Euripides: The Bacchae
The Plainspoken Classics - Scriptorium Press (First Edition, 2026)
An original AI translation made directly from the source language.
https://openscriptorium.com


======== The Bacchae ========

DIONYSUS: I have come, the son of Zeus, to this land of Thebes — I, Dionysus, whom Semele, Cadmus's daughter, once bore, delivered by a lightning-carried fire. I have exchanged my divine shape for a mortal one and stand here at the streams of Dirce and the waters of Ismenus. I see my thunder-struck mother's tomb there near the palace, and the ruins of her house still smoldering with the living flame of Zeus's fire — Hera's undying outrage against my mother. I praise Cadmus, who has made this ground untouchable, a shrine for his daughter; I have wrapped it round with the clustering green of the vine. I have left behind the gold-rich fields of Lydia and Phrygia, the sun-scorched plains of Persia, the walls of Bactria, the harsh land of the Medes, wealthy Arabia, and all of Asia that lies along the salt sea, filled with fine-towered cities where Greeks and barbarians mingle together. I came to this city of the Greeks first, having already set my dances going and established my rites elsewhere, so that I might stand revealed to mortals as a god. Thebes is the first city of this Greek land I have made ring with my cry, fastening a fawnskin to their flesh and putting a thyrsus, my ivy-tipped spear, into their hands. For my mother's sisters — who least of all should have done it — denied that Dionysus was born of Zeus, and claimed instead that Semele, seduced by some mortal, laid the blame for her bed onto Zeus — a trick of Cadmus's, they said, and for it they boasted that Zeus killed her, since she had lied about the marriage. So I have driven them from their homes with madness — they live on the mountain, their minds unhinged. I have forced them to wear the gear of my rites, and I have driven every woman of Cadmus's line, every one of them, raving from their houses. Mingled together with the daughters of Cadmus, they sit on roofless rocks beneath the green firs. For this city must learn, even against its will, that it stands uninitiated into my Bacchic rites, and I must defend my mother Semele by appearing to mortals as the god she bore to Zeus. Cadmus, then, has given his honor and his throne to Pentheus, his daughter's son, who wages war against me as a god, thrusting me away from libations and never once naming me in his prayers. For this I will show him, and all the Thebans, that I am a god indeed. Then, once I have set things right here, I will move on to another land and reveal myself there too. But if the city of Thebes tries in its anger to drive the Bacchae down from the mountain by force of arms, I will meet them in battle at the head of my maddened women. For this cause I have taken on mortal form and changed my shape into the likeness of a man. But you — you who have left Tmolus, Lydia's bulwark, my sacred band, women I have brought from foreign lands as my companions and fellow travelers — lift up the native drums of Phrygia, the instruments Rhea the mother and I devised, and come and beat them round the royal halls of Pentheus, so that Cadmus's city may see. I myself will go to the folds of Cithaeron, where my Bacchae are, and join their dances.
CHORUS: From the land of Asia, having crossed sacred Tmolus, I speed on for Bromius, sweet labor, toil that is no burden, crying out in ecstasy for the Bacchic god. Who is on the road? Who is on the road? Who? Let him get from the house, and let every mouth fall silent and pure, for I will hymn Dionysus with the songs forever ordained.
CHORUS: Blessed is the one who, happy in fortune and knowing the rites of the gods, keeps his life pure and joins his soul to the sacred band, revels on the mountains in holy purifications, and, honoring the mysteries of the great mother Cybele, brandishing the thyrsus on high, crowned with ivy, serves Dionysus. Onward, Bacchae, onward, Bacchae, escorting Bromius, the god who is the son of a god, Dionysus, down from the Phrygian mountains into the broad streets of Greece — Bromius!
CHORUS: Once, when his mother carried him through the birth-pangs' cruel labor, Zeus's thunderbolt flew and struck her, and she cast him forth from her womb before her time — dying from that stroke of lightning. But at once Zeus, Cronus's son, received him into a birth-chamber of his own: he hid him in his thigh, closing it with golden clasps, concealed from Hera. And when the Fates had brought him to term, he bore the bull-horned god and crowned him with wreaths of serpents — from which the maenads still bind that hunted, beast-nursing prey around their braided hair.
CHORUS: O Thebes, nurse of Semele, crown yourself with ivy, burst into bloom, burst into bloom with green, fair-fruited bryony, and rage in Bacchic frenzy with branches of oak or fir. Fringe your dappled fawnskins with tufts of white wool, and hallow yourselves around the violent wands of fennel. At once the whole earth will dance — whoever leads the sacred bands is Bromius — up to the mountain, up to the mountain, where the throng of women waits, driven from their looms and shuttles, stung to madness by Dionysus.
CHORUS: O hidden chamber of the Curetes, and you sacred haunts of Crete that gave birth to Zeus, where the triple-crested Corybantes in their caves devised for me this circle of stretched hide — and mixed its sound, in the taut ecstasy of Bacchic revelry, with the sweet cry of Phrygian flutes' breath, and put it into the hand of mother Rhea, a beat to underlie the Bacchae's cries of joy. And nearby, frenzied satyrs achieved it from the mother goddess, and joined it to the dances of the biennial festivals in which Dionysus delights.
CHORUS: Sweet he is on the mountains, when from the running bands he falls to the ground, wearing the sacred fawnskin robe, hunting the blood of the slain goat, the joy of raw flesh — rushing toward the Phrygian, the Lydian mountains, and Bromius leads the cry, euoi! The ground flows with milk, flows with wine, flows with the nectar of bees. Like the smoke of Syrian frankincense, the Bacchic god, lifting his blazing pine-torch flame from the fennel wand, darts along in his running dance, rousing the wandering revelers with his cries, tossing them up, flinging his soft curls into the air. And amid the shouts of joy he thunders out such words as these: 'On, O Bacchae, on, O Bacchae, glory of gold-streaming Tmolus, sing of Dionysus to the deep-booming drums, with cries of joy exalting the joyful god in Phrygian shouts and cries, when the holy, sweet-singing flute sounds out its holy strains, matching the beat of those who race to the mountain, to the mountain!' And she rejoices then, like a foal beside its grazing mother, and the Bacchant runs her swift-footed limbs in leaping bounds.
