Unseemly mingled with the sons of Thebes,
On the roofless rocks 'neath the pale pines they sit."
Cadmus the king, and Tiresias the seer, well knowing that Bacchus is really what he assumes to be—after a little hesitation about their novel attire in fawn-skins, their ivy-crown, and thyrsus, determine to join the Bacchanal rout; and Tiresias, as the king's ghostly confessor, preaches to him the following doctrine, sound indeed in itself, but uncommon in Euripidean drama:—
"No wile, no paltering with the deities.
The ancestral faith, coeval with our race,
No subtle reasoning, if it soar aloft,
Even to the height of wisdom, can o'erthrow."
Their purpose, however, to speed at once to the mountains, is stayed by the entrance of Pentheus, who has been absent from home, but has come back, in hot haste, on hearing of these strange and evil doings in his city. He will crush, he will stamp out, this pestilent new religion—a religion having in it quite as much of Venus as of Bacchus. Gyves and the prison-house shall be the portion of these wild women; and as for that wizard from the land of Lydia,—
"If I catch him 'neath this roof, I'll silence
The beatings of his thyrsus, stay his locks'
Wild tossing, from his body severing his head."
As for his grandsire, and the "blind prophet" his companion, he cannot marvel enough at their folly; nay, wroth as he is, he can scarcely help laughing at their
