Book 46

46. See now the forty-sixth book, where you will mark the severed head of Pentheus and child-slaying Agave.

But when the bold king came to know that the bonds had loosed of their own accord and slipped from the iron-armed hands, and that the maenads, escaped, had rushed away to the wooded ridge, and recognized the shifting guile of unseen Dionysus, unstable Pentheus surged and swelled with insolent rage; and seeing him present, his curls bound back again with familiar ivy, and gazing on the loose flowing fall of his long unbraided hair streaming down from his shoulders, he hurled out such words from his raving throat:

"How charming, to send a deceiving Tiresias to me! Your prophet cannot beguile my mind; tell these tales to others. Why did the goddess Rhea not offer the breast to Zeus, but nurse the son of Thyone? Ask the helmet-flashing cave on the Dictaean crag, ask the Corybants too, where once the boy at play, drawing the rearing milk from Amalthea's goat, Zeus swelled his strength, and did not suck the milk of Rhea. You too have stamped yourself with the ways of your scheming mother; the son of Cronos burned lying Semele with the thunderbolt; beware, lest after the mother the son of Cronos crush you too. I myself do not claim a barbarian birth; my first ancestor Ismenus begot me, and no watery Hydaspes bore me; I know no Deriades, and hear of no Lycurgus. But take your Satyrs and your raving Bacchants, leave the streams of Dirce, and, if you wish, with your thyrsus go kill among the Assyrians some new younger Orontes. You are no Olympian seed of the son of Cronos; for when she perished the lightnings cry aloud the reproaches of your mother, and the thunderbolts are witnesses to a secret bed. The rain-bringing Zeus did not burn Danae after their union, and bearing off Europa, the unshaken sister of my Cadmus, he kept her safe and did not hide her in the sea. I know indeed that the heavenly flame destroyed the infant still unborn, when the mother caught fire, and it loosed the half-finished bastard birth-pang of a withering labor; but if it did not slay him, because you are guiltless of an earth-born wedding, of your mother's hidden love, I am persuaded, as you say, and unwilling will call you the child of heavenly Zeus, and not burned by the thunderbolt. Teach me this too with the witness of a true account: when did father Zeus bring forth Phoebus or Ares from his thigh? If you have the blood of Zeus, go to the circle of Olympus, dwell in the upper air, and leave Thebes, your fatherland, to Pentheus. You should have spoken another fitting, blameless tale, mixing mind-charming Persuasion with profitable falsehood, that the son of Cronos bore you in his accustomed child-bearing temple; that word would not have been so incredible, since Bacchus too he bore after Pallas from his unwedded head. I could wish, if you had Olympian birth—would that the son of Cronos, the lord on high, had begotten you—so that, claiming the blood of Zeus, I might conquer Dionysus, I who am called the son of Echion."

So he spoke, and the god was indignant and answered with words, hiding beneath his heart the swelling weight of a divine threat:

"I count blessed the land of the Celts that bears barbarian laws, where, judging the pure birth-pang of newborn babes, the Rhine, lawgiver of unproved parentage, knows how to convict the bastard offspring of unknown blood. But I do not submit to judgment by the worthless waters of the river called the Rhine; for than its streams more trustworthy heralds are mine, the thunderbolts. Do not seek a witness stronger than the lightning, Pentheus; let the Galatian trust to water—you, trust the witnessing fire. I have no need of the earthly hall of Pentheus; the home of Dionysus is the air, his father's heritage; and if there were a judgment between earth and starry Olympus, tell me, since I ask, which would you yourself call greater, the seven-zoned heaven or the land of seven-gated Thebes? I have no need of the earthly hall of Pentheus. Only honor the honey-dripping flower of my harvest; do not dishonor the drink of vine-clad Dionysus. Do not war against the Indian-slaying Bromius, but against a woman, if you can, do battle with one man-breaking Bacchant. Perhaps the prophetic Fates set a fair name upon you, the herald of your death; and it is no shame that Pentheus, suffering terribly, bearing the earth-born blood of an earth-nourished father, should bear the likeness of the Giants, nor shame that Bacchus the Olympian should have the likeness of the blood of his line, of Zeus the Giant-slaying father. Ask Tiresias whom you are angry with; ask Pytho, who lay beside Semele, who sowed the child of Thyone. But if you wish to learn the rites of dance-delighting Bacchus, leave off your royal robes, and bear, Pentheus, endure to wear a woman's garments, and become a female Agave; let not the women, while you hunt them, dart past you. But if with your hand you draw the beast-slaying bow, Cadmus will praise you, hunting together with your mother. Strive against Bacchus alone, and, if it is lawful, against the Archer-goddess, so that I may call you another lion-slaying Actaeon. Lay down these arms; for my women with unarmored hands kill iron-bearing warriors; and if they conquer you, decked out in armor, in an unarmed womanish fight, what citizen would praise a man worn out in a battle with women? The Bassarid does not tremble at the winged arrow, nor flee the spear; but, hiding your face unknown by a secret disguise, you will see all the rites of dance-weaving Dionysus."

