In the last part of the scene the Queen falls more and deeper into madness. It is only in a too literal spirit that one will find an oblique meaning,—by too great readiness to discover it. In reality there seems to be an intense conflict of opposite emotions in the heroine: the pure woman's love, without sense of self; and the wild overpowering greed of achievement. Between these grinding stones she wears her heart away. A false interpretation of decadent theme comes from regarding the two emotions as mingled, instead of alternating in a struggle.
Achilles advances, having flung away his armor. Prothoe persuades him to leave the Queen, when she awakes, in the delusion that she has conquered and that he is the captive. Thus when she beholds the hero, she breaks forth into the supreme moment of exaltation and of frenzied triumph. The main love scene follows:
Penthesilea tells Achilles the whole story of the Amazons, the conquest of the original tribe, the rising of the wives of the murdered warriors against the conquerors; the destruction of the right breast (A-mazon); the dedication of the "brides of Mars" to war and love in one. In seeking out Achilles the Queen has broken the law. But here again appears the double symbolic idea: Achilles meant to the heroine not love alone, but the overwhelming conquest, the great achievement of her life.
The first feeling of Penthesilea, when disillusioned, is of revulsive anger at a kind of betrayal. The Amazons recover ground in a wild desire to save their Queen, and they do rescue her, after a parting scene of the lovers. But Penthesilea curses the triumph that snatches her away; the high priestess rebukes her, sets her free of her royal duties, to follow her love if she will. The Queen is driven from one mood to another, of devoted love, burning ambition and mortal despair.
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-decayèd oak withstands the tempest;
The vigorous tree is headlong dashed to earth
Because the storm has struck into its crown."[60]