She tried not to see and hear what was going on there; it was revolting, loathsome, horrible; but it was too manifest to be overlooked or ignored; its vulgarity and horror forced it on her attention.  For some time she stood spell-bound, paralyzed; but then she covered her face with her hands; maidenly shame, bitter disillusion, and pious indignation at the gross desecration of all that she deemed most sacred and inviolable surged up in her stricken soul, and she burst into tears, weeping as she had never wept in all her life before.  Sobbing bitterly, she wrapped her face in her veil, as though to protect herself from storm and chill.

No one heeded her; her companion had left her to seek her father.  She could only await his return, and she looked round for a hiding place.  Then she observed a woman in mourning garb sitting huddled at the foot of the statue of justice; she recognized her as the widow of Asclepiodorus and breathed more freely as she went up to her and said, between her sobs “Let me sit by you; we can mourn together.”

“Yes, yes, come,” said the other; and without enquiring what Gorgo’s trouble might be, moved only by the mysterious charm of finding another in like sorrow with herself, she drew the girl to her and bending over her, at length found relief in tears.

The two weeping women sat in silence, side by side, while in front of them the orgy went on its frantic course.  A party of men and women were dancing down the hall, singing and shouting.  Flutes yelled, cymbals clanged, drums rattled and droned, without either time or tune.  Drunken pastophori had flung open the rooms where the vestments and sacred vessels were kept, and from these treasuries the ribald mob had dragged forth panther-skins such as the priests wore when performing the sacred functions, brass cars for carrying sacrifices, wooden biers on which the images of the gods were borne in solemn processions, and other precious objects.  In a large room adjoining, a party of students and girls were concocting some grand scheme for which they needed much time and large supplies of wine; but most of those who had possessed themselves of the plunder had taken it into the hypostyle and were vying with each other in extravagant travesties.

A burly wine-grower was elected to represent Dionysus and was seated with nothing but some wreaths of flowers to cover his naked limbs, in a four-wheeled sacrificial car of beaten brass.  An alabaster wine-jar stood between his fat knees, and his heavy body rolled with laughter as he was drawn in triumph through the sacred arcades by a shouting rabble, as fast as they could run.  Numbers of the intoxicated crew, mad with excitement and wine, had cast off their clothes which lay in heaps between the pillars, soaking in puddles of spilt wine.  In their wild dance the girls’ hair had fallen about their heated faces, tangled with withered leaves and faded flowers, and the men, young and old alike, leaped and waltzed like possessed creatures, flourishing thyrsus-staves and the emblems of the lusty wine-god.