The Bacchanals

[Enter Dionysus.]

DIONYSUS.
I to this land of Thebes have come, Zeus' Son
Dionysus, born erstwhile of Kadmus' child
Semele, brought by levin-brand to travail.
My shape from God to mortal semblance changed,
I stand by Dirke's springs, Ismenus' flood.
I see my thunder-blasted mother's tomb
Here nigh the halls: the ruins of her home
Smoulder with Zeus's flame that liveth yet —
Hera's undying outrage on my mother.
Kadmus doth well, that he ordains this close,
His child's grave, hallowed: with the clustering green
Of vines I, even I, embowered it round.
Leaving the gold-abounding Lydian meads
And Phrygian, o'er the Persian's sun-smit tracts,
By Bactrian strongholds, Media's storm-swept land,
Still pressing on, by Araby the Blest,
And through all Asia, by the briny sea
Lying with stately-towered cities thronged,
Peopled with Hellenes blent with aliens,
To this of Hellene cities first I come.
My dances there and rites have I ordained
That I might be God manifest to men.
So, of all Hellas, Thebes with my acclaim
I first thrilled, there with fawn-skin girt her limbs,
And gave her hand the ivied thyrsus-spear,
Because my mother's sisters — shame on them! —
Proclaimed Dionysus never born of Zeus;
But Semele by a man undone, said they,
Charged upon Zeus her sin of wantonness —
A subtle wile of Kadmus! Hence, they vaunted,
Zeus slew the liar who named him paramour.
These therefore frenzy-stung I have driven from home,
And mid the hills with soul distraught they dwell,
The vesture of my revels forced to wear;
And all the woman-seed of Kadmus' folk,
Yea all, I drave forth raving from their homes:
And, mingled with the sons of Kadmus, these
'Neath green pines sit on crags all shelterless.
For this Thebes needs must learn, how loth soe'er,
What means it not to be in my great rites
Initiate, and that Semele's cause I plead,
To men God manifest, whom she bare to Zeus.
Now Kadmus gave his crown and royal estate
To Pentheus, of another daughter born,
Who wars with Heaven in me, and from libations
Thrusts, nor makes mention of me in his prayers.
Therefore to him my godhead will I prove,
And to all Thebans. To another land
Then, after triumph here, will I depart,
And manifest myself. If Thebes in wrath
Take arms to chase her Bacchants from the hills,
Leading my Maenads I will clash in fight.
For this cause have I taken mortal form,
And changed my shape to fashion of a man.
Ho, ye who Lydia's rock-wall, Tmolus, left,
Women, my revel- rout, from alien homes
To share my rest and my wayfaring brought,
Uplift the cymbals to the Phrygian towns
Native, great Mother Rhea's device and mine,
And smite them, compassing yon royal halls
Of Pentheus, so that Kadmus' town may see.
I to Kithairon's glens will go, where bide
My Bacchanals, and join the dances there.

[Exit.]

[Enter Chorus, waving the thyrsus-wands, and clashing their timbrels.]

CHORUS.
From Asian soil
Far over the hallowed ridges of Tmolus fleeting,
To the task that I love do I speed, to my painless toil
For the Clamour-king, hailing the Bacchanals' God with greeting.

Who is there in the way?
In the dwelling who lingereth? Forth! — and let each one, sealing
His lips from irreverence, hallow them. Now, in the lay
Dionysus ordains, will I chant him, his hymn outpealing.

O happy to whom is the blessedness given
To be taught in the mysteries sent from heaven,
Who is pure in his life, through whose soul the unsleeping
Revel goes sweeping!
Made meet by the sacred purifying
For the Bacchanal rout o'er the mountains flying,
For the orgies of Cybele mystery-folden,
Of the Mother olden,
Wreathed with the ivy sprays,
The thyrsus on high doth he raise,
Singing the Vine-god's praise —
Come, Bacchanals, come!
The Clamour-king, child of a God,
O'er the mountains of Phrygia who trod,
Unto Hellas's highways broad
Bring him home, bring him home! —

The God whom his mother, — when anguish tore her
Of the travail resistless that deathward bore her
On the wings of the thunder of Zeus down-flying, — go
Brought forth at her dying
An untimely birth, as her spirit departed
Stricken from life by the flame down-darted:
But in birth-bowers new did Zeus Kronion
Receive his scion;
For, hid in a cleft of his thigh,
By the gold-clasps knit, did he lie
Safe hidden from Hera's eye
Till the Fates' day came;
Then a God bull-horned Zeus bare,
And with serpents entwined his hair:
And for this do his Maenads wear
In their tresses the same.

Thebes, nursing-town of Semele, crown
With the ivy thy brows, and be
All bloom, embowered in the starry-flowered
Lush green of the briony,
While the oak and pine thy tresses entwine
In thy bacchanal-ecstasy. no
And thy fawn-skin flecked, with a fringe be it decked
Of wool white-glistering
In silvery tassels; — O Bacchus' vassals,
High-tossed let the wild wands swing!
One dancing-band shall be all the land
When, led by the Clamour-king,
His revel-rout fills the hills — the hills
Where thy women abide till he come
Whom the Vine-god chasing, in frenzy racing,
Hunted from shuttle and loom.

O cavern that rang when Curetes sang,
O bower of the Babe Zeus' birth,
Where the Corybants, dancing with helm-crests glancing
Through the dark halls under the earth,
This timbrel found whose hide-stretched round
We smite, and its Bacchanal mirth
They blent with the cry ringing sweet and high
From the flutes of the Phrygian land,
And its thunder, soaring o'er revel-shout's roaring,
They gave unto Rhea's hand;
But the gift passed on from the Mother, won
By the madding Satyr-band;
And to Semele's child gave the woodfolk wild
The homage he holdeth dear,
When the timbrels clashing to feet white-flashing
Are wedded in each third year.

O trance of rapture, when, reeling aside
From the Bacchanal rout o'er the mountains flying,
One sinks to the earth, and the fawn's flecked hide
Covers him lying
With its sacred vesture, wherein he hath chased
The goat to the death for its blood — for the taste
Of the feast raw-reeking, when over the hills
Of Phrygia, of Lydia, the wild feet haste,
And the Clamour-king leads, and our hearts he thrills
"Evoe! "crying!
Flowing with milk is the ground, and with wine is it flowing, and flowing
Nectar of bees; and a smoke as of incense of Araby soars;
And the Bacchanal, lifting the flame of the brand of the pine ruddy-glowing,
Waveth it wide, and with shouts, from the point of the wand as it pours,
Challengeth revellers straying, on-racing, on-dancing, and throwing
Loose to the breezes his curls, while clear through the chorus that roars
Cleaveth his shout,—" On, Bacchanal-rout,
On, Bacchanal maidens, ye glory of Tmolus the hill gold-welling,
Blend the acclaim of your chant with the timbrels thunder-knelling,
Glad-pealing the glad God's praises out
With Phrygian cries and the voice of singing,
When upsoareth the sound of the melody-fountain,
Of the hallowed ringing of flutes far-flinging
The notes that chime with the feet that climb
The pilgrim-path to the mountain!"
And with rapture the Bacchanal onward racing,
With gambollings fleet
As of foals round the mares in the meads that are grazing,
Speedeth her feet.

[Enter Teiresias.]

TEIRESIAS.
Gate- warder, ho! call Kadmus forth the halls,
Agenor's son, who came from Sidon-town,
And with towers girded this the Thebans' burg.
Go, one; say to him that Teiresias
Seeks him — -he knoweth for what cause I come,
The old man's covenant with the elder-born
To entwine the thyrsi and the fawnskin don,
And crown our heads with wreaths of ivy-sprays.

[Enter Kadmus.]

KADMUS.
Dear friend, within mine house I heard thy voice,
And knew it, the wise utterance of the wise.
Ready I come, thus in the God's garb dight.
For him, who is my daughter's very son,
Dionysus, who to men hath shown his godhead,
Ought we with all our might to magnify.
Where shall we dance now, and where plant the foot,
And toss the silvered head? Instruct thou me;
Let eld guide eld, Teiresias: wise art thou.
I shall not weary, nor by night nor day,
Smiting on earth the thyrsus. We forget
For joy our age.

TEIRESIAS.
Thine heart is even as mine.
I too am young, I will essay the dance.

KADMUS.
Come, to the mountain fare we, chariot-borne.

TEIRESIAS.
Nay, so were the God's honour minished!

KADMUS.
Age ushering age, I will escort thee on.

TEIRESIAS.
We shall not tire; the God will lead us thither.

KADMUS.
Shall we alone of Thebes to Bacchus dance?

TEIRESIAS.
Yea, we alone are wise; the rest be fools.

