Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/420

392 When Zeus, who begat him, had snatched from the levin unquenchably flashing,

And sealed up the babe in his thigh, and aloud did the Father cry,

"Come! into this, Dithyrambus, the womb of no mother, pass thou:—

By this name unto Thebes I proclaim thee, O God of the Bacchanals, now."

Ah Dirkê, thou thrustest me hence, when I bring thee the glorious vision

Of his garlanded revels!—now why am I scouted, disowned, and abhorred?

Yet there cometh—I swear by the full-clustered grace of the vine Dionysian—

An hour when thine heart shall accept Dionysus, shall hail him thy lord.

Lo, his earth-born lineage bewrayeth

Pentheus; the taint of the blood of the dragon of old he betrayeth,

The serpent that came of the seed of the earth-born Titan Echion.

It hath made him a grim-visaged monster, and not as a mortal's scion,

But as that fell giant brood that in strife with immortals stood.

He is minded to fetter me, Bromius' handmaid, with cords straightway:

He hath prisoned his palace within my companion in revel this day,

Dungeoned in gloom! Son of Zeus, are his deeds of thine eye unbeholden,

Dionysus?—thy prophets with tyranny wrestling in struggle and strain?