_The Chorus enter the orchestra, Asiatic women in wild attire of
Bacchic rites, especially the motley (dappled fawnskin) always
associated with abandon: they move with wild gestures and dances
associated with Asiatic rituals._
The wild ode resumes the joyous dance that has made their whole way
from Asia one long sacred revel--
Toilless toil and labour sweet.
Blest above all men he who hallows his life in such mystic rites, and,
purified with holiest waters, goes dancing with the worshippers of
Bacchus, and of thee, mighty Mother Cybele, shaking his thyrsus, and
all his locks crowned with ivy. Bacchus's birth is sung, and how from
the flashing lightning Jove snatched him and preserved in his thigh,
until at the fated hour he gave him to light, horned and crowned with
serpents. Wherefore should Thebes, sacred scene of the miracle, be one
blossom of revellers, clad in motley and waving the thyrsus, the whole
land maddening with the dance. The Chorus think of the first origin of
such noisy joys, when the wild ones of Crete beat their cymbals round
the sunless caverns where the infant Jove was hidden, and these rites
of Rhoea soon mingled for the frantic Satyrs with the third year's
dances to Bacchus. Then the ode recurs to the bliss of such holy
rites, luxurious interchange of wild energy and delicious repose. They
long for the climax of the dance, when, with luxuriant hair all
floating, they can rage and madden to the clash of heavy cymbals and
the shout Evoë, Evoê, frisking like colts to the soft breathing of the
holy pipe, while the mountain echoes beneath their boundings. {178}