Nearing the palace with distorted eyes.

Hail we the ovation of the Evian god.

AGAVE

O ye Asian Bacchanals!

CHORUS

Who is she on us who calls?

AGAVE

From the mountains, lo! we bear

To the palace gate

Our new-slain quarry fair.

CHORUS

I see, I see! and on thy joy I wait.

AGAVE

Without a net, without a snare,

The lion’s cub, I took him there

CHORUS

In the wilderness, or where?

AGAVE

Cithæron —

CHORUS

Of Cithæron what?

AGAVE

Gave him to slaughter.

CHORUS

O blest Agave!

AGAVE

In thy song extol me,

CHORUS

Who struck him first?

AGAVE

Mine, mine, the glorious lot.

CHORUS

Who else?

Agave

Of Cadmus —

CHORUS

What of Cadmus’ daughter?

AGAVE

With me, with me, did all the race

Hound the prey.

CHORUS

O fortunate chase!

AGAVE

The banquet share with me!

CHORUS

las! what shall our banquet be?

AGAVE

How delicate the kid and young!

The thin locks have but newly sprung

Over his forehead fair.

CHORUS

’Tis beauteous as the tame beasts’ cherished hair.

AGAVE

Bacchus, hunter known to fame!

Did he not our Maenads bring

On the track of this proud game?

A mighty hunter is our king!

Praise me! praise me!

CHORUS

Praise I not thee?

AGAVE

Soon with the Thebans all, the hymn of praise

Pentheus my son will to his mother raise:

For she the lion prey hath won,

A noble deed and nobly done.

CHORUS

Dost thou rejoice?

AGAVE

Ay, with exulting voice

My great, great deed I elevate,

Glorious as great.

CHORUS

Sad woman, to the citizens of Thebes

Now show the conquered prey thou bearest hither.

AGAVE

Ye that within the high-towered Theban city

Dwell, come and gaze ye all upon our prey,

The mighty beast by Cadmus’ daughter ta’en;

Nor with Thessalian sharp-pointed javelins,

Nor nets, but with the white and delicate palms

Of our own hands. Go ye, and make your boast,

Trusting to the spear-maker’s useless craft:

We with these hands have ta’en our prey, and rent

The mangled limbs of this grim beast asunder.

Where is mine aged sire? Let him draw near!

And where is my son Pentheus? Let him mount

On the broad stairs that rise before our house;

And on the triglyph nail this lion’s head,

That I have brought him from our splendid chase.

CADMUS

Follow me, follow, bearing your sad burthen,

My servants — Pentheus’ body — to our house;

The body that with long and weary search

I found at length in lone Cithæron’s glens;

Thus torn, not lying in one place, but wide

Scattered amid the dark and tangled thicket.

Already, as I entered in the city

With old Tiresias, from the Bacchanals,

I heard the fearful doings of my daughter.

And back returning to the mountain, bear

My son, thus by the furious Mænads slain.

Her who Actæon bore to Aristæus,

Autonoë, I saw, and Ino with her

Still in the thicket goaded with wild madness.

And some one said that on her dancing feet