Book 3
with bending body and a crooked back
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he plunged into the waves, and as he swam
displayed a tail, as crescent as the moon.
“Now here, now there, they flounce about the ship;
they spray her decks with brine; they rise and sink;
they rise again, and dive beneath the waves;
they seem in sportive dance upon the main;
out from their nostrils they spout sprays of brine;
they toss their supple sides. And I alone,
of twenty mariners that manned that ship,
remained. A cold chill seized my limbs,—
I was so frightened; but the gracious God
now spake me fair, ‘Fear not and steer for Naxos.’
And when we landed there I ministered
on smoking altars Bacchanalian rites.”
But Pentheus answered him: “A parlous tale,
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and we have listened to the dreary end,
hoping our anger might consume its rage;—
away with him! hence drag him, hurl him out,
with dreadful torture, into Stygian night.”
Quickly they seized and dragged Acoetes forth,
and cast him in a dungeon triple-strong.
And while they fixed the instruments of death,
kindled the fires, and wrought the cruel irons,
the legend says, though no one aided him,
the chains were loosened and slipped off his arms;
the doors flew open of their own accord.
But Pentheus, long-persisting in his rage,
not caring to command his men to go,
himself went forth to Mount Cithaeron, where
resound with singing and with shrilly note
the votaries of Bacchus at their rites.
As when with sounding brass the trumpeter
alarms of war, the mettled charger neighs
and scents the battle; so the clamored skies
resounding with the dreadful outcries fret
the wrath of Pentheus and his rage enflame.
About the middle of the mount (with groves
around its margin) was a treeless plain,
where nothing might conceal. Here as he stood
