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 Tracked a worn wand to toss its locks again; Some, wild in joyance, like young steeds set free, Made answering songs of mystic melody. But my poor master saw not the great band Before him. "Stranger," cried he, "where we stand Mine eyes can reach not these false saints of thine. Mount we the bank, or some high-shouldered pine, And I shall see their follies clear!" At that There came a marvel. For the Stranger straight Touched a great pine-tree's high and heavenward crown, And lower, lower, lower, urged it down To the herbless floor. Round like a bending bow, Or slow wheel's rim a joiner forces to, So in those hands that tough and mountain stem Bowed slow--oh, strength not mortal dwelt in them!-- To the very earth. And there he set the King, And slowly, lest it cast him in its spring, Let back the young and straining tree, till high It towered again amid the towering sky; And Pentheus in the branches! Well, I ween, He saw the Maenads then, and well was seen! For scarce was he aloft, when suddenly There was no Stranger any more with me, But out of Heaven a Voice--oh, what voice else?--