So speaking he persuaded him, for, lashing the man's mind, he shook it, possessed, in a leap of frenzied madness . . .

And Selene, fellow-laborer with Bromius, assailed Pentheus with a divine scourge; and joining with Lyaeus, the bold maddening gadfly of mind-robbing Selene, showing forms of many shapes to maddened Pentheus, turned the dread son of Echion from his former purpose, and crashed upon the wavering hearing of Pentheus, beating the avenging din of a demonic trumpet; and she terrified the man. And Pentheus came into the house goaded to madness, longing for the rites of revelling Bacchus; he opened the fragrant chests where the women's sea-purple robes of the Sidonian sea lay folded; and he put on the bright-patterned robe of Agave; he bound the veil of Autonoe upon his hair, girdling his breast with a royal circling art; and he laced his feet in women's sandals; and in his hand he raised a thyrsus; and as he went after the Bacchants his many-colored tunic trailed about his tracking foot.

With mimic feet Pentheus danced his winding measure, sweetly maddened; with a slanting sandal he clattered the ground, darting from foot to other foot; and his two hands he made womanish, waving them in alternation, in twin pulses, like a woman playing the dancer; and as if with a rattle, sounding a double harmony, striking the discordant bronze, he gave his wandering curls to the airy breezes, striking up the Lydian Euian song. Indeed you would soon say you saw a wild and frenzied Bacchant in the revel. And he saw two suns and two Thebes; and he hoped, laying upon his tireless shoulders from above, to heave the gate of seven-pathed Thebes.

And about him the citizens circled in a ring, one holding a rounded mound of earth, one high in view upon a rock, another resting his forearm on a man's shoulder lifted his step, fixing his toes upon the ground; and one made for the sharp ridge of a plowed field, another upon a jutting battlement, while another, watching, strained a sidelong eye from the high-crested towers; and another, twining his hands midway in a ring upon the rim, went up climbing a pillar with the tips of his feet, gazing at Pentheus shaken by his leap of madness, lifting the thyrsus and waving the veil.

Already he ran past the walls of seven-pathed Thebes, the gates opening of their own accord by their hinges; already before the city, shaking his curls into the air, he passed by the delicate streams of serpent-nursing Dirce; and turning his dance-beating step with a maddened foot, he held to the rearward path of the vine-clad god.

But when he reached the place where the oaks are, where the dances, and the revelling rites of Bromius, where she herself, Agave, was the unsandalled deer-driving hunt of the Bassarids, then vine-clad Bacchus, within the mountain thicket, saw an ancient fir as tall as the neighboring rock, a tree of vast girth, and rejoiced, under whose foliage the cloud-near hills were shadowed by its leaves; and pressing its topmost crown with an unsparing hand to the ground, to the ground Pentheus dragged it down upon the earth . . .

the airy-soaring branch, and tightening upon its bearer, he grasped with his hand the crowning boughs stretched on high, and turning his feet this way and that, spun about, unstable Pentheus was lifted with a dancer's stamp.

And then the dancing Seasons came to the Bassarids; they called to one another, and girded themselves with robes, and threw the fawnskin about them; and mountain-roaming Agave cried out a shout from foam-flecked lips:

"Autonoe, let us hasten where the dance of Lyaeus is, and the mountain-roaming sound of the familiar pipe is heard, that I may weave a song dear to Euius, that I may learn who first set up the dance-standing for Dionysus, who has outdone whom in serving Lyaeus. You delay, dancerless one, and Ino has outrun us; no longer does she keep the sea as an exile, but she herself came running from the brine with sea-faring Melicertes, came to shield the pursued Dionysus, lest lawless Pentheus bear down upon Lyaeus. Initiates, to the crags! Come, Ismenian Bacchants, and let us set up the rites, and in rival dance let us contend with the Lydian Bassarids, that someone may say: 'The maenad Agave has conquered the Mygdonian Mimallon.'"

So speaking, she watched him seated high upon the tree, like a wild lion—a mother her god-fighting son; and she pointed him out to the gathering raving Bacchants, and called her sober son a beast with a maddened voice. And about him the women circled in a ring as he sat among the leaves; and with a cunning bond they embraced the tree, and wished to hurl to the ground the shoot together with Pentheus; and gripping it about the trunk with the pull of yoked hands in an earth-shaking heave, Agave tore up the tree from its very roots.