TEIRESIAS: Who is at the gate? Call Cadmus out from the house — Agenor's son, who left the city of Sidon and built up this fortress town of Thebes. Someone go, announce that Teiresias is looking for him. He himself knows why I have come, and what I, an old man, agreed with one older still: to fasten wands, to wear fawnskins, and to crown our heads with sprigs of ivy.
CADMUS: Dearest friend, how I recognized your wise voice, hearing it wisely spoken, though I was still inside the house! I have come ready, wearing this equipment of the god. For he is the son of my own daughter — Dionysus, who has appeared to men a god — and so far as lies in our power, he must be made great. Where must I dance, where set my foot, and shake my gray head? Guide me, old man to old man, Teiresias — for you are wise. I would never tire, neither night nor day, beating the ground with the wand. How gladly we forget that we are old!
TEIRESIAS: The same is true of me — I too feel young again, and mean to try my hand at the dance.
CADMUS: So shall we take a carriage up the mountain?
TEIRESIAS: No — the god would not receive the same honor that way.
CADMUS: Old man that I am, I'll guide you, old man, myself.
TEIRESIAS: The god will lead the two of us there without any trouble.
CADMUS: Shall we be the only ones in the city to dance for Bacchus?
TEIRESIAS: Yes — we alone think rightly. Everyone else thinks wrongly.
CADMUS: Waiting only wastes time. Take hold of my hand.
TEIRESIAS: There — join your hand to mine, and let us pair them.
CADMUS: Mortal as I am, I do not scorn the gods.
TEIRESIAS: We use no clever arguments against the gods. The beliefs handed down from our fathers, which we have held as long as time itself, no reasoning will overthrow, not even if the finest minds have worked out the cleverest wisdom. Will someone say I feel no shame at my age, about to dance with ivy crowning my head? No — the god has drawn no line, whether it's the young who must dance or the old; he wants honor paid to him equally by everyone, and has no wish to single anyone out for special treatment.
CADMUS: Since you cannot see this daylight, Teiresias, I'll serve as your interpreter. Pentheus is hurrying here toward the house — Echion's son, to whom I've given power over this land. How agitated he looks! What news will he bring now?
PENTHEUS: I happened to be away from this land, and now I hear of strange troubles through the city — that our women have abandoned their homes for sham bacchic revels, and go rushing about on the shadowy mountains, honoring with dances this new god Dionysus, whoever he is. Mixing bowls stand full in the midst of their gatherings, and one after another slinks off alone into some deserted spot to serve the beds of men, on the pretext that they're maenads performing sacrifice, when really they put Aphrodite ahead of Bacchus. As many as I have caught, my servants are guarding, hands bound, in the public buildings; and those still at large I'll hunt down from the mountain — Ino, and Agave, who bore me to Echion, and Actaeon's mother, I mean Autonoe. I'll clamp them fast in iron nets and soon put an end to this vicious bacchic business. They say some stranger has arrived, a sorcerer, a spell-singer from the land of Lydia, with golden curls that smell sweet in his hair, wine-dark grace in his eyes, who spends day and night in the company of young women, holding out to them his ecstatic rites. If I catch him inside this house, I'll put a stop to his thyrsus-pounding and hair-tossing — by cutting his neck clean off his body. That man claims Dionysus is a god, claims he was once sewn into Zeus's thigh — the one who was burned to ashes by lightning bolts along with his mother, because she lied about a marriage with Zeus. Isn't that outrage — whoever this stranger is — deserving of the noose? But here's another marvel — I see the prophet Teiresias in a dappled fawnskin, and my mother's father too, quite a laugh, playing the bacchant with his fennel wand! I'm ashamed, grandfather, to see your old age so lacking in sense. Won't you shake off that ivy? Won't you free your hand of that thyrsus, my mother's father? You're the one who talked him into this, Teiresias. By bringing in this new god for people to worship, you want to keep reading the birds and collecting fees for burnt offerings. If your gray old age didn't shield you, you'd be sitting bound in chains among the bacchants, for introducing these depraved rites. For wherever the sparkle of the grape enters women's feasting, I say there's nothing sound left in those rites.
CHORUS: That is impiety talking. Stranger, have you no shame before the gods, and before Cadmus who sowed the earthborn crop? You are Echion's son—do you mean to disgrace your own line?
TEIRESIAS: When a clever man takes hold of good material for argument, it's no great feat to speak well. You have a tongue that runs smooth, as though you had sense—but there's no sense in what you say. A man who is powerful through mere boldness, who can speak well but has no judgment, makes a bad citizen. This new god you mock—I couldn't begin to tell you how great he'll become throughout Greece. Two things, young man, are first among mortals: the goddess Demeter—she is the earth, call her by whichever name you like—she nourishes mortals with dry food; and then there's the one who came after, the son of Semele, who matched her gift and discovered the liquid drink of the grape and brought it to human beings. This is what frees suffering mortals from grief, whenever they are filled with the flowing vine—this gives sleep, and forgetting of the troubles of the day, and there is no other cure for pain. He, a god, is poured out in libation to the gods, so that through him human beings have all their blessings. And you laugh at him, because he was sewn into Zeus's thigh? Let me teach you how well that story really works. When Zeus snatched him out of the lightning fire and carried the infant up to Olympus as a god, Hera wanted to hurl him out of heaven. Zeus countered with a god's own device: he broke off a piece of the sky that encircles the earth and gave that as a hostage in the child's place, handing it over to end Hera's quarrel with him—Dionysus. In time mortals said he had been sewn in Zeus's thigh, changing the word, because he had once been given as a hostage—ὅμηρος—to the goddess Hera, and so they wove the tale. This god is also a prophet: for the Bacchic frenzy and the madness carry a great deal of prophetic power. For whenever the god enters a body in full force, he makes the frenzied speak what is to come. He has also taken over a portion of Ares' domain: for terror can scatter an army standing armed in its ranks before a spear is even touched—and that too is a madness that comes from Dionysus. You will yet see him leaping on the very rocks of Delphi, on the twin-peaked plateau, brandishing and shaking his Bacchic branch, greatest through all of Greece. But listen to me, Pentheus: do not boast that force is what gives men power, and do not, even if you think you're of sound mind, take your opinion for wisdom when your judgment is in fact diseased. Welcome the god into this land, pour libations to him, hold the Bacchic revels, and crown your head. Dionysus will not force women to be chaste in matters of love—chastity in all things depends on one's own nature, always; that is what you must look to. Even in the midst of Bacchic revelry, a woman who is truly chaste will not be corrupted. You see—you enjoy it when crowds stand at your gates and the city magnifies the name of Pentheus; and he too, I think, delights in being honored. So Cadmus and I, whom you mock, will crown ourselves with ivy and dance—a gray-haired pair, but dance we must nonetheless—and I will not fight against a god, persuaded by your words. For you are mad, most painfully mad, and no drug could cure you—yet it is a drug that has made you sick.
