Parodos

CHORUS. A Maiden.From Asia, from the dayspring that uprises,To Bromios ever glorying we came.We laboured for our Lord in many guises;We toiled, but the toil is as the prize is;Thou Mystery, we hail thee by thy name!

Another.Who lingers in the road? Who espies us?He shall hide him in his house nor be bold.Let the heart keep silence that defies us;For I sing this day to DionysusThe song that is appointed from of old.

All the Maidens.Oh, blessed he in all wise,Who hath drunk the Living Fountain,Whose life no folly staineth,And his soul is near to God;Whose sins are lifted, pall-wise,As he worships on the Mountain,And where Cybele ordaineth,Our Mother, he has trod:

His head with ivy ladenAnd his thyrsus tossing high,For our God he lifts his cry;"Up, O Bacchae, wife and maiden,Come, O ye Bacchae, come;Oh, bring the Joy-bestower,God-seed of God the Sower,Bring Bromios in his powerFrom Phrygia's mountain dome;To street and town and tower,Oh, bring ye Bromios home!"

Whom erst in anguish lyingFor an unborn life's desire,As a dead thing in the ThunderHis mother cast to earth;For her heart was dying, dying,In the white heart of the fire;Till Zeus, the Lord of Wonder,Devised new lairs of birth;

Yea, his own flesh tore to hide him,And with clasps of bitter goldDid a secret son enfold,And the Queen knew not beside him;Till the perfect hour was there;Then a horned God was found,And a God with serpents crowned;And for that are serpents woundIn the wands his maidens bear,And the songs of serpents soundIn the mazes of their hair.

Some Maidens.All hail, O Thebes, thou nurse of Semele!With Semele's wild ivy crown thy towers;Oh, burst in bloom of wreathing bryony,Berries and leaves and flowers;Uplift the dark divine wand,The oak-wand and the pine-wand,And don thy fawn-skin, fringed in purityWith fleecy white, like ours.

Oh, cleanse thee in the wands' waving pride!Yea, all men shall dance with us and pray,When Bromios his companies shall guideHillward, ever hillward, where they stay,The flock of the Believing,The maids from loom and weavingBy the magic of his breath borne away.

Others.Hail thou, O Nurse of Zeus, O Caverned HauntWhere fierce arms clanged to guard God's cradle rare,For thee of old some crested CorybantFirst woke in Cretan airThe wild orb of our orgies,Our Timbrel; and thy gorgesRang with this strain; and blended Phrygian chantAnd sweet keen pipes were there.

But the Timbrel, the Timbrel was another's,And away to Mother Rhea it must wend;And to our holy singing from the Mother'sThe mad Satyrs carried it, to blendIn the dancing and the cheerOf our third and perfect Year;And it serves Dionysus in the end!

A Maiden.O glad, glad on the mountainsTo swoon in the race outworn,When the holy fawn-skin clings,And all else sweeps away,To the joy of the red quick fountains,The blood of the hill-goat torn,The glory of wild-beast ravenings,Where the hill-tops catch the day;To the Phrygian, Lydian, mountains!'Tis Bromios leads the way.

Another Maiden.Then streams the earth with milk, yea, streamsWith wine and nectar of the bee,And through the air dim perfume steamsOf Syrian frankincense; and He,Our leader, from his thyrsus sprayA torchlight tosses high and higher,A torchlight like a beacon-fire,To waken all that faint and stray;And sets them leaping as he sings,His tresses rippling to the sky,And deep beneath the Maenad cryHis proud voice rings:"Come, O ye Bacchae, come!"

All the Maidens.Hither, O fragrant of Tmolus the Golden,Come with the voice of timbrel and drum;Let the cry of your joyance uplift and emboldenThe God of the joy-cry; O Bacchanals, come!With pealing of pipes and with Phrygian clamour,On, where the vision of holiness thrills,And the music climbs and the maddening glamour,With the wild White Maids, to the hills, to the hills!Oh, then, like a colt as he runs by a river,A colt by his dam, when the heart of him sings,With the keen limbs drawn and the fleet foot a-quiver,Away the Bacchanal springs!