_Chorus_: How art thou fall'n, O glorious stock 110 Of Cadmus, thou and Thebes in one! How dost thou see, poor ruined Thebes, Thy lands laid waste and tenantless. And thou, O Theban Bacchus, hear: That hardy soldiery of thine, Thy comrades to the farthest Ind, Who dared invade the Eastern plains, 115 And plant thy banners at the gates of dawn-- Behold, destruction feeds on them. They saw the blessed Arabes, 'Mid spicy groves; and the fleeing steeds Of the Parthian, deadliest when he flees; They trod the marge of the ruddy sea, 120 Where Phoebus his rising beams displays, And the day reveals; where his nearer fires Darken the naked Indians. Yea we, that race invincible, Beneath the hand of greedy fate 125 Are falling fast. The gloomy retinue of death In march unceasing hurries on; The grieving line unending hastes To the place of death. Space fails the throng. For, though seven gates stand open wide, 130 Still for the crowding funerals 'Tis not enough; for everywhere Is carnage seen, and death treads hard Upon the heels of death. The sluggish ewes first felt the blight, For the woolly flock the rich grass cropped To its own doom. At the victim's neck 135 The priest stood still, in act to strike; But while his hand still poised the blow, Behold, the bull, with gilded horns, Fell heavily; whereat his neck, Beneath the shock of his huge weight, Was broken and asunder yawned. No blood the sacred weapon stained, 140 But from the wound dark gore oozed forth. The steed a sudden languor feels, And stumbles in his circling course, While from his downward-sinking side His rider falls. The abandoned flocks lie in the fields; 145 The bull amid his dying herd Is pining; and the shepherd fails His scanty flock, for he himself 'Mid his wasting kine is perishing. The stag no more fears the ravenous wolf; No longer the lion's roar is heard; 150 The shaggy bear has lost her rage, And the lurking serpent his deadly sting; For parched and dying now he lies, With venom dried. No more do the woods, with leafage crowned, Spread out their shade in the mountain glens; 155 No more are fields with verdure clad; No vines bend low with laden arms; For the very earth has felt the breath Of our dire pestilence. Through the riven bars of Erebus, 160 With torches lit in Tartara, The raging band of the Furies troop; Dark Phlegethon has changed his course, And forced the waters of the Styx To mingle with our Theban streams.