[Enter the Chorus of Theban elders, deploring the violence of the plague.]
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