KADMUS.
Too long we linger. Come, grasp thou mine hand.

TEIRESIAS.
Lo there: clasp close the interlinking hand.

KADMUS.
Not I contemn the Gods, I, mortal-born!

TEIRESIAS.
'Tis not for us to reason touching Gods.
Traditions of our fathers, old as time,
We hold: no reasoning shall cast them down, —
No, though of subtlest wit our wisdom spring.
Haply shall one say I respect not eld,
Who ivy-crowned address me to the dance.
Nay, for distinction none the God hath made
Whether the young or stricken in years must dance:
From all alike he claims his due of honour;
By halves he cares not to be magnified.

KADMUS.
Since thou, Teiresias, seest not this light,
I will for thee be spokesman of thy words.
Lo to these halls comes Pentheus hastily,
Echion's son, to whom I gave the throne.
How wild his mood! What strange thing will he tell?

[Enter Pentheus.]

PENTHEUS.
It chanced that, sojourning without this land,
I heard of strange misdeeds in this my town,
How from their homes our women have gone forth
Feigning a Bacchic rapture, and rove wild
O'er wooded hills, in dances honouring
Dionysus, this new God — whoe'er he be.
And midst each revel-rout the wine-bowls stand
Brimmed: and to lonely nooks, some here, some there,
They steal, to work with men the deed of shame,
In pretext Maenad priestesses, forsooth,
But honouring Aphrodite more than Bacchus.
As many as I have seized my servants keep
Safe in the common prison manacled.
But those yet forth, will I hunt from the hills —
Ino, Agave, who bare me to Echion,
Autonoe withal, Aktaion's mother.
In toils of iron trapped, full soon shall they
Cease from this pestilent Bacchic revelling.
Men say a stranger to the land hath come,
A juggling sorcerer from Lydia-land,
With essenced hair in golden tresses tossed,
Wine-flushed, Love's witching graces in his eyes,
Who with the damsels day and night consorts,
Making pretence of Evian mysteries.
If I within these walls but prison him,
Farewell to thyrsus-taboring, and to locks
Free-tossed; for neck from shoulders will I hew.
He saith that Dionysus is a God!
Saith, he was once sewn up in Zeus's thigh —
Who, with his mother, was by lightning-flames
Blasted, because she lied of Zeus's love.
Is not this worthy hanging's awful doom,
Thus to blaspheme, whoe'er the stranger be?
But lo, another marvel this — the seer
Teiresias, in dappled fawnskins clad!
Yea, and my mother's sire — O sight for laughter! —
Tossing the reed-wand! Father, I take shame
Beholding these grey hairs so sense-bereft.
Fling off the ivy; let the thyrsus fall,
And set thine hand free, O my mother's sire.
Thou didst, Teiresias, draw him on to this:
'Tis thou wouldst foist this new God upon men
For augury and divination's wage!
Except thine hoary hairs protected thee,
Thou shouldst amid the Bacchanals sit in chains,
For bringing in these pestilent rites; for when
In women's feasts the cluster's pride hath part,
No good, say I, comes of their revelry.

CHORUS.
Blasphemy! — Stranger, dost not reverence heaven,
Nor Kadmus, sower of the earth-born seed?
Son of Echion, thou dost shame thy birth!

TEIRESIAS.
Whene'er a wise man finds a noble theme
For speech, 'tis easy to be eloquent.
Thou — roundly runs thy tongue, as thou wert wise;
But in these words of thine sense is there none.
The rash man, armed with power and ready of speech,
Is a bad citizen, as void of sense.
But this new God, whom thou dost laugh to scorn,
I cannot speak the greatness whereunto
In Hellas he shall rise. Two chiefest Powers,
Prince, among men there are: divine Demeter —
Earth is she, name her by which name thou wilt; —
She upon dry food nurtureth mortal men:
Then followeth Semele's Son; to match her gift
The cluster's flowing draught he found, and gave
To mortals, which gives rest from grief to men
Woe-worn, soon as the vine's stream filleth them.
And sleep, the oblivion of our daily ills,
He gives — there is none other balm for toils.
He is the Gods' libation, though a God,
So that through him do men obtain good things.
And dost thou mock him, as in Zeus's thigh
Sewn? — I will show thee all the legend's beauty: —
When Zeus had snatched him from the levin -fire,
And bare the babe to Olympus, Hera then
Fain would have cast his godhead out of heaven.
Zeus with a God's wit framed his counterplot.
A fragment from the earth-enfolding ether,
He brake, and wrought to a hostage, setting so
Dionysus safe from Hera's spite. In time
Men told how he was nursed in Zeus's thigh.
Changing the name, they wrought a myth thereof,
Because the God was hostage once to Hera.
A prophet is this God: the Bacchic frenzy
And ecstasy are fulfilled of prophecy:
For, in his fulness when he floods our frame,
He makes his maddened votaries tell the future.
Somewhat of Ares' dues he shares withal,
For hosts in harness clad, in ranks arrayed,
He thrills with panic ere a spear be touched.
This too is a frenzy Dionysus sends.
Yet shaft thou see him even on Delphi's crags
With pine-brands leaping o'er the cloven crest,
Tossing on high and waving Bacchus' bough, —
Yea, great through Hellas. Pentheus, heed thou me:
Boast not that naked force hath power o'er men;
Nor, if it seem so to thy jaundiced eye,
Deem thyself wise. The God into thy land
Welcome: spill wine, be bacchant, wreathe thine head.
Dionysus upon women will not thrust
Chastity: in true womanhood inborn
Dwells temperance touching all things evermore.
This must thou heed; for in his Bacchic rites
The virtuous-hearted shall not be undone.
Lo, thou art glad when thousands throng thy gates,
And all Thebes magnifieth Pentheus' name:
He too, I wot, in homage taketh joy.
I then, and Kadmus, whom thou laugh'st to scorn,
Will wreathe our heads with ivy, and will dance —
A greybeard pair, yet cannot we but dance.
Not at thy suasion will I war with Gods;
For grievous is thy madness, and no spell
May medicine thee, though spells have made thee mad.

CHORUS.
Old sire, thou sham'st not Phcebus in thy speech,
And wisely honourest Bromius, mighty God.

KADMUS.
My son, well hath Teiresias counselled thee.
Dwell with us, not without the pale of wont.
Thou'rt now in cloudland: naught thy wisdom is:
For, though no God were this, — as thou dost say,—
God be he called of thee; in glorious fraud
Be Semele famed as mother of a God.
So upon all our house shall honour rest.
Rememberest thou Aktaion's wretched doom,
Whom the raw-ravening hounds himself had reared
Rent limb from limb in the meads, for that high boast
That Artemis in hunting he excelled?
Lest such be thy fate, let me crown thine head
With ivy: honour thou with us the God.

PENTHEUS.
Hence with thine hand! Go, play the Bacchanal,
Neither besmirch me with thy folly's stain.
This seer, thy monitor in senselessness,
Will I chastise. Let some one go with speed —
[To an attendant] Thou, hie thee to his seat of augury;
Upheave with levers, hurl it to the ground;
All in confusion turn it upside down;
His holy fillets fling to wind and storm:
For, doing so, I most shall wring his heart.
And some range through the city, and track down
That girl-faced stranger, who upon our wives
Bringeth strange madness, and defiles our beds.
And if ye catch him, hale him bound with chains
Hither, that death by stoning be his meed,
And so he rue his revelry in Thebes.

TEIRESIAS.
Ah wretch, thou knowest not what thou hast said!
Thou'rt stark-mad now, who erst wast sense-bereft.
Let us go, Kadmus, and make intercession
Both for this man, brute savage though he be,
And Thebes, that no strange vengeance of the God
Smite them. Come with me, ivy- wand in hand,
Essay to upbear my frame, as I do thine.
Shame if two greybeards fell! — nay, what of that?
For Bacchus, Son of Zeus, we needs must serve.
Kadmus, beware lest Pentheus bring his echo,
Repentance, to thine house: — not prophecy here
Speaks, but his own deeds. Fools alone speak folly.

[Exeunt.]

CHORUS.
O Sanctity, thou who dost bear dominion
Over Gods, yet low as this earthly ground,
Unto usward, stoopest thy golden pinion, —
Hear'st thou the words of the king, and the sound
Of his blast of defiance, of Pentheus assailing
The Clamour-king? — hear'st thou his blasphemous railing
On Semele's son, who is foremost found
Of the Blest in the festival beauty-crowned? —
Who hath for his own prerogative taken
To summon forth feet through his dances to leap,
When blent with the flutes light laughters awaken,
And the children of care have forgotten to weep,
Whensoever revealed is the cluster's splendour
In the banquet that men to the high Gods tender,
And o'er ivy-wreathed revellers drinking deep
The wine-bowl droppeth the mantle of sleep.

