[Enter hastily a MESSENGER from the Mountain, pale and distraught.]
MESSENGER
Woe to the house once blest in Hellas! Woe
To thee, old King Sidonian, who didst sow
The dragon-seed on Ares' bloody lea!
Alas, even thy slaves must weep for thee!
LEADER
News from the mountain? - Speak! How hath it sped?
MESSENGER
Pentheus, my king, Echion's son, is dead!
LEADER
All hail, God of the Voice,
Manifest ever more!
MESSENGER
What say'st thou? - And how strange thy tone, as though
In joy at this my master's overthrow!
LEADER
With fierce joy I rejoice,
Child of a savage shore;
For the chains of my prison are broken, and the dread where I cowered of
yore!
MESSENGER
And deem'st thou Thebes so beggared, so forlorn
Of manhood, as to sit beneath thy scorn?
LEADER
Thebes hath o'er me no sway!
None save Him I obey,
Dionysus, Child of the Highest, Him I obey and adore!
MESSENGER
One can forgive thee! - Yet 'tis no fair thing,
Maids, to rejoice in a man's suffering.
LEADER
Speak of the mountain side!
Tell us the doom he died,
The sinner smitten to death, even where his sin was sore!
MESSENGER
We climbed beyond the utmost habitings
Of Theban shepherds, passed Asopus' springs,
And struck into the land of rock on dim
Kithaeron - Pentheus, and, attending him,
I, and the Stranger who should guide our way,
Then first in a green dell we stopped, and lay,
Lips dumb and feet unmoving, warily
Watching, to be unseen and yet to see.
A narrow glen it was, by crags o'ertowered,
Torn through by tossing waters, and there lowered
A shadow of great pines over it. And there
The Maenad maidens sate; in toil they were,
Busily glad. Some with an ivy chain
Tricked a worn wand to toss its locks again;
Some, wild in joyance, like young steeds set free,
Made answering songs of mystic melody.
But my poor master saw not the great band
Before him. "Stranger," he cried, "where we stand
Mine eyes can reach not these false saints of thine.
Mount we the bank, or some high-shouldered pine,
And I shall see their follies clear!" At that
There came a marvel. For the Stranger straight
Touched a great pine-tree's high and heavenward crown,
And lower, lower, lower, urged it down
To the herbless floor. Round like a bending bow,
Or slow wheel's rim a joiner forces to.
So in those hands that tough and mountain stem
Bowed slow - oh, strength not mortal dwelt in them! -
To the very earth. And there he set the King,
And slowly, lest it cast him in its spring.
Let back the young and straining tree, till high
It towered again amid the towering sky;
And Pentheus in the branches! Well, I ween,
He saw the Maenads then, and well was seen!
For scarce was he aloft, when suddenly
There was no stranger any more with me,
But out of Heaven a Voice - oh, what voice else? -
'Twas He that called! "Behold, O damosels,
I bring ye him who turneth to despite
Both me and ye, and darkeneth my great Light.
Tis yours to avenge!" So spake he, and there came
'Twixt earth and sky a pillar of high flame.
And silence took the air, and no leaf stirred
In all the forest dell. Thou hadst not heard
In that vast silence any wild things's cry.
And up they sprang; but with bewildered eye,
Agaze and listening, scarce yet hearing true.
Then came the Voice again. And when they knew
Their God's clear call, old Cadmus' royal brood,
Up, like wild pigeons startled in a wood,
On flying feet they came, his mother blind,
Agave, and her sisters, and behind
All the wild crowd, more deeply maddened then,
Through the angry rocks and torrent-tossing glen,
Until they spied him in the dark pine-tree:
Then climbed a crag hard by and furiously
Some sought to stone him, some their wands would fling
Lance-wise aloft, in cruel targeting.
But none could strike. The height o'ertopped their rage,
And there he clung, unscathed, as in a cage
Caught. And of all their strife no end was found.
