Euripides, Bacchae 977–1023: Fourth choral ode: the hounds of Madness

Go to the mountain, go, fleet hounds of Madness, where the daughters of Kadmos hold their company, and drive them raving against the mad spy on the Maenads, the one dressed in women’s attire. His mother will be the first to see him from a smooth rock or crag, as he lies in ambush, and she will cry out to the maenads: Who is this seeker of the mountain-going Kadmeans who has come to the mountain, to the mountain, Bacchae? Who bore him? For he was not born from a woman’s blood, but is the offspring of some lioness or of Libyan Gorgons. Let manifest justice go forth, let it go with sword in hand, slaying through the throat this godless, lawless, unjust, earth-born offspring of Echion.

Whoever with wicked mind and unjust rage regarding your rites, Bacchus, and those of your mother, comes with raving heart and mad disposition violently to overcome by force what is invincible—death is the discipline for his purposes, accepting no excuses when the affairs of the gods are concerned; to act like a mortal—this is a life that is free from pain. I do not envy wisdom, but rejoice in hunting it. But other things are great and manifest. Oh, for life to flow towards the good, to be pure and pious day and night, and to honor the gods, banishing customs that are outside of justice. Let manifest justice go forth, let it go with sword in hand, slaying through the throat this godless, lawless, unjust, earth-born offspring of Echion.

Appear as a bull or many-headed serpent or raging lion to see. Go, Bacchus, with smiling face throw a deadly noose around the hunter of the Bacchae as he falls beneath the flock of Maenads.