PENTHEUS
What profit bring they to their votaries?
DIONYSUS
Thou must not be told, though 'tis well worth knowing.
PENTHEUS
A pretty piece of trickery, to excite my curiosity!
DIONYSUS
A man of godless life is an abomination to the rites of the god.
PENTHEUS
Thou sayest thou didst see the god clearly; what was he like?
DIONYSUS
What his fancy chose; I was not there to order this.
PENTHEUS
Another clever twist and turn of thine, without a word of answer.
DIONYSUS
He were a fool, methinks, who would utter wisdom to a fool.
PENTHEUS
Hast thou come hither first with this deity?
DIONYSUS
All foreigners already celebrate these mysteries with dances.
PENTHEUS
The reason being, they are far behind Hellenes in wisdom.
DIONYSUS
In this at least far in advance, though their customs differ.
PENTHEUS
Is it by night or day thou performest these devotions?
DIONYSUS
By night mostly; darkness lends solemnity.
PENTHEUS
Calculated to entrap and corrupt women.
DIONYSUS
Day too for that matter may discover shame.
PENTHEUS
This vile quibbling settles thy punishment.
DIONYSUS
Brutish ignorance and godlessness will settle thine.
PENTHEUS
How bold our Bacchanal is growing! a very master in this wordy strife!
DIONYSUS
Tell me what I am to suffer; what is the grievous doom thou wilt inflict upon me?
PENTHEUS
First will I shear off thy dainty tresses.
DIONYSUS
My locks are sacred; for the god I let them grow.
PENTHEUS
Next surrender that thyrsus.
DIONYSUS
Take it from me thyself; 'tis the wand of Dionysus I am bearing.
PENTHEUS
In dungeon deep thy body will I guard.
DIONYSUS
The god himself will set me free, whene'er I list.
PENTHEUS
Perhaps he may, when thou standest amid thy Bacchanals and callest on his name.
DIONYSUS
Even now he is near me and witnesses my treatment.
PENTHEUS
Why, where is he? To my eyes he is invisible.
DIONYSUS
He is by my side; thou art a godless man and therefore dost not see him.
PENTHEUS
Seize him! the fellow scorns me and Thebes too.
DIONYSUS
I bid you bind me not, reason addressing madness.
PENTHEUS
But I say "bind!" with better right than thou.
DIONYSUS
Thou hast no knowledge of the life thou art leading; thy very existence is now a mystery to thee.
PENTHEUS
I am Pentheus, son of Agave and Echion.
DIONYSUS
Well-named to be misfortune's mate!
PENTHEUS
Avaunt! Ho! shut him up within the horses' stalls hard by, that for light he may have pitchy gloom.Do thy dancing there, and these women whom thou bringest with thee to share thy villainies I will either sell as slaves or make their hands cease from this noisy beating of drums, and set them to work at the loom as servants of my own.
DIONYSUS
I will go; for that which fate forbids, can never befall me.For this thy mockery be sure Dionysus will exact a recompense of thee-even the god whose existence thou deniest; for thou art injuring him by haling me to prison.
Exit DIONYSUS, guarded, and PENTHEUS.
CHORUS
Hail to thee, Dirce, happy maid, daughter revered of Achelous!
within thy founts thou didst receive in days gone by the babe of Zeus, what time his father caught him up into his thigh from out the deathless flame, while thus he cried: "Go rest, my Dithyrambus, there within thy father's womb; by this name, O Bacchic god, I now proclaim thee to Thebes." But thou, blest Dirce, thrustest me aside, when in thy midst I strive to hold my revels graced with crowns.Why dost thou scorn me? Why avoid me? By the clustered charm that Dionysus sheds o'er the vintage I vow there yet shall come a time when thou wilt turn thy thoughts to Bromius.What furious rage the earth-born race displays, even Pentheus sprung of a dragon of old, himself the son of earth-born Echion, a savage monster in his very mien, not made in human mould, but like some murderous giant pitted against heaven; for he means to bind me, the handmaid of Bromius, in cords forthwith, and e'en now he keeps my fellow-reveller pent within his palace, plunged in a gloomy dungeon.Dost thou mark this, ODionysus, son of Zeus, thy prophets struggling 'gainst resistless might? Come, O king, brandishing thy golden thyrsus along the slopes of Olympus; restrain the pride of this bloodthirsty wretch! Oh!
where in Nysa, haunt of beasts, or on the peaks of Corycus art thou, Dionysus, marshalling with thy wand the revellers? or haply in the thick forest depths of Olympus, where erst Orpheus with his lute gathered trees to his minstrelsy, and beasts that range the fields.Ah blest Pieria! Evius honours thee, to thee will he come with his Bacchic rites to lead the dance, and thither will he lead the circling Maenads, crossing the swift current of Axius and the Lydias, that giveth wealth and happiness to man, yea, and the father of rivers, which, as I have heard, enriches with his waters fair a land of steeds.
DIONYSUS (Within)
What ho! my Bacchantes, ho! hear my call, oh! hear.
CHORUS I
Who art thou? what Evian cry is this that calls me? whence comes it?
DIONYSUS
What ho! once more I call, I the son of Semele, the child of Zeus.
CHORUS II
My master, O my master, hail!
CHORUS III
Come to our revel-band, O Bromian god.
CHORUS IV
Thou solid earth!
CHORUS V
Most awful shock!
CHORUS VI
O horror! soon will the palace of Pentheus totter and fall.
CHORUS VII
Dionysus is within this house.
CHORUS VIII
Do homage to him.
CHORUS IX
We do! I do!
CHORUS X
Did ye mark yon architrave of stone upon the columns start asunder?
CHORUS XI
Within these walls the triumph-shout of Bromius himself will rise.
DIONYSUS
Kindle the blazing torch with lightning's fire, abandon to the flames the halls of Pentheus.
CHORUS XII
Ha! dost not see the flame, dost not clearly mark it at the sacred tomb of Semele, the lightning flame which long ago the hurler of the bolt left there?
CHORUS XIII
Your trembling limbs prostrate, ye Maenads, low upon the ground.
CHORUS XIV
Yea, for our king, the son of Zeus, is assailing and utterly confounding this house.
Enter DIONYSUS.
DIONYSUS