434
EURIPIDES.
Nor clasp and call me "Mother's father," child, 1320
Crying, "Who wrongs thee, ancient?—flouts thee who?
Who vexeth thee to trouble thine heart's peace?
Speak, that I may chastise the wrong, my sire."
Now am I anguish-stricken, wretched thou,
Woeful thy mother, and her sisters wretched! 1325
If any man there be that scorns the Gods,
This man's death let him note, and so believe.
Chorus.
Kadmus, for thee I grieve. Thy daughter's son
Hath but just doom—yet bitter doom for thee.
Agave.
Father, thou seest what change hath passed o'er me— 1330
[A large portion of the play has here been lost, containing (1) the lament of Agavê over her son; (2) a few lines, probably by the Chorus, announcing the appearance, in his shape as a God, of Dionysus; (3) the commencement of Dionysus' speech, in which he points out how Pentheus' sin has proved his destruction, how Agavê and her sisters have, by their unbelief, involved themselves in his punishment, and will be exiles till death; and how Kadmus himself must suffer with his house, how he shall wander exiled from Hellas,—the portion preserved commencing with the prophecy of his weird transformation.][1]
Dionysus.
—Thou to a serpent shalt be changed: thy wife
Harmonia, Ares' child, whom thou didst wed
When man, embruted shall to a snake be changed.
Thou with thy wife shalt drive a wain of steers