Unseemly mingled with the sons of Thebes,

On the roofless rocks 'neath the pale pines they sit."

Cadmus the king, and Tiresias the seer, well knowing that Bacchus is really what he assumes to beafter a little hesitation about their novel attire in fawn-skins, their ivy-crown, and thyrsus, determine to join the Bacchanal rout; and Tiresias, as the king's ghostly confessor, preaches to him the following doctrine, sound indeed in itself, but uncommon in Euripidean drama :

"No wile, no paltering with the deities.

The ancestral faith, coeval with our race,
No subtle reasoning, if it soar aloft,

Even to the height of wisdom, can o'erthrow."

Their purpose, however, to speed at once to the mountains, is stayed by the entrance of Pentheus, who has been absent from home, but has come back, in hot haste, on hearing of these strange and evil doings in his city. He will crush, he will stamp out, this pestilent new religion-a religion having in it quite as much of Venus as of Bacchus. Gyves and the prisonhouse shall be the portion of these wild women; and as for that wizard from the land of Lydia,—

"If I catch him 'neath this roof, I'll silence
The beatings of his thyrsus, stay his locks'
Wild tossing, from his body severing his head."

As for his grandsire, and the "blind prophet" his companion, he cannot marvel enough at their folly; nay, wroth as he is, he can scarcely help laughing at their

fawn-skin robes.

66

'However," he proceeds, "I know which of you two fatuous old men is most in fault, and I will take such order with him as shall spoil his phecies for some time to come :

"Some one go;

The seats from which he spies the flight of birds,
False augur, with the iron forks o'erthrow,
Scattering in wild confusion all abroad,

And cast his chaplets to the winds and storms."

pro

The elders implore him to cease from his blasphemies and Cadmus, rather prudently than honestly, counsels him to profess faith in the new deity, if for no other reason, yet for the credit of the family :—

"Even if, as thou declar'st, he were no God,
Call thou him God. It were splendid falsehood
If Semele be thought t' have borne a God.”

But Pentheus spurns this accommodating advice, and Cadmus and Tiresias wend their way to the Bacchanal camp on the mountains. The Chorus takes up the charge of blasphemy, and hints at the end awaiting the impious king :

"Of tongue unbridled, without awe,
Of madness spurning holy law,
Sorrow is the heaven-doomed close:
But the life of calm repose,

And modest reverence, holds her state,
Unbroken by disturbing fate;
And knits whole houses in the tie

Of sweet domestic harmony.

Beyond the range of mortal eyes
"Tis not wisdom to be wise."

a. c. vol. xii.

I

The wish of Pentheus to have in his power the deluder of the Theban women is soon gratified. Bacchus, in a comely human form, is brought manacled before him. The king, thinking that now he cannot escape, leisurely contemplates the prisoner, and is greatly struck by his appearance:

"There's beauty, stranger! woman-witching beauty (Therefore thou art in Thebes) in thy soft form; Thy fine bright hair, not coarse like the hard athletes, Is mantling o'er thy cheek warm with desire; And carefully thou hast cherished thy white skin; Not in the sun's soft beams, but in cool shade, Wooing soft Aphroditè with thy loveliness."

Then follows a close examination of the fair-visaged sorcerer about his race, his orgies, and his purpose in coming to Thebes, and at the end of it he is sent off to the "royal stable,”—

"That he may sit in midnight gloom profound :

There lead thy dance! But those thou hast hither led,
Thy guilt's accomplices, we'll sell for slaves;

Or, silencing their noise and beating drums,
As handmaids to the distaff set them down."

Bacchus does not long remain in the dark stable. He appears, "a god-confest," to his worshippers, who are prostrate on the ground, alarmed by the destruction of the palace of Pentheus. They ask how he obtained his freedom; he replies :

"Myself, myself delivered-with ease and effort slight. Cho. Thy hands, had he not bound them, in halters strong and tight?

Bac. 'Twas even then I mocked him, he thought me in his chain;

He touched me not, nor reached me, his idle thoughts were vain."

Unharmed, unshackled, he again stands before the incensed king. A messenger now arrives-a herdsman from the mountains—who reports that the Bacchanals have broken prison, have defied all attempts to recapture them, are again engaged in their revelries, and have ravaged all the villages and herds that came in their way from the plain to the hill-country. The drama now takes a new turn. Pentheus, his madness fast coming on, admits his late prisoner into his counsels. He will go and witness with his own eyes these hateful orgies: he cannot trust his officers to deal with them. "These women," he says, "without force of arms, I'll bring them in. Give me mine armour.' Bacchus offers to be his guide, but tells him that his armour will betray him to the women. He must attire himself in Bacchanalian costume :

"Pen. Lead on and swiftly. Let no time be lost.
Bac. But first enwrap thee in these linen robes.
Pen. What, will he of a man make me a woman?
Bac. Lest they should kill thee, seeing thee as a man.”

Here is the true irony of tragedy. Pentheus, who has derided his grandsire and the holy prophet for their unseemly attire and senile folly,-Pentheus, who has threatened to behead the Lydian wizard, and had imprisoned his attendants, is himself persuaded by the god he so abhors to put on the garb of a Bacchanal,

and in that guise to pass through the streets of Thebes. His eagerness to behold the Bacchantes makes him insensible to the indignity of the situation. He asks

Bac.

"What is the second portion of my dress?
Robes to thy feet, a bonnet on thy head;
A fawn-skin and a thyrsus in thy hand."

He takes for his guide to the mountains the handsome stranger whom he had so recently ordered to sit in darkness and prepare for death: he is even obsequious to him :

"So let us on: I must go forth in arms,
Or follow the advice thou givest me."

Bacchus calls to his train, and gives his instructions to them how to deal with their prey, when they have him in the toils :

"Women! this man is in our net; he goes
To find his just doom 'mid the Bacchanals.
Vengeance is ours. Bereave him first of sense;
Yet be his phrenzy slight. In his right mind
He never had put on a woman's dress;
But now, thus shaken in his mind, he'll wear it.
A laughing-stock I'll make him for all Thebes,
Led in a woman's dress through the wide city.”"

The Chorus respond to the summons of their divine leader in passionate and jubilant strains, and anticipate the doom of their persecuting foe :—

"Slow come, but come at length,

In their majestic strength,

Faithful and true, the avenging deities: