Are ye so stricken with terror that ye have fallen to the earth, Oforeign dames? Ye saw then, it would seem, how the Bacchic god made Pentheus' halls to quake; but arise, be of good heart, compose your trembling limbs.
CHORUS
O chiefest splendour of our gladsome Bacchic sport, with what joy I see thee in my loneliness!
DIONYSUS
Were ye cast down when I was led into the house, to be plunged into the gloomy dungeons of Pentheus?
CHORUS
Indeed I was.Who was to protect me, if thou shouldst meet with mishap? But how wert thou set free from the clutches of this godless wretch?
DIONYSUS
My own hands worked out my own salvation, easily and without trouble.
CHORUS
But did he not lash fast thy hands with cords?
DIONYSUS
There too I mocked him; he thinks he bound me, whereas he never touched or caught hold of me, but fed himself on fancy.For at the stall, to which he brought me for a gaol, he found a bull, whose legs and hoofs he straightly tied, breathing out fury the while, the sweat trickling from his body, and he biting his lips; but I from near at hand sat calmly looking on.Meantime came the Bacchic god and made the house quake, and at his mother's tomb relit the fire; but Pentheus, seeing this, thought his palace was ablaze, and hither and thither he rushed, bidding his servants bring water; but all in vain was every servant's busy toil.Thereon he let this labour be awhile, and, thinking maybe that I had escaped, rushed into the palace with his murderous sword unsheathed.Then did Bromius-so at least it seemed to me; I only tell you what I thought-made a phantom in the hall, and he rushed after it in headlong haste, and stabbed the lustrous air, thinking he wounded me.Further the Bacchic god did other outrage to him; he dashed the building to the ground, and there it lies a mass of ruin, a sight to make him rue most bitterly my bonds.At last from sheer fatigue he dropped his sword and fell fainting; for he a mortal frail, dared to wage war upon a god; but I meantime quietly left the house and am come to you, with never a thought of Pentheus.
But methinks he will soon appear before the house; at least there is a sound of steps within.What will he say, I wonder, after this? Well, be his fury never so great, I will lightly bear it; for 'tis a wise man's way to school his temper into due control.
Enter PENTHEUS.
PENTHEUS
Shamefully have I been treated; that stranger, whom but now I made so fast in prison, hath escaped me.Ha! there is the man! What means this? How didst thou come forth, to appear thus in front of my palace?
DIONYSUS
Stay where thou art; and moderate thy fury.
PENTHEUS
How is it thou hast escaped thy fetters and art at large?
DIONYSUS
Did I not say, or didst thou not hear me, "There is one will loose me."PENTHEUS
Who was it? there is always something strange in what thou sayest.
DIONYSUS
He who makes the clustering vine to grow for man.
PENTHEUS
[I scorn him and his vines!]
DIONYSUS
A fine taunt indeed thou hurlest here at Dionysus!
PENTHEUS (To his servants)
Bar every tower that hems us in, I order you.
DIONYSUS
What use? Cannot gods pass even over walls?
PENTHEUS
How wise thou art, except where thy wisdom is needed!
DIONYSUS
Where most 'tis needed, there am I most wise.But first listen to yonder messenger and hear what he says; he comes from the hills with tidings for thee; and I will await thy pleasure, nor seek to fly.
Enter MESSENGER.
Messenger.
Pentheus, ruler of this realm of Thebes! I am come from Cithaeron, where the dazzling flakes of pure white snow ne'er cease to fall.
PENTHEUS
What urgent news dost bring me?
MESSENGER
I have seen, O king, those frantic Bacchanals, who darted in frenzy from this land with bare white feet, and I am come to tell thee and the city the wondrous deeds they do, deeds passing strange.But I fain would hear, whether I am freely to tell all I saw there, or shorten my story; for I fear thy hasty temper, sire, thy sudden bursts of wrath and more than princely rage.
PENTHEUS
Say on, for thou shalt go unpunished by me in all respects; for to be angered with the upright is wrong.The direr thy tale about the Bacchantes, the heavier punishment will I inflict on this fellow who brought his secret arts amongst our women.
MESSENGER
I was just driving the herds of kine to a ridge of the hill as Ifed them, as the sun shot forth his rays and made the earth grow warm;when lo! I see three revel-bands of women; Autonoe was chief of one, thy mother Agave of the second, while Ino's was the third.There they lay asleep, all tired out; some were resting on branches of the pine, others had laid their heads in careless ease on oak-leaves piled upon the ground, observing all modesty; not, as thou sayest, seeking to gratify their lusts alone amid the woods, by wine and soft flute-music maddened.
Anon in their midst thy mother uprose and cried aloud to wake them from their sleep, when she heard the lowing of my horned kine.And up they started to their feet, brushing from their eyes sleep's quickening dew, a wondrous sight of grace and modesty, young and old and maidens yet unwed.First o'er their shoulders they let stream their hair; then all did gird their fawn-skins up, who hitherto had left the fastenings loose, girdling the dappled hides with snakes that licked their cheeks.Others fondled in their arms gazelles or savage whelps of wolves, and suckled them-young mothers these with babes at home, whose breasts were still full of milk; crowns they wore of ivy or of oak or blossoming convolvulus.And one took her thyrsus and struck it into the earth, and forth there gushed a limpid spring;and another plunged her wand into the lap of earth and there the god sent up a fount of wine; and all who wished for draughts of milk had but to scratch the soil with their finger-tips and there they had it in abundance, while from every ivy-wreathed staff sweet rills of honey trickled.
