BAC. My father, Jove, long ago decreed this.
AG. Alas! a miserable banishment is the decree[67] [for us,] old man.
BAC. Why do ye then delay what must needs be?
CAD. O child, into what terrible evil have we come; both you wretched and
your * * * * sisters,[68] and I miserable, shall go, an aged sojourner, to
foreigners. Still it is foretold that I shall bring into Greece a motley
barbarian army, and leading their spears, I, a dragon, shall lead the
daughter of Mars, Harmonia, my wife, having the fierce nature of a dragon,
to the altars and tombs of the Greeks. Nor shall I, wretched, rest from
ills, nor even sailing over the Acheron below shall I be at rest.
AG. O, my father! and I being deprived of you shall be banished.
CAD. Why do you embrace me with your hands, O unhappy child, as a white
swan does its exhausted[69] parent?
AG. For whither can I turn, cast out from my country?
CAD. I know not, my child; your father is a poor ally.
AG. Farewell, O house! farewell, O ancestral city! I leave you in
misfortune a fugitive from my chamber.
CAD. Go then, my child, to the land of Aristæus * * * *.
AG. I bemoan thee, O father!
CAD. And I thee, my child; and I lament your sisters.
AG. Terribly indeed has king Bacchus brought this misery upon thy house.
BAC. [Ay,] for I have suffered terrible things from ye, having a name
unhonored in Thebes.
AG. Farewell, my father.
CAD. And you farewell, O miserable daughter; yet you can not easily arrive
at this.
AG. Lead me, O guides, where I may take my miserable sisters as the
companions of my flight; and may I go where neither accursed Cithæron may
see me, nor I may see Cithæron with my eyes, and where there is no memory
of the thyrsus hallowed, but they may be a care to other Bacchæ.
CHOR. There are many forms of divine things; and the Gods bring to pass
many in an unexpected manner: both what has been expected has not been
accomplished, and God has found out a means for doing things unthought of.
So, too, has this event turned out.[70]
* * * * *