Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/444

416 Agavê, stretch forth hands; ye sisters, stretch,

Daughters of Kadmus! To a mighty strife

I bring this prince. The victor I shall be

And Bromius. All else shall the issue show.

Up, ye swift hell-hounds of Madness! Away to the mountain-glens, where

Kadmus's daughters hold revel, and sting them to fury, to tear

Him who hath come woman-vestured to spy on the Bacchanals there,

Frenzy-struck fool that he is!—for his mother shall foremost descry

Him, as from water-worn scaur or from storm-riven tree he would spy

That which they do, and her shout to the Maenads shall peal from on high:—

"Who hath come hither, hath trodden the paths to the mountain that lead,

Spying on Kadmus's daughters, the maids o'er the mountains that speed,

Bacchanal-sisters?—what mother hath brought to the birth such a seed?

Who was it?—who?—for I ween he was born not of womankind's blood:

Rather he sprang from the womb of a lioness, scourge of the wood;

Haply is spawn of the Gorgons of Libya, the demon-brood."