CHORUS: Old man, you bring no shame on Phoebus with your words, and in honoring Bromius, the great god, you show good sense.
CADMUS: My son, Teiresias has counseled you well. Live with us, not outside the law. For now you flutter about, and though you think you're thinking, you're thinking nothing at all. Even if this god does not exist, as you claim, let it be said in your circle that he does — tell the beautiful lie, so that Semele may be thought to have borne a god, and honor comes to us and to our whole family. You see the wretched fate of Actaeon, torn apart in the meadows by the flesh-eating hounds he himself had raised, because he boasted he was better than Artemis at the hunt. Don't let that happen to you. Come here, let me crown your head with ivy; join us in giving the god his honor.
PENTHEUS: Keep your hand off me — go play your Bacchant games somewhere else, and don't wipe your foolishness onto me! As for the man who taught you this madness, I'll go after him with justice. Someone go, quickly, to the seat where he watches his birds, and lever it over with crowbars, turn it upside down, throw everything into confusion together, and toss his sacred ribbons to the winds and storms. That will sting him more than anything else I could do. The rest of you, spread out through the city and hunt down that womanish stranger who is bringing a new disease upon our women and defiling their beds. If you catch him, bring him here in chains, so that he may face justice by stoning and die, having seen a bitter Bacchic revel in Thebes.
TEIRESIAS: You wretched man, you have no idea what you're saying. You were mad before, and now you've gone completely out of your mind. Let us go, Cadmus, and plead on his behalf, savage as he is, and on behalf of the city, that the god do nothing drastic. Come with me now, take up the ivy staff, help me keep my body upright, and I'll help yours — it's a shame for two old men to fall. Still, we must go; we are bound to serve Bacchus, the son of Zeus. As for Pentheus — let him bring no grief, no penthos, into your house, Cadmus. I don't say this as prophecy, but from what I see plainly: a fool speaks foolish things.
CHORUS: Holiness, queen of the gods, Holiness, who on your golden wings sweep over the earth — do you hear what Pentheus says? Do you hear his unholy insolence against Bromius, son of Semele, the foremost god among the blessed ones at the beautiful, garlanded feasts of joy? His gifts are these: to lead the dance in worship, to laugh to the sound of the flute, to put an end to cares, whenever the gleam of the grape comes at the gods' banquet, and in the ivy-crowned festivities the mixing-bowl wraps men in sleep.
CHORUS: Unbridled mouths and lawless folly end in disaster. But the life of quiet, and wisdom, stay unshaken and hold houses together. For though they dwell far off in the sky, the heavenly ones still watch the deeds of mortals. Cleverness is not wisdom, nor is thinking thoughts too great for mortal minds. Life is short, and whoever chases greatness in it forfeits what lies at hand. These, to my mind, are the ways of the mad and the ill-counseled.
CHORUS: Might I come to Cyprus, island of Aphrodite, where the mind-bewitching Loves dwell among mortals, or to Paphos, made fertile without rain by the hundred mouths of the foreign river's streams. Or to that place of surpassing beauty, Pieria, seat of the Muses, the sacred slope of Olympus — take me there, Bromius, Bromius, leading god of the Bacchants, joyful one. There the Graces dwell, there Desire dwells, and there it is lawful for Bacchants to hold their rites.
CHORUS: The god, Zeus's child, delights in festivity, and loves Peace, giver of wealth, the goddess who nurtures the young. He grants alike to the rich man and the lesser one the painless joy of wine; but he hates whoever cares nothing for these things—to live out his days happily by the light and through the friendly nights—and to keep his wise mind and understanding far from men who reach beyond their measure. What the common people hold and practice, that I would accept.
SERVANT: Pentheus, we are here, having caught this quarry you sent us after—our errand has not failed. This wild thing was gentle with us; he did not draw back his foot in flight, but gave his hands willingly, not pale, and his wine-dark cheek never changed color. Laughing, he told us to bind him and lead him off, and waited, making my task easy. And I said, out of shame: "Stranger, it is not by my own will that I lead you away, but by the orders of Pentheus, who sent me." But as for the Bacchae you shut up, the ones you seized and bound in chains inside the public prison—they are gone, freed, leaping off to the meadows, calling on Bromius their god. Of their own accord the fetters were loosed from their feet, and the bolts threw open the doors without any mortal hand. This man has come to Thebes full of many wonders. The rest is your concern.
PENTHEUS: Let go of his hands—caught in my net as he is, he is not so quick as to escape me. Well then, stranger, your body is not ill-made—for that purpose, it seems, you have come to Thebes, to hunt women. Your hair is long, flowing—no wrestler's crop—spilling down along your very cheek, full of longing; and you keep your skin pale by design, not by the sun's rays but in shadow, hunting Aphrodite with your beauty. So first, tell me your birth, what stock you are.
DIONYSUS: No boast at all—this is easy to tell. You have heard, I suppose, of flowering Tmolus.
PENTHEUS: I know it—it rings the city of Sardis round.
DIONYSUS: From there I come; Lydia is my homeland.
PENTHEUS: Where do you get these rites you bring to Greece?
DIONYSUS: Dionysus initiated us into them, the son of Zeus.
PENTHEUS: Is there some Zeus there who breeds new gods?
DIONYSUS: No—the very one who joined Semele in marriage here.
PENTHEUS: Did he compel you by night, or face to face?
DIONYSUS: Seeing me as I saw him, he gave me his sacred rites.
PENTHEUS: These rites of yours—what form do they take?
DIONYSUS: They may not be told to mortals uninitiated in Bacchic worship.
