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Home  »  The Bacchæ  »  Lines 1200–1691

Euripides (480 or 485–406 B.C.). The Bacchæ.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Lines 1200–1691

CHORUS


Some MaidensO hounds raging and blind,Up by the mountain road,Sprites of the maddened mind,To the wild Maids of God;Fill with your rage their eyes,Rage at the rage unblest,Watching in woman’s guise,The spy upon God’s Possessed.
A Bacchanal


Who shall be first, to markEyes in the rock that spy,Eyes in the pine-tree dark—Is it his mother?—and cry:“Lo, what is this that comes,Haunting, troubling still,Even in our heights, our homes,The wild Maids of the Hill?What flesh hare this child?Never on woman’s breastChangeling so evil smiled;Man is he not, but Beast!Loin-shape of the wild,Gorgon-breed of the waste!”
All the Chorus


Hither, for doom and deed!Hither with lifted sword,Justice, Wrath of the Lord,Come in our visible need!Smite till the throat shall bleed,Smite till the heart shall bleed,Him the tyrannous, lawless, Godless, Echîon’s earth-born seed!
Other Maidens


Tyrannously hath he trod;Marched him, in Law’s despite,Against thy Light, O God,Yea, and thy Mother’s Light;Girded him, falsely bold,Blinded in craft, to quellAnd by man’s violence holdThings unconquerable
A Bacchanal


A strait pitiless mindIs death unto godliness;And to feel in human kindLife, and a pain the less.Knowledge, we are not foes!I seek thee diligently;But the world with a great wind blows,Shining, and not from thee;Blowing to beautiful things,On, amid dark and light,Till Life, through the trammellingsOf Laws that are not the Right,Breaks, clean and pure, and singsGlorying to God in the height!
All the Chorus


Hither for doom and deed!Hither with lifted sword,Justice, Wrath of the Lord,Come in our visible need!Smite till the throat shall bleed,Smite till the heart shall bleed,Him the tyrannous, lawless, Godless, Echîon’s earth born seed!
LEADER


Appear, appear, whatso thy shape or nameO Mountain Bull, Snake of the Hundred Heads,Lion of Burning Flame!O God, Beast, Mystery, come! Thy mystic maidsAre hunted!—Blast their hunter with thy breath,Cast o’er his head thy snare;And laugh aloud and drag him to his death,Who stalks thy herded madness in its lair!
Enter hastily a MESSENGER from the Mountain, pale and distraught.


MESSENGER


Woe to the house once blest in Hellas! WoeTo thee, old King Sidonian, who didst sowThe 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, Echîon’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 thoughIn 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 forlornOf manhood, as to sit beneath thy scorn?
LEADER


Thebes bath 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 habitingsOf Theban shepherds, passed Asopus’ springs,And struck into the land of rock on dimKithaeron—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, warilyWatching, to be unseen and yet to see.A narrow glen it was, by crags o’ertowered,Torn through by tossing waters, and there loweredA shadow of great pines over it. And thereThe Maenad maidens sate; in toil they were,Busily glad. Some with an ivy chainTricked 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 bandBefore him. “Stranger,” he cried, “where we standMine 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 thatThere came a marvel. For the Stranger straightTouched a great pine-tree’s high and heavenward crown,And lower, lower, lower, urged it downTo 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 stemBowed 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 highIt 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 suddenlyThere 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 despiteBoth 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 stirredIn all the forest dell. Thou hadst not heardIn 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 knewTheir God’s clear call, old Cadmus’ royal brood,Up, like wild pigeons startled in a wood,On flying feet they came, his mother blind,Agâvê, and her sisters, and behindAll 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 furiouslySome sought to stone him, some their wands would flingLance-wise aloft, in cruel targeting.But none could strike. The height o’ertopped their rage,And there he clung, unscathed, as in a cageCaught. And of all their strife no end was found.Then, “Hither,” cried Agâvê; “stand we roundAnd grip the stem, my Wild Ones, till we takeThis climbing cat-o’-the-mount! He shall not makeA tale of God’s high dances!” Out then shoneArm upon arm, past count, and closed uponThe pine, and gripped; and the ground gave, and downIt reeled. And that high sitter from the crownOf the green pine-top, with a shrieking cryFell, as his mind grew clear, and there hard byWas horror visible. ’Twas his mother stoodO’er him, first priestess of those rites of blood.He tore the coif, and from his head awayFlung it, that she might know him, and not slayTo her own misery. He touched the wildCheek, crying: “Mother, it is I, thy child,Thy Pentheus, born thee in Echîon’s hall!Have mercy, Mother! Let it not befallThrough sin of mine, that thou shouldst slay thy son!”But she, with lips a-foam and eyes that runLike leaping fire, with thoughts that ne’er should beOn earth, possessed by Bacchios utterly,Stays not nor hears. Round his left arm she putBoth hands, set hard against his side her foot,Drew … and the shoulder severed!—not by mightOf arm, but easily, as the God made lightHer hand’s essay. And at the other sideWas Ino rending; and the torn flesh cried,And on Autonoë pressed, and all the crowdOf ravening arms. Yea, all the air was loudWith groans that faded into sobbing breath,Dim shrieks, and joy, and triumph-cries of death.And here was borne a severed arm, and thereA hunter’s hooted foot; white bones lay bareWith rending; and swift hands ensanguinèdTossed as in sport the flesh of Pentheus dead. His body lies afar. The precipiceHath part, and parts in many an intersticeLurk of the tangled woodland—no light questTo 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 faceWas 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 dayShe bears in triumph … her own broken heart!For me, after that sight, I will departBefore Agâvê comes.—Oh, to fulfilGod’s laws, and have no thought beyond His will,Is man’s hest 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 callPraise to God!Bless ye the Tyrant’s fall!Down is trodPentheus, 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 doomedWild Bull of Sacrifice before him loomed!
Others


