Epeisodion 5
Second Messenger
Oh house once fortunate in Hellas,
house of the Sidonian old man who once sowed in the ground the earth-born harvest of the serpent Ophis, how I groan for you, though I am a slave, but still the masters’ affairs are a concern to good servants.This line is most likely interpolated from Eur. Med. 54.
1025
Chorus Leader
What is it? Do you bring some news from the Bacchae?
Messenger
Pentheus, the child of Echion, is dead.
1030
Chorus Leader
Lord Bacchus, truly you appear to be a great god.
Messenger
What do you mean? Why have you said this? Do you rejoice at the misfortunes of my master, woman?
Chorus Leader
I, a foreign woman, rejoice with foreign songs;
for no longer do I cower in fear of chains.
1035
Messenger
Do you think Thebes so lacking in men?
Chorus Leader
Dionysus, Dionysus, not Thebes, holds my allegiance.
Messenger
You may be forgiven, but still it is not good
to rejoice at troubles once they have actually taken place, women.
1040
Chorus Leader
Tell me, speak, what kind of a death did he die, the unjust man who did unjust things?
Messenger
When we left the dwellings of the Theban land and crossed the streams of Asopus,
we began to ascend the heights of Kithairon, Pentheus and I—for I was following my master—and the stranger who was our guide to the sight. First we sat in a grassy vale,
1045
keeping our feet and voices quiet, so that we might see them without being seen. There was a little valley surounded by precipices, irrigated with streams, shaded by pine trees, where the Maenads were sitting, their hands busy with delightful labors. Some of them were crowning again
1050
the worn thyrsos, making it leafy with ivy, while some, like colts freed from the painted yoke, were singing a Bacchic melody to one another. And the unhappy Pentheus said, not seeing the crowd of women: Stranger,
1055
from where we are standing I cannot see these false Maenads. But on the hill, ascending a lofty pine, I might view properly the shameful acts of the Maenads.
And then I saw the stranger perform a marvelous deed. For seizing hold of the lofty top-most branch of the pine tree,
1060
he pulled it down, pulled it, pulled it to the dark earth. It was bent just as a bow or a curved wheel, when it is marked out by a compass, describes a circular course The sense of the text here is not clear. The translation (which follows Dodds) assumes that the curved wheel is not a hollow circle connected to the hub by spokes, but a single piece of wood which has been cut into the shape of a circle. In the action described, a peg (τόρνος) is fixed into the center of the word-section. A string with a piece of chalk on one end is then attached to the peg, and the chalk, held tight against the string, is able to mark out an even circle. The bending of the tree thus resembles the circular path taken by the chalk.: in this way the stranger drew the mountain bough with his hands and bent it to the earth, doing no mortal’s deed.
1065
He sat Pentheus down on the pine branch, and let it go upright through his hands steadily, taking care not to shake him off. The pine stood firmly upright into the sky, with my master seated on its back.
1070