PENTHEUS: What benefit do they hold for those who perform them?
DIONYSUS: It is not lawful for you to hear—but it is worth knowing.
PENTHEUS: A clever forgery, that—meant to make me want to hear it.
DIONYSUS: The rites despise whoever practices impiety.
PENTHEUS: You say you saw the god clearly—what did he look like?
DIONYSUS: Whatever he wished; that was not mine to dictate.
PENTHEUS: Again you've turned that aside neatly—and said nothing.
DIONYSUS: A wise word will seem folly to a fool.
PENTHEUS: Is this the first place you came bringing the god?
DIONYSUS: Every barbarian land dances these rites.
PENTHEUS: Yes—for they think far worse than Greeks do.
DIONYSUS: In this, better—though their customs differ.
PENTHEUS: And these rites of yours — do you perform them by night, or by day?
DIONYSUS: Mostly by night. Darkness lends solemnity.
PENTHEUS: For women that's a treacherous, rotten arrangement.
DIONYSUS: Even by day one could invent something shameful.
PENTHEUS: You'll pay for these vile tricks of yours.
DIONYSUS: And you for your ignorance — and your impiety toward the god.
PENTHEUS: How bold this Bacchant is, and no stranger to argument.
DIONYSUS: Tell me what I must suffer. What terrible thing will you do to me?
PENTHEUS: First, I'll cut off that soft curling hair of yours.
DIONYSUS: My hair is sacred. I grow it out for the god.
PENTHEUS: Next, hand over that wand from your hands.
DIONYSUS: Take it from me yourself. This I carry for Dionysus.
PENTHEUS: And we'll keep your body under guard inside, in chains.
DIONYSUS: The god himself will free me, whenever I wish.
PENTHEUS: Yes — whenever you call him, standing among your Bacchae.
DIONYSUS: Even now he sees what I suffer, standing close by.
PENTHEUS: And where is he? He isn't visible to my eyes.
DIONYSUS: Beside me. You, being impious yourself, cannot see him.
PENTHEUS: Seize him! He holds me in contempt, and Thebes too.
DIONYSUS: I tell you not to bind me — I am sane, and you are not.
PENTHEUS: But I say to bind you — and I have more authority than you.
DIONYSUS: You don't know what your life is, or what you're doing, or who you are.
PENTHEUS: I am Pentheus, son of Agave, and of my father Echion.
DIONYSUS: Your very name fits you for disaster.
PENTHEUS: Away with him! Lock him up close by the horses' stalls, so he may look into murky darkness. Dance there! As for these women you've brought along as your accomplices in crime, we'll either sell them off, or, once I've stopped their hands from this drumming and this rattling of skins, I'll keep them as slave-women at my looms.
DIONYSUS: I will go. What need not happen, I need not suffer. But know this — Dionysus, whom you say does not exist, will come after you for these outrages. In wronging me, you drag him into chains.
CHORUS: Daughter of Achelous, holy and fair-maiden Dirce, it was you who once in your own springs received the child of Zeus, when Zeus his father snatched him from the deathless fire of the thunderbolt into his thigh, crying out these words: Go, Dithyrambus, enter this male womb of mine! I proclaim you, O Bacchic one, for Thebes to call by this name. But you, blessed Dirce, drive me away, though I wear the garland-bearing bands of worshippers gathered in you. Why do you refuse me? Why do you flee me? Yet still, by the grape-clustered joy of Dionysus' vine, still you shall care for Bromius.
CHORUS: What fury, what fury does the earth-born race reveal, sprung once from a serpent — Pentheus, whom earth-born Echion fathered, a savage-eyed monster, no mortal man but a bloody thing, like a giant arrayed against the gods! He will soon bind me, Bromius' own, in his snares, and already holds my fellow-worshipper shut within his house, hidden in a dark prison. Do you see this, son of Zeus, Dionysus — your prophets caught in struggles against force? Come, shaking your golden-gleaming hair, come down Olympus, brandishing your wand, and check the violence of this bloody man.
CHORUS: Where now, on Nysa the nurse of wild beasts, do you lead your thyrsus-bearing bands, Dionysus, or on the Corycian peaks? Or perhaps in the tree-crowded chambers of Olympus, where once Orpheus, playing his lyre, gathered trees together with his music, gathered the wild beasts of the field. Blessed Pieria, the Bacchic god reveres you, and he will come to dance, bringing his revels with him; crossing the swift-flowing Axius he will lead the whirling Maenads, and Lydias too, father of prosperity, who gives mortals wealth and blessing — Lydias, whom I have heard makes the land of fine horses rich with its loveliest waters.
DIONYSUS: Io! Hear, hear my voice, io, Bacchae, io, Bacchae!
CHORUS: Who is this, who, and from where — the cry of Euios that calls out to me?
DIONYSUS: Io, io, I call again — Semele's son, the child of Zeus!
CHORUS: Io, io, master, master, come now into our band, O Bromius, Bromius!
DIONYSUS: Shake the floor of the earth, lady Earthquake!
CHORUS: Ah, ah — soon Pentheus's halls will be shaken to rubble. Dionysus is inside the house — worship him! We worship him! Do you see those stone lintels on the columns, cracking apart? Bromius cries out in triumph inside the roof.
DIONYSUS: Kindle the blazing thunder-torch! Burn, burn the house of Pentheus to the ground!
CHORUS: Ah, ah — don't you see the fire, don't you see it blazing around Semele's holy tomb, the flame the thunderbolt left burning there long ago, from Zeus's blast? Fling your trembling bodies to the ground, fling them down, Maenads! For our lord comes against this house, turning it upside down — the son of Zeus.
DIONYSUS: Barbarian women, are you so struck with terror that you've fallen to the ground? You felt it, it seems — the Bacchic god shaking Pentheus's house to pieces. But get up, take heart, shake the trembling from your bodies.
CHORUS: O greatest light of our joyful Bacchic revelry, how glad I was to see you, when I was alone, abandoned in my desolation!
DIONYSUS: Did you fall into despair when I was sent inside, to be thrown into Pentheus's dark cell?
CHORUS: How could I not? Who was my guardian, if you had met with disaster? But how were you set free, when you fell into that godless man's hands?
DIONYSUS: I saved myself, easily, without any effort at all.
