Chorus

Let him be mute and stand aside from our sacred dances

who has no experience of mystical language, or has not cleansed his mind

Who never has seen and never has danced in the rites of the noble Muses

Nor ever has been inducted into the Bacchic mysteries of beef-eating Cratinus

Or who takes delight in foolish words when doing this is ill-timed,

445

Whoever does not eliminate hateful factionalism, and is disagreeable to the citizens,

but kindles and fans civil strife, in his thirst for private advantage:

Whoever takes bribes when guiding the state through the midst of a storm

Or betrays our forts or our ships, smuggles contraband from Aegina

As Thorycion did, that wretched collector of taxes

450

Sending pads and sails and pitch to Epidauros ,

Or persuades anyone to send supplies to the enemies' ships,

Or defiles Hecate's shrine, while singing dithyrambs,

Or any politician who bites off the pay of the poets

For being ridiculed in the ancestral rites of Dionysus.

455

All these I warn, and twice I warn, and thrice I warn again,

stand aside from our mystical dances; but as for you: arouse the song

and the night-long dances, that belong to our festival here.