_Some Maidens_
Weave ye the dance, and call
Praise to God!
Bless ye the Tyrant's fall!
Down is trod
Pentheus, the Dragon's Seed!
Wore he the woman's weed?
Clasped he his death indeed,
Clasped the rod?
_A Bacchanal_
Yea, the wild ivy lapt him, and the doomed
Wild Bull of Sacrifice before him loomed!
_Others_
Ye who did Bromios scorn,
Praise Him the more,
Bacchanals, Cadmus-born;
Praise with sore
Agony, yea, with tears!
Great are the gifts he bears!
Hands that a mother rears
Red with gore!
LEADER
But stay, Agâvê cometh! And her eyes
Make fire around her, reeling! Ho, the prize
Cometh! All hail, O Rout of Dionyse!
[_Enter from the Mountain_ AGAVE, _mad, and to all seeming wondrously
happy, bearing the head of_ PENTHEUS _in her hand. The_ CHORUS MAIDENS
_stand horror-struck at the sight; the_ LEADER, _also horror-struck,
strives to accept it and rejoice in it as the God's deed_.]
AGAVE
Ye from the lands of Morn!
LEADER
Call me not; I give praise!
AGAVE
Lo, from the trunk new-shorn
Hither a Mountain Thorn
Bear we! O Asia-born
Bacchanals, bless this chase!
LEADER
I see. Yea; I see.
Have I not welcomed thee?
AGAVE (_very calmly and peacefully_)
He was young in the wildwood
Without nets I caught him!
Nay; look without fear on
The Lion; I have ta'en him!
LEADER
Where in the wildwood?
Whence have ye brought him?
AGAVE
Kithaeron. . . .
LEADER
Kithaeron?
AGAVE
The Mountain hath slain him!
LEADER
Who first came nigh him?