CHORUS: Didn't he bind your hands together in fettering ropes?
DIONYSUS: In just this he humiliated himself — thinking he was binding me, he never touched me, never laid a hand on me, but fed on his own delusions. He found a bull standing by the mangers where he meant to shut me up, and threw ropes around its knees and hooves, breathing out fury, sweat dripping from his body, biting his lips — while I sat close by, quietly, watching. It was in that moment that Bacchus came and shook the house, and kindled fire at his mother's tomb. And Pentheus, when he saw it, thinking the house was ablaze, rushed here and there, shouting for his slaves to bring water, and every servant was hard at that labor, toiling for nothing. Then he dropped that effort — since he thought I had escaped — snatched up a dark sword and rushed into the house. Then Bromius, so it seemed to me — I only tell you how it looked — made a phantom in the courtyard. Pentheus rushed at it and lunged, stabbing at the bright air, as if slaughtering me. Beyond this too Bacchius did him further violence: he brought the house crashing to the ground, all of it smashed to pieces, so that he might see my chains turn most bitter to him. And worn out with the labor, he let his sword fall and gave up — for being a mere man, he had dared to come to battle against a god. And I, calmly, walked out of the house and came to you, giving no thought to Pentheus. But as I judge it — I hear his boot creaking inside the house — he'll be here at the entrance any moment. What will he say after all this, I wonder? Easily enough I'll bear him, even if he comes breathing fury. For it belongs to a wise man to practice a controlled and even temper.
PENTHEUS: I have suffered terrible things — the stranger has escaped me, the one who was just now bound fast in chains. Ah, ah — there is the man! What is this? How do you appear here at the entrance to my house, having come out free?
DIONYSUS: Stay your foot — set your rage down, quietly.
PENTHEUS: How did you get out here, free of your chains?
DIONYSUS: Didn't I say — or didn't you hear — that someone would loose me?
PENTHEUS: Who? You're forever bringing in some new story.
DIONYSUS: The one who grows the cluster-heavy vine for mortals.
DIONYSUS: There — you've just leveled a fine reproach against Dionysus.
PENTHEUS: I order every tower shut, all the way around.
DIONYSUS: And why not? Don't gods cross walls too?
PENTHEUS: Clever, clever — you are, except in the one thing you need to be clever about.
DIONYSUS: In what matters most, that is exactly where I am wise. But first hear this man's report — he has come down from the mountain to tell you something. As for us, we'll stay right here for you; we won't run.
MESSENGER: Pentheus, lord of this land of Thebes, I have come, leaving Cithaeron behind, where the bright shafts of white snow never stop falling.
PENTHEUS: And what urgent business brings you here?
MESSENGER: I have seen the sacred bacchae, who in their frenzy shot their white limbs like arrows out of this land, and I have come to tell you and the city, lord, that they do terrible things, things beyond wonder. But I want to know first whether I should speak freely of what happened there, or hold my tongue — for I fear your quickness of temper, my lord, your sharp anger, and how very much a king you are.
PENTHEUS: Speak. Whatever you say, you'll go entirely unharmed by me — it isn't right to rage at honest men. But the more terrible the things you tell of the bacchae, the more surely I'll charge this man who taught women his arts with the penalty he deserves.
MESSENGER: The herds of grazing cattle were just climbing the ridge toward the high pasture, at the hour when the sun sends out its rays to warm the earth, when I saw three companies of women dancing in a circle. Autonoe led one, your mother Agave the second, and Ino the third company. All of them lay asleep, their bodies slack — some with their backs propped against a fir's foliage, others resting their heads on the ground among oak leaves, wherever they happened to fall, but modestly, not as you claim, drunk on the mixing-bowl and the pipe's noise, hunting through the woods alone for love. Your mother stood up among the bacchae and gave a cry, to rouse their bodies out of sleep, when she heard the lowing of horned cattle. And they, throwing off the heavy sleep from their eyes, sprang up straight — a wonder to see, such order and grace — young women and old and girls still unmarried, all together. First they let their hair loose down over their shoulders, and those whose fawnskins had come unfastened at the knot pulled them up again, and they girded the dappled hides with snakes that licked at their own jaws. Some held in their arms a young deer or wild wolf cubs and gave them their own white milk — women who had just given birth and left their babies behind, their breasts still swollen. Then they crowned themselves with wreaths of ivy, oak, and flowering bryony. One took her thyrsus and struck a rock, and a dewy stream of water leapt out from it. Another drove her wand into the ground, and there the god sent up a spring of wine. Any who craved the white drink scratched the earth with the tips of their fingers and drew up streams of milk; and from the ivy-wreathed wands sweet rivers of honey dripped. So that, had you been there and seen these things, you would have gone after the god you now condemn with prayers instead. We gathered together, cowherds and shepherds, to trade accounts with one another and argue over the strange and marvelous things they do; and one man, a wanderer about town, practiced in speech, said to us all: 'You who dwell on the holy plateaus of the mountains, shall we hunt down Agave, Pentheus's mother, out of her revels, and do our lord a favor?' It seemed a good plan to us, so we hid ourselves, lying in wait in the leafy thickets. And they, at the appointed hour, began to wave the thyrsus for their rites, calling on Iacchus with one voice, the son of Zeus, Bromius. The whole mountain joined the revel, and the wild beasts too — nothing stayed still in that running. Now Agave happened to leap near where I was; I sprang out, meaning to seize her, abandoning the thicket where I had hidden my body. But she cried out: 'O my running hounds, we are being hunted by these men! Follow me — follow, armed with the thyrsus in your hands!' So we fled and escaped being torn apart by the bacchae, but they fell on the grazing heifers with hands that held no iron. You could have seen one of them tearing apart a well-uddered young cow with her bare hands, bellowing all the while, while others ripped full-grown heifers to shreds. You could have seen ribs or cloven hooves flung up and down; and pieces hung dripping, smeared with blood, under the fir branches. Bulls that had been proud, their rage gathering in their horns a moment before, went crashing to the ground, dragged down by the countless hands of young women. The garment of flesh was stripped from them faster than you could blink your royal eyes. Then, like birds lifted in flight, they went racing over the outstretched plains that border the Asopus's streams and yield Thebes its rich harvest of grain. Falling upon Hysiae and Erythrae, which lie beneath the slopes of Cithaeron, like an invading army they turned everything upside down. They snatched children from their homes; and whatever they set on their shoulders stayed there without being tied, and never fell to the black ground — not bronze, not iron. They carried fire in their hair, and it did not burn them. Men, enraged, took up arms against the onrush of the bacchae — and there, my lord, was the terrible thing to see: their pointed spears drew no blood, while the women, hurling their wands from their hands, wounded the men and drove them back in flight — women against men, and not without some god's hand in it. Then they went back to where they had started from, to the very springs the god had sent up for them, and washed off the blood, while snakes licked the drops from their cheeks and made their skin shine clean. So this god, whoever he is, master, welcome him into this city — for he is great in every way, and they say of him too, as I have heard, that he is the one who gave mortals the vine that puts an end to grief. And where there is no more wine, there is no more Aphrodite, nor anything else sweet left for human beings.
