For augury and divination's wage!
Except thine hoary hairs protected thee,
Thou shouldst amid the Bacchanals sit in chains,
For bringing in these pestilent rites; for when 260
In women's feasts the cluster's pride hath part,
No good, say I, comes of their revelry.
Chorus.
Blasphemy!—Stranger, dost not reverence heaven,
Nor Kadmus, sower of the earth-born seed?
Son of Echion, thou dost shame thy birth! 265
Teiresias.
Whene'er a wise man finds a noble theme
For speech, 'tis easy to be eloquent.
Thou—roundly runs thy tongue, as thou wert wise;
But in these words of thine sense is there none.
The rash man, armed with power[1] and ready of speech, 270
Is a bad citizen, as void of sense.
But this new God, whom thou dost laugh to scorn,
I cannot speak the greatness whereunto
In Hellas he shall rise. Two chiefest Powers,
Prince, among men there are: divine Demeter— 275
Earth is she, name her by which name thou wilt;—
She upon dry food nurtureth mortal men:
Then followeth Semelê's Son; to match her gift
The cluster's flowing draught he found, and gave
To mortals, which gives rest from grief to men 280
