His mother howl’d, and, heedless of his prayer,
Her trembling hand she twisted in his hair,
“And this,” she cried, “shall be Agave’s share;”
When from his neck his struggling head she tore,
And in her hands the ghastly visage bore.
With pleasure all the hideous trunk survey,
Then pull’d and tore the mangled limbs away,
As starting in the pangs of death it lay.
Soon as the wood its leafy honours casts,
Blown off and scatter’d by autumnal blasts,
With such a sudden death lay Pentheus slain,
And in a thousand pieces strow’d the plain.
By so distinguishing a judgment awed,
The Thebans tremble and confess the god.
Book IV
Story of Alcithoe and Her Sisters
Undeterred by the punishment of Pentheus, Alcithoe and her sisters dare to ridicule the orgies of Bacchus, and to employ themselves in the labours of the loom during the festival of that god.
Yet still Alcithoe perverse remains,
And Bacchus still and all his rites disdains.
Too rash and madly bold, she bids him prove
Himself a god, nor owns the son of Jove:
Her sisters too unanimous agree,
Faithful associates in impiety.
Be this a solemn feast, the priest had said;
Be, with each mistress, unemploy’d each maid.
With skins of beasts your tender limbs enclose,
And with an ivy crown adorn your brows;
The leafy thyrsus high in triumph bear,
And give your locks to wanton in the air.
These rites profaned, the holy seer foreshow’d
A mourning people, and a vengeful god.
Matrons and pious wives obedience show,
Distaffs, and wool half spun, away they throw:
Then incense burn, and, Bacchus, thee adore:
Or lovest thou Neseus, or Lyaeus, more?
O, doubly got! O, doubly born! they sung,
Thou mighty Bromius, hail! from lightning sprung.
Hail! Thyon, Eleleus, each name is thine:
Or, listen parent of the genial vine!
Iacchus! Evan! loudly they repeat,
And not one Grecian attribute forget,
Which to thy praise, great deity, belong,
Styled, justly, Liber in the Roman song.
Eternity of youth is thine! enjoy
Years roll’d on years, yet still a blooming boy.
In heaven thou shinest with a superior grace;
Conceal thy horns, and ’tis a virgin’s face.
Thou taught’st the tawny Indian to obey,
And Ganges, smoothly flowing, own’d thy sway.
Lycurgus, Pentheus, equally profane,
By thy just vengeance equally were slain.
By thee the Tuscans, who conspired to keep
Thee captive, plunged and cut with fins the deep.
With painted reins, all glittering from afar,
The spotted Lynxes proudly draw thy car;
Around the Bacchae and the Satyrs throng,
Behind, Silenus, drunk, lags slow along;
On his dull ass he nods from side to side,
Forbears to fall, yet half forgets to ride.
Still at thy near approach applauses loud
Are heard, with yellings of the female crowd;
Timbrels, and boxen pipes, with mingled cries,
Swell up in sounds confused and rend the skies.
Come, Bacchus, come propitious, all implore,
And act thy secret orgies o’er and o’er.
But Mineus’ daughters, while these rites were paid,
At home impertinently busy stay’d;
Their wicked tasks they ply with various art,
And through the loom the sliding shuttle dart,
Or at the fire to comb the wool they stand,
Or twirl the spindle with a dext’rous hand.
Guilty themselves, they force the guiltless in,
Their maids, who share the labour, share the sin.
At last one sister cries, who nimbly knew
To draw nice threads, and wind the finest clue,
“While others idly rove, and gods revere,
Their fancied gods! they know not who or where;
Let us, whom Pallas taught her better arts,
Still working, cheer with mirthful chat our hearts;
And, to deceive the time, let me prevail
With each by turns to tell some antique tale.”
She said: her sisters liked the humour well,
And, smiling, bade her the first story tell.
But she a while profoundly seem’d to muse,
Perplex’d amid variety to choose;
And knew not whether she should first relate
The poor Dircetis, and her wondrous fate
(The Palestines believe it to a man,
And show the lake in which her scales began):
Or if she rather should the daughter sing,
Who in the hoary verge of life took wing;
Who soar’d from earth, and dwelt in towers on high,
And now a dove she flits along the sky:
Or how the tree, which once white berries bore,
Still crimson bears, since stain’d with crimson gore.
The tree was new; she likes it, and begins
To tell the tale, and as she tells she spins.
Story of Pyramus and Thisbe
A Babylonian youth, named Pyramus, becomes enamoured of Thisbe, a beautiful maiden—The flame is mutual, and the two lovers disregard the prohibition of their parents, and converse through the chink of wall which separates the houses—They now determine to elude the vigilance of their friends, and to meet in the neighbourhood under a white mulberry-tree—Thisbe first arrives at the appointed place, but the sudden appearance of a lioness affrights her; and, during her flight into a neighbouring cave, she drops her veil, which the lioness finds and besmears with blood—Pyramus recognises the garment, and, concluding that she has been devoured by wild beasts, stabs himself—Thisbe, when her fears vanish, returns from the cave, and, at the sight of the dying Pyramus, falls on the sword still reeking with his blood—The mulberry-tree, stained with the blood of the lovers, ever after hears fruit of that colour.
“In Babylon, where first her queen, for state,
Raised walls of brick magnificently great,
Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair!
He found no eastern youth his equal there,
And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair.
A closer neighbourhood was never known,
Though two the houses, yet the roof was one.
Acquaintance grew, the acquaintance they improve
To friendship, friendship ripen’d into love:
Love had been crown’d, but, impotently mad,
What parents could not hinder, they forbade:
For with fierce flames young Pyramus still burn’d,
And grateful Thisbe flames as fierce return’d.
Aloud in words their thoughts they dare not break,
But silent stand: and silent looks can speak.
The fire of love, the more it is suppress’d,
The more it glows and rages in the breast.
“When the division-wall was built, a chink
Was left, the cement unobserved to shrink.
So slight the cranny, that it still had been
For centuries unclosed, because unseen.
But, oh! what thing so small, so secret lies,
Which ’scapes, if form’d for love, a lover’s eyes?
Ev’n in this narrow chink they quickly found
A friendly passage for a trackless sound.
Safely they told their sorrows and their joys,
In whisper’d murmurs and a
