the rich-clustering vine for mortals.

PEN. This is a fine reproach you charge on Bacchus; I order ye to close
every tower all round.

BAC. Why? do not Gods pass over walls too?

PEN. You are wise, wise at least in all save what you should be wise in.

BAC. In what I most ought, in that I was born wise; but first learn,
hearing his words who is come from the mountain to bring a message to you;
but we will await you, we will not fly.

MESSENGER. Pentheus, ruler o'er this Theban land, I come, having left
Cithaeron, where never have the brilliant flakes of white snow fallen.[39]

PEN. But bringing what important news are you come?

MESS. Having seen the holy Bacchae, who driven by madness have darted their
fair feet from this land, have I come, wishing to tell you and the city, O
king, what awful things they do, things beyond marvel; and I wish to hear
whether in freedom of speech I shall tell you the matters there, or whether
I shall repress my report, for I fear, O king, the hastiness of thy mind,
and your keen temper, and too imperious disposition.[40]

PEN. Speak, as you shall be in all things blameless as far as I am
concerned; for it is not meet to be wrath with the just; and in proportion
as you speak worse things of the Bacchae, so much the more will we punish
this man who has taught these tricks to the women.

MESS. I was just now driving up to the heights the herd of calves, when the
sun sends forth his rays warming the land, and I see three companies of
dances of women, of one of which Autonoe was chief; of a second, thy
mother, Agave; and Ino led the third dance; and they were all sleeping,
relaxed in their bodies, some resting their locks against the leaves of
pine, and some laying their heads at random on the leaves of oak in the
ground, modestly, not, as you say, that, drunk with the goblet and the
noise of the flute, they solitary hunt Venus through the wood. But thy
mother standing in the midst of the Bacchae, raised a shout, to wake their
bodies from sleep, when she heard the lowing of the horned oxen; but they,
casting off refreshing sleep from their eyes, started upright, a marvel to
behold for their elegance, young, old, and virgins yet unyoked, And first
they let loose their hair over their shoulders; and arranged their
deer-skins, as many as had had the fastenings of their knots unloosed, and
they girded the dappled hides with serpents licking their jaws--and some
having in their arms a kid,