Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

58 pages - You are on Page 24

Messenger: I was just now driving up to the heights the herd of calves, when the
sun sends forth his rays warming the land, and I see three companies of
dances of women, of one of which Autonoe was chief; of a second, thy
mother, Agave; and Ino led the third dance; and they were all sleeping,
relaxed in their bodies, some resting their locks against the leaves of
pine, and some laying their heads at random on the leaves of oak in the
ground, modestly, not, as you say, that, drunk with the goblet and the
noise of the flute, they solitary hunt Venus through the wood. But thy
mother standing in the midst of the Bacchae, raised a shout, to wake their
bodies from sleep, when she heard the lowing of the horned oxen; but they,
casting off refreshing sleep from their eyes, started upright, a marvel to
behold for their elegance, young, old, and virgins yet unyoked, And first
they let loose their hair over their shoulders; and arranged their
deer-skins, as many as had had the fastenings of their knots unloosed, and
they girded the dappled hides with serpents licking their jaws--and some
having in their arms a kid, or the wild whelps of wolves, gave them white
milk, all those who, having lately had children, had breasts still full,
having left their infants, and they put on their ivy chaplets, and garlands
of oak and blossoming yew; and one having taken a thyrsus, struck it
against a rock, whence a dewy stream of water springs out; another placed
her wand on the ground, and then the God sent up a spring of wine. And as
many as had craving for the white drink, scratching the earth with the tips
of their fingers, obtained abundance of milk; and from the ivy thyrsus
sweet streams of honey dropped, so that, had you been present, beholding
these things, you would have approached with prayers that God whom you now
blame.

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