Page:Ephemera, Greek prose poems (IA ephemeragreek00buckrich).pdf/47



Through the deep shadows of the trees and the vine-laden trellises, a maddened crowd rushed like an avalanche of furies, brandishing thyrsi and flaring torches, beating drums and cymbals.

Young men clad like sileni, frenzied with wine, darted like flames through the tumult. Grown men, crimsoned and crowned with bedraggled ivy, danced like satyrs to the screaming music. And, on the seething crest, rushed a man dragging a young girl who stumbled, panting and crazed with fear, her chiton, half torn from her glistening body, smeared with blood.

—Io Iacchos! they cried, flourishing gleaming kanthari, writhing in ecstasy. They staggered, leaped, rolled upon the grass, swarmed like bees; and then, suddenly dispersing, ran shrieking in groups among the trees