MESSENGER
And deem'st thou Thebes so beggared, so forlorn
Of manhood, as to sit beneath thy scorn?

LEADER
Thebes hath o'er me no sway!
None save Him I obey,
Dionysus, Child of the Highest, Him I obey and adore!

MESSENGER
One can forgive thee!--Yet 'tis no fair thing,
Maids, to rejoice in a man's suffering.

LEADER
Speak of the mountain side!
Tell us the doom he died,
The sinner smitten to death, even where his sin was sore!

MESSENGER
We climbed beyond the utmost habitings
Of Theban shepherds, passed Asopus' springs,
And struck into the land of rock on dim
Kithaeron--Pentheus, and, attending him,
I, and the Stranger who should guide our way,
Then first in a green dell we stopped, and lay,
Lips dumb and feet unmoving, warily
Watching, to be unseen and yet to see.

A narrow glen it was, by crags o'ertowered,