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 METAMORPHOSESBOOK III brother; the dryads, too, lamented, and Echo gave back their sounds of woe. And now they were pre- paring the funeral pile, the brandished torches and the bier; but his body was nowhere to be found. nd a Hover. ItS Yellow n place of his bO centre girt with white petals. When, this story weas noised aburoand it sprend the well-deserved fame of the seer throughout the cities of Greece, and great was the name of Tiresias. Yet Echion's son, Pentheus, the scoffer at gods, alone of all men flouted the seer, laughed at the old man's words of prophecy, and taunted him with his darkness and loss of sight. But he, shaking his hoary head in warning, said: "How fortunate wouldst thou be if this light were dark to thee also, so that thou mightst not behold the rites of Bacchus! For the day will come-nay, I foresee 'tis near-when the new god shall come hither, Liber, son of Semele. Unless thou worship him as is his due, thou shalt be torn into a thousand pieces and scattered everywhere, and shalt with thy blood defile the woods and thy mother and thy mother's sisters. So shall it come to pass; for thou shalt refuse to honour the god, and shalt com- plain that in my blindness I have seen all too well Even while he speaks the son of Echion flings him forth; but his words did indeed come true and his prophecies were accomplished. The god is now come and the fields resound with the wild cries of revellers. The people rush out of the city in throngs, men and women, old and young, nobles and commons, all mixed together, and hasten to celebrate the new rites. "What madness, ye sons of the serpent's teeth, ye seed of Mars, has duiled your reason ?" Pentheus cries. "Can clash- ing cymbals, can the pipe of crooked horn, cain 161