Epeisodion 5
Messenger
He was seen by the Maenads more than he saw them, for sitting on high he was all but apparent, and the stranger was no longer anywhere to be seen, when a voice, Dionysus as I guess, cried out from the air: Young women,
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I bring the one who has made you and me and my rites a laughing-stock. Now punish him! And as he said this a light of holy fire was placed between heaven and earth.
The air became quiet and the woody glen
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kept its leaves silent, nor would you have heard the sounds of animals. But they, not having heard the sound clearly, stood upright and looked all around. He repeated his order, and when the daughters of Kadmos recognized the clear command of Bacchus,
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they rushed forth, swift as a dove, running with eager speed of feet, his mother Agave, and her sisters, and all the Bacchae. They leapt through the torrent-streaming valley and mountain cliffs, frantic with the inspiration of the god.
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When they saw my master sitting in the pine, first they climbed a rock towering opposite the tree and began to hurl at him boulders violently thrown. Some aimed with pine branches and other women hurled their thyrsoi through the air
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at Pentheus, a sad target indeed. But they did not reach him, for the wretched man, caught with no way out, sat at a height too great for their eagerness. Finally like lightning they smashed oak branches and began to tear up the roots of the tree with ironless levers.
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When they did not succeed in their toils, Agave said: Come, standing round in a circle, each seize a branch, Maenads, so that we may catch the beast who has climbed aloft, and so that he does not make public the secret dances of the god. They applied countless hands
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to the pine and dragged it up from the earth. Pentheus fell crashing to the ground from his lofty seat, wailing greatly: for he knew he was in terrible trouble.
His mother, as priestess, began the slaughter,
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and fell upon him. He threw the headband from his head so that the wretched Agave might recognize and not kill him. Touching her cheek, he said: It is I, mother, your son, Pentheus, whom you bore in the house of Echion.
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Pity me, mother, and do not kill me, your child, for my sins.
But she, foaming at the mouth and twisting her eyes all about, not thinking as she ought, was possessed by Bacchus, and he did not persuade her.
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Seizing his left arm at the elbow and propping her foot against the unfortunate man’s side, she tore out his shoulder, not by her own strength, but the god gave facility to her hands. Ino began to work on the other side,
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tearing his flesh, while Autonoe and the whole crowd of the Bacchae pressed on. All were making noise together, he groaning as much as he had life left in him, while they shouted in victory. One of them bore his arm, another a foot, boot and all. His ribs were stripped bare
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from their tearings. The whole band, hands bloodied, were playing a game of catch with Pentheus’ flesh.
His body lies in different places, part under the rugged rocks, part in the deep foliage of the woods, not easy to be sought. His miserable head,
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which his mother happened to take in her hands, she fixed on the end of a thyrsos and carries through the midst of Kithairon like that of a savage lion, leaving her sisters among the Maenads’ dances. She is coming inside these walls, preening herself
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on the ill-fated prey, calling Bacchus her fellow hunter, her accomplice in the chase, the glorious victor—in whose service she wins a triumph of tears.
And as for me, I will depart out of the way of this calamity before Agave reaches the house.
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Soundness of mind and reverence for the affairs of the gods is best; and this, I think, is the wisest possession for those mortals who adopt it.
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