ce of abode and worship. Pentheus, the then
reigning king, who, as others say, preferred the worship of Minerva,
slighted the new God, and persecuted those who celebrated his revels. Upon
this, Bacchus excited his mother Agave, together with the sisters of
Semele, Autonoe and Ino, to madness, and visiting Pentheus in disguise of a
Bacchanal, was at first imprisoned, but, easily escaping from his bonds, he
persuaded Pentheus to intrude upon the rites of the Bacchants. While
surveying them from a lofty tree, the voice of Bacchus was heard inciting
the Bacchants to avenge themselves upon the intruder, and they tore the
miserable Pentheus piecemeal. The grief and banishment of Agave for her
unwitting offense conclude the play.

* * * * *

THE BACCHAE.[1]

* * * *

BACCHUS.

I, Bacchus, the son of Jove, am come to this land of the Thebans, whom
formerly Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, brought forth, delivered by the
lightning-bearing flame. And having taken a mortal form instead of a God's,
I am present at the fountains of Dirce and the water of Ismenus. And I see
the tomb of my thunder-stricken mother here near the palace, and the
remnants of the house smoking, and the still living name of Jove's fire,
the everlasting insult of Juno against my mother. But I praise Cadmus, who
has made this place hallowed, the shrine of his daughter; and I have
covered it around with the cluster-bearing leaf of the vine. And having
left the wealthy lands of the Lydians and Phrygians, and the sun-parched
plains of the Persians, and the Bactrian walls; and having come over the
stormy land of the Medes, and the happy Arabia, and all Asia which lies
along the coast of the salt sea, having fair-towered cities full of Greeks
and barbarians mingled together; and there having danced and established my
mysteries, that I might be a God manifest among men, I have come to this
city first of the Grecian [cities,] and I have raised my shout first in
Thebes of this land of Greece, fitting a deer-skin on my body, and taking a
thyrsus in my hand, an ivy-clad[2] weapon, because the sisters of my
mother, whom, it least of all became, said that I, Bacchus, was not born of
Jove; but that Semele, having conceived by some mortal, charged the sin of
her bed upon Jove, a trick of Cadmus; on which account they said that Jove
had slain her, because she told a false tale about her marriage. Therefore
I have n