Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

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Chorus: Bacchus, Bacchus, not Thebes, has my allegiance.

Messenger: You, indeed may be pardoned; still, O woman, it is not right to
rejoice at the misfortunes which have been brought to pass.

Chorus: Tell me, say, by what fate is the wicked man doing wicked things
dead, O man?

Messenger: When having left Therapnae of this Theban land, we crossed the streams
of Asopus, we entered on the height of Cithaeron, Pentheus and I, for I was
following my master, and the stranger who was our guide in this search, for
the sight: first, then, we sat down in a grassy vale, keeping our steps and
tongues in silence, that we might see, not being seen; and there was a
valley surrounded by precipices, irrigated with streams, shaded around with
pines, where the Maenads were sitting employing their hands in pleasant
labors, for some of them were again crowning the worn-out thyrsus, so as to
make it leafy with ivy; and some, like horses quitting the painted yoke,
shouted in reply to another a Bacchic melody. And the miserable Pentheus,
not seeing the crowd of women, spake thus: O stranger, where we are
standing, I can not come at the place where is the dance of the Maenads; but
climbing a mound, or pine with lofty neck, I could well discern the
shameful deeds of the Maenads. And on this I now see a strange deed of the
stranger; for seizing hold of the extreme lofty branch of a pine, he pulled
it down, pulled it, pulled it to the dark earth, and it was bent like a
bow, or as a curved wheel worked by a lathe describes a circle as it
revolves, thus the stranger, pulling a mountain bough with his hands, bent
it to the earth; doing no mortal's deed; and having placed Pentheus on the
pine branches, he let it go upright through his hands steadily, taking care
that it should not shake him off; and the pine stood firm upright to the
sky, bearing on its back my master, sitting on it; and he was seen rather
than saw the Maenads, for sitting on high he was apparent, as not
before.[55]

[55] Compare the parallel account in Nonnus, 46. p. 784.

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