Then, "Hither," cried Agave; "stand we round
And grip the stem, my Wild Ones, till we take
This climbing cat-o'-the-mount! He shall not make
A tale of God's high dances!" Out then shone
Arm upon arm, past count, and closed upon
The pine, and gripped; and the ground gave, and down
It reeled. And that high sitter from the crown
Of the green pine-top, with a shrieking cry
Fell, as his mind grew clear, and there hard by
Was horror visible. 'Twas his mother stood
O'er him, first priestess of those rites of blood.
He tore the coif, and from his head away
Flung it, that she might know him, and not slay
To her own misery. He touched the wild
Cheek, crying: "Mother, it is I, thy child,
Thy Pentheus, born thee in Echion's hall!
Have mercy, Mother! Let it not befall
Through sin of mine, that thou shouldst slay thy son!"
But she, with lips a-foam and eyes that run
Like leaping fire, with thoughts that ne'er should be
On earth, possessed by Bacchios utterly,
Stays not nor hears. Round his left arm she put
Both hands, set hard against his side her foot,
Drew ... and the shoulder severed! - not by might
Of arm, but easily, as the God made light
Her hand's essay. And at the other side
Was Ino rending; and the torn flesh cried,
And on Autonoe pressed, and all the crowd
Of ravening arms. 'Yea, all the air was loud
With groans that faded into sobbing breath,
Dim shrieks, and joy, and triumph-cries of death.
And here was borne a severed arm, and there
A hunter's booted foot; white bones lay bare
With rending; and swift hands ensanguined
Tossed as in sport the flesh of Pentheus dead.
His body lies afar. The precipice
Hath part, and parts in many an interstice
Lurk of the tangled woodland - no light quest
To find. And, ah, the head! Of all the rest,
His mother hath it, pierced upon a wand,
As one might pierce a lion's, and through the land,
Leaving her sisters in their dancing place,
Bears it on high! Yea, to these walls her face
Was set, exulting in her deed of blood,
Calling upon her Bromios, her God,
Her Comrade, Fellow-Render of the Prey,
Her All-Victorious, to whom this day
She bears in triumph ... her own broken heart.
For me, after that sight, I will depart
Before Agave comes. - Oh, to fulfil
God's laws, and have no thought beyond His will,
Is man's best treasure. Aye, and wisdom true,
Methinks, for things of dust to cleave unto!
[The MESSENGER departs into the Castle.]
CHORUS
Some Maidens
Weave ye the dance, and call
Praise to God!
Bless ye the Tyrant's fall!
Down is trod
Pentheus, the Dragon's Seed!
Wore he the woman's weed?
Clasped he his death indeed,
Clasped the rod?
A Bacchanal
Yea, the wild ivy lapt him, and the doomed
Wild Bull of Sacrifice before him loomed!
Others
Ye who did Bromios scorn,
Praise Him the more,
Bacchanals, Cadmus-born;
Praise with sore
Agony, yea, with tears!
Great are the gifts he bears!
Hands that a mother rears
Red with gore!
LEADER
But stay, Agave cometh! And her eyes
Make fire around her, reeling! Ho, the prize
Cometh! All hail, O Rout of Dionyse!
[Enter from the Mountain AGAVE, mad, and to all seeming wondrously
happy, bearing the head of PENTHEUS in her hand. The CHORUS MAIDENS
stand horror-struck at the sight; the LEADER, also horror-struck,
strives to accept it and rejoice in it as the God's deed.]
AGAVE
Ye from the lands of Morn!
LEADER
Call me not; I give praise!
AGAVE
Lo, from the trunk new-shorn
Hither a Mountain Thorn
Bear we! O Asia-born
Bacchanals, bless this chase!
LEADER
I see. Yea; I see.
Have I not welcomed thee?
AGAVE (very calmly and peacefully)
He was young in the wildwood
Without nets I caught him!
Nay; look without fear on
The Lion; I have ta'en him!
LEADER
Where in the wildwood?
Whence have ye brought him?
AGAVE
Kithaeron. . . .
LEADER
Kithaeron?
AGAVE
The Mountain hath slain him!
LEADER
Who first came nigh him?
AGAVE
I, I, 'tis confessed!
And they named me there by him
Agave the Blessed!
LEADER
Who was next in the band on him?
AGAVE
The daughters....
LEADER
The daughters?
