Metamorphoses

The son of Echion persists: and now he does not command others to go, but goes himself to where Cithæron, chosen for the celebration of these sacred rites, was resounding with singing, and the shrill voices of the votaries of Bacchus. Just as the high-mettled steed neighs, when the warlike trumpeter gives the alarm with the sounding brass, and conceives a desire for battle, so did the sky, struck with the long-drawn howlings, excite Pentheus, and his wrath was rekindled on hearing the clamor. There was, about the middle of the mountain, the woods skirting its extremity, a plain free from trees, and visible on every side. Here his mother was the first to see him looking on the sacred rites with profane eyes; she first was moved by a frantic impulse, and she first wounded her son , Pentheus, by hurling her thyrsus, and cried out, “Ho! come, my two sisters; that boar which, of enormous size, is roaming amid our fields, that boar I must strike.” All the raging multitude rushes upon him alone; all collect together, and all follow him, now trembling, now uttering words less atrocious than before , now blaming himself, now confessing that he has offended.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 3

Book 3, Line 38ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-3-38