Bacchae
Euripides
- 64 pages
- English
- ePUB (adapté aux mobiles)
- Disponible sur iOS et Android
Bacchae
Euripides
Ă propos de ce livre
The youngest of the three great Greek tragedians, following Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides (ca. 484â406 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.
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Dramatis Personae
Dionysus; he whom Semele of yore,
âMid the dread midwifery of lightning fire,
Bore, Cadmusâ daughter. In a mortal form,
The God put off, by Dirceâs stream I stand,
And cool Ismenosâ waters; and survey
My motherâs grave, the thunder-slain, the ruins
Still smouldering of that old ancestral palace,
The flame still living of the lightning fire,
Hereâs immortal vengeance âgainst my mother.
On that heaven-stricken, unapproached place,
His daughterâs tomb, which I have mantled oâer
With the pale verdure of the trailing vine.
The Phrygian and the Persian sun-seared plains,
And Bactriaâs walls; the Medesâ 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.
Have founded, by mankind confessed a God.
Now first in an Hellenic town I stand.
I have raised my revel shout, my fawn-skin donned;
Taâen in my hand my thyrsus, ivy-crowned.
Vowed Dionysus was no son of Jove:
That Semele, by mortal paramour won,
Belied great Jove as author of her sin;
âTwas but old Cadmusâ craft: hence Jove in wrath
Struck dead the bold usurper of his bed.
Their wits all crazed, they wander oâer the mountains
And I have forced them wear my wild attire.
Thereâs not a woman of old Cadmusâ race,
But I have maddened from her quiet house;
Unseemly mingled with the sons of Thebes,
On the roofless rocks, âneath the pale pines, they sit.
In our dread Mysteries initiate,
Her guilt, and humbly seek to make atonement
To me, for Semele, mine outraged mother â
To me, the God confessed, of Jove begot.
To Pentheus hath given up, his sisterâs son,
My godheadâs 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.
With arms shall seek to drive from off the mountains
My Bacchanal rout, at my wild Maenadsâ head
Iâll meet, and mingle in the awful war.
Hence have I taâen the likeness of a man,
Myself transmuted into human form.
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 Rheaâs craft and mine;
And beat them all round Pentheusâ royal palace,
Beat, till the city of Cadmus throngs to see.
I to the Bacchanals in the dim glens
Of wild CithĂŠron go to lead the dance.
And by the sacred steep of Tmolus hoar,
Light I danced with wing-like feet,
Toilless toil and labour sweet!
Away! away! whoeâer he be;
Leave our path, our temple free!
Seal up each silent lip in holy awe.
But I, obedient to thy law,
Who, deep in mystic rites divine,
Leads his hallowed life with us,
Initiate in our Thyasus;
And, purified with holiest waters,
O mighty mother, Cybele!
He his thyrsus shaking round,
All his locks with ivy crowned,
Lead your God in fleet array;
Bacchus lead, the ever young,
A God himself from Gods that sprung,
From the Phrygian mountains down
âMid Joveâs 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.
Received with all a motherâs love;
In his secret thigh immured,
There with golden clasps secured,
Safe from Hereâs 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 MÊnads bear
O Thebes, thou sacred town!
With flowers and fruitage fair,
Or the green ash-tree broke:
Your spotted fawn-skins line with locks
Torn from the snowy fleecéd flocks:
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 KouretĂŠ 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 Rheaâs hands they place,
Meet the Bacchic son...