My Lord God will unloose me, when I speak the word. PENTHEUS. He may, if e'er again amid his bands Of saints he hears thy voice! DIONYSUS. Even now he stands Close here, and sees all that I suffer. PENTHEUS. What? Where is he? For mine eyes discern him not. DIONYSUS. Where I am! 'Tis thine own impurity That veils him from thee. PENTHEUS. The dog jeers at me! At me and Thebes! Bind him! [_The soldiers begin to bind him._ DIONYSUS. I charge ye, bind Me not! I having vision and ye blind! PENTHEUS. And I, with better right, say bind the more! [_The soldiers obey._ DIONYSUS. Thou knowest not what end thou seekest, nor What deed thou doest, nor what man thou art! PENTHEUS. (_mocking_). Agâvê's son, and on the father's part Echîon's, hight Pentheus! DIONYSUS. So let it be, A name fore-written to calamity! PENTHEUS. Away, and tie him where the steeds are tied; Aye, let him lie in the manger!--There abide And stare into the darkness!--And this rout Of womankind that clusters thee about, Thy ministers of worship, are my slaves! It may be I will sell them o'er the waves, Hither and thither; else they shall be set To labour at my distaffs, and forget Their timbrel and their songs of dawning day! DIONYSUS. I go; for that which may not be, I may Not suffer! Yet for this thy sin, lo, He Whom thou deniest cometh after thee For recompense. Yea, in thy wrong to us, Thou hast cast Him into thy prison-house! [DIONYSUS, _without his wand, his hair shorn, and his arms tightly bound, is led off by the guards to his dungeon_. PENTHEUS _returns into the Palace_. CHORUS. _Some Maidens._ Acheloüs' roaming daughter, Holy Dircê, virgin water, Bathed he not of old in thee, The Babe of God, the Mystery? When from out the fire immortal To himself his God did take him, To his own flesh, and bespake him: "Enter now life's second portal, Motherless Mystery; lo, I break Mine own body for thy sake, Thou of the Twofold Door, and seal thee Mine, O Bromios,"--thus he spake-- "And to this thy land reveal thee." _All._ Still my prayer toward thee quivers, Dircê, still to thee I hie me; Why, O Blessèd among Rivers, Wilt thou fly me and deny me? By His own joy I vow, By the grape upon the bough, Thou shalt seek Him in the midnight, thou shalt love Him, even now! _Other Maidens._