And the plant fell to the ground; and Cithaeron was laid bare; and the bold king, self-whirled in a dancer's plunge, hurled headlong from the air, rolled down and fell, Pentheus.

And then the madness of mind-deranging Dionysus left him, and he had his former wits again; and upon the ground, with death close at hand, he uttered a mournful cry:

"Hamadryad Nymphs, hide me, lest she crush me with child-slaying hands, my child-loving Agave. My mother, my evil mother, hold back your cruel frenzy; why do you call me, your son, a beast? What shaggy breast do I carry? What roar do I send forth? You no longer know me whom you reared, you no longer see; who has seized your mind and your eye? Farewell, Cithaeron; farewell these trees and mountains; be safe, Thebes, and be safe you too, my dear child-killing mother Agave. Look on this newly-bearded chin, look on the human form; I am no lion; you do not look upon a beast. Spare your own labor, pitiless one, spare your breasts; it is Pentheus you behold, whom you reared. Cease, my voice, keep your words to yourself; Agave does not hear. But if you kill me to gratify Dionysus, slay your son alone, woeful one, and do not let the Bassarids destroy your son with bastard hands."

So speaking he made supplication, and Agave did not hear. And about him the dreadful women rushed with eager hands; and as he rolled in the dust one drew his hinder feet, another, taking hold, tore up his right hand by the root, and Autonoe pulled at his left in turn; and the bewildered mother set her foot upon her son's breast, and as he lay she cut through his daring neck with the sharp thyrsus; and swift-kneed she sprang up in the murderous joy of madness, and showed the bloody head to grieving Cadmus; and exulting in her hunt, in the false lion's prize, she hurled out such words from her raving throat:

"Cadmus, blessed one, I call you more than blessed; for in the crags Artemis was watching Agave excel with unarmored hands, even if she is mistress of the hunt, secretly stealing envy of your lion-slaying daughter; and the Dryads marveled at my toil; and bronze Ares, helmeted with his familiar spear, marveled at my labor, at the father of our Harmonia, marveled at your daughter unarmed, hurling the thyrsus, the destroyer of lions, exulting; and you, Cadmus, summon Pentheus here, the one who treads upon your throne, that with envious eyes he may behold the beast-slaying sweat of a woman. My servants, go, and before the gateway of Cadmus fix this head, the offering of my victory. Never did my sister Ino kill so great a beast; Autonoe, look on it, and bow your neck to Agave; for you did not draw a like glory to mine, and the still-spoken victory of your mother Aristaeus I have shamed, the victory of your lion-slaying kinswoman Cyrene."

So she spoke, lifting her dear burden; and hearing the deluded threat of his exulting daughter, Cadmus mixed his words with tears and answered in mourning voice:

"What a clever-minded beast you have slain, child Agave! What a beast you have slain, the one your own womb bore! What a beast you have slain, the one Echion begot! Look on your lion, whom while still a tiny thing I lifted, and Cadmus carried lightly in his glad child-tending arms; look on your lion, whom your mother Harmonia often raised up and gave the breast to suckle. You seek your son, the witness of your labors; how shall I call him Pentheus, whom you lift in your hands? Whom you killed unknowing—how shall I call him your son? Look on your beast, and you will see your son. You bring fair nursing-gifts, Dionysus, to your Cadmus; fair the bridal of Harmonia the son of Cronos gave me; these are worthy of Ares and of heavenly Aphrodite: Ino has the sea, Cronos' son burned Semele, Autonoe mourns her horned child—ah, most wretched— Agave killed the only son she bore, her untimely son. And my Polydorus toils, a wanderer fled from his land. I alone am left, a living corpse; to whom do I flee, with Pentheus destroyed and Polydorus gone? What foreign city will receive me? Be cursed, Cithaeron; you have killed the two who tended Cadmus' old age, and you hold Pentheus dead, and you hide Actaeon."

