Bacchae

Euripides

Euripides. The Tragedies of Euripides. Vol. I. Buckley, Theodore Alois, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850.

  • [*](Persons RepresentedDionysusChorusTeiresiasKadmosPentheusServantMessengerSecond MessengerAgave)[*](The Argument.BacchusDionysus, the son of JoveZeus by Semele, had made Thebes, his mother’s birth-place, his favorite place of abode and worship. Pentheus, the then reigning king, who, as others say, preferred the worship of MinervaAthena, slighted the new God, and persecuted those who celebrated his revels. Upon this, BacchusDionysus excited his mother Agave, together with the sisters of Semele, Autonoe and Ino, to madness, and visiting Pentheus in disguise of a Bacchanal, was at first imprisoned, but, easily escaping from his bonds, he persuaded Pentheus to intrude upon the rites of the Bacchants. While surveying them from a lofty tree, the voice of BacchusDionysus was heard inciting the Bacchants to avenge themselves upon the intruder, and they tore the miserable Pentheus piecemeal. The grief and banishment of Agave for her unwtting offence conclude the play.)
    Dionysus
    1. I, the son of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans—Dionysus, whom once Semele, Kadmos’ daughter, bore, delivered by a lightning-bearing flame. And having taken a mortal form instead of a god’s,
    2. I am here at the fountains of Dirke and the water of Ismenus. And I see the tomb of my thunder-stricken mother here near the palace, and the remnants of her house, smouldering with the still living flame of Zeus’ fire, the everlasting insult of Hera against my mother.
    3. I praise Kadmos, who has made this place hallowed, the shrine of his daughter; and I have covered it all around with the cluster-bearing leaf of the vine. I have left the wealthy lands of the Lydians and Phrygians, the sun-parched plains of the Persians,
    4. and the Bactrian walls, and have passed over the wintry land of the Medes, and blessed Arabia, and all of Asia which lies along the coast of the salt sea with its beautifully-towered cities full of Hellenes and barbarians mingled together;