Exclaiming in ambiguous phrase as to the awful end to which he is
destined, Dionysus leads the king out towards Cithaeron. {986}
CHORAL INTERLUDE IV
The crisis is come! Ho, to the mountains; where the Chorus picture the
scene already being enacted, the hunter of the Bacchanals caught in the
inexorable net of death. VENGEANCE ON THE LAWLESS SON OF ECHION is the
recurrent burden of the ode. Its prayer is to hold fast the pious
mind, the smooth painless life at peace with heaven and earth, instead
of fighting with the invincible, aweless outcast from all law. {1036}
EPISODE V
A _Messenger's Speech_ describes the catastrophe. How Pentheus,
arrived within sight of the orderly Maenads, was not satisfied, but
desired a higher station from which to view their unseemly life. Then
a wonder: the stranger bent down an ash tree, and seating Pentheus in a
fork of it let the tree return to its position, holding the wretched
king aloft, seen of all.
The stranger from our view had vanished quite.
Then from the heavens a voice, as it should seem,
Dionysus, shouted loud, "Behold, I bring,
O maidens, him that you and me, our rites,
Our orgies laughed to scorn; now take your vengeance.
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