Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

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Cadmus: My son, well has Tiresias advised you; dwell with us, not away from
the laws. For now you flit about, and though wise are wise in naught; for
although this may not be a God, as you say, let it be said by you that he
is; and tell a glorious falsehood, that Semele may seem to have borne a
God, and that honor may redound to all our race. You see the hapless fate
of Actaeon,[24] whom his blood-thirsty hounds, whom he had reared up, tore
to pieces in the meadows, having boasted that he was superior in the chase
to Diana. This may you not suffer; come, that I may crown thy head with
ivy, with us give honor to the God--

Pentheus: 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.

Tiresias: 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.

[24] The fate of Actaeon is often joined with that of Pentheus.

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