheus’ palace wall

Shake and crumble to its fall.

DIONYSUS

Bacchus treads the palace floor!

Adore him!

CHORUS

Oh! we do adore!

Behold! behold!

The pillars with their weight above,

Of ponderous marble, shake and move.

Hark! the trembling roof within

Bacchus shouts his mighty din.

DIONYSUS

The kindling lamp of the dark lightning bring!

Fire, fire the palace of the guilty king.

CHORUS

Behold! behold! it flames! Do ye not see,

Around the sacred tomb of Semele,

The blaze, that left the lightning there,

When Jove’s red thunder fired the, air?

On the earth, supine and low,

Your shuddering limbs, ye Maenads, throw!

The king, the Jove-born god, destroying all,

In widest ruin strews the palace wall.

DIONYSUS

O, ye Barbarian women, Thus prostrate in dismay;

Upon the earth ye’ve fallen! See ye not, as ye may,

How Bacchus Pentheus’ palace In wrath hath shaken down?

Rise up! rise up! take courage — Shake off that trembling swoon.

CHORUS

O light that goodliest shinest Over our mystic rite,

In state forlorn we saw thee — Saw with what deep affright!

DIONYSUS

How to despair ye yielded As I boldly entered in

To Pentheus, as if captured, Into the fatal gin.

CHORUS

How could I less? Who guards us If thou shouldst come to woe?

But how wast thou delivered From thy ungodly foe?

DIONYSUS

Myself, myself delivered, With ease and effort slight.

CHORUS

Thy hands, had he not bound them, In halters strong and tight?