Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

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58 pages - You are on Page 39

Chorus: Go, ye fleet hounds of madness, go to the mountain where the
daughters of Cadmus hold their company; drive them raving against the
frantic spy on the Maenads,--him in woman's attire. First shall his mother
from some smooth rock or paling, behold him in ambush; and she will cry out
to the Maenads: Who is this of the Cadmeans who has come to the mountain,
the mountain, as a spy on us, who are on the mountain? Io Bacchae! Who
brought him forth? for he was not born of the blood of women: but, as to
his race, he is either born of some lion, or of the Libyan Gorgons. Let
manifest justice go forth, let it go with sword in hand, slaying the
godless, lawless, unjust, earth-born offspring of Echion through the
throat; who, with wicked mind and unjust rage about your orgies, O Bacchus,
and those of thy mother,[53] with raving heart and mad disposition proceeds
as about to overcome an invincible deity by force. To possess without
pretext a wise understanding in respect to the Gods, and [a disposition]
befitting mortals, is a life ever free from grief. I joyfully hunt after
wisdom, if apart from envy, but the other conduct is evidently ever great
throughout life, directing one rightly the livelong day, to reverence
things honorable.[54] Appear as a bull, or a many-headed dragon, or a fiery
lion, to be seen. Go, O Bacchus! cast a snare around the hunter of the
Bacchae, with a smiling face falling upon the deadly crowd of the Maenads.

[53] Burges more rightly reads ματρος τε Γας. See Elmsley's note.

[54] As one must make some translation, I have done my best with this passage, which is, however, utterly unintelligible in Dindorf's text. A reference to his selection of notes will furnish some new readings, but, as a whole, quite unsatisfactory.

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