Of the reinless lips that will own no master,
Of the folly o'er law's pale stubborn to stray —
One is the end of them, even disaster;
But the calm life, still as a summer day,
But the foot whose faring discretion guideth,
Their steadfast state unshaken abideth,
And the home still findeth in such its stay.
Ah, the Heavenly Ones dwell far away,
Yet look they on men from their cloudy portals.
Ah, not with knowledge is Wisdom bought;
And the spirit that soareth too high for mortals
Shall see few days: whosoever hath caught
At the things too great for a man's attaining,
Even blessings assured shall he lose in the gaining.
Such paths as this, meseemeth, be sought
Of the witless folly that roves distraught.

O to flee hence unto where Aphrodite
Doth in Cyprus, the paradise-island, dwell,
The sea-ringed haunt of the Love-gods mighty
To weave the soul-enchanting spell,
Or the fields where untold is the harvest's gold,
Whereover the seven-mouthed river hath rolled,
Whereon rain never fell!
But O for the land that in beauty is peerless,
The Pierian haunt where the Muses sing!
On Olympus the hallowed to stand all fearless
Thitherward lead me, O Clamour-king!
O Revel-god, guide where the Graces abide
And Desire, — where danceth, of no man denied,
The Bacchanal ring.

Our God, the begotten of Zeus, hath pleasure
In the glee of the feast where his chalices shine;
And Peace doth he love, who is giver of treasure,
Who of Youth is the nursing-mother divine.
On the high, on the low, doth his bounty bestow
The joyance that maketh an end of woe,
The joyance of wine.
But he hateth the man that in scorn refuseth
A life that on pinions of happiness flies
Through its days and its nights, nor the good part chooseth.
Wisely shalt thou from the over-wise
Hold thee apart: but the faith of the heart
Of the people, that lives in the works of the mart,
For me shall suffice.

[Re-enter Pentheus. Enter Servant, with attendants, bringing Dionysus bound.]

SERVANT.
Pentheus, we come, who have run down this prey
For which thou sentest us, nor sped in vain.
This wild-beast found we tame: he darted not
In flight away, but yielded, nothing loth,
His hands, nor paled, nor changed his cheeks' rose-hue,
But smiling bade us bind and lead him thence,
And tarried, making easy this my task.
Then shamed I said, "Not, stranger, of my will,
But by commands of Pentheus, lead I thee."
The captured Bacchanals thou didst put in ward,
And in the common prison bind with chains,
Fled to the meadows are they, loosed from bonds,
And dance and call on Bromius the God.
The fetters from their feet self-sundered fell;
Doors, without mortal hand, unbarred themselves.
Yea, fraught with many marvels this man came
To Thebes! To thee the rest doth appertain.

PENTHEUS.
Let loose his hands. Once taken in the toils,
He is not so fleet as to escape from me.
Ha! of thy form thou art not ill-favoured, stranger,
For woman's tempting — even thy quest at Thebes.
No wrestler thou, as show thy flowing locks,
Down thy cheeks floating, fraught with all desire;
And white, from heedful tendance, is thy skin,
Smit by no sun-shafts, but made wan by shade,
While thou dost hunt desire with beauty's lure.
First, tell me of what nation sprung thou art.

DIONYSUS.
No high vaunt this — 'tis easy to declare:
Of flowery Tmolus haply thou hast heard.

PENTHEUS.
I know: it compasseth the Sardians' town.

DIONYSUS.
Thence am I: Lydia is my fatherland.

PENTHEUS.
Wherefore to Hellas bringest thou these rites?

DIONYSUS.
Dionysus, Zeus' son, made me initiate.

PENTHEUS.
Lives a Zeus there, who doth beget new gods?

DIONYSUS.
Nay, the same Zeus who wedded Semele here.

PENTHEUS.
Dreaming or waking wast thou made his thrall?

DIONYSUS.
Nay, eye to eye his mysteries he bestowed.

PENTHEUS.
Ay, of what fashion be these mysteries?

DIONYSUS.
'Tis secret, save to the initiate.

PENTHEUS.
What profit bring they to his votaries?

DIONYSUS.
Thou mayst not hear: yet are they worth thy knowing.

PENTHEUS.
Shrewd counterfeiting, to whet lust to hear!

DIONYSUS.
His rites loathe him that worketh godlessness.

PENTHEUS.
Thou saw'st the God: what fashion was he of?

DIONYSUS.
As seemed him good: that did not I enjoin.

PENTHEUS.
This too thou hast shrewdly parried, telling nought.

DIONYSUS.
Wise answers seem but folly to a fool.

PENTHEUS.
Cam'st thou the first to bring his godhead hither?

DIONYSUS.
All Asians through these mystic dances tread.

PENTHEUS.
Ay, far less wise be they than Hellene men.

DIONYSUS.
Herein far wiser. Diverse wont is theirs.

PENTHEUS.
By night or day dost thou perform his rites?

DIONYSUS.
Chiefly by night: gloom lends solemnity.

PENTHEUS.
Ay — and for women snares of lewdness too.

DIONYSUS.
In the day too may lewdness be devised.

PENTHEUS.
Now punished must thy vile evasions be.

DIONYSUS.
Ay, and thy folly and impiety.

PENTHEUS.
How bold our Bacchant is, in word-fence skilled!

DIONYSUS.
What is my doom? What vengeance wilt thou wreak?

PENTHEUS.
Thy dainty tresses first will I cut off.

DIONYSUS.
Hallowed my locks are, fostered for the God.

PENTHEUS.
Next, yield me up this thyrsus from thine hands.

DIONYSUS.
Take it thyself. 'Tis Dionysus' wand.

PENTHEUS.
Thy body in my dungeon will I ward.

DIONYSUS.
The God's self shall release me, when I will.

PENTHEUS.
Ay — when mid Bacchanals thou call'st on him!

DIONYSUS.
Yea, he is now near, marking this despite.

PENTHEUS.
Ay, where? — not unto mine eyes manifest.

DIONYSUS.
Beside me. Thou, the impious, seest him not.

PENTHEUS.
Seize him! This fellow mocketh me and Thebes.

DIONYSUS.
I warn ye — bind not! — Reason's rede to folly.

PENTHEUS.
I bid them bind, who have better right than thou.

DIONYSUS.
Thou know'st thy life not, nor thy true self seest.

PENTHEUS.
Pentheus — Agave's and Echion's son.

DIONYSUS.
Yea, fitly named to be in misery pent.

PENTHEUS.
Away! Enjail him in the horses' stalls
Hard by, that he may see but murky gloom.
There dance! These women thou hast brought with thee,
Thy crimes' co-workers, I will sell for slaves,
Or make my weaving-damsels, and so hush
Their hands from cymbal-clang and smitten drum.

DIONYSUS.
I go. The fate that Fate forbids can ne'er
Touch me. On thee Dionysus shall requite
These insults — he whose being thou hast denied.
Outraging me, thou halest him to bonds.

[Exeunt Dionysus guarded, and Pentheus.]

CHORUS.
All hail, Acheloiis' Daughter,
Dirke the maiden, majestic and blest! — in thy cool-welling water
Thou receivedst in old time the offspring of Zeus 'neath thy silvery plashing,
When Zeus, who begat him, had snatched from the levin unquenchably flashing,
And sealed up the babe in his thigh, and aloud did the Father cry,
"Come! into this, Dithyrambus, the womb of no mother, pass thou: —
By this name unto Thebes I proclaim thee, O God of the Bacchanals, now."
Ah Dirke, thou thrustest me hence, when I bring thee the glorious vision
Of his garlanded revels! — now why am I scouted, disowned, and abhorred?
Yet there cometh — I swear by the full-clustered grace of the vine Dionysian —
An hour when thine heart shall accept Dionysus, shall hail him thy lord.

Lo, his earth-born lineage bewrayeth
Pentheus; the taint of the blood of the dragon of old he betrayeth,
The serpent that came of the seed of the earth-born Titan Echion.
It hath made him a grim-visaged monster, and not as a mortal's scion,
But as that fell giant brood that in strife with immortals stood.
He is minded to fetter me, Bromius' handmaid, with cords straightway:
He hath prisoned his palace within my companion in revel this day,
Dungeoned in gloom! Son of Zeus, are his deeds of thine eye unbeholden,
Dionysus? — thy prophets with tyranny wrestling in struggle and strain?
Sweep down the slope of Olympus, uptossing thy thyrsus golden:
Come to us, King, and the murderer's insolent fury refrain.

