Parodos
[Choral]
Offspring of well-bred sires and dams, pray whither wilt thou be gone from me to the rocks? Hast thou not here a gentle breeze,
Chorus
and grass to browse, and water from the eddying stream set near the cave in troughs? and are not thy young ones bleating for thee?
45
Pst! pst! wilt thou not browse here,
here on the dewy slope? Ho? ho! ere long will I cast a stone at thee. Away, away! O horned one, to the fold-keeper of the Cyclops, the country-ranging shepherd.
50
Loosen thy bursting udder; welcome to thy teats the kids, whom thou leavest in the lambkins’ pens. Those little bleating kids, asleep the livelong day, miss thee;
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wilt then leave at last the rich grass pastures on the peaks of Aetna and enter the fold?
60
Here we have no Bromian god; no dances here, or Bacchantes thyrsus-bearing;
no roll of drums, or drops of sparkling wine by gurgling founts; nor is it now with Nymphs in Nysa I sing a song of Bacchus, Bacchus!
65
to the queen of love, in quest of whom I once sped on with Bacchantes, white of foot.
70
Dear friend, dear Bacchic god, whither art roaming alone,
waving thy auburn locks, while I, thy minister, do service to the one-eyed Cyclops, a slave and wanderer I,
75
clad in this wretched goat-skin dress, severed from thy love?
80