Bacchae

Euripides

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486157412
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Drama
• Index: Literature

The youngest of the three great Greek tragedians, following Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides (ca. 484–406 B.C.) is reputed to have written ninety-two plays, nineteen of which survive. The Bacchae, a late play staged posthumously, concerns the cult of Dionysus, god of wine, whose worship hinged largely on orgiastic and frenzied nature rites.
When Dionysus (in disguise) attempts to spread his cult among the people (especially the women) of Thebes, their king, Pentheus, imprisons Dionysus and tries to suppress his cult. The king's misguided attempt to thwart the will of a god leads to catastrophe. Full of striking scenes, frenzied emotion, and choral songs of great power and beauty, the play is a fine example of Euripides' ability to exploit and manipulate traditional Greek myth to serve his own ends in probing man's psychological makeup and understanding of himself.

Dramatis Personae

Dionysus

Chorus of Bacchae

Tiresias

Cadmus

Pentheus

Attendant

Messenger

Second Messenger

Agave

DIONYSUS

Unto this land of Thebes I come, Jove’s son,
Dionysus; he whom Semele of yore,
‘Mid the dread midwifery of lightning fire,
Bore, Cadmus’ daughter. In a mortal form,
The God put off, by Dirce’s stream I stand,
And cool Ismenos’ waters; and survey
My mother’s grave, the thunder-slain, the ruins
Still smouldering of that old ancestral palace,
The flame still living of the lightning fire,
Here’s immortal vengeance ’gainst my mother.

And well hath reverent Cadmus set his ban
On that heaven-stricken, unapproached place,
His daughter’s tomb, which I have mantled o’er
With the pale verdure of the trailing vine.

And I have left the golden Lydian shores,
The Phrygian and the Persian sun-seared plains,
And Bactria’s walls; the Medes’ wild wintry land
Have passed, and Araby the Blest; and all
Of Asia, that along the salt-sea coast
Lifts up her high-towered cities, where the Greeks,
With the Barbarians mingled, dwell in peace.

And everywhere my sacred choirs, mine Orgies
Have founded, by mankind confessed a God.
Now first in an Hellenic town I stand.

Of all the Hellenic land here first in Thebes,
I have raised my revel shout, my fawn-skin donned;
Ta’en in my hand my thyrsus, ivy-crowned.

But here, where least beseemed, my mother’s sisters
Vowed Dionysus was no son of Jove:
That Semele, by mortal paramour won,
Belied great Jove as author of her sin;
’Twas but old Cadmus’ craft: hence Jove in wrath
Struck dead the bold usurper of his bed.

So from their homes I’ve goaded them in frenzy;
Their wits all crazed, they wander o‘er the mountains
And I have forced them wear my wild attire.
There’s not a woman of old Cadmus’ race,
But I have maddened from her quiet house;
Unseemly mingled with the sons of Thebes,
On the roofless rocks, ’neath the pale pines, they sit.

Needs must this proud recusant city learn,
In our dread Mysteries initiate,
Her guilt, and humbly seek to make atonement
To me, for Semele, mine outraged mother —
To me, the God confessed, of Jove begot.

Old Cadmus now his might and kingly rule
To Pentheus hath given up, his sister’s son,
My godhead’s foe; who from the rich libation
Repels me, nor makes mention of my name
In holy prayer. Wherefore to him, to Thebes,
And all her sons, soon will I terribly show
That I am born a God: and so depart
(Here all things well disposed) to other lands,
Making dread revelation of myself.

But if this Theban city, in her ire,
With arms shall seek to drive from off the mountains
My Bacchanal rout, at my wild Maenads’ head
I’ll meet, and mingle in the awful war.
Hence have I ta’en the likeness of a man,
Myself transmuted into human form.

But ye, who Tmolus, Lydia’s strength, have left
My Thyasus of women, whom I have led
From lands barbarian, mine associates here,
And fellow-pilgrims; lift ye up your drums,
Familiar in your native Phrygian cities,
Made by your mother Rhea’s craft and mine;
And beat them all round Pentheus’ royal palace,
Beat, till the city of Cadmus throngs to see.
I to the Bacchanals in the dim glens
Of wild Cithæron go to lead the dance.

CHORUS

From the Asian shore,
And by the sacred steep of Tmolus hoar,
Light I danced with wing-like feet,
Toilless toil and labour sweet!
Away! away! whoe’er he be;
Leave our path, our temple free!
Seal up each silent lip in holy awe.
But I, obedient to thy law,

O Dionysus! chant the choral hymn to thee

Blest above all of human line,
Who, deep in mystic rites divine,
Leads his hallowed life with us,
Initiate in our Thyasus;
And, purified with holiest waters,

Goes dancing o’er the hills with Bacchus’ daughters.

And thy dark orgies hallows he,
O mighty mother, Cybele!
He his thyrsus shaking round,
All his locks with ivy crowned,

O Dionysus! boasts of thy dread train to be.

Bacchanals! away, away!
Lead your God in fleet array;
Bacchus lead, the ever young,
A God himself from Gods that sprung,
From the Phrygian mountains down

Through every wide-squared Grecian town.

Him the Theban queen of yore
’Mid Jove’s fast-flashing lightnings bore:
In her awful travail wild
Sprung from her womb the untimely child,
While smitten with the thunderblast
The sad mother breathed her last.

Instant him Saturnian Jove
Received with all a mother’s love;
In his secret thigh immured,
There with golden clasps secured,
Safe from Here’s jealous sight;
Then, as the Fates fulfilled, to light
He gave the hornéd god, and wound
The living snakes his brows around;
Whence still the wandéd Mænads bear

Their serpent prey wreathed in their floating hair

Put on thy ivy crown,
O Thebes, thou sacred town!

O hallowed house of dark-haired Semele!

Bloom, blossom everywhere,
With flowers and fruitage fair,

And let your frenzied steps supported be

With thyrsi from the oak
Or the green ash-tree broke:
Your spotted fawn-skins line with locks
Torn from the snowy fleecéd flocks:

Shaking his wanton wand let each advance,

And all the land shall madden with the dance.

Bromius, that his revel rout
To the mountains leads about;
To the mountains leads along,
Where awaits the female throng;
From the distaff, from the loom,
Raging with the God they come.
O ye mountains, wild and high,
Where the old Kouretæ lie:
Glens of Crete, where Jove was nurst,
In your sunless caverns first
The crested Korybantes found
The leathern drums mysterious round,
That, mingling in harmonious strife
With the sweet-breathed Phrygian fife,
In Mother Rhea’s hands they place,
Meet the Bacchic son...