ises the Gods, looking on this man's death,
let him acknowledge the Gods.

CHOR. I grieve for thy state, O Cadmus; but your child has the punishment
of your daughter, deserved indeed, but grievous to you.

AG. O father, for you see how I am changed ...

BAC ... changing, you shall become a dragon, and your wife becoming a
beast, shall receive in exchange the form of a serpent, Harmonia, the
daughter of Mars, whom you had, being a mortal. And as the oracle of Jove
says, you shall drive with your wife a chariot of heifers, ruling over
barbarians; and with an innumerable army you shall sack many cities; and
when they plunder the temple of Apollo, they shall have a miserable return,
but Mars shall defend you and Harmonia, and shall settle your life in the
islands of the blessed. I say this, I, Bacchus, not born of a mortal
father, but of Jove; and if ye had known how to be wise when ye would not,
ye would have been happy, having the son of Jupiter for your ally.

CAD. Bacchus, we beseech thee, we have erred.

BAC. Ye have learned it too late; but when it behooved you, you knew it
not.

CAD. I knew it, but you press on us too severely.

BAC. [Ay,] for I, being a God, was insulted by you.

CAD. It is not right for Gods to resemble mortals in anger.[66]

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 Aristaeus * * * *.

AG. I bemoan thee, O father!

CAD. And I thee, my c