The Bacchae (1105-1125)

When they did not succeed in their toils, Agave said: Come, standing round in a circle, each seize a branch, Maenads, so that we may catch the beast who has climbed aloft, and so that he does not make public the secret dances of the god. They applied countless hands

to the pine and dragged it up from the earth. Pentheus fell crashing to the ground from his lofty seat, wailing greatly: for he knew he was in terrible trouble. His mother, as priestess, began the slaughter,

and fell upon him. He threw the headband from his head so that the wretched Agave might recognize and not kill him. Touching her cheek, he said: It is I, mother, your son, Pentheus, whom you bore in the house of Echion.

Pity me, mother, and do not kill me, your child, for my sins. But she, foaming at the mouth and twisting her eyes all about, not thinking as she ought, was possessed by Bacchus, and he did not persuade her.

Seizing his left arm at the elbow and propping her foot against the unfortunate man’s side, she tore out his shoulder, not by her own strength, but the god gave facility to her hands. Ino began to work on the other side,