The Bacchae (1055-1075)

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,

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,

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 [*]: in this way the stranger drew the mountain bough with his hands and bent it to the earth, doing no mortal’s deed.

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.

He was seen by the Maenads more than he saw them, for sitting on high he was all but apparent, and the stranger was no longer anywhere to be seen, when a voice, Dionysus as I guess, cried out from the air: Young women,