Bacchae
Euripides
Euripides. The Tragedies of Euripides. Vol. I. Buckley, Theodore Alois, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850.
- Oh, yes! I imagine that like birds they are in the bushes held in the sweetest grips of love.
- You have been sent as a guard against this very event.
- Perhaps you will catch them, if you yourself are not caught before.
- Bring me through the midst of the Theban land. I am the only man of them who dares to perform this deed.
- You alone bear the burden for this city, you alone. Therefore the labors which are proper await you.
- Follow me. I am your saving guide: another will lead you down from there.
- Yes, my mother.
- And you will be remarkable to all.
- I am going for this reason.
- You will return here being carried—
- You talk of a delicacy for me.
- In the arms of your mother.
- You will force me to luxury.
- Yes indeed, such luxury!
- I will get what I deserve.
- You are terrible, terrible, and you go to terrible sufferings, so that you will find a renown reaching to heaven. Reach out your hands, Agave, and you too, her sisters, daughters of Kadmos. I lead this young man
- to a great contest, and Bromius and I will be the victors. The rest the matter itself will show.
- Go to the mountain, go, fleet hounds of Madness, where the daughters of Kadmos hold their company, and drive them raving
- against the mad spy on the Maenads, the one dressed in women’s attire. His mother will be the first to see him from a smooth rock or crag, as he lies in ambush, and she will cry out to the maenads:
- Who is this seeker of the mountain-going Kadmeans who has come to the mountain, to the mountain, Bacchae? Who bore him? For he was not born from a woman’s blood, but is the offspring of some lioness