CHORUS: I'm afraid to speak freely before the king, but I will say it all the same: Dionysus is inferior to no god.
PENTHEUS: This outrage of the bacchants is already catching like fire, spreading close, a great disgrace before the Greeks. No, I mustn't hesitate. Go to the Electran gates; order all the shield-bearers to muster, and every rider of swift-footed horses, and all who brandish light shields and pluck bowstrings with their hands - we're marching against the bacchants. This goes beyond all limits, if we're to suffer what we're suffering from women.
DIONYSUS: You won't be persuaded at all, Pentheus, though you hear my words. Yet even mistreated by you as I am, I say you shouldn't raise weapons against a god - you should stay calm. Bromius will not tolerate you driving the bacchants from the mountains of their revelry.
PENTHEUS: Don't lecture me - you escaped your chains; be content to keep that safe, or shall I turn my justice on you again?
DIONYSUS: I would sooner sacrifice to him than, in my rage, kick against the goad - a mortal against a god.
PENTHEUS: I will sacrifice - a great slaughter of women, just as they deserve, stirring it up thoroughly in the folds of Cithaeron.
DIONYSUS: You will all flee. And this too is shameful - bronze-forged shields turned back by the bacchants' wands.
PENTHEUS: I'm tangled up with this impossible stranger, who whether he suffers or acts will not keep silent.
DIONYSUS: My friend, it's still possible to set this right.
PENTHEUS: By doing what? Becoming a slave to my own slaves?
DIONYSUS: I will bring the women here without weapons.
PENTHEUS: Oh no - this is some trick you're plotting against me now.
DIONYSUS: What sort of trick, if I want to save you by my arts?
PENTHEUS: You've made this pact together, so you can keep your revels forever.
DIONYSUS: Well - I have made a pact, yes, that's true - with the god.
PENTHEUS: Bring me my weapons here, and you - stop talking.
DIONYSUS: Ah! Do you want to see them sitting together on the mountain?
PENTHEUS: Very much - I'd give an enormous weight of gold for that.
DIONYSUS: Why have you fallen into such a great longing for this?
PENTHEUS: I'd be pained to see them drunk.
DIONYSUS: Yet you'd gladly watch a thing that's bitter to you?
PENTHEUS: Of course - sitting quietly under the pines.
DIONYSUS: But they'll track you down, even if you go in secret.
PENTHEUS: Then openly - you're right, that's well said.
DIONYSUS: Shall we lead you, then? Will you attempt the journey?
PENTHEUS: Lead me as quickly as you can - I begrudge you every moment's delay.
DIONYSUS: Then wrap fine linen robes around your body.
PENTHEUS: What's this? Am I to pass from a man into a woman?
DIONYSUS: So they won't kill you, if you're seen there as a man.
PENTHEUS: Well said again - what a clever one you've always been.
DIONYSUS: Dionysus taught me this skill.
PENTHEUS: Then how could what you're so wisely advising be done?
DIONYSUS: I will go inside the house and dress you myself.
PENTHEUS: What clothing? A woman's? No - shame holds me back.
DIONYSUS: So you're no longer so eager a spectator of the maenads?
PENTHEUS: But what clothing do you say to put around my body?
DIONYSUS: I'll let your hair grow long, flowing over your head.
PENTHEUS: And what's the second piece of my costume?
DIONYSUS: A robe down to your feet - and a headband on your head.
PENTHEUS: And will you add anything else to this for me?
DIONYSUS: A thyrsus in your hand, and a dappled fawnskin.
PENTHEUS: I could never put on a woman's dress.
DIONYSUS: Then you'll shed blood, joining battle with the bacchae.
PENTHEUS: You're right. I should go first and spy on them.
DIONYSUS: Wiser, certainly, than hunting trouble with more trouble.
PENTHEUS: And how do I cross the city without the Thebans seeing me?
DIONYSUS: We'll go by the empty streets. I'll lead the way.
PENTHEUS: Anything's better than having the bacchae laugh at me. Let's go inside — I'll decide what seems best.
DIONYSUS: As you wish. Whatever you choose, I'm ready.
PENTHEUS: I'll go in then. Either I'll march out armed, or I'll follow your plan instead.
DIONYSUS: Women, the man is walking into the net. He will come to the bacchae, and there he'll pay with his life. Dionysus, now the work is yours — you are not far off. Let us punish him. First unsettle his mind, breathe into him a light madness. For as long as he thinks straight he will never consent to put on a woman's dress, but once driven out of his right senses, he'll wear it. I want him to be a joke to the Thebans, led through the city in a woman's shape, after all his former threats, which made him so terrifying. But now I'll go to fit onto Pentheus the finery he will wear down to Hades, slaughtered by his own mother's hands. Then he will know Dionysus, son of Zeus, who is by nature, in the end, a god most terrible — and to men most gentle.
CHORUS: Shall I ever again set white foot in the all-night dances, exulting in Bacchic joy, throwing my neck back to the dewy air — like a fawn playing in the green delights of a meadow, when she has escaped the terror of the hunt, beyond the watchers, past the woven nets, while the hunter shouts, urging on his straining hounds — and with effort and swift-running gusts she bounds over the plain along the river, delighting in the solitude far from men and in the shoots of the shadow-leaved wood? What is wisdom? Or what finer gift do the gods grant mortals than to hold a hand of power over the heads of one's enemies? What is good is always dear.
