Traditions of our fathers, old as time,
We hold: no reasoning shall cast them down,—
No, though of subtlest wit our wisdom spring.
Haply shall one say I respect not eld,
Who ivy-crowned address me to the dance. 205
Nay, for distinction none the God hath made
Whether the young or stricken in years must dance:
From all alike he claims his due of honour;
By halves he cares not to be magnified.
Kadmus.
Since thou, Teiresias, seest not this light, 210
I will for thee be spokesman of thy words.
Lo to these halls comes Pentheus hastily,
Echion's son, to whom I gave the throne.
How wild his mood! What strange thing will he tell?
Enter Pentheus.
Pentheus.
It chanced that, sojourning without this land, 215
I heard of strange misdeeds in this my town,
How from their homes our women have gone forth
Feigning a Bacchic rapture, and rove wild
O'er wooded hills, in dances honouring
Dionysus, this new God—whoe'er he be. 220
And midst each revel-rout the wine-bowls stand
Brimmed: and to lonely nooks, some here, some there,
They steal, to work with men the deed of shame,
In pretext Maenad priestesses, forsooth,
But honouring Aphroditê more than Bacchus. 225
As many as I have seized my servants keep
Safe in the common prison manacled.
But those yet forth, will I hunt from the hills—
