THE BACCHAE
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Euripides and Murray, Gilbert
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 then 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 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-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 interweaving 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, Autonoë; and Ino by her side, Wandering ghastly in the pine-copses. Agâvê 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).