bind me, the handmaid of Bacchus, in halters, he already has within the house my fellow-reveler, hidden in a dark prison.  Dost thou behold this, O son of Jove, Bacchus, thy prophets in the dangers of restraint?  Come, O thou of golden face, brandishing your thyrsus along Olympus, and restrain the insolence of the blood-thirsty man.  Where art thou assembling thy bands of thyrsus-bearers, O Bacchus, is it near Nysa which nourishes wild beasts, or in the summits of Corycus?[33] or perhaps in the deep-wooded lairs of Olympus, where formerly Orpheus playing the lyre drew together the trees by his songs, collected the beasts of the fields; O happy Pieria, Evius respects you, and will come to lead the dance with revelings having crossed the swiftly-flowing Axius, he will bring the dancing Maenads, and [leaving] Lydia[34] the giver of wealth to mortals, and the father whom I have heard fertilizes the country renowned for horses with the fairest streams.

BAC.  Io! hear ye, hear ye my song, Io Bacchae!  O Bacchae!

CHOR.  Who is here, who? from what quarter did the shout of Evius summon me?

BAC.  Io, Io, I say again!  I, the son of Semele, the son of Jove!

CHOR.  Io!  Io!  Master, master! come now to our company.  O Bromius!  Bromius!  Shake this place, O holy Earth![35] O!  O! quickly will the palace of Pentheus be shaken in ruin—­Bacchus is in the halls.  Worship him.  We worship him.  Behold these stone buttresses shaken with their pillars.  Bacchus will shout in the palace.

BAC.  Light the burning fiery lamp; burn, burn the house of Pentheus.

SEM.  Alas!  Dost thou not behold the fire, nor perceive around the sacred tomb of Semele the flame which formerly the bolt-bearing thunder of Jupiter left?

SEM.  Cast on the ground your trembling bodies, cast them down, O Maenads, for the king turning things upside down is coming to this palace, [Bacchus,] the son of Jupiter.

BAC.  O barbarian women! have ye fallen to the ground thus stricken with fear?  Ye have felt, it seems, Bacchus shaking the house of Pentheus; but lift up your bodies, and take courage, casting off fear from your flesh.

CHOR.  O thou most mighty light to us of Evian Bacchic rites, how gladly do I see thee, being before alone and desolate!

BAC.  Ye came to despair, when I was sent in, as about to fall into the dark prison of Pentheus.

CHOR.  How not?—­who was my guardian if you met with misfortune? but how were you liberated, having met with an impious man?

BAC.  I delivered myself easily without trouble.

CHOR.  And did he not bind your hands in links of chains?