AGAVE
Of Cadmus laid hand on him.
But the swift hand that slaughters
Is mine; mine is the praise!
Bless ye this day of days!
[The LEADER tries to speak, but is not able;
AGAVE begins gently stroking the head.]
AGAVE
Gather ye now to the feast!
LEADER
Feast! - O miserable!
AGAVE
See, it falls to his breast,
Curling and gently tressed,
The hair of the Wild Bull's crest -
The young steer of the fell!
LEADER
Most like a beast of the wild
That head, those locks defiled.
AGAVE (lifting up the head, more excitedly)
He wakened his Mad Ones,
A Chase-God, a wise God!
He sprang them to seize this!
He preys where his band preys.
LEADER (brooding, with horror)
In the trail of thy Mad Ones
Thou tearest thy prize, God!
AGAVE
Dost praise it?
LEADER
I praise this?
AGAVE
Ah, soon shall the land praise!
LEADER
And Pentheus, O Mother,
Thy child?
AGAVE
He shall cry on
My name as none other,
Bless the spoils of the Lion!
LEADER
Aye, strange is thy treasure!
AGAVE
And strange was the taking!
LEADER
Thou art glad?
AGAVE
Beyond measure;
Yea, glad in the breaking
Of dawn upon all this land,
By the prize, the prize of my hand!
LEADER
Show them to all the land, unhappy one,
The trophy of this deed that thou hast done!
AGAVE
Ho, all ye men that round the citadel
And shining towers of ancient Thebe dwell,
Come! Look upon this prize, this lion's spoil,
That we have taken - yea, with our own toil,
We, Cadmus' daughters! Not with leathern-set
Thessalian javelins, not with hunter's net,
Only white arms and swift hands' bladed fall
Why make ye much ado, and boast withal
Your armourers' engines? See, these palms were bare
That caught the angry beast, and held, and tare
The limbs of him! ... Father! ... Go, bring to me
My father! ... Aye, and Pentheus, where is he,
My son? He shall set up a ladder-stair
Against this house, and in the triglyphs there
Nail me this lion's head, that gloriously
I bring ye, having slain him - I, even I!
[She goes through the crowd towards the Castle, showing the head and
looking for a place to hang it. Enter from the Mountain CADMUS, with
attendants, bearing the body of PENTHEUS on a bier.]
CADMUS
On, with your awful burden. Follow me,
Thralls, to his house, whose body grievously
With many a weary search at last in dim
Kithaeron's glens I found, torn limb from limb,
And through the intervening forest weed
Scattered. - Men told me of my daughters' deed,
When I was just returned within these walls,
With grey Teiresias, from the Bacchanals.
And back I hied me to the hills again
To seek my murdered son. There saw I plain
Actaeon's mother, ranging where he died,
Autonoe; and Ino by her side,
Wandering ghastly in the pine-copses.
Agave was not there. The rumour is
She cometh fleet-foot hither. - Ah! 'Tis true;
A sight I scarce can bend mine eyes unto.
AGAVE (turning from the Palace and seeing him)
My father, a great boast is thine this hour.
Thou hast begotten daughters, high in power
And valiant above all mankind - yea, all
Valiant, though none like me! I have let fall
The shuttle by the loom, and raised my hand
For higher things, to slay from out thy land
Wild beasts! See, in mine arms I bear the prize,
That nailed above these portals it may rise
To show what things thy daughters did! Do thou
Take it, and call a feast. Proud art thou now
And highly favoured in our valiancy!
CADMUS
O depth of grief, how can I fathom thee
Or look upon thee! - Poor, poor bloodstained hand!
Poor sisters! - A fair sacrifice to stand
Before God's altars, daughter; yea, and call
Me and my citizens to feast withal!
Nay, let me weep - for thine affliction most,
Then for mine own. All, all of us are lost,
Not wrongfully, yet is it hard, from one
Who might have loved - our Bromios, our own!
AGAVE
How crabbed and how scowling in the eyes
Is man's old age! - Would that my son likewise
Were happy of his hunting, in my way
When with his warrior bands he will essay
The wild beast! - Nay, his valiance is to fight
With God's will! Father, thou shouldst set him right.
