A _Messenger's Speech_ describes the catastrophe. How Pentheus,
arrived within sight of the orderly Maenads, was not satisfied, but
desired a higher station from which to view their unseemly life. Then
a wonder: the stranger bent down an ash tree, and seating Pentheus in a
fork of it let the tree return to its position, holding the wretched
king aloft, seen of all.
The stranger from our view had vanished quite.
Then from the heavens a voice, as it should seem,
Dionysus, shouted loud, "Behold, I bring,
O maidens, him that you and me, our rites,
Our orgies laughed to scorn; now take your vengeance."
And as he spake, a light of holy fire
Stood up, and blazed from earth straight up to heaven.
Silent the air, silent the verdant grove
Held its still leaves; no sound of living thing.
They, as their ears just caught the half-heard voice,
Stood up erect, and rolled their wandering eyes,
Again he shouted. But when Cadmus' daughters
Heard manifest the god's awakening voice,
Forth rushed they, fleeter than the winged dove,
Their nimble feet quick coursing up and down.
How then the Maenads set upon him and tore him to pieces, his own
mother leading them on: in triumph dance they are bringing his head to
the city. Adore the gods, is the moral. {1164}