Ah, where dost thou linger on Nysa the mother of beasts of the wold,
Waving thy revellers on with thy wand, or where heavenward soar
Crests of Corycia, or haply where far forest-solitudes fold
Round the flanks of Olympus, where Orpheus constrained by his minstrelsy-lore
Trees round him adoring to press, and the beasts of the wilderness,
As he harped of yore?
Thrice-blessed Pieria-land,
Evius honoureth thee! — lo, he cometh, he cometh, on-leading
His dances with Bacchanal chants, over Axius' flood swift-speeding
He shall pass, he shall marshal the leaping feet in the dance-rings sweeping,
The feet of his Maenad-band.
On shall he haste over Lydias the river,
O'er the father of streams, the blessing-giver,
Whose waters fair, as the tale hath told,
O'er the land of the gallant war-steed rolled,
Spread fatness on every hand.

DIONYSUS (WITHIN).
What ho! Give heed to my voice, give heed!
Ho, Bacchanal-train, my Bacchanal-train!

[Members of Chorus answer severally.]

CHORUS 1.
What cry was it? — whence did it ring? — 'Twas the voice of mine Evian King!

DIONYSUS (WITHIN).
What ho! What ho! I call yet again,
I, Semele's offspring, Zeus's seed.

CHORUS 2.
What ho! Our Lord, our Lord! What ho!
Come to our revel-band thou,
Clamour-king, Clamour-king, now!

[Earthquake.]

Earth-floor, dost thou sway to and fro? O mighty earthquake-throe!
Ha, swiftly shall Pentheus' hall,
Sore shaken, crash to its fall!

CHORUS 3.
Dionysus within yon halls is his godhead revealing!
With homage adore him.

CHORUS 4.
We bow us before him.

[Earthquake.]

Lo, how the lintels of stone over yonder pillars are reeling!
Now shall the Clamour-king's triumph-shout through the halls go pealing.

DIONYSUS (WITHIN).
Kindle the torch of the levin lurid-red:
Let the compassing flames round the palace of Pentheus spread.

[A great blaze of light enwraps the palace and the monument of Semele.]

CHORUS 5.
Ha! dost thou see not the wildfire enwreathed
Round the holy tomb —
Lo, dost thou mark it not well? —
Which Semele thunder-blasted bequeathed,
Her memorial of doom
By the lightning from Zeus that fell?
Fling to the earth, ye Maenads, fling
Your bodies that tremble with sore dismay!
For he cometh, our King, Zeus' scion, to bring
Yon halls to confusion and disarray.

[Chorus fall on their faces. Enter Dionysus from the palace.]

DIONYSUS.
Ho, ye Asian women, are ye so distraught with sheer affright
That ye thus to earth be fallen? Ye beheld, meseems, the sight
When the house of Pentheus reeled as Bacchus shook it. Nay, upraise
From the earth your limbs, and banish from your bodies fear's amaze.

CHORUS.
Hail to thee, to us the mightiest light of Evian revelry!
With what rapture, late so lonely and forlorn, I look on thee!

DIONYSUS.
Ha, and did your hearts for terror fail you when I passed within,
Deeming I should sink to darkness, caught in Pentheus' dungeon-gin?

CHORUS.
Wherefore not? What shield had I, if thou into mischance shouldst fall?
Nay, but how didst thou escape, who wast a godless tyrant's thrall?

DIONYSUS.
I myself myself delivered, lightly, with nor toil nor strain.

CHORUS.
Nay, but bound he not thine hands with coiling mesh of chain on chain?

DIONYSUS.
My derision there I made him, that he deemed he fettered me,
Yet nor touched me, neither grasped me, fed on empty phantasy.
Nay, a bull beside the stalls he found where he would pen me fast:
Round the knees and round the hoofs of this he 'gan his cords to cast,
Breathing fury out, the while the sweat-gouts poured from every limb,
While he gnawed upon his lips — and I beside him watching him
Calmly at mine ease was sitting. Even then our Bacchus came,
And as with an earthquake shook the house, and lit a sudden flame
On his mother's tomb. The king beholding thought he saw his halls
Flame-enwrapped, and hither, thither, rushed he, wildly bidding thralls
Bring the water. Now was every bondman vainly toiling there.
Then he let this labour be, as deeming I had 'scaped the snare:
Straight within the building rushed he, drawing forth his falchion fell.
Then did Bromius, as to me it seemed — 'tis but my thought I tell, —
Fashion in his halls a wraith: he hurled himself thereon straightway,
Rushed, and stabbed the light-pervaded air, as thinking me to slay.
Then did Bacchus bring a new abasement of his pride to pass;
For he hurled to earth the building. There it lies, a ruin-mass, —
Sight to make my bonds full bitter to him! Now, with toil outworn,
Letting drop the sword, he falleth fainting. He, the mortal-born,
Dare to brave a God to battle! Then unhindered passed I through,
Recking nought of Pentheus: so from forth his halls I come to you.
But, methinks, — for there within the house a footfall's sound there is, —
He shall straightway come without. Ha, what shall he say unto this?
Lightly shall I bear his bluster, whatsoe'er his fury's stress;
For it is the wise man's part to rein his wrath in soberness.

[Enter Pentheus.]

PENTHEUS.
Foul outrage this! — the stranger hath escaped,
Though bound but now in fetters fast as fate.
Ha!
There is the man! What means this? How hast thou
Won forth to stand before my very halls?

DIONYSUS.
Stay there, and let thy fury softly tread.

PENTHEUS.
How hast thou 'scaped thy bonds and comest forth?

DIONYSUS.
Said I not — or didst hear not? — "One will free me?"

PENTHEUS.
Who? — Strange and ever strange thine answers are.

DIONYSUS.
He who makes grow for men the clustered vine.

PENTHEUS.
[Ay — who drives women frenzied from the home!]

DIONYSUS.
'Tis Dionysus' glory, this thy scoff.
Pentheus (to attendants).
I bid ye bar all towers round about.

DIONYSUS.
Why? Cannot Gods pass even over walls?

PENTHEUS.
Wise art thou, wise — save where thou shouldst be wise.

DIONYSUS.
Where most needs wisdom, therein am I wise.
But listen first to yon man, hear his tale
Who with some tidings from the mountains comes.
I will await thee: fear not lest I fly.

[Enter Herdman.]

HERDMAN.
Pentheus, thou ruler of this Theban land,
I from Kithairon come, whence never fail
The glistering silver arrows of the snow.

PENTHEUS.
Bringing what weighty tidings comest thou?

HERDMAN.
I have seen wild Bacchanals, who from this land
Have darted forth with white feet, frenzy-stung.
I come, King, fain to tell to thee and Thebes
What strange, what passing wondrous deeds they do.
Yet would I hear if freely I may tell
Things there beheld, or reef my story's sail.
For, King, I fear thy spirit's hasty mood,
Thy passion and thine over-royal wrath.

PENTHEUS.
Say on: of me shalt thou go all unscathed.
For we may not be wroth with honest men.
The direr sounds thy tale of the Bacchanals,
The sterner punishment will I inflict
On him who taught our dames this wickedness.

