521and unless you honour him with temples, torn to pieces you will be scattered in a thousand places and will defile the woods with your blood, and your mother and your mother's sisters. 524It will happen; 524for you will not honour the god's power, and you will complain that I, under this darkness, saw too much.' 526As he says such things, Echion's son thrusts him away. 527Fulfilment follows the words, and the prophet's answers come to pass: Liber is here, and the fields roar with festive cries; 529the crowd rushes out, and, mixed with the men, mothers and young wives, commons and nobles, are swept along to the unknown rites.
531'What madness, snake-born sons, offspring of Mars, has stunned your minds?' 532says Pentheus: 'Has bronze struck on bronze such power, and the pipe with its curved horn, and magic tricks, that you whom no sword of war, no trumpet, no columns with drawn weapons have terrified, are overcome by women's voices and madness stirred by wine, and obscene herds and empty drums? 538Am I to wonder at you, old men, who sailed over long seas and set down Tyre here, here your exiled household gods, and now allow them to be taken without a fight? 540or at you, young men, a keener age and nearer my own, whom it befitted to hold arms, not thyrsi, and to be covered with a helmet, not with leaves?
543Remember, I beg you, from what stock you were created, and take on the spirit of that serpent who alone destroyed many! 545He died for his springs and his pool: but you, conquer for your good name! 547He gave the brave to death; you, drive off the soft and keep your fathers' honour. 548If the fates forbade Thebes to stand long, I would that engines of war and men were pulling down its walls, and iron and fire were roaring! 551We would be wretched without guilt, and our lot would be one to lament, not to hide, and our tears would be free of shame. 553But now Thebes will be taken by an unarmed boy, whom neither wars delight nor weapons nor the use of horses, but hair dripping with myrrh and soft garlands and purple and gold woven into embroidered clothes.
557Him I shall at once (only you stand aside) force to confess that his father is assumed and his rites invented. 559Or does Acrisius have spirit enough to scorn the false god and shut the gates of Argos against his coming, and will this newcomer terrify Pentheus, along with all of Thebes? 562Go quickly' (this he orders his servants), 'go and drag the ringleader here in chains! 563Let there be no sluggish delay in my orders.' 564His grandfather, Athamas, and the rest of the crowd of his kin rebuke him with words and struggle in vain to restrain him. 566He is fiercer for the warning, and his rage is provoked and grows by being held back, and the very restraints were doing harm.
568So I have seen a torrent, where nothing blocked its course, run down more gently and with moderate noise: but wherever beams and piled-up rocks held it back, it went foaming and seething and more savage for the obstacle. 572Look, they come back bloodied, and to their master's question where Bacchus was, they said they had not seen Bacchus; 574'but this man,' they said, 'a companion and servant of his rites, we have captured'; 575and they hand over, his hands tied behind his back, one of Tyrrhenian race who had once followed the god's rites. 577Pentheus looks at him with eyes that anger had made terrible, and though he scarcely puts off the time of punishment, 'You who are about to die,' he says, 'and by your death to give a lesson to others, declare your name and the names of your parents and your country, and why you attend the rites of a new custom.'