Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 2- Edward P. Coleridge (1913).djvu/117

. Your trembling limbs prostrate, ye Mænads, low upon the ground.

. Yea, for our king, the son of Zeus, is assailing and utterly confounding this house.

. Are ye so stricken with terror that ye have fallen to the earth, O foreign dames? Ye saw then, it would seem, how the Bacchic god made Pentheus’ halls to quake; but arise, be of good heart, compose your trembling limbs.

. O chiefest splendour of our gladsome Bacchic sport, with what joy I see thee in my loneliness!

. Were ye cast down when I was led into the house, to be plunged into the gloomy dungeons of Pentheus?

. Indeed I was. Who was to protect me, if thou shouldst meet with mishap? But how wert thou set free from the clutches of this godless wretch?

. My own hands worked out my own salvation, easily and without trouble.

. But did he not lash fast thy hands with cords?

. There too I mocked him; he thinks he bound me, whereas he never touched or caught hold of me, but fed himself on fancy. For at the stall, to which he brought me for a gaol, he found a bull, whose legs and hoofs he straightly tied, breathing out fury the while, the sweat trickling from his body, and he biting his lips; but I from near at hand sat calmly looking on. Meantime came the Bacchic god and made the house quake, and at his mother’s tomb relit the fire; but Pentheus, seeing this, thought his palace was ablaze, and hither and thither he rushed, bidding his servants bring water; but all in vain was every servant’s busy toil. Thereon he let this labour be awhile, and, thinking maybe that I had escaped, rushed into the palace with his murderous sword unsheathed. Then did Bromius,—so at least it seemed to me; I only tell you what