Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

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58 pages - You are on Page 6

Cadmus: But shall we alone of the city dance in honor of Bacchus?

Tiresias: [Ay,] for we alone think rightly, but the rest ill.

Cadmus: We are long in delaying;[14] but take hold of my hand.

Tiresias: See, take hold, and join your hand to mine.

Cadmus: I do not despise the Gods, being a mortal.

Tiresias: We do not show too much wiseness about the Gods. Our ancestral
traditions, and those which we have kept throughout our life, no argument
will overturn them; not if any one were to find out wisdom with the highest
genius. Some one will say that I do not respect old age, being about to
dance, having crowned my head with ivy; for the God has made no distinction
as to whether it becomes the young man to dance, or the elder; but wishes
to have common honors from all; but does not at all wish to be extolled by
a few.

Cadmus: Since you, O Tiresias, do not see this light, I will be to you an
interpreter of things. Hither is Pentheus coming to the house in haste, the
son of Echion, to whom I give power over the land. How fluttered he is!
what strange thing will he say?

[14] Elmsley would read μακρον το μελλον. Perhaps the true reading is μελλειν ακαιρον = it is no season for delay.

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