t
sounds, and the army that had been summoned appears at the Electran
gate. Agave turns to them, and (in blank verse) calls all Thebans to
behold the quarry she has taken without the useless weapons of the
hunter; it shall be nailed up a trophy before her father's house.
_Shortly after enters on the right a melancholy procession of Cadmus
and his servants bearing the fragments of Pentheus' body, with
difficulty discovered and pieced together_. In extended parallel
dialogue between Cadmus and Evadne the phrensy gradually passes away
from her and she recognizes the deed she has done. Cadmus sums up the
final situation: all the house enwrapped in one dread doom. The Chorus
sympathize with Cadmus, but have no pity for Agave. She then follows
with a rhesis of woe, interrupted by {1365}

DIVINE INTERVENTION

Dionysus appears aloft, in divine form. The MSS. are defective here:
from what we have the god appears to be painting the future of Cadmus:
life in a dragon form, victories at the head of barbarian hosts,
finally the Isles of the Blest. Agave as stained with blood is
banished the land, vainly imploring the god's mercy. With lamentations
at the thought of exile, which is the lot of both, the play ends.

[1] The quotations are from Milman's translation in Routledge's
Universal Library.

PASSAGES

1

_Evolution of human life_

_Prometheus._ List rather to the deeds
I did for mortals: how, being fools before
I made them wise and true in aim of soul,
And let me tell you--not as taunting men,
But teaching you the intention of my gifts--
How, first beholding, they beheld in vain,
And hearing, heard not, but like shapes in dreams
Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time;
Nor knew to build a house against the sun
With wicketed sides, nor any woodcraft knew,
But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground,
In hollow caves unsunned. There came to them
No steadfast sign of winter nor of spring,
Flower perfumed, nor summer full of fruit;
But blindly and lawlessly they did all things,
Until I taught them how the stars do rise
And set in mystery, and devised for them
Number, the inducer of philosophies,