trees to his minstrelsy, and beasts that range the fields. Ah, blest Pieria! Evius honours thee, to thee will he come with his Bacchic rites to lead the dance, and thither will he lead the circling Mænads, crossing the swift current of Axius and the Lydias, that giveth wealth and happiness to man, yea, and[1] the father of rivers, which, as I have heard, enriches with his waters fair a land of steeds.
Dio. What ho! my Bacchantes, ho! hear my call, oh! hear.
1st Cho.[2] Who art thou? what Evian cry is this that calls me? whence comes it?
Dio. What ho! once more I call, I the son of Semele, the child of Zeus.
2nd Cho. My master, O my master, hail!
3rd Cho. Come to our revel-band, O Bromian god.
4th Cho. Thou solid earth!
5th Cho. Most awful shock!
6th Cho. O horror! soon will the palace of Pentheus totter and fall.
7th Cho. Dionysus is within this house.
8th Cho. Do homage to him.
9th Cho. We do! we do!
10th Cho. Did ye mark yon architrave of stone upon the columns start asunder?
11th Cho. Within these walls the triumph-shout of Bromius himself will rise.
Dio. Kindle the blazing torch with lightning’s fire, abandon to the flames the halls of Pentheus.
12th Cho. Ha! dost not see the flame, dost not clearly mark[3] it at the sacred tomb of Semele, the lightning flame which long ago the hurler of the bolt left there?
