And covetous of that thou shouldst not covet.

Pentheus! I say, come forth! Appear before me,

Clothed in the Bacchic Maenads’ womanly dress;

Spy on thy mother and her holy crew,

Come like in form to one of Cadmus’ daughters.

PENTHEUS

Ha! now indeed two suns I seem to see,

A double Thebes, two seven-gated cities;

Thou, as a bull, seemest to go before me,

And horns have grown upon thine head. Art thou

A beast indeed? Thou seem’st a very bull.

DIONYSUS

The god is with us; unpropitious once,

But now at truce: now seest thou what thou shouldst see?

PENTHEUS

What see I? Is not that the step of Ino?

And is not Agave there, my mother?

DIONYSUS

Methinks ’tis even they whom thou behold’st;

But lo! this tress hath strayed out of its place,

Not as I braided it, beneath thy bonnet.

PENTHEUS

Tossing it this way now, now tossing that,

In Bacchic glee, I have shaken it from its place.

DIONYSUS

But we, whose charge it is to watch o’er thee,

Will braid it up again. Lift up thy head.

PENTHEUS

Braid as thou wilt, we yield ourselves to thee.

DIONYSUS

Thy zone is loosened, and thy robe’s long folds

Droop outward, nor conceal thine ankles now.

PENTHEUS

Around my right foot so it seems, yet sure

Around the other it sits close and well.

DIONYSUS

Wilt thou not hold me for thy best of friends,

Thus strangely seeing the coy Bacchanals?

PENTHEUS

The thyrsus — in my right hand shall I hold it?

Or thus am I more like a Bacchanal?

DIONYSUS

In thy right hand, and with thy right foot raise it.

I praise the change of mind now come o’er thee.

PENTHEUS

Could I not now bear up upon my shoulders

Cithæron’s crag, with all the Bacchanals?

DIONYSUS

Thou couldst if ‘twere thy will. In thy right mind

Erewhile thou wast not; now thou art as thou shouldst be.

PENTHEUS

Shall I take levers, pluck it up with my hands,

Or thrust mine arm or shoulder ’neath its base?

DIONYSUS

Destroy thou not the dwellings of the nymphs,

The seats where Pan sits piping in his joy.

PENTHEUS

Well hast thou said; by force we conquer not

These women. I’ll go hide in yonder ash.

DIONYSUS

Within a fatal ambush wilt thou hide thee,

Stealing, a treacherous spy, upon the Mænads.

PENTHEUS

And now I seem to see them there like birds

Couching on their soft beds amid the fern.

DIONYSUS

Art thou not therefore set as watchman o’er them?

Thou’lt seize them — if they do not seize thee first.

PENTHEUS

Lead me triumphant through the land of Thebes!

I, only I, have dared a deed like this.

DIONYSUS

Thou art the city’s champion, thou alone.

Therefore a strife thou wot’st not of awaits thee.

Follow me! thy preserver goes before thee;

Another takes thee hence.

PENTHEUS

Mean’st thou my mother?

DIONYSUS

Aloft shalt thou be borne.

PENTHEUS

O the soft carriage!