Pen. This vile quibbling settles thy punishment.
Dio. Brutish ignorance and godlessness will settle thine.
Pen. How bold our Bacchanal is growing! a very master in this wordy strife!
Dio. Tell me what I am to suffer; what is the grievous doom thou wilt inflict upon me?
Pen. First will I shear off thy dainty tresses.
Dio. My locks are sacred; for the god I let them grow.
Pen. Next surrender that thyrsus.
Dio. Take it from me thyself; ’tis the wand of Dionysus I am bearing.
Pen. In dungeon deep thy body will I guard.
Dio. The god himself will set me free, whene’er I list.
Pen. Perhaps he may, when thou standest amid thy Bacchanals and callest on his name.[1]
Dio. Even now he is near me and witnesses my treatment.
Pen. Why, where is he? To my eyes he is invisible.
Dio. He is by my side; thou art a godless man and therefore dost not see him.
Pen. Seize him! the fellow scorns me and Thebes too.
Dio. I bid you bind me not, reason addressing madness.
Pen. But I say “bind!” with better right than thou.
Dio. Thou hast no knowledge of the life thou art leading, thy very existence is now a mystery to thee.[2]
Pen. I am Pentheus, son of Agave and Echion.
Dio. Well-named to be misfortune’s mate!
Pen. Avaunt! Ho! shut him up within the horses’ stalls hard by, that for light he may have pitchy gloom. Do thy dancing there, and these women whom thou bringest with thee to share thy villainies I will either sell as slaves or make their hands cease from this noisy beating of drums, and set them to work at the loom as servants of my own.
[Exit Pentheus.