So Cadmus spoke, pouring forth his lament in streams, and old Cithaeron wept with springs of tears; and the oaks lamented, and the Naiad Nymphs sang the dirge. And Dionysus had respect for the gray hair of Cadmus and his groaning; and from his unmourning face mixing a tear with laughter, he changed the mind of Agave, and made her sober again, that she might mourn Pentheus. And she, turning her mind and her unbelieving gaze, stood fixed and speechless for a time, the mother; and gazing on the head of dead Pentheus she fell of her own collapse, and upon the floor the wretched one rolled, shaming her hair in the scattered dust; and she threw from her breast the shaggy tunics and the revelling cups of Bromius, reddening her breast with the stain of blood and the folds of her uncovered bosom; and she kissed her son's eye and the pale circles of his face and the lovely locks of his reddened head; and crying out shrill she uttered such a voice:

"Pitiless Dionysus, insatiate of your kin, give me my former madness again; for now I have another madness, a worse one, sober-minded; give me that folly, so that a second time I may call my son a beast. I thought to strike a beast; but instead of a newly-cut lion's head, I lift the head of Pentheus. Blessed is heavy-weeping Autonoe, because she mourned Actaeon dead, and the mother did not kill her son; I alone have become a child-killer; my exile Ino did not kill Melicertes or Learchus, but the father slew the one he begot. Ah, most wretched, Zeus lay with Semele, so that I should mourn Pentheus; father Zeus bore Dionysus from his own thigh, that he might wipe out the whole race of Cadmus. May Dionysus be gracious—he has destroyed the whole house of Cadmus. But after the bridal feast of the god-invited table, after the marriage of Harmonia, after the bridal chamber of my Cadmus, let Apollo himself, sounding again his ancient lyre, strike one dirge for both Autonoe and Agave, singing of swift-fated Pentheus and Actaeon. What medicine is there, dear child, for my grief? Not yet have I lifted the bridal fire in your chambers; I have not heard the wedding-song of your yoking Loves; what child of yours shall I look on for comfort? Would that some other Bacchant had destroyed you, and not toil-worn Agave. Do not blame your maddened mother, ill-fated Pentheus; blame Bacchus rather; Agave is guiltless. My hands, dear child, drip with your dew, your neck reaped through; and from the self-poured head all your blood, my child, has reddened my mother's tunic. Yes, I beseech you, give me the cup of Bromius; for instead of wine I pour out the gore of my Pentheus as a libation to Dionysus. For you, untimely one, weeping I raise a tomb with my own hands, hiding your headless body in the dust; and on your monument I will carve this: 'I am the corpse of Pentheus, wayfarer; the child-tending womb of Agave bore me, and a child-killing hand slew me.'"

So she spoke in her madness with a wise mind; and as she mourned, Autonoe, lamenting, cried out a comforting voice:

"I have envy and longing for your sorrow, Agave, because you embrace the sweet face of Pentheus, and his mouth and dear eye and the topmost hair of your son. Sister, I count you blessed, even though you killed your son, a mother; for instead of Actaeon, his form transformed, I wept over a fawn, and instead of my son's head I buried the long bastard antler of a deer. Slight is the comfort of your grief, that in his death you did not see a strange shape of your son, nor a fawn's hair, nor lift a useless hoof or horn; but I alone beheld my son a bastard corpse, an alien thing, and wailed over a dappled, voiceless image of a shape, and am called the mother of a deer and no longer of a son. But you, glorifying him, maiden-loving daughter of Zeus, change my human-seeming form into a deer— the form of my husband's father, your own Phoebus, father of Aristaeus; do a favor to Apollo; and after Actaeon, wretched, give Autonoe too as food to the same hounds, or to your own dogs; and Cithaeron will behold the mother torn by dogs after the son; and do not, wretched as I am, when I follow your deer in a like horn-dragging form, wildly lashing, yoke me to your chariot. Farewell, plant of Pentheus, farewell pitiless Cithaeron; farewell too, fennel-stalks of mind-robbing Dionysus; be safe for me, Phaethon who delights mortals; shine on the hills; shine too for both, the daughter of Leto and Dionysus; and if with your rays you know how to slay men too, strike with your pure fire both Autonoe and Agave; and be the avenger of Pasiphae, that you may laugh, grieving Aphrodite, the mother of Harmonia."

She spoke, and child-destroying Agave mourned the more. And the dear mother buried the corpse she had slain, welling up a tearful spring from her face; and the citizens built a well-made tomb.

So they grieved, downcast; and beholding it Bacchus the lord took pity, and the lament-loving women, mourning, he stopped, when to each one in turn he mixed a pain-loosing drug with honey-sweet wine and gave the draught of forgetfulness; and the grief of mourning Cadmus he soothed, his mournful lament, with a healing word; and he lulled them both to rest, Autonoe and Agave, revealing the first-announced oracles of the hope to come. And to the Illyrian land, to the country of the Western sea, he sent Harmonia, fled from her fatherland, fellow-traveler with her age-mate Cadmus, both as wanderers, to whom creeping time granted to have a stony, serpentine form. And with his Satyrs and Pans, lashing his lynxes, delicate Bacchus revelled into unsilent Athens.