PENTHEUS.
For that I go!
DIONYSUS.
Thou shalt be borne on high!
PENTHEUS.
That were like pride!
DIONYSUS.
Thy mother's hands shall share Thy carrying.
PENTHEUS.
Nay; I need not such soft care!
DIONYSUS.
So soft?
PENTHEUS.
Whate'er it be, I have earned it well!
[Exit PENTHEUS towards the Mountain.
DIONYSUS.
Fell, fell art thou; and to a doom so fell Thou walkest, that thy name from South to North Shall shine, a sign for ever!--Reach thou forth Thine arms, Agave, now, and ye dark-browed Cadmeian sisters! Greet this prince so proud To the high ordeal, where save God and me, None walks unscathed!--The rest this day shall see.
[Exit DIONYSUS following PENTHEUS.
CHORUS.
Some Maidens.
O hounds raging and blind, Up by the mountain road, Sprites of the maddened mind, To the wild Maids of God; Fill with your rage their eyes, Rage at the rage unblest, Watching in woman's guise, The spy upon God's Possessed.
A Bacchanal.
Who shall be first, to mark Eyes in the rock that spy, Eyes in the pine-tree dark-- Is it his mother?--and cry: "Lo, what is this that comes, Haunting, troubling still, Even in our heights, our homes, The wild Maids of the Hill? What flesh bare this child? Never on woman's breast Changeling so evil smiled; Man is he not, but Beast! Lion-shape of the wild, Gorgon-breed of the waste!"
All the Chorus.
Hither, for doom and deed! Hither with lifted sword, Justice, Wrath of the Lord, Come in our visible need! Smite till the throat shall bleed, Smite till the heart shall bleed, Him the tyrannous, lawless, Godless, Echion's earth-born seed!