and in that guise to pass through the streets of Thebes. His eagerness to behold the Bacchantes makes him insensible to the indignity of the situation. He asks—
"What is the second portion of my dress?
Bac.Robes to thy feet, a bonnet on thy head;
A fawn-skin and a thyrsus in thy hand."
He takes for his guide to the mountains the handsome stranger whom he had so recently ordered to sit in darkness and prepare for death: he is even obsequious to him:—
"So let us on: I must go forth in arms,
Or follow the advice thou givest me."
Bacchus calls to his train, and gives his instructions to them how to deal with their prey, when they have him in the toils:—
"Women! this man is in our net; he goes
To find his just doom 'mid the Bacchanals.
Vengeance is ours. Bereave him first of sense;
Yet be his phrenzy slight. In his right mind
He never had put on a woman's dress;
But now, thus shaken in his mind, he'll wear it.
A laughing-stock I'll make him for all Thebes,
Led in a woman's dress through the wide city."
The Chorus respond to the summons of their divine leader in passionate and jubilant strains, and anticipate the doom of their persecuting foe:—
"Slow come, but come at length,
In their majestic strength,
