Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/429

Rh When fell our horned kine's lowing on her ear.

They, dashing from their eyelids rosy sleep,

Sprang to their feet, a marvel of grace to see,

Young girls, old matrons, maidens yet unwed.

First down their shoulders let they stream their hair:

Then looped they up their fawnskins,—they whose bands

Had fallen loose,—and girt the dappled fells

Round them with snakes that licked their cheeks the while.

Some, cradling fawns or wolf-cubs in their arms,

Gave to the wild things of their breasts' white milk,—

Young mothers they, who had left their babes, that still

Their breasts were full. Then did they wreathe their heads

With ivy, oak, and flower-starred briony.

One grasped her thyrsus-staff, and smote the rock,

And forth upleapt a fountain's showering spray:

One in earth's bosom planted her reed-wand,

And up therethrough the God a wine-fount sent:

And whoso fain would drink white-foaming draughts

Scarred with their finger-tips the breast of earth,

And milk gushed forth unstinted: dripped the while

Sweet streams of honey from their ivy-staves.

Hadst thou been there, thou hadst, beholding this,

With prayer approached the God whom now thou spurnest.

Then we, thine herdmen and thy shepherds, drew

Together, each with each to hold dispute

Touching their awful deeds and marvellous.

And one, a townward truant, ready of speech,

To all cried, "Dwellers on the terraces

Of hallowed mountains, will ye that we chase