PEN.  Do not bring your hand toward me; but departing, play the Bacchanal, and wipe not off your folly on me; but I will follow up with punishment this teacher of your madness; let some one go as quickly as possible, and going to his seat where he watches the birds, upset and overthrow it with levers, turning every thing upside down; and commit his crowns to the winds and storms; for doing this, I shall gnaw him most.  And some of you going along the city, track out this effeminate stranger, who brings this new disease upon women, and pollutes our beds.  And if you catch him, convey him hither bound; that meeting with a judgment of stoning he may die, having seen a bitter revelry of Bacchus in Thebes.

TI.  O wretched man! how little knowest thou what thou sayest!  You are mad now, and before you was out of your mind.  Let us go, O Cadmus, and entreat the God, on behalf of him, savage though he be, and on behalf of the city, to do him no ill:  but follow me with the ivy-clad staff, and try to support my body, and I will yours; for it would be shameful for two old men to fall down:  but let that pass, for we must serve Bacchus, the son of Jove; but beware lest Pentheus bring grief into thy house, O Cadmus.  I do not speak in prophecy, but judging from the state of things, for a foolish man says foolish things.

CHOR.  O holy venerable Goddess! holy, who bearest thy golden pinions along the earth, hearest thou these words of Pentheus?  Hearest thou his unholy insolence against Bromius, the son of Semele, the first deity of the Gods, at the banquets where the guests wear beautiful chaplets! who has this office, to join in dances, and to laugh with the flute, and to put an end to cares, when the juice of the grape comes at the feast of the Gods, and in the ivy-bearing banquets the goblet sheds sleep over man?  Of unbridled mouths and lawless folly misery is the end, but the life of quiet and wisdom remains unshaken, and supports a house; for the heavenly powers are afar indeed, but still inhabiting the air, they behold the deeds of mortals.  But cleverness[25] is not wisdom, nor is the thinking on things unfit for mortals.  Life is short; and in it who, pursuing great things, would not enjoy the present?  These are the manners of maniacs; and of ill-disposed men, in my opinion.  Would that I could go to Cyprus, the island of Venus, where the Loves dwell, soothing the minds of mortals, and to Paphos, which the waters of a foreign river flowing with an hundred[26] mouths, fertilize without rain—­and to the land of Pieria, where is the beautiful seat of the Muses, the holy hill of Olympus.  Lead me thither, O Bromius, Bromius, O master thou of Bacchanals!  There are the Graces, and there is Love, and there is it lawful for the Bacchae to celebrate their orgies; the God, the son of Jove, delights in banquets, and loves Peace, giver of riches, the Goddess the nourisher of youths.  And both to the rich and the poor[27] has she granted to enjoy an equal delight from wine, banishing grief; and he who does not care for these things, hates to lead a happy life by day and by friendly night—­but it is wise[28] to keep away the mind and intellect proceeding from over-curious men; what the baser multitude thinks and adopts, that will I say.