And chastening human folly Of those who to the gods bow not their knees: As glides their printless foot, Th' impious on their winding path they hound, Beyond the law's inexorable bound." Mania now seizes on Pentheus; two suns he seems to see a double Thebes: his guide appears to him a horned bull: he recognises among the Bacchic revellers Ino his kinswoman, and Agavè his mother. The decorum of the Greek stage, or perhaps its imperfect means for representing groups and rapid action, precluded poets generally from bringing before an audience the catastrophe of tragic dramas. Accordingly, we do not see, but are told, by the usual messenger on such occasions, of the miserable end of the proud and impious Theban king. When Bacchus and his victim have climbed one of the spurs of Mount Citharon, they come "To a rock-walled glen, watered by a streamlet, And shadowed o'er with pines: the Monads there And some the leafy thyrsus, that its ivy But Pentheus cannot, from the level on which he has halted, see the whole Bacchante troop: he desires to mount on a bank or a tall tree, in order that 'Clearly he may behold their deeds of shame." "A wonder then I saw that stranger do." "He bent the stem of a tall ash-tree, and dragged it to earth till it was bent like a bow. He seated Pentheus on a bough, and then let it rise up again, steadily and gently, so that my master should not fall as it mounted. Raised to this giddy height, 'tis true, he saw the women, but they too saw him, and speedily brought him down to the ground on which they were standing. But before they did so, the stranger had vanished, and a voice was heard from the heavens proclaiming in clear ringing tones :— "Behold! I bring, O maidens, him that you and me, our rites, The presence of the god, though unseen, was announced by a column of bright flame reddening the sky, and an awful stillness fell on Citharon and its dark pine-groves. A second shout proclaimed the deity, and the daughters of Cadmus sprang to their feet and rushed forth with the speed of doves on the wing. Down the torrent's bed, down from crag to crag they leaped-" mad with the god." Agave led on her kin, and at first assailed the seat of Pentheus with idle weapons :— "First heavy stones they hurled at him, Climbing a rock in front: the branches of the ash Sent their sharp thyrsi shrilling through the air, Pentheus their mark; but yet they struck him not, At length Agavè cried to her train, "Tear down the tree, and then we'll grasp the beast"-for her too had the god made blind-"that rides thereon." A thousand hands uprooted the tree, and Pentheus fell to the ground, well knowing that his end was near. It was his mother's hand that seized him first. In vain, dashing off his bonnet, he cried, "I am thy child, thine own, my mother." She knew him not, and 66 Caught him in her arms, seized his right hand, Tore out the shoulder." "Ino, Autonoe, and all the rest dismembered him; one bore away an arm, one a still sandalled foot: others rent open his sides none went without some spoil of him whom, possessed by Bacchus, they deemed a lion's cub. With these bloody trophies of their prey they are now marching to Thebes: for my part, I fled at the sight of this dark tragedy." The procession of the Bacchantes to the " sevengated city" is ushered in by a choral song: "Dance and sing In Bacchic ring; Shout, shout the fate, the fate of gloom Of Pentheus, from the dragon born; Following the bull, the harbinger that led him to his doom. ye Theban Bacchanals! Attune ye now the hymn victorious, To the tear, and to the groan: To bathe the hands besprent and gory Believing that she is bringing a lion's head to affix to the walls of the temple, she bears in her arms that of Pentheus, and in concert with the Chorus celebrates in song her ghastly triumph : 66 'Agavè. O ye Asian Bacchanals! Chorus. Who is she on us who calls? Our new-slain quarry fair. Chorus. I see, I see, and on thy joy I wait. But Cadmus soon undeceives her. He has been to Citharon to collect the remains of his grandson which the Bacchanals had left behind; and Agavè, restored to her senses, discerns in her gory burden the head of Pentheus her son. At the close of this fearful story Bacchus appears and informs Cadmus of his doom :— "Thou, father of this earth-born race, A dragon shalt become; thy wife shall take However, after cycles of time have gone by, Cadmus and his wife Harmonia shall resume their human forms, and be borne by Mars to the Isles of the Blest. That a tragedy in some respects so un-Hellenic and so Oriental in its character should have been well known and highly estimated in the East, is not to be wondered at. Perhaps not the least memorable application of "The Bacchanals" to new circumstances is that mentioned by Plutarch in his 'Life of Crassus.' Great joy was there in the camp of Surenas, the Parthian general, one summer evening, for Crassus the Roman proconsul and the greater part of his army had been slain or taken prisoners, and the residue of the broken legions was hurrying back to the western bank of the Euphrates. Crassus himself lay a headless corpse. To gratify his victorious soldiers, Surenas exhibited a burlesque of a Roman triumph. Himself and his staff feasted in the commander's tent. To the door of the banqueting-hall the head of the Roman general was borne by a Greek actor from Tralles, who introduced it with some appropriate verses from "The Bacchanals of Euripides. The bloody trophy was thrown at the feet of Surenas and his guests, and the player, seizing it in his hands, enacted the last scene-the frenzy of Agavè and the mutilation of Pentheus. |