HERDMAN.
Thine herds of pasturing kine were even now
Scaling the steep hill-side, what time the sun
First darted forth his rays to warm the earth,
When lo, I see three Bacchant women-bands, —
Autonoe chief of one, of one thy mother
Agave, and the third band Ino led.
All sleeping lay, with bodies restful-strown;
Some backward leaned on leafy sprays of pine,
Some, with oak-leaves for pillows, on the ground
Flung careless; — modestly, not, as thou say'st,
Drunken with wine, amid the sighing of flutes
Hunting desire through woodland shades alone.
Then to her feet sprang in the Bacchanals' midst
Thy mother, crying aloud, "Shake from you sleep!"
When fell our horned kine's lowing on her ear.
They, dashing from their eyelids rosy sleep,
Sprang to their feet, a marvel of grace to see,
Young girls, old matrons, maidens yet unwed.
First down their shoulders let they stream their hair:
Then looped they up their fawnskins, — they whose bands
Had fallen loose, — and girt the dappled fells
Round them with snakes that licked their cheeks the while.
Some, cradling fawns or wolf-cubs in their arms,
Gave to the wild things of their breasts' white milk, —
Young mothers they, who had left their babes, that still
Their breasts were full. Then did they wreathe their heads
With ivy, oak, and flower-starred briony.
One grasped her thyrsus-staff, and smote the rock,
And forth upleapt a fountain's showering spray:
One in earth's bosom planted her reed-wand,
And up therethrough the God a wine-fount sent:
And whoso fain would drink white-foaming draughts
Scarred with their finger-tips the breast of earth,
And milk gushed forth unstinted: dripped the while
Sweet streams of honey from their ivy-staves.
Hadst thou been there, thou hadst, beholding this,
With prayer approached the God whom now thou spurnest.
Then we, thine herdmen and thy shepherds, drew
Together, each with each to hold dispute
Touching their awful deeds and marvellous.
And one, a townward truant, ready of speech,
To all cried, "Dwellers on the terraces
Of hallowed mountains, will ye that we chase
From Bacchus' revel Agave, Pentheus' mother,
And do our lord a kindness? "Well, thought we,
He spake, and we in ambush hid ourselves
Mid leaves of copses. At the appointed time
They waved the thyrsus for the revel-rites,
With one voice calling Iacchus, Clamour-king,
Zeus' seed. The hills, the wild things all, were thrilled
With ecstasy: nought but shook as on they rushed.
Now nigh to me Agave chanced to leap,
And forth I sprang as who would seize on her,
Leaving the thicket of mine ambush void.
Then shouted she, "What ho, my fleetfoot hounds,
We are chased by these men! Ho ye, follow me—
Follow, the thyrsus-javelins in your hands!"
O then we fled, and fleeing scantly 'scaped
The Bacchanals' rending grasp. Down swooped they then
Upon our pasturing kine with swordless hand.
Then hadst thou seen thy mother in her grip
Clutch a deep-uddered heifer bellowing loud:
And others rent the calves in crimson shreds.
Ribs hadst thou seen and cloven hoofs far hurled
This way and that, and flakes of flesh that hung
And dripped all blood-bedabbled 'neath the pines.
Bulls, chafing, lowering fiercely along the horn
Erewhile, were tripped and hurled unto the earth,
Dragged down by countless-clutching maiden hands.
More swiftly was the flesh that lapped their bones
Stripped, than thou couldst have closed thy kingly eyes.
On swept they, racing like to soaring birds,
To lowland plains which by Asopus' streams
Bear the rich harvests of the Theban folk, —
Hysiae, Erythrae, 'neath Kithairon's scaur
Low-nestling, — swooping on them like to foes,
This way and that way hurling all their goods,
Yea, from the houses snatching forth the babes.
Whatso they laid upon their shoulders, clung
Unfastened; nothing to the dark earth fell, —
Nor brass nor iron, — and upon their hair
They carried fire unscorched. The folk, in wrath
To be by Bacchanals pillaged, rushed to arms:
Whereupon, King, was this strange sight to see: —
From them the steel-tipt javelin drew not blood,
But they from their hands darting thyrsus-staves
Dealt wound on wound; and they, the women, turned
To flight men, for some God's hand wrought therein.
Then drew they back to whence their feet had come,
To those same founts the God sent up for them,
And washed the gore, while from their cheeks the snakes
Were licking with their tongues the blood-gouts clean.
Wherefore, whoe'er this God be, O my lord,
Receive him in this city; for, beside
His other might, they tell of him, I hear,
That he gave men the grief-assuaging vine.
When wine is no more found, then Love is not,
Nor any joy beside is left to men.

CHORUS.
Words wherein freedom rings I dread to speak
Before the King; yet shall my thought be voiced:
Dionysus is not less than any God.

PENTHEUS.
Lo, it is on us, kindling like a flame,
The Bacchanal outrage, our reproach through Greece!
We may not dally: — to Electra's gate
Go thou; bid all my warriors that bear shield
To meet me, and all riders of fleet steeds,
And all that shake the buckler, all who twang
The bowstring; for against the Bacchanals
Forth will we march; for this should pass all bounds,
To endure of women that we now endure.

DIONYSUS.
No whit thou yieldest, though thou hear'st my words,
Pentheus. Yet, though thou dost despite to me,
I warn thee — bear not arms against a God;
But bide still. Bromius will not brook that thou
Shouldst drive his Bacchanals from their revel-hills.

PENTHEUS.
School thou not me; but, having 'scaped thy bonds,
Content thee: else again I punish thee.

DIONYSUS.
Better slay victims unto him than rage,
Spurning the goads, a mortal 'gainst a God.

PENTHEUS.
Victims? — yea women-victims, fitly slain:
Wild work of slaughter midst Kithairon's glens!

DIONYSUS.
Flee shall ye all; and shame were this, that shields
Brass-forged from wands of Bacchanals turn back.

PENTHEUS.
This stranger — vainly wrestle we with him:
Doing nor suffering will he hold his peace.

DIONYSUS.
Friend, yet this evil may be turned to good.

PENTHEUS.
How? — by becoming my bondwomen's thrall?

DIONYSUS.
I without arms will bring the women hither.

PENTHEUS.
Ha! here for me thou plottest treachery!

DIONYSUS.
Treachery? — I would save thee by mine art!

PENTHEUS.
Ye have made this covenant, so to revel aye.

DIONYSUS.
Nay: know, this covenant made I with the God.
Pentheus (to attendant).
Bring forth mine arms! — thou, make an end of speech.

DIONYSUS.
Ho thou!
Wouldst thou behold them camped upon the hills?

PENTHEUS.
Ay — though with sumless gold I bought the sight.

DIONYSUS.
Why on this mighty longing hast thou fallen?

PENTHEUS.
To see them drunk with wine — a bitter sight!

DIONYSUS.
Yet wouldst thou gladly see a bitter sight?

PENTHEUS.
Yea, sooth, in silence crouched beneath the pines.

DIONYSUS.
Yet will they track thee, stealthily though thou come.

PENTHEUS.
Openly then! — yea, well hast thou said this.

DIONYSUS.
Shall I then guide thee? Wilt essay the path?

PENTHEUS.
Lead on with speed: I grudge thee all delay!

DIONYSUS.
Array thee now in robes of linen fine.

PENTHEUS.
Wherefore? From man shall I to woman turn?

DIONYSUS.
Lest they should kill thee, seeing thee there as man.

PENTHEUS.
Well said — yea, shrewd hast thou been heretofore.

DIONYSUS.
Such science Dionysus taught to me.

PENTHEUS.
How then shall thy fair rede become mine act?

DIONYSUS.
I will into thine halls, and robe thee there.

PENTHEUS.
What robe? A woman's? — nay, but I think shame.

DIONYSUS.
Is thy desire to watch the Maenads dead?

PENTHEUS.
In what garb, say'st thou, wouldst thou drape my form?

DIONYSUS.
Thine head with flowing tresses will I tire.

PENTHEUS.
And the next fashion of my vesture — what?

DIONYSUS.
Long robes: and on thine head a coif shall be.

PENTHEUS.
Nought else but these wouldst thou add unto me?

DIONYSUS.
Thyrsus in hand, and dappled fell of fawn.

PENTHEUS.
I cannot drape me in a woman's robe!

DIONYSUS.
Then in the fight with Maenads blood must flow.

PENTHEUS.
Ay, true: — first must I go and spy them out.

DIONYSUS.
Sooth, wiser so than hunt thee ills with ills.

PENTHEUS.
Yet, how through Kadmus' city pass unseen?

DIONYSUS.
By lone paths will we go. Myself will guide.

PENTHEUS.
Better were anything than Bacchants' mock.

DIONYSUS.
I will pass in, and what befits devise.

PENTHEUS.
So be it. I am resolved: my path is clear.
I go; for I must needs march sword in hand,
Or do according unto thine advice.

[Exit.]

DIONYSUS.
Women, the man sets foot within the toils.
The Bacchants — and death's penalty — shall he find.
Dionysus, play thy part now; thou art near:
Let us take vengeance. Craze thou first his brain,
Indarting sudden madness. Whole of wit,
Ne'er will he yield to don the woman's robe:
Yet shall he don, driven wide of reason's course.
I long withal to make him Thebes' derision,
In woman-semblance led the city through,
After the erstwhile terrors of his threats.
I go, to lay on Pentheus the attire
Which he shall take with him. to Hades, slain
By a mother's hands. And he shall know Zeus' son
Dionysus, who hath risen at last a God
Most terrible, yet kindest unto men.

[Exit.]

CHORUS.
Ah, shall my white feet in the dances gleam
The livelong night again? Ah, shall I there
Float through the Bacchanal's ecstatic dream,
Tossing my neck into the dewy air? —
Like to a fawn that gambols mid delight
Of pastures green, when she hath left behind
The chasing horror, and hath sped her flight
Past watchers, o'er nets deadly-deftly twined,
Though shouting huntsmen cheer the racing hounds
Onward, the while with desperate stress and strain
And bursts of tempest-footed speed she bounds
Far over reaches of the river-plain,
Till sheltering arms of trees around her close,
The twilight of the tresses of the woods; —
O happy ransomed one, safe hid from foes
Where no man tracks the forest-solitudes!
What wisdom's crown, what guerdon, shines more glorious
That Gods can give the sons of men, than this —
O'er crests of foes to stretch the hand victorious?
Honour is precious evermore, I wis.

Slowly on-sweepeth, but unerringly,
The might of Heaven, with sternest lessoning
For men who in their own mad fantasy
Exalt their unbelief, and crown it king —
Mortals who dare belittle things divine!
Ah, but the Gods in subtle ambush wait:
On treads the foot of time; but their design
Is unrelinquished, and the ruthless fate
Quests as a sleuth-hound till it shall have tracked
The godless down in that relentless hunt.
We may not, in the heart's thought or the act,
Set us above the law of use and wont.
Little it costs, faith's precious heritage,
To trust that whatsoe'er from Heaven is sent
Hath sovereign sway, whate'er through age on age
Hath gathered sanction by our nature's bent.
What wisdom's crown, what guerdon, shines more glorious
That Gods can give the sons of men, than this —
O'er crests of foes to stretch the hand victorious?
Honour is precious evermore, I wis.

Blest who from ravening seas
Hath 'scaped to haven-peace,
Blest who hath triumphed in endeavour's toil and throe.
This man to higher height
Attains, of wealth, of might,
Than that; yet myriad hopes in myriad hearts still glow:
To fair fruition brought
Are some, some come to nought:
Happy is he whose bliss from day to day doth grow.

[Enter Dionysus.]

DIONYSUS.
Thou who dost burn to see forefended things,
Pentheus, O zealous with an evil zeal,
Come forth before thine halls: be seen of me
Womanlike clothed in frenzied Bacchant's garb,
To spy upon thy mother and her troop.

[Enter Pentheus.]

So!— like a daughter of Kadmus is thy form.

PENTHEUS.
Aha! meseemeth I behold two suns,
A twofold Thebes, our seven-gated burg!
A bull thou seem'st that leadeth on before;
And horns upon thine head have sprouted forth.
How, wast thou brute? — bull art thou verily now!

DIONYSUS.
The God attends us, gracious not ere this,
Leagued with us now: now seest thou as thou shouldst.

PENTHEUS.
Whose semblance bear I? Have I not the mien
Of Ino, or my mother Agave's port?

DIONYSUS.
Their very selves I seem to see in thee.
Yet, what? — this tress hath from his place escaped,
Not as I braided it beneath the coif.

PENTHEUS.
Tossing it forth and back within, in whirls
Of Bacchic frenzy, I disordered it.

DIONYSUS.
Nay, I, who have taken thy tire-maiden's part,
Will rearrange it. Come, hold up thine head.

PENTHEUS.
Lo there — thou lay it smooth: to thee I look.

DIONYSUS.
Now is thy girdle loose; thy garment's folds
Droop not below thine ankles evenly.

PENTHEUS.
Yea, by my right foot so, meseems, it is.
To left, true by the sinew hangs the robe.

DIONYSUS.
Me wilt thou surely count thy chiefest friend,
When sight of sober Bacchants cheats thine hopes.

PENTHEUS.
This thyrsus — shall I hold it in this hand,
Or this, the more to seem true Bacchanal.

DIONYSUS.
In the right hand, and with the right foot timed
Bear it: — all praise to thy converted heart!

PENTHEUS.
Could I upon my shoulders raise the glens
Of Mount Kithairon, yea, and the Bacchanals?

DIONYSUS.
Thou mightest, an thou wouldst: erewhile thy soul
Was warped; but now 'tis even as befits.

PENTHEUS.
With levers? — or shall mine hands tear it up
With arm or shoulder thrust beneath its crests?

DIONYSUS.
Now nay — the shrines of Nymphs destroy not thou,
And haunts of Pan that with his piping ring.

PENTHEUS.
True — true: we must not overcome by force
The women. I will hide me midst the pines.

DIONYSUS.
Such hiding shall be thine as fate ordains,
Who com'st with guile, a spy on Bacchanals.

PENTHEUS.
Methinks I see them mid the copses caught,
Like birds, in toils of their sweet dalliance.

DIONYSUS.
To this end then art thou appointed watchman:
Perchance shalt catch them — if they catch not thee.

PENTHEUS.
On through the midst of Thebes' town usher me,
For I, I only of them, dare such deed.

DIONYSUS.
Alone for Thebes thou travailest, thou alone;
Wherefore for thee wait tug and strain foredoomed.
Follow: all safely will I usher thee.
Another thence shall bring thee, —

PENTHEUS.
Ay, my mother.

DIONYSUS.
To all men manifest —

PENTHEUS.
For this I come.

DIONYSUS.
High-borne shalt thou return —

PENTHEUS.
O silken ease!

DIONYSUS.
On a mother's hands.

PENTHEUS.
Thou wouldst thrust pomp on me!

DIONYSUS.
Nay, 'tis but such pomp —

PENTHEUS.
As is my desert.

DIONYSUS.
Strange, strange man! Strange shall thine experience be.
So shalt thou win renown that soars to heaven.

[Exit Pentheus.]

Agave, stretch forth hands; ye sisters, stretch,
Daughters of Kadmus! To a mighty strife
I bring this prince. The victor I shall be
And Bromius. All else shall the issue show.

[Exit.]

CHORUS.
Up, ye swift hell-hounds of Madness! Away to the mountain-glens, where
Kadmus's daughters hold revel, and sting them to fury, to tear
Him who hath come woman-vestured to spy on the Bacchanals there,
Frenzy-struck fool that he is! — for his mother shall foremost descry
Him, as from water-worn scaur or from storm-riven tree he would spy
That which they do, and her shout to the Maenads shall peal from on high: —
"Who hath come hither, hath trodden the paths to the mountain that lead,
Spying on Kadmus's daughters, the maids o'er the mountains that speed,
Bacchanal-sisters? — what mother hath brought to the birth such a seed?
Who was it? — who? — for I ween he was born not of womankind's blood:
Rather he sprang from the womb of a lioness, scourge of the wood;
Haply is spawn of the Gorgons of Libya, the demon-brood."
Justice, draw nigh us, draw nigh, with the sword of avenging appear:
Slay the unrighteous, the seed of Echion the earth-born, and shear
Clean through his throat, for he feareth not God, neither law doth he fear.

Lo, how in impious mood, and with lawless intent, and with spite
Madness-distraught, with thy rites and thy mother's he cometh to fight,
Bacchus — to bear the invincible down by his impotent might!
Thus shall one gain him a sorrowless life, if he keepeth his soul
Sober in spirit, and swift in obedience to heaven's control,
Murmuring not, neither pressing beyond his mortality's goal.
No such presumptuous wisdom I covet: I seek for mine own —
Yea, in the quest is mine happiness — things that not so may be known,
Glorious wisdom and great, from the days everlasting forth-shown,
Even to fashion in pureness my life and in holiness aye,
Following ends that are noble from dawn to the death of the day,
Honouring Gods, and refusing to walk in injustice's way.
Justice, draw nigh us, draw nigh, with the sword of avenging appear:
Slay the unrighteous, the seed of Echion the earth-born, and shear
Clean through his throat; for he feareth not God, neither law doth he fear.

O Dionysus, reveal thee! — appear as a bull to behold,
Or be thou seen as a dragon, a monster of heads manifold,
Or as a lion, with splendours of flame round the limbs of him rolled.
Come to us, Bacchus, and smiling in mockery compass him round
Now with the toils of destruction, and so shall the hunter be bound,
Trapped mid the throng of the Maenads, the quarry his questing hath found.

[Enter Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
O house of old through Hellas prosperous
Of that Sidonian patriarch, who sowed
The earth-born serpent's dragon-teeth in earth,
How I bemoan thee! What though thrall I be,
Their lords' calamities touch loyal thralls.

CHORUS.
What now? — hast tidings of the Bacchanals?

MESSENGER.
Pentheus is dead: Echion's son is dead.

CHORUS.
Bromius my King! thou hast made thy godhead plain!

MESSENGER.
How, what is this thou say'st? Dost thou exult,
Woman, upon my lord's calamities?

CHORUS.
An alien I, I chant glad outland strain,
Who cower no more in terror of the chain.

MESSENGER.
Deemest thou Thebes so void of men — z

CHORUS.
Dionysus it is, 'tis the King of the Vine
That hath lordship o'er me, no Thebes of thine!

MESSENGER.
This might be pardoned, save that base it is,
Women, to joy o'er evils past recall.

CHORUS.
Tell to me, tell, — by what doom died he,
The villain devising villainy?

