Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

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Chorus: Shall I move my white foot in the night-long dance, honoring Bacchus,
exposing my neck to the dewy air, sporting like a fawn in the verdant
delights of the mead, when it has escaped a fearful chase beyond the watch
of the well-woven nets, (and the huntsman cheering hastens on the course of
his hounds,) and with toil like the swift storm[47] rushes along the plain
that skirts the river, exulting in the solitude apart from men, and in the
thickets of the shady-foliaged wood? What is wisdom, what is a more
glorious gift from the Gods among mortals than to hold one's hand on the
heads of one's enemies? What is good is always pleasant; divine strength is
roused with difficulty, but still is sure, and it chastises those mortals
who honor folly, and do not extol the Gods in their insane mind. But the
Gods cunningly conceal the long foot[48] of time, and hunt the impious man;
for it is not right to determine or plan any thing beyond the laws: for it
is a light expense to deem that that has power whatever is divine, and that
what has been law for a long time has its origin in nature. What is wisdom,
what is a more noble gift from the Gods among men, than to hold one's hand
on the heads of one's enemies? what is honorable is always pleasant. Happy
is he who has escaped from the wave of the sea, and arrived in harbor.[49]
Happy, too, is he who has overcome his labors; and one surpasses another in
different ways, in wealth and power. Still are there innumerable hopes to
innumerable men, some result in wealth to mortals, and some fail, but I
call him happy whose life is happy day by day.

[47] See Matthiae.

[48] i.e. step. This is ridiculed by Aristoph. Ran. 100, where the Scholiast quotes a similar example from our author's Alexandra.

[49] Compare Havercamp on Lucret. ii. sub init.

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