Dionysus (within).
Kindle the torch of the levin lurid-red:
Let the compassing flames round the palace of Pentheus spread.
(A great blaze of light enwraps the palace and the monument of Semelê.)
Chorus 5.
Ha! dost thou see not the wildfire enwreathed
Round the holy tomb—
Lo, dost thou mark it not well?—
Which Semelê thunder-blasted bequeathed,
Her memorial of doom
By the lightning from Zeus that fell?
Fling to the earth, ye Maenads, fling 600
Your bodies that tremble with sore dismay!
For he cometh, our King, Zeus' scion, to bring
Yon halls to confusion and disarray.
Chorus fall on their faces. Enter Dionysus from the palace.
Dionysus.
Ho, ye Asian women, are ye so distraught with sheer affright
That ye thus to earth be fallen? Ye beheld, meseems, the sight 605
When the house of Pentheus reeled as Bacchus shook it. Nay, upraise
From the earth your limbs, and banish from your bodies fear's amaze.
