Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/408

380 Woe-worn, soon as the vine's stream filleth them.

And sleep, the oblivion of our daily ills,

He gives—there is none other balm for toils.

He is the Gods' libation, though a God,

So that through him do men obtain good things.

And dost thou mock him, as in Zeus's thigh

Sewn?—I will show thee all the legend's beauty:—

When Zeus had snatched him from the levin-fire,

And bare the babe to Olympus, Hera then

Fain would have cast his godhead out of heaven.

Zeus with a God's wit framed his counterplot.

A fragment from the earth-enfolding ether,

He brake, and wrought to a hostage, setting so

Dionysus safe from Hera's spite. In time

Men told how he was nursed in Zeus's thigh.

Changing the name, they wrought a myth thereof,

Because the God was hostage once to Hera.

A prophet is this God: the Bacchic frenzy

And ecstasy are fulfilled of prophecy:

For, in his fulness when he floods our frame,

He makes his maddened votaries tell the future.

Somewhat of Ares' dues he shares withal,

For hosts in harness clad, in ranks arrayed,

He thrills with panic ere a spear be touched.

This too is a frenzy Dionysus sends.

Yet shalt thou see him even on Delphi's crags