Women, my revel-rout, from alien homes
To share my rest and my wayfaring brought,
Uplift the cymbals to the Phrygian towns
Native, great Mother Rhea's device and mine,
And smite them, compassing yon royal halls 60
Of Pentheus, so that Kadmus' town may see.
I to Kithairon's glens will go, where bide
My Bacchanals, and join the dances there. [Exit.
Enter Chorus, waving the thyrsus-wands, and clashing their timbrels.
Chorus.
(Str. 1)
From Asian soil
Far over the hallowed ridges of Tmolus fleeting,
To the task that I love do I speed, to my painless toil
For the Clamour-king, hailing the Bacchanals' God with greeting.
(Ant. 1)
Who is there in the way?
In the dwelling who lingereth? Forth![1]—and let each one, sealing
His lips from irreverence, hallow them. Now, in the lay 70
Dionysus ordains, will I chant him, his hymn outpealing.
(Str. 2)
O happy to whom is the blessedness given
To be taught in the mysteries sent from heaven,
Who is pure in his life, through whose soul the unsleeping
Revel goes sweeping!
