Achilles now sends a challenge to Penthesilea, knowing the Amazon conditions.  Against all entreaty the Queen accepts, not in her former spirit, but in the frenzy of desperate endeavor, in the reawakened rage of her ambition, spurred and pricked by the words of the priestess.

The full scene of madness follows.  She calls for her dogs and elephants, and the full accoutrement of battle.  Amidst the terror of her own warriors, the rolling of thunder, she implores the gods’ help to crush the Greek.  In a final touch of frenzy she aims a dart at her faithful Prothoe.

The battle begins, Achilles in fullest confidence in Penthesilea’s love, unfrightened by the wild army of dogs and elephants.  The scene, told by the present on-lookers, is heightened by the cries of horror and dismay of the Amazons themselves.

Achilles falls; Penthesilea, a living Fury, dashes upon him with her dogs in an insane orgy of blood.  The Queen in the culminating scene is greeted by the curses of the high priestess.  Prothoe masters her horror and turns back to soothe the Queen.  Penthesilea, unmindful of what has passed, moves once more through the whole gamut of her torturing emotions, and is almost calmed when she spies the bier with the hero’s body.  The last blow falls when upon her questions she learns the full truth of her deed.  The words she utters (that have been cited by the hostile critics) may well be taken as the ravings of hopeless remorse, with a symbolic play of words.  She dies, as she proclaims, by the knife of her own anguish.

The last lines of Prothoe are a kind of epilogue: 

    “She sank because too proud and strong she flourished. 
    The half-decayed oak withstands the tempest;
    The vigorous tree is headlong dashed to earth
    Because the storm has struck into its crown."[A]

[Footnote A:  Translations, when not otherwise credited, are by the author.]

The opening scene—­“Lively, vehement:  Departure of the Amazons for Troy”—­begins impetuous and hefty with big strokes of the throbbing motive,

[Music:  (Tutti with higher 8ves.) (Piccolo in 8ve.) (Bass in 8ve.)]

the majestic rhythm coursing below, lashed by a quicker phrase above.  Suddenly trumpets sound, somewhat more slowly, a clarion call answered by a choir of other trumpets and horns in enchanting retort of changing harmonies.  Ever a fresh color of

[Music:  (Flutes and oboes) (Answering groups of brass) (Lower strings pizz.)]

tone sounds in the call of the brass, as if here or yonder on the battle-field.  Sometimes it is almost too sweetly chanting for fierce war.  But presently it turns to a wilder mood and breaks in galloping pace into a true chorus of song with clear cadence.

[Music:  (Flutes with reeds in lower 8ve.) (Violins with upper 8ve.) (Lower strings and brass with lower 8ve.)]

The joyful tinge is quickly lost in the sombre hue of another phase of war-song that has a touch of funeral trip (though it is all in 3/4 time):