Kitap 4
Alcithoe, daughter of King Minyas,
1
consents not to the orgies of the God;
denies that Bacchus is the son of Jove,
and her two sisters join her in that crime.
'Twas festal-day when matrons and their maids,
keeping it sacred, had forbade all toil.—
And having draped their bosoms with wild skins,
they loosed their long hair for the sacred wreaths,
and took the leafy thyrsus in their hands;—
for so the priest commanded them. Austere
the wrath of Bacchus if his power be scorned.
Mothers and youthful brides obeyed the priest;
and putting by their wickers and their webs,
dropt their unfinished toils to offer up
frankincense to the God; invoking him
with many names:—“O Bacchus! O Twice-born!
O Fire-begot! Thou only child Twice-mothered!
God of all those who plant the luscious grape!
O Liber!” All these names and many more,
for ages known—throughout the lands of Greece.
“Thy youth is not consumed by wasting time;
and lo, thou art an ever-youthful boy,
most beautiful of all the Gods of Heaven,
smooth as a virgin when thy horns are hid.—
The distant east to tawny India's clime,
where rolls remotest Ganges to the sea,
was conquered by thy might.—O Most-revered!
Thou didst destroy the doubting Pentheus,
and hurled the sailors' bodies in the deep,
and smote Lycurgus, wielder of the ax.
“And thou dost guide thy lynxes, double-yoked,
with showy harness.—Satyrs follow thee;
and Bacchanals, and old Silenus, drunk,
unsteady on his staff; jolting so rough
on his small back-bent ass; and all the way
resounds a youthful clamour; and the screams
of women! and the noise of tambourines!
And the hollow cymbals! and the boxwood flutes,—
fitted with measured holes.—Thou art implored
by all Ismenian women to appear
