where the daughters of Cadmus hold their revels, goad them into wild fury against the man disguised in woman’s dress, a frenzied spy upon the Mænads. First shall his mother mark him as he peers from some smooth rock or riven tree,[1] and thus to the Mænads she will call, “Who is this of Cadmus’ sons comes hasting[2] to the mount, to the mountain away, to spy on us, my Bacchanals? Whose child can he be? For he was never born of woman’s blood; but from some lioness maybe or Libyan Gorgon is he sprung,” Let justice appear and show herself, sword in hand, to plunge it through and through the throat of the godless, lawless, impious son of Echion, earth’s monstrous child! who with wicked heart and lawless rage, with mad intent and frantic purpose, sets out to meddle with thy[3] holy rites, and with thy mother’s, Bacchic god, thinking with his weak arm to master might as masterless as thine.[4] This is the life that saves all pain, if a man confine his thoughts to human themes, as is his mortal nature, making no pretence where heaven is concerned.[5] I envy not deep subtleties;[6] far other joys have I, in tracking out great truths writ clear from all eternity, that a man should live his life by day and night in purity and holiness, striving toward a noble goal, and should honour the gods by cast-
- ↑ σκόλοπος; perhaps Hartung’s σκοπέλου is the right reading.
- ↑ οὔριον δρόμον, the emendation of Hermann for οὐριοδρόμων, adopted by Paley. Sandys reads ὀριδρόμων with Kirchhoff, a word not given in Liddell and Scott, though twice found in Nonnus.
- ↑ Reading περὶ σὰ, Bάκχι’, ὄργια ματρός τε σᾶς (Scaliger).
- ↑ Reading σὰν . . . βίαν. So Thompson for τὰν . . . βίᾳ. Paley, reading τὰν, refers it to Agave.
- ↑ The text of these three lines 1002-1004, which are characterized by Elmsley as the most difficult passage in the whole tragedy, is in some way corrupt. Very numerous attempts have been made to emend them; that of Sandys is here followed: γνώμαν σώφρον’ ἃ θνατοῖς ἀπροφασίστοις | εἰς τὰ θεῶν ἔφυ, | βροτείαν τ’ ἔχειν ἄλυπος βίος.
- ↑ Sandys’ text is also followed in this obscure passage, τὸ σοφὸν οὐ φθονῶ | χαίρω θηρεύου- | σα τάδ’ ἕτερα μεγάλα φανέρ’ ἰόντ’ ἀεί | ἐπὶ τὰ κἀλᾳ κ.τ.λ.
