Chorus
[105] O Thebes, nurse of Semele, crown yourself with ivy, flourish, flourish with the verdant yew bearing sweet fruit, and crown yourself in honor of Bacchus with branches of oak [110] or pine. Adorn your garments of spotted fawn-skin with fleeces of white sheep, and sport in holy games with insolent thyrsoi 1. At once all the earth will dance— [115] whoever leads the sacred band is Bromius—to the mountain, to the mountain, where the crowd of women waits, goaded away from their weaving by Dionysus.
1 The thyrsos is a staff that is crowned with ivy and that is sacred to Dionysus and an emblem of his worship.
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