Classic Poem

Not like a beast borne on the flood of passion, boat without oars, but mindful of all his dignity
As human being, a king and a Greek, King Pentheus: " Tell him that we will reverence the Gods we have,
But not minded to increase the burden. What new ones ship raging like beasts from Asia by the islands
We've whips for, here in Thebes. Tell him to take his magic-drunken women and be off. " The messenger
Went up to the mountain wood; needles of pine stuck in the sandal-straps of the man returning
At noon and saying: " He could not hear me O King. I shouted aloud, clothed in the king's authority.
Showing him the wand I carried; the God's ... I say the stranger's ... eyes like blue ice looked through my body.
As if I had been an open window in the breast of a wall. He bored through me toward Thebes and answered
Not me, the raging laughing women: " They have Isemenus to drink of and Dirce and all the fountains,
Must they have wine too?" What more he said, my lord, I cannot remember. But I, having seen more
Than I dare tell, turned home. " " Ten spearmen " the king answered biting the bearded lip, " will do it.
What more saw you? Dread not to tell, obscene or magic. We are master of ourself as of this people.
Not like a beast borne on the flood of passion, boat without oars, but mindful of all our dignity
As human being, a king and a Greek: no random lightning of anger will stab the messenger. We're sane still
Though the air swarms. " The messenger: " My lord, my lord. " And the king: " Out with it. " " The lady Agave my lord. "
" Our mother, " the king answered frowning. " — Was in the mountain with the other women, dancing adoring. "

King Pentheus' knuckles, of the hand that held the long
Smooth-shaven staff tipped with the head of a man carved in pale ivory, whitened, and the hand reddened
Under the scant stipple of black hair. More than that was no motion. " Well, she was in the mountain, "
He answered, " my mother was there, " the king housing his wrath in hard self-mastery. He had the chariot
Horsed, and rode swiftly toward Cythaeron; the glens and slope bristled with forest. In a glade he found them.
He had come alone; the charioteer stayed by the sweating horses.

Without awe, without pleasure,
As a man spies on noxious beasts, he standing hidden spied on the rabid choir of the God.
They had pine-cone-tipped wands, they went half naked, they were hoarse with insane song; foam from their mouths, mingled
With wine and sweat, ran down their bodies. O fools, boats without oars borne on the flood of passion,
Forgetting utterly all the dignity of man, the pride of the only self-commanding animal,
That captains his own soul and controls even
Fate, for a space. The only animal that turns means to an end. " What end? Oh, but what end? "
It cried under his mind, " Increase the city? Subdue the earth? Breed slaves and cattle, and one's own
Off-shots, fed and secure? Ah fruitful-fruitless
Generations forever and ever. ... For pleasure " — he spat on the earth — " the slight collectible pleasure
Surplus to pain? " Then recollecting all his dignity as human being, a king and a Greek,
He heard with hostile ears the hoarse and beastlike choir of the worshippers: " O sisters we have found an opening,
We have hewn in the stone and mortar
A wild strait gate-way;
Slit eyes in the mask, sisters,
Entered the mountain.
We shall be sad to-morrow when the wine dies,
The God dies from our blood;
To-day in the forest
We are fire and have found an opening. "
His own mother Agave singing. Endure a little. If one could understand their fountain.
Of madness. Her shame to-morrow: not punishment enough: prison in the house. " O sisters we have found an opening "
What opening?

The boys from Thebes to be whipped, the Theban women shut up a fortnight, the God
and his Thracian
Satyrs and women ... " The generations, " he thought suddenly, " aspire. They better; they climb; as I
Am better than this weak suggestible woman my mother. Had I forgotten a moment the end
Of being? To increase the power, collectedness and dignity of man. — A more collected and dignified
Creature, " he groaned, " to die and stink. "

That moment like a tall ship breasting through water the God
Passed, the high head, the shining hair and the blond shoulders, trailing a wake of ecstasy like foam
Across the multitude of faces like waves, his frantic worshippers. He anchored among them smiling
In the wild midst, and said softly: " When you are dead you become part of peace; let no man
Dream more of death; there is neither sight nor hearing nor any wonder; none of us Gods enters it.
You become part of peace, part of the sacred beauty, but having no part: as if a flute-player
Should make beauty but hear none, being deaf and senseless. But living if you will
It is possible for you to break prison of yourselves and enter the nature of things and use the beauty.
Wine and lawlessness, art and music, love, self-torture, religion,
Are means but are not needful, contemplation will do it. Only to break human collectedness.
The least shepherd on Cythaeron, if he dares, might do it. But you being neophyte all, Thracians and Thebans,
Are indeed somewhat wild, somewhat too drunken. "

King Pentheus then, seeing his enemy, but ever
Stately mindful of all his dignity, as human being, a king and a Greek, entered among them
Angrily to fetch his mother. Agave cried out,
" Sisters: a lion stalking us, a wild beast of the pinewood, or is it a wolf? " She leading eagerly,
Full of the courage that the God had taught them, rushed on her son not known, and the others raging.
Joined her; the frantic voices, the tearing fingers, the teeth and the madness ...

The God and his people went down
Toward Thebes, Agave dancing before them, the head of her son the triumph in her hands, the beard and the blood:
" A lion I have killed in the mountain,
Thebans the head of a lion my own hands hunted,
With my hands, a lion! "