"Afterward I had comrades. They marched to the sound of flutes, in good order, with equal step, respiring above their bucklers, with plumes loftily nodding, lances oblique. Then on rushed to battle with mighty eagle cries. War was joyous as a banquet. Three hundred men strove against all Asia.
"But the Barbarians are returning;--by myriads they come, by millions! Ah! since numbers, and engines, and cunning are stronger than valour, it were better that I die the death of the brave!"
VULCAN (_sponging the sweat from his limbs_):
"The world is growing cold. The source of heat must be nourished, the volcanoes and rivers of flowing metal underground. Strike harder!--with full swing of the arms,--with might and main!"
(_The Cabiri wound themselves with their hammers, blind themselves with sparks, and groping, lose themselves in the darkness._)
CERES (_standing in her chariot, impelled by wheels having wings at their hubs_):
"Stop! Stop! Ah! it was with good reason that the exclusion of strangers, atheists, Epicureans, and Christians was commended! Now the mystery of the basket has been unveiled; the sanctuary profaned: all is lost!"
(_She descends a precipitous slope--shrieking, despairing, tearing her hair._)
"Ah! lies, lies! Daira has not been restored to me. The voice of brass calls me to the dead. This is another Tartarus, whence there is no return! Horror!"
"What matters it? The Archon's wife is my spouse! The law itself reels in drunkenness! To me the new song, the multiplied forms!
"The fire by which my mother was devoured, flows in my veins! Let it burn yet more fiercely, even though I perish!
"Male and female, complaisant to all, I abandon myself to you, Bacchantes! I abandon myself to you, Bacchanalians!--and the vine shall twine herself about the tree-trunks! Howl! dance! writhe! Loosen the tiger and the slave!--rend flesh with ferocious bitings!"
(_And Pan, Silenus, the Bacchantes, the Mimalonæides, and the Mænads,--with their serpents, torches, sable masks,--cast flowers at each other ... shake their tympanums, strike their thyrsi, pelt each other with shells, devour grapes, strangle a goat, and tear Bacchus asunder._)
APOLLO (_furiously whipping his coursers, while his blanching locks are falling from his head_):