As though in answer to prayer, there is an earthquake, and Dionysus is set free from the palace prison. A messenger arrives with news about the bacchants, the women outside the city. This messenger reports that they are not living lasciviously, like Pentheus said they were. The messenger did report, though, that these women overcame men in battle.
Pentheus, true to character, is enraged and confused. The kind wants Dionysus to shut up, until Dionysus suggests that he could.....
