Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/407

Rh For augury and divination's wage!

Except thine hoary hairs protected thee,

Thou shouldst amid the Bacchanals sit in chains,

For bringing in these pestilent rites; for when

In women's feasts the cluster's pride hath part,

No good, say I, comes of their revelry.

Blasphemy!—Stranger, dost not reverence heaven,

Nor Kadmus, sower of the earth-born seed?

Son of Echion, thou dost shame thy birth!

Whene'er a wise man finds a noble theme

For speech, 'tis easy to be eloquent.

Thou—roundly runs thy tongue, as thou wert wise;

But in these words of thine sense is there none.

The rash man, armed with power and ready of speech,

Is a bad citizen, as void of sense.

But this new God, whom thou dost laugh to scorn,

I cannot speak the greatness whereunto

In Hellas he shall rise. Two chiefest Powers,

Prince, among men there are: divine Demeter—

Earth is she, name her by which name thou wilt;—

She upon dry food nurtureth mortal men:

Then followeth Semelê's Son; to match her gift

The cluster's flowing draught he found, and gave

To mortals, which gives rest from grief to men