cxxiii
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<title property="dc:title">cxxiii</title>
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<div class="path_left"><div class="path_nav_color path_nav_color_primary path_nav_color_expand_height" style ="background:#450b66"></div><a class="path_title_link" href="http://scalar.usc.edu/works/bacchae/play" title="by Euripides">The Bacchae</a><span style="white-space:nowrap;">, page 123 of 127</span></div>
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<h4 class="content_title">cxxiii</h4>
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</div><div>KADMUS</div><div>
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He was like you, contemptuous of the god.
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And Dionysus joined us all, in one
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Destruction, you, and this boy, and your sisters,
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Ruining my house and me;
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I had no son;
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And this, the only male of my blood,
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I had to stand by and see him die,
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A horrible and shameful death - you,
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My boy, this house looked up to as its head,
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My king, who held the city in awe, the bond
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Which kept together the walls of this palace.
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Nobody dared make fun of the senile old man
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Knowing you near; you would punish them.
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And now,
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I, Kadmus the great,
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Who sowed
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In the ground the seed of Theban race,
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And reaped the envied harvest,
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Shall wander,
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An outcast, dishonored, far from my home.
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Oh, my beloved son, for even now you are no more,
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I count you as one of my dearest children,
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Never again will you caress my hair,
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Call me grandfather, put your arm around me
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And say: "Father, has anybody wronged you,
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Anybody mocked you? Tell me and I will
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Punish them. Anybody troubled you,
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Or disturbed your heart?" Never again.
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And now you are gone, and I stay here, wretched,
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And your mother, and her sisters - pitiful.
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If there be anyone who scorns the unknown
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Powers, let him consider the death of this man
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And accept the gods.</div>
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