CHORUS: It moves slowly, but still the divine power is something to be trusted. It sets straight those mortals who honor folly and do not exalt the ways of the gods, raging with a mad presumption. The gods hide their power cunningly, treading down the long stretch of time, and they hunt down the impious. For one must never think or practice anything beyond the laws. It costs little to believe that whatever is divine has power, and that what has long been lawful, and rooted in nature, stands forever. What is wisdom? Or what finer gift do the gods grant mortals than to hold a hand of power over the heads of one's enemies? What is good is always dear.
CHORUS: Happy is the one who escapes the storm at sea and reaches harbor; happy too is the one who rises above his labors. One person surpasses another, here in wealth, there in power. Countless are the hopes of countless people; some come to fulfillment in prosperity, others slip away. But the one whose life is happy day by day — that one I call blessed.
DIONYSUS: You there, so eager to see what you should not see, so keen for what should not be sought — Pentheus, I mean you. Come out before the house, let me see you, wearing the dress of a woman, a maenad, a bacchant, to spy on your own mother and her band. In that shape you look just like one of Cadmus's daughters.
PENTHEUS: Look, I seem to see two suns, and Thebes doubled, and the city with its seven gates twice over. And you seem to be leading me on as a bull, with horns sprouting on your head. Were you ever a beast? You've certainly become a bull now.
DIONYSUS: The god walks beside us. Once he was not kindly, but now he's made his peace with us. Now you see what you should see.
PENTHEUS: So how do I look? Don't I stand the way Ino stood, or Agave, my own mother?
DIONYSUS: Looking at you, I seem to see them exactly. But this lock of hair has slipped out of place—not the way I fixed it under your headband.
PENTHEUS: Inside I shook it forward and back, dancing in bacchic frenzy, and worked it loose from its place.
DIONYSUS: Well, I am the one charged with tending you—I'll set it right again. Hold your head up straight.
PENTHEUS: There—you arrange it. I'm entirely in your hands now.
DIONYSUS: And your belt has come loose, and the pleats of your robe aren't falling straight around your ankles.
PENTHEUS: They look that way to me too, at least by my right foot. But on this side the robe falls straight along the tendon.
DIONYSUS: Surely you'll count me first among your friends, when against all expectation you see the maenads behaving with such restraint.
PENTHEUS: Should I hold the thyrsus in my right hand, or this one, to look more like a bacchant?
DIONYSUS: In your right hand—and lift it together with your right foot. I commend you—your mind has changed.
PENTHEUS: Could I carry the folds of Cithaeron, maenads and all, on these very shoulders of mine?
DIONYSUS: You could, if you wished. The mind you had before was not sound, but now you have the mind you need.
PENTHEUS: Shall we bring levers? Or shall I tear them up with my bare hands, setting my shoulder or my arm beneath the peaks?
DIONYSUS: No—don't go destroying the shrines of the Nymphs, and the seats of Pan where he plays his pipes.
PENTHEUS: Well said. Women aren't to be conquered by force. I'll hide my body among the pines instead.
DIONYSUS: You'll hide yourself in the hiding that's fitting for you, going in secret as a spy on the maenads.
PENTHEUS: And indeed I can imagine them now, like birds in the thickets, caught in the sweetest snares of love-making.
DIONYSUS: Well, that's exactly why you're sent as a watchman. Perhaps you'll catch them—if you aren't caught yourself first.
PENTHEUS: Lead me through the heart of Theban territory. I'm the only man among them bold enough for this.
DIONYSUS: You alone bear this burden for the city, you alone—and so the trials awaiting you are exactly the ones you deserve. Follow me. I go as your guide and your safety, and from there another will lead you away.
PENTHEUS: My mother, you mean.
DIONYSUS: Conspicuous to everyone.
PENTHEUS: That's why I'm going.
DIONYSUS: You'll come back carried.
PENTHEUS: You mean in luxury.
DIONYSUS: In your mother's arms.
PENTHEUS: You'll force me into pampering, then.
DIONYSUS: Pampering of a certain kind.
PENTHEUS: I claim no less than I deserve.
DIONYSUS: You are a terror, a terror, and you go toward terrible suffering, so that you will find a fame that reaches the sky. Stretch out your hands, Agave, and you her sisters, daughters of Cadmus all. I bring this young man to a great contest, and the victor will be I—and Bromius. The rest, the event itself will show.
CHORUS: Go, swift hounds of Madness, go to the mountain, where the daughters of Cadmus hold their revel band—drive them into a frenzy against the man in woman's dress who comes raving to spy on the maenads. His mother will be the first to see him, watching from a smooth rock or a jutting crag, and she will cry out to the maenads: Who is this, who has come, who has come to the mountain, to the mountain, hunting the mountain-running daughters of Cadmus, O bacchants? Who bore him? For he was not born of women's blood—he must be the offspring of some lioness, or of the Libyan Gorgons. Let justice go forth in the open, let justice go forth sword in hand, to strike clean through the throat of this godless, lawless, unjust earthborn son of Echion.
CHORUS: He who with unjust mind and lawless rage against you, Bacchius, against your mother's rites, sets out with a mad heart and a deranged will, thinking to conquer the unconquerable by force — for mortals, death that asks no leave is the sane way to hold the mind toward what belongs to the gods; a griefless life is the human portion. I do not begrudge wisdom; I delight in hunting it. But the other things are great and plain to see: oh, to spend life sailing toward the beautiful, to be pure and reverent by day and through the night, and to cast out beyond the bounds of justice whatever customs dishonor the gods, and to honor them instead. Let justice come forth openly, let it come sword in hand, cutting clean through the throat, and slay that godless, lawless, unjust son of Echion, earthborn as he is.
CHORUS: Appear as a bull, or be seen as a many-headed serpent, or a lion blazing with fire! Go, Bacchus — with a laughing face, cast the deadly noose around the hunter of the bacchants, now that he has fallen beneath the herd of maenads.
SECOND MESSENGER: O house that once was fortunate throughout Greece, house of the old Sidonian who sowed in the earth the earthborn harvest of the Dragon — how I groan for you, slave though I am. Still, for a good slave, the misfortunes of the masters are his own.
