ound the
chariot, filling the air with the noise of tambourines and brazen
instruments, shouting 'Evoe. Bacche!' and calling the God by his
several names of Bromius, Lyaeus, Evan, Lenaeus, and Sabazius. To this
ceremonial, received from the Egyptians, the Greeks added other
ceremonies replete with abominable licentiousness, and repulsive to
common decency. These were often suppressed by public enactment, but
were as often re-established by the votaries of lewdness and
immodesty, and such as found in these festivals a pretext and
opportunity for the commission of the most horrible offences.

The story of the unfortunate fate of Pentheus is supposed by the
ancient writers to have been strictly true. Pentheus, the son of
Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, having succeeded his
grandfather in his kingdom, is supposed, like him, to have opposed
those abuses that had crept into the mysteries of Bacchus, and went to
Mount Cithaeron for the purpose of chastising the Bacchantes, who were
celebrating his festival; whereupon, in their frantic madness, the
worshippers, among whom were his mother and his aunt, tore him in
pieces. Pausanias, however, says that Pentheus really was a wicked
prince; and he somewhat varies his story, as he tells us that having
got into a tree to overlook the secret ceremonies of the orgies,
Pentheus was discovered by the Bacchantes, who punished his curiosity
by putting him to death. The story of the transformation of the
mariners is supposed by Bochart to have been founded on the adventure
of certain merchants from the coast of Etruria, whose vessel had the
figure of a dolphin at the prow, or rather of the fish called
'tursio,' probably the porpoise, or sea-hog. They were probably
shipwrecked near the Isle of Naxos, which was sacred to Bacchus, whose
mysteries they had perhaps neglected, or even despised. On this
slender ground, perhaps, the report spread, that the God himself had
destroyed them, as a punishment for their impiety.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

FABLE I. [IV.1-166]

The daughters of Minyas, instead of celebrating the festival of
Bacchus, apply themselves to other pursuits during the ceremonies; and
among several narratives which they relate to pass away the time, they
divert themselves with the story of the adventures of Pyramus and
Thisbe. These lovers having made an appointment to meet without the
walls of B