Bacchae

Euripides

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

  1. and the city extols the name of Pentheus. He too, I think, delights in being honored. Kadmos, whom you mock, and I will crown our heads with ivy and dance, a gray yoke-team but still we must dance;
  2. and I will not be persuaded by your words to fight against the god. For you are mad in a most grievous way, and you will not be cured by drugs, nor are you sick without them.
Chorus Leader
  1. Old man, you do not shame Phoebus with your words, and honoring Dionysus, a great god, you are prudent.
Kadmos
  1. My child, Teiresias has advised you well. Dwell with us, not apart from the laws. For now you flit about and have thoughts without thinking. Even if, as you say, he is not a god, call him one; and tell a glorious falsehood,
  2. so that Semele might seem to have borne a god, and honor might come to all our race. You see the wretched fate of Actaeon, who was torn apart in the meadows by the blood-thirsty hounds he had raised,
  3. having boasted that he was superior in the hunt to Artemis. May you not suffer this. Come, let me crown your head with ivy; honor the god along with us.
Pentheus
  1. Don’t lay a hand on me! Go off and hold your revels, but don’t wipe your foolishness off on me. I will seek the punishment of this
  2. teacher of your folly. Let someone go quickly to the seat where he watches the flights of birds, upset and overturn it with levers, turning everything upside down;
  3. and release his garlands to the winds and storms. In this way I will especially wound him. And some of you hunt throughout the city for this effeminate stranger, who introduces a new disease to women and pollutes our beds.
  4. If you catch him, bring him here bound, so that he might suffer as punishment a death by stoning, having seen a bitter Bacchic revelry in Thebes.
Teiresias
  1. O wretched man, how little you know what you are saying! You are mad now, and even before you were out of your wits.
  2. Let us go, Kadmos, and entreat the god, on behalf of him, though he is savage, and on behalf of the city, to do no ill. But follow me with the ivy-clad staff, and try to support my body, and I will try to support yours;
  3. it would be shameful for two old men to fall down. But let that pass, for we must serve Bacchus, the son of Zeus. Beware lest Pentheus bring trouble to your house, Kadmos; I do not speak in prophecy, but judging from the state of things; for a foolish man speaks foolishness.
Chorus
  1. Holiness, queen of the gods, Holiness, who bear your golden wings along the earth, do you hear these words from Pentheus? Do you hear his unholy
  2. insolence against Bromius, the child of Semele, the first deity of the gods at the banquets where guests wear beautiful garlands? He holds this office, to join in dances,
  3. to laugh with the flute, and to bring an end to cares, whenever the delight of the grape comes at the feasts of the gods, and in ivy-bearing banquets
  4. the goblet sheds sleep over men.
Chorus
  1. Misfortune is the result of unbridled mouths and lawless folly; but the life of quiet
  2. and wisdom remain unshaken and hold houses together. Though they dwell far off in the heavens the gods see the deeds of mortals.
  3. But cleverness is not wisdom, nor is thinking on things unfit for mortals. Life is short, and on this account the one who pursues great things does not achieve that which is present. In my opinion,