Pentheus astonish’d heard the dismal sound, And sees the yelling matrons gathering round; He sees, and weeps at his approaching fate, And begs for mercy, and repents too late. “Help! help! my aunt Autonoe,” he cried, “Remember how your own Actaeon died.” Deaf to his cries, the frantic matron crops One stretch’d-out arm, the other Ino lops. In vain does Pentheus to his mother sue, And the raw bleeding stumps present to view. His mother howl’d, and, heedless of his prayer, Her trembling hand she twisted in his hair, “And this,” she cried, “shall be Agave’s share;” When from his neck his struggling head she tore, And in her hands the ghastly visage bore. With pleasure all the hideous trunk survey, Then pull’d and tore the mangled limbs away, As starting in the pangs of death it lay. Soon as the wood its leafy honours casts, Blown off and scatter’d by autumnal blasts, With such a sudden death lay Pentheus slain, And in a thousand pieces strow’d the plain.