The earthquake
A voice from inside the palace, an earthquake, fire on Semele's tomb — and the priest walking out unbound through the wreckage.
Summary
The chorus's second long ode opens the scene. They invoke Dirce, the holy river of Thebes, and ask why she has fled them. They turn on Pentheus — born of Echion the dragon-seed, no man but a wonder, a giant raised against the thunder. They beg the god, wherever he is, to come down and lift his golden wand against the tyrant. They are still singing when a voice cuts through from inside the palace. It is Dionysus, calling them. The voice calls again — spirit of the chained earthquake, awake! — and the columns of Pentheus's palace shake.
Fire leaps on the Tomb of Semele beside the palace, the same fire that twenty years ago killed the god's mother. The chorus throw themselves to the ground in worship as the door opens and the priest walks out, unbound, alone. He greets them — did you despair so quickly when I went under the gate? Pentheus, he says, has been chasing shadows. When the king led him down to the stable, the god set a bull in the doorway in his shape; Pentheus fell on it and bound it hand and foot. Then a voice came and the house shook, and Pentheus ran calling for water. Then he thought the prisoner had escaped, ran back with his sword, and stabbed empty air at a phantom the god had set there.
The priest finishes the report. He is calm — the same calm he has held throughout — and tells the chorus he will bear the king gently when he comes. The ways of wisdom are still, he says, and her temper does not tremble. A footstep sounds inside the palace. Pentheus is on his way out, and the priest is waiting for him at the door, unbound, holding nothing, dressed exactly as he was when he was led in.
- Scene 1The god alone in front of the palace where his mother died, in disguise as his own priest, telling the audience the whole plan....
- Scene 2The chorus of eastern women, alone after the god has gone, sing the long entrance song. They tell their journey from Asia, the...
- Scene 3Tiresias calls Cadmus out, dressed for the mountain. The two old men greet each other with affection and a slightly comic bravado...
- Scene 4The chorus's first long ode. They open in horror at Pentheus's blasphemy and ask the goddess of holiness if she has heard. They...
- Scene 5The guards return leading the foreign priest, and the captain has news he cannot explain: the women Pentheus arrested earlier have...
- Scene 6The chorus invoke Dirce and beg the god, wherever he is, to lift his wand against the tyrant. From inside the palace a voice cuts...
- Scene 7Pentheus comes out raging; the priest is calmly at the door. A herdsman runs in from the mountain and delivers the first long...
- Scene 8The most quoted song in the play. The chorus on the long dances on the mountain, on the feet of a fawn fleeing through loveliness...
- Scene 9The priest calls Pentheus out. The king emerges already half-mad: he sees double suns, double Thebes, the priest as a horned bull....
- Scene 10The chorus drop the composure of the earlier odes. They invoke the hounds of the maddened mind to drive the women to find...
- Scene 11The second messenger gives the longest speech in the play: the bent pine, the call from the sky, the dismemberment. Agave arrives...