"You Laconian maidens, usually so proud and cold and Amazonian, I call upon you to say whether in your strictly regulated polity of Sparta you do not, at times, rove in the wildest fashion over the paths, ravines, and clefts of awful Mount Taygetus, in reckless search of the joy of frantic vitality which your State ordinarily does not allow you to indulge in? And you women of Argos, are you too not given to wild rioting at stated times? Have I not watched you in your religious revivals of fierce joy?" Both the Laconian and Argive women admitted the fact, and one of them asked: "Do the women of this country not observe similar festivals? I pity them if they don't." And a Theban girl added: "The other day we passed over Snowdon and other mounts in a beauteous land which they call Wales. It is much like our own holy Mount Kithæron. Why, then, do the women of this country not rove, in honour of the god, over the Welsh mountains, free and unobserved, as we do annually over wild Kithæron? They would do it gracefully, for I have noticed that they run much better than they walk, and they would swing the _thyrsus_ in their hand with more elegance than the sticks they use in their games." At that moment there arose from the haze and clouded mystery of the neighbouring woods a rocket of sounds, sung by female voices and soon joined in the distance by a chorus of men. The company on the lawn suddenly stopped talking, and at the bidding of the Delphic archon, whom they called Trichas, they all went in search of ivy, and, having found it, wreathed themselves with it. The music, more and more passionate, came nearer and nearer. From my place I could slightly distinguish, in mid-air, a fast travelling host of women in light dresses, swinging the _thyrsus_, dancing with utter freedom of beautiful movement, and singing all the time songs in praise of Dionysus, the god of life and joy. Trichas solemnly called upon us to close our eyes, and he intoned a _pæan_ of strange impressiveness, imploring the god to pardon our presence and to countenance us hereafter as before. But the Laconian, Theban, and Argive maidens left us, and soaring into air, as it were, joined the host of revelling women. After a time the music subsided far away, and nothing could be heard but the melodious soughing of the wind through the lank alder-trees. * * * * * Then, at a sign of Trichas, Plato took the word and said: "You are aware, my friends, that whatever I have taught in my Athenian days regarding the punishment of our faults at the hands of the Powers of the Netherworld, all that has been amply visited upon me in the shape of commentaries written on my works by learned teachers, after the fashion of savages who tattoo the beautiful body of a human being.