Pentheus is determined
to go out in arms against the Bacchanals and put them to death, when
a sudden desire seizes him to witness them in their encampment upon
the mountains. Dionysus, whom he still supposes to be but a prophet
or messenger of the god, engages to conduct him thither; and, for
greater security among the dangerous women, proposes that he shall
disguise himself in female attire. As Pentheus goes within for that
purpose, he lingers for a moment behind him, and in prophetic speech
declares the approaching end;--the victim has fallen into the net;
and he goes in to assist at the toilet, to array him in the ornaments
which he will carry to Hades, destroyed by his own mother's hands.
It is characteristic of Euripides--part of his fine tact and
subtlety--to relieve and justify what seems tedious, or constrained,
or merely terrible and grotesque, by a suddenly suggested trait of
homely pathos, or a glimpse of natural beauty, or a morsel of form or
colour seemingly taken directly from picture or sculpture. So here,
in this fantastic scene our thoughts are changed in a moment by
the singing of the chorus, and divert for a while to the dark-haired
tresses of the wood; the breath of the river-side is upon us; beside
it, a fawn escaped from the hunter's net is flying swiftly in [75]
its joy; like it, the Maenad rushes along; and we see the little head
thrown back upon the neck, in deep aspiration, to drink in the dew.
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