When Cadmos had ended, ancient Cithairon groaned from his springs and poured forth tears in fountains; the trees lamented, the Naiad Nymphs chanted dirges. Dionysos was abashed before the hoary head of Cadmos and his lamentations ; mingling a tear with a smile on that untroubled countenance, he gave reason back to Agaue and made her sane once more, that she might mourn for Pentheus.
The mother, herself again with eyes that she could trust, stood awhile rigid and voiceless. Then seeing the head of Pentheus dead she threw herself down, and rolled in helpless misery on the ground smearing the dust on her hair. She tore the shaggy skins from her breast and threw down the goblets of Bromios’s company, scoring her chest and the cleft between her bare breasts with red scratches. She kissed her son’s eyes and his pallid cheeks, and the charming locks of his bloodstained hair ; then with bitter lamentation she spoke :
Cruel Dionysos, insatiable persecutor of your family ! Give me back my former madness — for a worse madness possesses me now in my sanity. Give me back that delirium, that I may call my son a wild beast once more. I thought I had struck a beast — I hold a head newly cut from the neck, but no lion’s head, it is Pentheus ! Autonoe is happy for all her heavy tears, for she mourned Actaion dead, and the mother slew not her son. I alone have become a childmurderer. Ino slew not Melicertes or Learchos, Ino my banished sister, but the father destroyed the son he had begotten. How unhappy I am ! Zeus slept with Semele only that I might mourn Pentheus ; Zeus the father childed Dionysos from his own thigh, only to destroy the whole family of Cadmos. May Dionysos forgive me, he has destroyed the whole race of Cadmos. Now may even Apollo strike his harp again as before, as at the marriage feast where the gods were guests, as by Harmonia’s bed, as in the bridechamber of my father Cadmos, let him twangle one dirge for Autonoe and Agaue both, and chant loudly of Actaion and Pentheus so quickly to perish. What medicine is there for my sorrow, O my dearest boy ? I have never lifted the marriage torch at your wedding ; I have never heard the bridal hymn for your wedded love. What son of yours can I see to comfort me ? Would that some other, some Bacchant, had destroyed you, not all-wretched Agaue ! Blame not your frenzied mother, illfated Pentheus, blame Bacchos rather — Agaue is innocent ! My hands, dear lad, are dripping with the dew from your shorn neck, the blood from your head has incarnadined all the robe of the mother who shed it. Yes, I beseech you, give me the cup of Bromios ; for instead of wine I will pour the blood of my Pentheus as a libation to Dionysos. For you, untimely dead, I will build amid my tears a tomb with my own hands. I will lay in the earth your headless body ; and on your monument I will carve these words : Wayfarer, I am the body of Pentheus ; the cherishing womb of Agaue brought me forth, and the murdering hand of Agaue slew her son.’
So spoke the maddened creature in words of sanity — and while she lamented, Autonoe spoke with a sorrowful voice of consolation :
“I envy and desire your unhappiness, Agaue ; for you kiss the sweet face of Pentheus, his lips and his dear eyes and the hair of your son. Sister, I think you happy, even if you the mother slew your own son. But I had no Actaion to mourn ; his body was changed, and I wept over a fawn — instead of my son’s head I buried the long antlers of a changeling stag. It is a small consolation to you in your pain, that you have seen your dead son in no alien shape, no fawn’s fell, no unprofitable hoof, no horn you took up. I alone saw my son as a changeling corpse, I lamented an image of alien shape dappled and voiceless ; I am called mother of a stag and not a son. But I pray to thee, prudish daughter of Zeus, glorify thy Phoibos the begetter of Aristaios my husband, and change my mortal shape to a deer — do grace to Apollo ! Give unhappy Autonoe also as a prey to the same dogs as Actaion, or to your own hounds ; let Cithairon see the mother torn by dogs even after the son, but when I am changed to the same horned shape as thy deer, yoke me not, unhappy, to thy car nor flog me fiercely with thy whip.
“Farewell, tree of Pentheus, farewell pitiless Cithairon ; farewell also ye fennels of mind-deluding Dionysos ! Happy be thou, Phaethon men’s delight ! Shine on the hills ; show thy light both for Leto’s daughter and Dionysos ! And if thou knowest how to destroy men also with thy rays, strike with thy pure fire Autonoe and Agaue. Be Pasiphae’s avenger, to plague with a laugh Harmonia’s mother Aphrodite.”
She spoke ; and Agaue childmurderer sorrowed yet more. The loving mother entombed the dead son whom she had slain, pouring a fountain of tears over her face, and the people built a goodly sepulchre.
So they mourned in dejection ; Lord Bacchos saw and pitied, and checked the dirge of the lamenting women, when he had mingled a medicine with honeysweet wine and passed it to each in turn as a drink to lull their troubles. He gave them the drink of forgetfulness, and when Cadmos lamented he soothed his sorrowful moans with healing words. He sent Autonoe and Agaue to their beds, and showed them oracles of god to tell of coming hope. Over the Illyrian country to the land of the Western sea he sped, and banished Harmonia with Cadmos her agemate, both wanderers, for whom creeping Time had in store a change into the shape of snaky stone.”
Then Bacchos with his Pans and Satyrs whipt up his lynxes, and went in gorgeous pomp to farfamed Athens.
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