Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/428

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I have seen wild Bacchanals, who from this land

Have darted forth with white feet, frenzy-stung.

I come, King, fain to tell to thee and Thebes

What strange, what passing wondrous deeds they do.

Yet would I hear if freely I may tell

Things there beheld, or reef my story's sail.

For, King, I fear thy spirit's hasty mood,

Thy passion and thine over-royal wrath.

Say on: of me shalt thou go all unscathed.

For we may not be wroth with honest men.

The direr sounds thy tale of the Bacchanals,

The sterner punishment will I inflict

On him who taught our dames this wickedness.

Thine herds of pasturing kine were even now

Scaling the steep hill-side, what time the sun

First darted forth his rays to warm the earth,

When lo, I see three Bacchant women-bands,—

Autonoë chief of one, of one thy mother

Agavê, and the third band Ino led.

All sleeping lay, with bodies restful-strown;

Some backward leaned on leafy sprays of pine,

Some, with oak-leaves for pillows, on the ground

Flung careless;—modestly, not, as thou say'st,

Drunken with wine, amid the sighing of flutes

Hunting desire through woodland shades alone.

Then to her feet sprang in the Bacchanals' midst

Thy mother, crying aloud, "Shake from you sleep!"