IDYL XXVI.

THE BACCHE.

ARGUMENT.

Pentheus, who was an unbeliever in the divinity of Dionysus, from curiosity became a spectator of the orgies of the women who were possessed with frenzy by the influence of that god. The women, and among them his own mother and aunts, on discovering hunted him as huntsmen the hare, and mercilessly tore him in pieces. This is the subject of one of the finest plays of Euripides.

IDYL XXVI.

THE BACCHE.

THREE troops three sisters to the mountain led;
Agavé with her cheeks that blossomed red

The bloom of apple; and in wildest mood
Autonöa and Ino. From the wood

They stript oak-leaves and ivy green as well,
And from the ground the lowly asphodel;

In a pure lawn with these twelve altars placed;
Nine Dionysus, three his mother graced ;
Then from the chest the sacred symbols moved,

And, as their god had taught them and approved,
Upon the leafy altars reverent laid.

Hid in a native mastic's sheltering shade,

Them from a steep rock Pentheus then surveyed.

Him perched aloft Autonöa first discerned,

And dreadful shrieked, and spurning overturned
The sacred orgies of the frenzied one,

Which none profane may ever look upon.

She maddened, maddened all: scared Pentheus fled.
And they, with robes drawn up, pursued: He said:
"What want ye, dames ? "Autonöa then: "Thou, fellow!
Shalt know, not hear"-and mightily did bellow,
Loud as a lioness her brood defending;

His mother clutched his head, whilst Ino rending
Tore off his shoulder, trod and trampled o'er him ;
Autonöa likewise: limb from limb they tore him.
Then all returned to Thebes; defiled with gore,
They of their Pentheus only fragments bore,
Their after grief. This troubles not my mind:
Nor let another, impotent and blind,

Name Dionysus as hereby defiled,—

Nor though he harsher used some curious child.

May I my life to holy courses give,

Dear to the holy who reproachless live!

This omen, sent from ægis-bearing Jove,

Shows what he hates, and what his thoughts approve ;

Blest are the children of the godly-ever ;

Blest are the children of the godless-never.

Hail, Blessed! whom Jove's thigh enclosed for us,

Till thou wert born on snowy Dracanus.

Hail, Semele! Cadmean sisters, hail !
Whose names in songs of heroines prevail.
By Dionysus this (no deed of shame)

Possest ye did. The gods let no man blame.