Ye who did Bromios scorn,Praise Him the more,Bacchanals, Cadmus-born;Praise with soreAgony, yea, with tears!Great are the gifts he bears!Hands that a mother rearsRed with gore!
LEADER


But stay, Agâvê cometh! And her eyesMake fire around her, reeling! Ho, the prizeCometh! 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-shornHither a Mountain ThornBear we! O Asia-bornBaechanals, 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 onThe 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 confessèd!And they named me there by himAgâvê the Blessèd!
LEADER


Who was next in the hand on him?
AGAVE


The daughters.…
LEADER


The daughters?
AGAVE


Of Cadmus laid hand on him.But the swift hand that slaughtersIs 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 wildThat head, those lacks 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 OnesThou 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 onMy 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 breakingOf 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 citadelAnd shining towers of ancient Thêbê 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-setThessalian javelins, not with hunter’s net,Only white arms and swift hands’ bladed fall.Why make ye much ado, and boast withalYour armourers’ engines? See, these palms were bareThat caught the angry beast, and held, and tareThe limbs of him!… Father!… Go, bring to meMy father!… Aye, and Pentheus, where is he,My son? He shall set up a ladder-stairAgainst this house, and in the triglyphs thereNail me this lion’s head, that gloriouslyI 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 grievouslyWith many a weary search at last in dimKithaeron’s glens I found, torn limb from limb,And through the intervening forest weedScattered.—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 againTo seek my murdered son. There saw I plainActaeon’s mother, ranging where he died,Autonoë; and Ino by her side,Wandering ghastly in the pine-copses.Agâvê was not there. The rumour isShe 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 powerAnd valiant above all mankind—yea, allValiant, though none like me! I have let fallThe shuttle by the loom, and raised my handFor higher things, to slay from out thy landWild beasts! See, in mine arms I hear the prize,That nailed above these portals it may riseTo show what things thy daughters did! Do thouTake it, and call a feast. Proud art thou nowAnd highly favoured in our valiancy!
CADMUS


O depth of grief, how can I fathom theeOr look upon thee!—Poor, poor bloodstained hand!Poor sisters!—A fair sacrifice to standBefore God’s altars, daughter; yea, and callMe 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 oneWho might have loved—our Bromios, our own!
AGAVE


How crabbèd and how scowling in the eyesIs man’s old age!—Would that my son likewiseWere happy of his hunting, in my wayWhen with his warrior hands he will essayThe wild beast!—Nay, his valiance is to fightWith God’s will! Father, thou shouldst set him right.….Will no one bring him thither, that mine eyesMay look on his, and show him this my prize!
CADMUS


Alas, if ever ye can know againThe truth of what ye did, what pain of painThat truth shall bring! Or were it best to waitDarkened for evermore, and deem your stateNot 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 changèd 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 willClears, and some change cometh, I know not how.
CADMUS


Caust hearken then, being changed, and answer Dow!
AGAVE


I have forgotten something; else I could.
CADMUS


What husband led thee of old from mine abode?
AGAVE


Echîon, whom men named the Child of Earth.
CADMUS


And what child in Echîon’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 he on the hills this day?
CADMUS


Being mad! A spirit drove all the land that way.
CADMUS


’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 notThe God; who therefore to one bane hath broughtYou 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 frightfullyLies murdered! Whom the house looked up unto,[Kneeling by the body.O Child, my daughter’s child! who heldest trueMy castle walls; and to the folk a nameOf fear thou wast; and no man sought to shameMy grey beard, when they knew that thou wast there,Else had they swift reward!—And now I fareForth in dishonour, outcast, I, the greatCadmus, who sowed the seed-rows of this stateOf Thebes, and reaped the harvest wonderful.O my belovèd, though thy heart is dullIn death, O still belovèd, and alwayBeloved! Never more, then, shalt thou layThine hand to this white heard, and speak to meThy “Mother’s Father”; ask “Who wrongeth thee?Who stints thine honour, or with malice stirsThine heart? Speak, and I smite thine injurers!”But now—woe, woe, to me and thee also,Woe to thy mother and her sisters, woeAlway! Oh, whoso walketh not in dreadOf Gods, let him but look on this man dead!
LEADER


Lo, I weep with thee. ’Twas but due rewardGod sent on Pentheus; but for thee… ’Tis hard.
AGAVE


My father, thou canst see the change in me,
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[A page or more has here been torn out of the MS. from which all our copies of “The Bacchæ” are derived. It evidently contained a speech of Agâvê (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 ThingStrange, and beside thee she whom thou didst bringOf old to be thy bride from Heaven afar,Harmonia, daughter of the Lord of War.Yea, and a chariot of kine—so spakeThe word of Zeus—thee and thy Queen shall takeThrough many lands, Lord of a wild arrayOf orient spears. And many towns shall theyDestroy beneath thee, that vast horde, untilThey touch Apollo’s dwelling, and fulfilTheir 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 confessedOf no man but of Zeus!—Ah, had ye seenTruth in the hour ye would not, all had beenWell 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-flownTo prey on Hellas; lead my spouse, mine ownHarmonia, Ares’ child, discorporateAnd haunting forms, dragon and dragon-mate,Against the tombs and altar-stones of Greece,Lance upon lance behind us; and not ceaseFrom toils, like other men, nor dream, nor pastThe 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 shameYe 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 redKithaeron 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 he 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.