Teiresias.
Ah wretch, thou knowest not what thou hast said!
Thou'rt stark-mad now, who erst wast sense-bereft.
Let us go, Kadmus, and make intercession 360
Both for this man, brute savage though he be,
And Thebes, that no strange vengeance of the God
Smite them. Come with me, ivy-wand in hand,
Essay to upbear my frame, as I do thine.
Shame if two greybeards fell!—nay, what of that? 365
For Bacchus, Son of Zeus, we needs must serve.
Kadmus, beware lest Pentheus bring his echo,[1]
Repentance, to thine house:—not prophecy here
Speaks, but his own deeds. Fools alone speak folly.
Chorus.
(Str. 1)
O Sanctity, thou who dost bear dominion 370
Over Gods, yet low as this earthly ground,
Unto usward, stoopest thy golden pinion,—
Hear'st thou the words of the king, and the sound
Of his blast of defiance, of Pentheus assailing
The Clamour-king?—hear'st thou his blasphemous railing
On Semelê's son, who is foremost found
Of the Blest in the festival beauty-crowned?—
Who hath for his own prerogative taken
To summon forth feet through his dances to leap,
- ↑ The name Pentheus suggested to the Greek the word penthos, sorrow. Such plays on words are common in the Tragedians. They are not to be regarded as beneath the dignity of tragedy, since the Greeks, like the Hebrews, regarded a man's name as not only foreshowing his destiny, but even as contributing to bring it about. See l. 508.
