Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/448

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When, from the homesteads of this Theban land

Departing, we had crossed Asopus' streams,

Then we began to breast Kithairon's steep,

Pentheus and I,—for to my lord I clave,—

And he who ushered us unto the scene.

First in a grassy dell we sat us down

With footfall hushed and tongues refrained from speech,

That so we might behold, all unbeheld.

There was a glen crag-walled, with rills o'erstreamed,

Closed in with pine-shade, where the Maenad girls

Sat with hands busied with their blithesome toils.

The faded thyrsus some with ivy-sprays

Twined, till its tendril-tresses waved again:

Others, like colts from carven wain-yokes loosed,

Re-echoed each to each the Bacchic chant.

But hapless Pentheus, seeing ill the throng

Of women, spake thus: "Stranger, where we stand,

Are these mock-maenad maids beyond my ken.

Some knoll or pine high-crested let me climb,

And I shall see the Maenads' lewdness well."

A marvel then I saw the stranger do.

A soaring pine-branch by the top he caught,

And dragged down—down—still down to the dark earth.

Arched as a bow it grew, or curving wheel

That on the lathe sweeps out its circle's round:

So bowed the stranger's hands that mountain-branch,

And bent to earth—a deed past mortal might!

Then Pentheus on the pine-boughs seated he,

And let the branch rise, sliding through his hands

Gently, with heedful care to unseat him not.