MESSENGER Woe to the house once blest in Hellas! Woe To thee, old King Sidonian, who didst sow The dragon-seed on Ares' bloody lea! Alas, even thy slaves must weep for thee! LEADER News from the mountain?--Speak! How hath it sped? MESSENGER Pentheus, my king, Echîon's son, is dead! LEADER All hail, God of the Voice, Manifest ever more! MESSENGER What say'st thou?--And how strange thy tone, as though In joy at this my master's overthrow! LEADER With fierce joy I rejoice, Child of a savage shore; For the chains of my prison are broken, and the dread where I cowered of yore! MESSENGER And deem'st thou Thebes so beggared, so forlorn Of manhood, as to sit beneath thy scorn? LEADER Thebes hath o'er me no sway! None save Him I obey, Dionysus, Child of the Highest, Him I obey and adore! MESSENGER One can forgive thee!--Yet 'tis no fair thing, Maids, to rejoice in a man's suffering. LEADER Speak of the mountain side! Tell us the doom he died, The sinner smitten to death, even where his sin was sore! MESSENGER We climbed beyond the utmost habitings Of Theban shepherds, passed Asopus' springs, And struck into the land of rock on dim Kithaeron--Pentheus, and, attending him, I, and the Stranger who should guide our way, Then first in a green dell we stopped, and lay, Lips dumb and feet unmoving, warily Watching, to be unseen and yet to see. A narrow glen it was, by crags o'ertowered, Torn through by tossing waters, and there lowered A shadow of great pines over it. And there The Maenad maidens sate; in toil they were, Busily glad. Some with an ivy chain Tricked a worn wand to toss its locks again; Some, wild in joyance, like young steeds set free, Made answering songs of mystic melody.