THE BACCHANALS.
423
Wide-sundered lies his corse: part 'neath rough rocks,
Part mid the tangled depths of forest-shades:—
Hard were the search. His miserable head
Which in her hands his mother chanced to seize, 1140
Impaled upon her thyrsus-point she bears,
Like mountain-lion's, through Kithairon's midst,
Leaving her sisters in their Maenad dance;
And, in her ghastly quarry exulting, comes
Within these walls, to Bacchus crying aloud, 1145
Her fellow-hunter, helper in the chase
Triumphant—all its triumph-prize is tears!
But from this sight of misery will I
Depart, or ever Agavê reach the halls.
Ay, self-restraint, and reverence for the Gods 1150
Are best, I ween; 'tis wisest far for men
To get these in possession, and cleave thereto. [Exit.
Chorus.
Raise we to Bacchus the choral acclaim,
Shout we aloud for the fall
Of the king, of the blood of the Serpent who came,
Who arrayed him in woman's pall;
And the thyrsus-ferule he grasped—but the same
Was a passport to Hades' hall:[1]
And a bull was his guide to a doom of shame!
O Bacchanal-maids Kadmeian, 1160
Ye have gained for you glory[2]—a victory-pæan
To be drowned in lamenting and weeping.
O contest triumphantly won, when a mother in blood of her son
Her fingers is steeping!