Up soared the branch straight into the air above, with my master perched thereon, seen by the Maenads better far than he saw them;for scarce was he beheld upon his lofty throne, when the stranger disappeared, while from the sky there came a voice, 'twould seem, by Dionysus uttered-"Maidens, I bring the man who tried to mock you and me and my mystic rites; take vengeance on him." And as he spake he raised 'twixt heaven and earth a dazzling column of awful flame.Hushed grew the sky, and still hung each leaf throughout the grassy glen, nor couldst thou have heard one creature cry.But they, not sure of the voice they heard, sprang up and peered all round; then once again his bidding came; and when the daughters of Cadmus knew it was the Bacchic god in very truth that called, swift as doves they dirted off in cager haste, his mother Agave and her sisters dear and all the Bacchanals; through torrent glen, o'er boulders huge they bounded on, inspired with madness by the god.Soon as they saw my master perched upon the fir, they set to hurling stones at him with all their might, mounting a commanding eminence, and with pine-branches he was pelted as with darts; and others shot their wands through the air at Pentheus, their hapless target, but all to no purpose.For there he sat beyond the reach of their hot endeavours, a helpless, hopeless victim.At last they rent off limbs from oaks and were for prising up the roots with levers not of iron.But when they still could make no end to all their toil, Agave cried: "Come stand around, and grip the sapling trunk, my Bacchanals! that we may catch the beast that sits thereon, lest he divulge the secrets of our god's religion."Then were a thousand hands laid on the fir, and from the ground they tore it up, while he from his seat aloft came tumbling to the ground with lamentations long and loud, e'en Pentheus; for well he knew his hour was come.His mother first, a priestess for the nonce, began the bloody deed and fell upon him; whereon he tore the snood from off his hair, that hapless Agave might recognize and spare him, crying as he touched her cheek, "O mother! it is I, thy own son Pentheus, the child thou didst bear in Echion's halls; have pity on me, mother dear! oh! do not for any sin of mine slay thy own son."But she, the while, with foaming mouth and wildly rolling eyes, bereft of reason as she was, heeded him not; for the god possessed her.And she caught his left hand in her grip, and planting her foot upon her victim's trunk she tore the shoulder from its socket, not of her own strength, but the god made it an easy task to her hands;and Ino set to work upon the other side, rending the flesh with Autonoe and all the eager host of Bacchanals; and one united cry arose, the victim's groans while yet he breathed, and their triumphant shouts.One would make an arm her prey, another a foot with the sandal on it; and his ribs were stripped of flesh by their rending nails; and each one with blood-dabbled hands was tossing Pentheus' limbs about.
Scattered lies his corpse, part beneath the rugged rocks, and part amid the deep dark woods, no easy task to find; but his poor head hath his mother made her own, and fixing it upon the point of a thyrsus, as it had been a mountain lion's, she bears it through the midst of Cithaeron, having left her sisters with the Maenads at their rites.
And she is entering these walls exulting in her hunting fraught with woe, calling on the Bacchic god her fellow-hunter who had helped her to triumph in a chase, where her only prize was tears.
But I will get me hence, away from this piteous scene, before Agave reach the palace.To my mind self-restraint and reverence for the things of God point alike the best and wisest course for all mortals who pursue them.
Exit SECOND MESSENGER.
CHORUS
Come, let us exalt our Bacchic god in choral strain, let us loudly chant the fall of Pentheus from the serpent sprung, who assumed a woman's dress and took the fair Bacchic wand, sure pledge of death, with a bull to guide him to his doom.O ye Bacchanals of Thebes!
glorious is the triumph ye have achieved, ending in sorrow and tears.'Tis a noble enterprise to dabble the hand in the blood of a son till it drips.But hist! I see Agave, the mother of Pentheus, with wild rolling eye hasting to the house; welcome the revellers of the Bacchic god.
Enter AGAVE.
AGAVE
Ye Bacchanals from Asia CHORUS
Why dost thou rouse me? why?
AGAVE
From the hills I am bringing to my home a tendril freshly-culled, glad guerdon-of the chase.
CHORUS
I see it, and I will welcome thee unto our revels.All hail!
AGAVE
I caught him with never a snare, this lion's whelp, as ye may see.
CHORUS
From what desert lair?
AGAVE
Cithaeron-
CHORUS
Yes, Cithaeron?
AGAVE
Was his death.
CHORUS
Who was it gave the first blow?
AGAVE
Mine that privilege; "Happy Agave!" they call me 'mid our revellers.
CHORUS
Who did the rest?
AGAVE
Cadmus-
CHORUS
What of him?
AGAVE
His daughters struck the monster after me; yes, after me.
CHORUS
Fortune smiled upon thy hunting here.
AGAVE
Come, share the banquet.
CHORUS
Share? ah I what?
AGAVE
'Tis but a tender whelp, the down just sprouting on its cheek beneath a crest of failing hair.
CHORUS
The hair is like some wild creature's.
AGAVE
The Bacchic god, a hunter skilled, roused his Maenads to pursue this quarry skilfully.
CHORUS
Yea, our king is a hunter indeed.
AGAVE
Dost approve?
CHORUS
Of course I do.
AGAVE
Soon shall the race of Cadmus-
CHORUS
And Pentheus, her own son, shall to his mother-AGAVE
Offer praise for this her quarry of the lion's brood.
CHORUS
Quarry strange!
AGAVE
And strangely caught.
CHORUS
Dost thou exult?
AGAVE
Right glad am I to have achieved a great and glorious triumph for my land that all can see.
CHORUS
Alas for thee! show to the folk the booty thou hast won and art bringing hither.
AGAVE