MESSENGER.
When, from the homesteads of this Theban land
Departing, we had crossed Asopus' streams,
Then we began to breast Kithairon's steep,
Pentheus and I, — for to my lord I clave, —
And he who ushered us unto the scene.
First in a grassy dell we sat us down
With footfall hushed and tongues refrained from speech,
That so we might behold, all unbeheld.
There was a glen crag-walled, with rills o'erstreamed,
Closed in with pine-shade, where the Maenad girls
Sat with hands busied with their blithesome toils.
The faded thyrsus some with ivy-sprays
Twined, till its tendril-tresses waved again:
Others, like colts from carven wain-yokes loosed,
Re-echoed each to each the Bacchic chant.
But hapless Pentheus, seeing ill the throng
Of women, spake thus: "Stranger, where we stand,
Are these mock-maenad maids beyond my ken.
Some knoll or pine high-crested let me climb,
And I shall see the Maenads' lewdness well."
A marvel then I saw the stranger do.
A soaring pine-branch by the top he caught,
And dragged down — down — still down to the dark earth.
Arched as a bow it grew, or curving wheel
That on the lathe sweeps out its circle's round:
So bowed the stranger's hands that mountain-branch,
And bent to earth — a deed past mortal might!
Then Pentheus on the pine-boughs seated he,
And let the branch rise, sliding through his hands
Gently, with heedful care to unseat him not.
High up into the heights of air it soared,
Bearing my master throned upon its crest,
More by the Maenads seen than seeing them.
For scarce high-lifted was he manifest,
When lo, the stranger might no more be seen;
And fell from heaven a voice — the voice, most like,
Of Dionysus, — crying, "O ye maids,
I bring him who would mock at you and me,
And at my rites. Take vengeance on him ye!"
Even as he cried, up heavenward, down to earth,
He flashed a pillar-splendour of awful flame.
Hushed was the welkin: that fair grassy glen
Held hushed its leaves; no wild thing's cry was heard.
But they, whose ears not clearly caught the sound,
Sprang up, and shot keen glances right and left.
Again he cried his hest: then Kadmus' daughters
Knew certainly the Bacchic God's command,
And darted: and the swiftness of their feet
Was as of doves in onward-straining race —
His mother Agave and her sisters twain,
And all the Bacchanals. Through torrent gorge,
O'er boulders, leapt they, with the God's breath mad.
When seated on the pine they saw my lord,
First torrent-stones with might and main they hurled,
Scaling a rock, their counter-bastion,
And javelined him with branches of the pine:
And others shot their thyrsi through the air
At Pentheus — woeful mark! — yet nought availed.
For, at a height above their fury's pitch,
Trapped in despair's gin, horror-struck he sat.
Last, oak-limbs from their trunks they thundered down,
And heaved at the roots with levers — not of iron.
But when they won no end of toil and strain,
Agave cried, "Ho, stand we round the trunk,
Maenads, and grasp, that we may catch the beast
Crouched there, that he may not proclaim abroad
Our God's mysterious rites! "Their countless hands
Set they unto the pine, tore from the soil: — nio
And he. high-seated, crashed down from his height:
And earthward fell with frenzy of shriek on shriek
Pentheus, for now he knew his doom at hand.
His mother first, priest-like, began the slaughter,
And fell on him: but from his hair the coif
He tore, that she might know and slay him not, —
Hapless Agave! — and he touched her cheek,
Crying, "'Tis I — O mother! — thine own son
Pentheus — thou bar'st me in Echion's halls!
Have mercy, O my mother! — for my sin
Murder not thou thy son — thy very son!"
But she, with foaming lips and eyes that rolled
Wildly, and reckless madness-clouded soul,
Possessed of Bacchus, gave no heed to him;
But his left arm she clutched in both her hands,
And set against the wretch's ribs her foot,
And tore his shoulder out — not by her strength,
But the God made it easy to her hands.
And Ino laboured on the other side,
Rending his flesh: Autonoe pressed on — all
The Bacchanal throng. One awful blended cry
Rose — the king's screams while life was yet in him,
And triumph-yells from them. One bare an arm,
One a foot sandal-shod. His ribs were stripped
In mangled shreds:J with blood-bedabbled hands
Each to and fro was tossing Pentheus' flesh.
Wide-sundered lies his corse: part 'neath rough rocks,
Part mid the tangled depths of forest- shades: —
Hard were the search. His miserable head
Which in her hands his mother chanced to seize,
Impaled upon her thyrsus-point she bears,
Like mountain-lion's, through Kithairon's midst,
Leaving her sisters in their Maenad dance;
And, in her ghastly quarry exulting, comes
Within these walls, to Bacchus crying aloud,
Her fellow-hunter, helper in the chase
Triumphant — all its triumph-prize is tears!
But from this sight of misery will I
Depart, or ever Agave reach the halls.
Ay, self-restraint, and reverence for the Gods
Are best, I ween; 'tis wisest far for men
To get these in possession, and cleave thereto.

[Exit.]

CHORUS.
Raise we to Bacchus the choral acclaim,
Shout we aloud for the fall
Of the king, of the blood of the Serpent who came,
Who arrayed him in woman's pall;
And the thyrsus-ferule he grasped — but the same
Was a passport to Hades' hall:l
And a bull was his guide to a doom of shame!
O Bacchanal-maids Kadmeian,
Ye have gained for you glory — a victory-paean
To be drowned in lamenting and weeping.
O contest triumphantly won, when a mother in blood of her son
Her fingers is steeping!
But lo, I see fast hurrying to the halls
Agave, Pentheus' mother, with wild eyes
Rolling: — hail ye the revel of our God!

[Enter Agave, carrying the head of Pentheus.]

AGAVE.
Asian Bacchanals!

CHORUS.
Why dost thou challenge me?— say.

AGAVE.
Lo, from the mountain-side I bear
A newly-severed ivy-spray
Unto our halls, a goodly prey.

CHORUS.
I see — to our revels I welcome thee.

AGAVE.
I trapped him, I, with never a snare!
'Tis a lion — the whelp of a lion, plain to see.

CHORUS.
Where in the wilderness, where?

AGAVE.
Kithairon —

CHORUS.
What hath Kithairon wrought?

AGAVE.
Him hath Kithairon to slaughter brought.

CHORUS.
Who was it smote him first?

AGAVE.
Mine, mine is the guerdon.
Their revel-rout singeth me — "Happy Agave! "their burden.

CHORUS.
Who then?

AGAVE.
Of Kadmus —

CHORUS.
Of Kadmus what wilt thou tell?

AGAVE.
His daughter after me smote the monster fell —
After me! O fortunate hunting! Is it not well?

Now share in the banquet! —

CHORUS.
Alas! wherein shall I share?

AGAVE.
This whelp is yet but a tender thing,
And over its jaws yet sprouteth fair
The down 'neath the crest of its waving hair.

CHORUS.
Yea, the hair of a beast of the wold might it be.

AGAVE.
Uproused was the Maenad gathering
To the chase, by a cunning hunter full cunningly.

CHORUS.
Yea, a hunter is Bacchus our King.

AGAVE.
Dost thou praise me?

CHORUS.
How can I choose but praise?

AGAVE.
Ay, and full soon shall Kadmus' race —

CHORUS.
And Pentheus thy son —

AGAVE.
Yea, I shall have praise of my scion
For the prey that is taken, even this whelp of a lion.

CHORUS.
Strange quarry! —

AGAVE.
And strangely taken.

CHORUS.
Art glad?

AGAVE.
I am fain
For the triumph achieved, both goodly and great, and plain
For the land to see, in the booty mine hands have ta'en.

CHORUS.
Show forth now, hapless one, to all the folk
The triumph-spoil that hither thou hast brought.

AGAVE.
Ye, in the fair-towered burg of Theban land
Which dwell, draw nigh to look upon this prey,
The beast we, Kadmus' daughters, hunted down —
Not with the thong- whirled darts of Thessaly,
Neither with nets, but with the fingers white
Of our own hands. What boots the idle vaunt
Of men who get them tools by armourers wrought,
When we, with bare hands only, took the prey,
And rent asunder all the monster's limbs?
Where is mine ancient sire? Let him draw near.
And my son Pentheus where? Let him upraise
A ladder's stair against the palace wall,
That to the triglyphs he may nail this head,
This lion's head that I from hunting bring.

[Enter Kadmus, with attendants carrying a bier.]

KADMUS.
Follow me, henchmen, to the palace-front;
Follow me, bearing Pentheus' ghastly load,
Whose limbs by toilsome searchings manifold,
About Kithairon's glens all rent apart
I found, and bring — no twain in one place found,
But lying all about the trackless wood.
For of my daughters' desperate deeds I heard,
Even as I passed within the city-walls
With old Teiresias from the Bacchant revel.
Back to the mountain turned I; and I bring
My son thence, who by Maenads hath been slain.
There her who bore Aktaion to Aristaius
I saw, Autonoe, saw Ino there
Still midst the oak-groves, wretches frenzy-stung.
But hitherward, said one, with Bacchant feet
Had passed Agave, and the truth I heard:
For I behold her — sight of misery!

