METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV
For thine is unending youth, eternal boyhood; thou art the most lovely in the lofty sky; thy face is virgin-seeming, if without horns thou stand before us. The Orient owns thy sway, even to the bounds where remotest Ganges laves swart India. Pentheus thou didst destroy, thou awful god, and Lycurgus, armed with the two-edged battle-axe (impious were they both), and didst hurl the Tuscan sailors into the sea. Lynxes, with bright reins harnessed, draw thy car; bacchant women and satyrs follow thee, and that old man who, drunk with wine, supports his staggering limbs on his staff, and clings weakly to his misshapen ass. Where'er thou goest, glad shouts of youths and cries of women echo round, with drum of tambourine, the cymbals' clash, and the shrill piping of the flute.
"Oh, be thou with us, merciful and mild!" the Theban women cry; and perform the sacred rites as the priest bids them. The daughters of Minyas alone stay within, marring the festival, and out of due time ply their household tasks, spinning wool, thumbing the turning threads, or keep close to the loom, and press their maidens with work. Then one of them, drawing the thread the while with deft thumb, says: "While other women are deserting their tasks and thronging this so-called festival, let us also, who keep to Pallas, a truer goddess, lighten with various talk the serviceable work of our hands, and to beguile the tedious hours, let us take turns in telling stories, while all the others listen." The sisters agree and bid her be first to speak. She mused awhile which she should tell of many tales, for very many she knew. She was in doubt whether to tell of thee, Dercetis of Babylon, who, as the Syrians believe, changed
to a fish, all covered with