Will no one bring him thither, that mine eyes
May look on his, and show him this my prize!
CADMUS
Alas, if ever ye can know again
The truth of what ye did, what pain of pain
That truth shall bring! Or were it best to wait
Darkened for evermore, and deem your state
Not misery, though ye know no happiness?
AGAVE
What seest thou here to chide, or not to bless?
CADMUS (after hesitation, resolving himself)
Raise me thine eyes to yon blue dome of air!
AGAVE
'Tis done. What dost thou bid me seek for there?
CADMUS
Is it the same, or changed in thy sight?
AGAVE
More shining than before, more heavenly bright!
CADMUS
And that wild tremour, is it with thee still?
AGAVE (troubled)
I know not what thou sayest; but my will
Clears, and some change cometh, I know not how.
CADMUS
Canst hearken then, being changed, and answer, now!
AGAVE
I have forgotten something; else I could.
CADMUS
What husband led thee of old from mine abode?
AGAVE
Echion, whom men named the Child of Earth.
CADMUS
And what child in Echion's house had birth?
AGAVE
Pentheus, of my love and his father's bred.
CADMUS
Thou bearest in thine arms an head - what head?
AGAVE (beginning to tremble, and not looking at what she carries)
A lion's - so they all said in the chase.
CADMUS
Turn to it now - 'tis no long toil - and gaze.
AGAVE
Ah! But what is it? What am I carrying here?
CADMUS
Look once upon it full, till all be clear!
AGAVE
I see... most deadly pain! Oh, woe is me!
CADMUS
Wears it the likeness of a lion to thee?
AGAVE
No; 'tis the head - O God! - of Pentheus, this!
CADMUS
Blood-drenched ere thou wouldst know him! Aye, 'tis his.
AGAVE
Who slew him? - How came I to hold this thing?
CADMUS
O cruel Truth, is this thine home-coming?
AGAVE
Answer! My heart is hanging on thy breath!
CADMUS
'Twas thou. - Thou and thy sisters wrought his death.
AGAVE
In what place was it? His own house, or where?
CADMUS
Where the dogs tore Actaeon, even there.
AGAVE
Why went he to Kithaeron? What sought he?
CADMUS
To mock the God and thine own ecstasy.
AGAVE
But how should we be on the hills this day?
CADMUS
Being mad! A spirit drove all the land that way.
AGAVE
'Tis Dionyse hath done it! Now I see.
CADMUS (earnestly)
Ye wronged Him! Ye denied his deity!
AGAVE (turning from him)
Show me the body of the son I love!
CADMUS (leading her to the bier)
'Tis here, my child. Hard was the quest thereof.
AGAVE
Laid in due state?
[As there is no answer, she lifts the veil of the bier, and sees.]
Oh, if I wrought a sin,
'Twas mine! What portion had my child therein!
CADMUS
He made him like to you, adoring not
The God; who therefore to one bane hath brought
You and this body, wrecking all our line,
And me. Aye, no man-child was ever mine;
And now this first-fruit of the flesh of thee,
Sad woman, foully here and frightfully
Lies murdered! Whom the house looked up unto,
[Kneeling by the body.]
O Child, my daughter's child! who heldest true
My castle walls; and to the folk a name
Of fear thou wast; and no man sought to shame
My grey beard, when they knew that thou wast there,
Else had they swift reward! - And now I fare
Forth in dishonour, outcast, I, the great
Cadmus, who sowed the seed-rows of this state
Of Thebes, and reaped the harvest wonderful.
O my beloved, though thy heart is dull
In death, O still beloved, and alway
Beloved! Never more, then, shalt thou lay
Thine hand to this white beard, and speak to me
Thy "Mother's Father"; ask "Who wrongeth thee?
Who stints thine honour, or with malice stirs
Thine heart? Speak, and I smite thine injurers!"
But now - woe, woe, to me and thee also,
Woe to thy mother and her sisters, woe
Alway! Oh, whoso walketh not in dread
Of Gods, let him but look on this man dead!
