Now for the first time he has reached an
Hellenic city: and here--where least it should have been--his divinity
is questioned by his own mother's sisters who make the story of his
birth a false rumor, devised to cover Semele's shame, and avenged by
the lightning flash which destroyed her. To punish his unnatural kin
he has infected all their womenkind with his sacred phrensy, and
maddened out of their quiet life, they are now on the revel under the
pale pines of the mountain, unseemly mingled with the sons of Thebes:
so shall the recusant city learn her guilt, and make atonement to him
and his mother. Pentheus, it seems, is the main foe of his godhead,
who reigns as king over Thebes, the aged Cadmus having yielded the
sovereignty in his lifetime to his sister's son: he repels Bacchus from
the sacred libations, nor names him in prayer. So he and Thebes must
learn a dread lesson, and then away to make revelation in other lands.
As to force, if attempt is made to drive the Maenads from the
mountains, Bacchus himself will mingle in the war, and for this he has
assumed mortal shape.
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