AGAVE.
My father, proudest boast is thine to make,
To have begotten daughters best by far
Of mortals — all thy daughters, chiefly me,
Me who left loom and shuttle, and pressed on
To high emprise, to hunt beasts with mine hands.
And in mine arms I bring, thou seest, this
The prize I took, against thy palace-wall
To hang: receive it, father, in thine hands.
And now, triumphant in mine hunting's spoil,
Bid to a feast thy friends; for blest art thou,
Blest verily, since we have achieved such deeds.

KADMUS.
O anguish measureless that blasts the sight!
O murder compassed by these wretched hands!
Fair victim this to cast before the Gods,
And bid to such a banquet Thebes and me!
Woe for our sorrows! — first for thine, then mine!
How hath the God, King Bromius, ruined us! —
Just stroke — yet ruthless — is he not our kin?

AGAVE.
How sour of mood is greybeard eld in men,
Flow sullen-eyed! Framed in his mother's mould
A mighty hunter may my son become,
When with the Theban youths he speedeth forth
Questing the quarry! — But he can do nought
Save war with Gods! Father, our part it is
To warn him not to joy in baneful wisdom.
Where is he? Who will call him hitherward
To see me, and behold mine happiness?

KADMUS.
Alas! when ye are ware what ye have done,
With sore grief shall ye grieve! If to life's end
Ye should abide on aye in this your state,
Ye should not, though unblest, seem all accurst.

AGAVE.
What is not well here? — what that calls for grief?

KADMUS.
First cast thou up thine eye to yonder heaven.

AGAVE.
Lo, so I do. Why bid me look thereon?

KADMUS.
Seems it the same? Or hath it changed to thee?

AGAVE.
Brighter it is — more clear than heretofore.

KADMUS.
Is this delirium tossing yet thy soul?

AGAVE.
This comprehend I not: — yet — yet — it passes,
My late mood — I am coming to myself.

KADMUS.
Canst hearken aught then? Clearly canst reply?

AGAVE.
Our words late-spoken — father, I forget them.

KADMUS.
To what house earnest thou with bridal-hymns?

AGAVE.
Echion's — of the Dragon-seed, men say.

KADMUS.
Thou barest — in thine halls, to thy lord — whom?

AGAVE.
Pentheus — -born of my union with his sire.

KADMUS.
Whose head — whose? — art thou bearing in thine arms?

AGAVE.
A lion's — so said they which hunted it.

KADMUS.
Look well thereon: — small trouble this, to look.

AGAVE.
Ah-h! what do I see? What bear I in mine hands?

KADMUS.
Gaze, gaze on it, and be thou certified.

AGAVE.
I see — mine uttermost anguish! Woe is me!

KADMUS.
Seems it to thee now like a lion's head?

AGAVE.
No! — wretched! — wretched!— Pentheus' head I hold!

KADMUS.
Of me bewailed ere recognised of thee.

AGAVE.
Who murdered him? How came he to mine hands?

KADMUS.
O piteous truth that so untimely dawns!

AGAVE.
Speak! Hard my heart beats, waiting for its doom.

KADMUS.
Thou! — thou, and those thy sisters murdered him.

AGAVE.
Where perished he? — at home, or in what place?

KADMUS.
There, where Aktaion erst by hounds was torn.

AGAVE.
How to Kithairon went this hapless one?

KADMUS.
To mock the God and thy wild rites he went.

AGAVE.
But we — for what cause thither journeyed we?

KADMUS.
Ye were distraught: all Thebes went Bacchant-wild.

AGAVE.
Dionysus ruined us! I see it now.

KADMUS.
Ye flouted him, would not believe him God.

AGAVE.
Where, father, is my son's beloved corse?

KADMUS.
Here do I bear it, by hard searching found.

AGAVE.
Is it all meetly fitted limb to limb?

KADMUS.
[Yea — now I add thereto this dear-loved head.]

AGAVE.
But — in my folly what was Pentheus' part?

KADMUS.
He Avas as ye, revering not the God,
Who therefore in one mischief whelmed you all,
You, and this prince, so ruining all our house
And me, who had no manchild of mine own,
Who see now, wretched daughter, this the fruit
Of thy womb horribly and foully slain.
To thee our house looked up, O son, the stay
Of mine old halls; my daughter's offspring thou,
Thou wast the city's dread: was none dared mock
The old man, none that turned his eyes on thee,
O gallant head! — thou hadst well requited him.
Now from mine halls shall I in shame be cast —
Kadmus the great, who sowed the seed of Thebes,
And reaped the goodliest harvest of the world.
O best-beloved! — for, though thou be no more,
Thou shalt be counted best-beloved, O child,
Thou who shalt fondle never more my head,
Nor clasp and call me "Mother's father," child,
Crying, "Who wrongs thee, ancient? — flouts thee who?
Who vexeth thee to trouble thine heart's peace?
Speak, that I may chastise the wrong, my sire."
Now am I anguish-stricken, wretched thou,
Woeful thy mother, and her sisters wretched!
If any man there be that scorns the Gods,
This man's death let him note, and so believe.

CHORUS.
Kadmus, for thee I grieve. Thy daughter's son
Hath but just doom — yet bitter doom for thee.

AGAVE.
Father, thou seest what change hath passed o'er me —

DIONYSUS.
— Thou to a serpent shalt be changed: thy wife
Harmonia, Ares' child, whom thou didst wed
When man, embruted shall to a snake be changed.
Thou with thy wife shalt drive a wain of steers
Leading barbaric hordes, Zeus' oracle saith,
And many a city with thy countless host
Shalt sack: but when they plunder Loxias' shrine,
Then shall they get them bitter home-return.
Thee and Harmonia shall Ares save,
And stablish in the Blessed Land your lives.
This say I, of no mortal father born,
Dionysus, but of Zeus. Had ye but learnt
Wisdom, what time ye would not, ye had been
Blest now, with Zeus' son for your champion gained.

AGAVE.
Dionysus, we beseech thee! — we have sinned.

DIONYSUS.
Too late ye know me, who knew not in your hour.

AGAVE.
We know it: but thy vengeance passeth bounds.

DIONYSUS.
I am a God: ye did despite to me.

AGAVE.
It fits not that in wrath Gods be as men.

DIONYSUS.
Long since my father Zeus ordained this so.

AGAVE.
Alas! our woeful exile's doom is sealed!

DIONYSUS.
Why then delay the fate that needs must be?

[Exit.]

KADMUS.
Daughter, to what dread misery are we come,
Thou — woe is thee! — thy sisters, and thy son!
I must in sorrow visit alien men,
A grey-haired sojourner. I am doomed withal
On Greeks to lead a mingled alien host;
And Ares' child, Harmonia my wife,
In serpent form shall I, a serpent, lead
Against our Hellas' altars and her tombs,
Captaining spears. And I shall find no rest
From woes, alas! nor that down-rushing stream
Of Acheron shall I cross and be at peace!

AGAVE.
Robbed of thee, father, exiled shall I be!

KADMUS.
Why cast thine arms about me, hapless child?
Like white swan cherishing its helpless sire?

AGAVE.
Whither can I turn, outcast from my land?

KADMUS.
I know not, child. Small help thy father is.

AGAVE.
Farewell, mine home; farewell, ye city-towers
Of fatherland! In anguish of despair
I pass an exile from my bridal bowers.

KADMUS.
Child, to the halls of Aristaius fare:
Abide thou there.

AGAVE.
I mourn thee, father!

KADMUS.
Child, I mourn for thee;
And for thy sisters do I weep withal.

AGAVE.
For Dionysus' tyrannous majesty
Most fearfully hath caused upon thine hall
This shame to fall.

KADMUS.
Yea, outrage foul to him of you was done,
In that his name in Thebes was held in scorn.

AGAVE.
Farewell, my father.

KADMUS.
Farewell, hapless one,
Daughter! — ah, hardly shalt thou reach such bourn!

AGAVE.
O ye, to my sisters guide me,
My companions in banishment's misery.
O that afar I might hide me
Where accursed Kithairon shall look not on me,
Neither I with mine eyes shall Kithairon see,
Where memorial is none of the thyrsus-spear!
Be these unto other Bacchanals dear.

CHORUS.
O the works of the Gods — in manifold wise they reveal them:
Manifold things unhoped-for the Gods to accomplishment bring.
And the things that we looked for, the Gods deign not to fulfil them;
And the paths undiscerned of our eyes, the Gods unseal them.
So fell this marvellous thing.

[Exeunt omnes.]