LEADER
Lo, I weep with thee. 'Twas but due reward
God sent on Pentheus; but for thee ... 'Tis hard.
AGAVE
My father, thou canst see the change in me,
* * * * *
* * * * *
[A page or more has here been torn out of the MS. from which all our
copies of "The Bacchae" are derived. It evidently contained a speech of
Agave (followed presumably by some words of the Chorus), and an appearance
of DIONYSUS upon a cloud. He must have pronounced judgment upon the
Thebans in general, and especially upon the daughters of CADMUS, have
justified his own action, and declared his determination to establish his
godhead. Where the MS begins again, we find him addressing CADMUS.]
* * * * *
DIONYSUS
* * * * *
* * * * *
And tell of Time, what gifts for thee he bears,
What griefs and wonders in the winding years.
For thou must change and be a Serpent Thing
Strange, and beside thee she whom thou didst bring
Of old to be thy bride from Heaven afar,
Harmonia, daughter of the Lord of War.
Yea, and a chariot of kine - so spake
The word of Zeus - thee and thy Queen shall take
Through many lands, Lord of a wild array
Of orient spears. And many towns shall they
Destroy beneath thee, that vast horde, until
They touch Apollo's dwelling, and fulfil
Their doom, back driven on stormy ways and steep.
Thee only and thy spouse shall Ares keep,
And save alive to the Islands of the Blest.
Thus speaketh Dionysus, Son confessed
Of no man but of Zeus! - Ah, had ye seen
Truth in the hour ye would not, all had been
Well with ye, and the Child of God your friend!
AGAVE
Dionysus, we beseech thee! We have sinned!
DIONYSUS
Too late! When there was time, ye knew me not!
AGAVE
We have confessed. Yet is thine hand too hot.
DIONYSUS
Ye mocked me, being God; this your wage.
AGAVE
Should God be like a proud man in his rage?
DIONYSUS
'Tis as my sire, Zeus, willed it long ago.
AGAVE (turning from him almost with disdain)
Old man, the word is spoken; we must go.
DIONYSUS
And seeing ye must, what is it that ye wait?
CADMUS
Child, we are come into a deadly strait,
All; thou, poor sufferer, and thy sisters twain,
And my sad self. Far off to barbarous men,
A grey-haired wanderer, I must take my road.
And then the oracle, the doom of God,
That I must lead a raging horde far-flown
To prey on Hellas; lead my spouse, mine own
Harmonia. Ares' child, discorporate
And haunting forms, dragon and dragon-mate,
Against the tombs and altar-stones of Greece,
Lance upon lance behind us; and not cease
From toils, like other men, nor dream, nor past
The foam of Acheron find my peace at last.
AGAVE
Father! And I must wander far from thee!
CADMUS
O Child, why wilt thou reach thine arms to me,
As yearns the milk-white swan, when old swans die?
AGAVE
Where shall I turn me else? No home have I.
CADMUS
I know not; I can help thee not.
AGAVE
Farewell, O home, O ancient tower!
Lo, I am outcast from my bower,
And leave ye for a worser lot.
CADMUS
Go forth, go forth to misery,
The way Actaeon's father went!
AGAVE
Father, for thee my tears are spent.
CADMUS
Nay, Child, 'tis I must weep for thee;
For thee and for thy sisters twain!
AGAVE
On all this house, in bitter wise,
Our Lord and Master, Dionyse,
Hath poured the utter dregs of pain!
DIONYSUS
In bitter wise, for bitter was the shame
Ye did me, when Thebes honoured not my name.
AGAVE
Then lead me where my sisters be;
Together let our tears be shed,
Our ways be wandered; where no red
Kithaeron waits to gaze on me;
Nor I gaze back; no thyrsus stem,
Nor song, nor memory in the air.
Oh, other Bacchanals be there,
Not I, not I, to dream of them!
[AGAVE with her group of attendants goes out on the side away from
the Mountain. DIONYSUS rises upon the Cloud and disappears.]
CHORUS
There may be many shapes of mystery,
And many things God makes to be,
Past hope or fear.
And the end men looked for cometh not,
And a path is there where no man thought.
So hath it fallen here.
[Exeunt.]
