HKB
PENTHEUS What way Descended he upon thee? In full day Or vision of night?
DIONYSUS Most clear he stood, and scanned My soul, and gave his emblems to mine hand.
PENTHEUS What like be they, these emblems?
DIONYSUS That may none Reveal, nor know, save his Elect alone.
PENTHEUS And what good bring they to the worshipper?
DIONYSUS Good beyond price, but not for thee to hear.
PENTHEUS Thou trickster? Thou wouldst prick me on the more To seek them out!
DIONYSUS His mysteries abhor The touch of sin-lovers.
PENTHEUS And so thine eyes Saw this God plain; what guise had he?
DIONYSUS What guise It liked him. 'Twas not I ordained his shape.
PENTHEUS Aye, deftly turned again. An idle jape, And nothing answered!
DIONYSUS Wise words being brought To blinded eyes will seem as things of nought.
PENTHEUS And comest thou first to Thebes, to have thy God Established?
DIONYSUS Nay; all Barbary hath trod His dance ere this.
PENTHEUS A low blind folk, I ween, Beside our Hellenes!
DIONYSUS Higher and more keen In this thing, though their ways are not thy way.
PENTHEUS How is thy worship held, by night or day?
DIONYSUS Most oft by night; 'tis a majestic thing, The darkness.
PENTHEUS Ha! with women worshipping? 'Tis craft and rottenness!
DIONYSUS By day no less, Whoso will seek may find unholiness--
PENTHEUS Enough! Thy doom is fixed, for false pretence Corrupting Thebes.
DIONYSUS Not mine; but thine, for dense Blindness of heart, and for blaspheming God!
PENTHEUS A ready knave it is, and brazen-browed, This mystery-priest!
DIONYSUS Come, say what it shall be, My doom; what dire thing wilt thou do to me?
PENTHEUS First, shear that delicate curl that dangles there. [He beckons to the soldiers, who approach DIONYSUS.]
DIONYSUS I have vowed it to my God; 'tis holy hair. [The soldiers cut off the tress.]
PENTHEUS Next, yield me up thy staff!
DIONYSUS Raise thine own hand To take it. This is Dionysus' wand. [PENTHEUS takes the staff.]
PENTHEUS Last, I will hold thee prisoned here.
DIONYSUS 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 Echion'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