CHORUS: What is it? What news do you bring us of the bacchants?
SECOND MESSENGER: Pentheus is dead — the son of his father Echion.
CHORUS: Lord Bromius, you show yourself a great god!
SECOND MESSENGER: What are you saying? What do you mean by that? Do you truly rejoice, woman, at my masters' ruin?
CHORUS: I cry out in triumph, a foreigner in foreign strains — no longer do I cower in fear of chains.
SECOND MESSENGER: Do you think Thebes so unmanned as to let this stand—
CHORUS: Dionysus, Dionysus — not Thebes — holds power over me.
SECOND MESSENGER: You may be forgiven, but still, women, it is not right to rejoice over evils already done.
CHORUS: Tell me, speak — by what death does the unjust man die, he who devised injustice?
SECOND MESSENGER: When we had left the homesteads of this Theban land behind and crossed the streams of the Asopus, we struck into the cliffs of Cithaeron — Pentheus and I, for I was following my master, and the stranger too, who was our guide to the spectacle. First we settled into a grassy glen, keeping our feet and our tongues silent, so that we might watch without being seen. There was a valley ringed by cliffs, drenched with streams, shaded over by pines, where the maenads sat, their hands busy at pleasant labors. Some of them were re-crowning a thyrsus whose ivy had grown thin, twining it thick again with leaves; others, like colts slipped free of their gaudy yokes, were singing back and forth to one another some Bacchic song. But wretched Pentheus, not seeing the crowd of women, said something like this: 'Stranger, from where we stand I cannot make out these counterfeit maenads. But if I climbed the ridge, up some tall-necked fir, I could see clearly the maenads' shameful work.' And then I saw the stranger perform his marvel. He took hold of a fir's topmost branch reaching to the sky and drew it down, down, down to the black earth. It bent into a curve like a bow, or like a wheel's rim traced by a compass tracing out its circling path — so the stranger, with his hands, bent that mountain bough down to the ground, doing a thing no mortal could do. He set Pentheus upon the fir's branches, then let the trunk rise straight back up through his hands, gently, taking care it not throw him off, and it stood upright, planted straight against the straight sky, bearing my master seated upon its back. He was seen by the maenads more than he saw them. For hardly had he become visible, sitting up there, when the stranger was nowhere to be seen, and a voice out of the sky — Dionysus, one must guess — cried out: 'Young women, I bring you the one who has made a mockery of you and of me and of my rites. Now take your vengeance on him!' And even as he spoke these words, a light of holy fire was fixed between heaven and earth. The sky fell silent, the wooded glen kept its leaves hushed, and you would not have heard the cry of any beast. The women, whose ears had caught the sound but not clearly, stood upright and turned their eyes about. He called out the command again, and when the daughters of Cadmus recognized clearly the command of the Bacchic god, they sprang up, swift as doves, running with feet that matched their straining pace — the mother Agave, and her sisters of the same blood, and all the bacchants together. Through the torrent-glen and the ravines they leapt, frenzied by the god's breath. And when they saw my master perched in the fir, first they climbed onto a rock that towered opposite and pelted him with stones hurled with all their strength, and they hurled fir branches like javelins at him too. Others let their thyrsi fly through the air at Pentheus, their wretched target — but they could not hit their mark, for the poor man sat too high for their eagerness, caught fast in helplessness. At last, splintering oak boughs like thunderbolts, they tried to tear up the roots with levers that were no iron levers at all. And when they could not bring their labor to its end, Agave said: 'Come, stand round in a circle and each take hold of a branch, maenads, so we can catch the beast that has climbed up, and he will not report the god's secret dances.' And they set countless hands to the fir and tore it up out of the ground. And from his high seat, falling from on high, Pentheus crashed to the earth with countless cries of anguish — for he understood, now that ruin was close, what was coming. His mother, as priestess, began the slaughter first and fell upon him. He tore the headband from his hair, so that wretched Agave might recognize him and not kill him, and touching her cheek he said: 'It is I, mother — I am Pentheus, your son, whom you bore in the house of Echion. Pity me, mother, and do not, for the sake of my errors, kill your own child.' But she, foaming at the mouth and rolling her eyes awry, her mind not thinking what it ought to think, was possessed by the Bacchic god and would not be persuaded by him. Seizing his left arm at the wrist, and setting her foot against the doomed man's ribs, she tore his shoulder off — not by her own strength, but the god gave ease and power to her hands. And Ino was working on the other side, ripping his flesh, while Autonoë and the whole crowd of bacchants pressed in. There was one great cry rising together — his, groaning out whatever breath he still had left, and theirs, shouting in triumph. One carried off an arm, another a foot still in its boot; his ribs were stripped bare by the tearing. And every woman, hands red with blood, was tossing pieces of Pentheus's flesh like a ball. His body lies scattered — part under rough rocks, part in the deep-timbered thicket of the woods, no easy thing to search out. But his wretched head — his mother happened to take it in her own hands, and fixing it on the point of her thyrsus, she carries it through the middle of Cithaeron like the head of a mountain lion, leaving her sisters among the dancing maenads. She is coming inside these walls now, exulting in her ill-fated prey, calling on Bacchius as her fellow-hunter, her partner in the chase, the glorious victor — to whom her tears now bring the crown of victory. As for me, I am leaving, out of the way of this disaster, before Agave reaches the house. To be of sound mind and to reverence the things of the gods — that is the finest thing, and I think it is also the wisest possession for mortals who make use of it.
CHORUS: Let us dance for Bacchus, let us cry aloud the fate of Pentheus, offspring of the serpent, who took up the woman's robe and the fennel wand, that faithful herald of death, with a bull leading him on to disaster. Bacchant women of Cadmus, you have brought your splendid victory to its end in groaning, in tears. A fine contest — to wrap a hand dripping with a child's blood.
CHORUS: But look — I see Agave, Pentheus's mother, rushing toward the house, her eyes rolling wildly. Welcome the revel band of the god of ecstasy.
AGAVE: Asian Bacchae —
CHORUS: Why do you rouse me? Oh!
AGAVE: We bring from the mountains a freshly cut tendril to the house, a blessed catch.
CHORUS: I see it, and I welcome you as a fellow reveler.
AGAVE: I caught this young cub of a wild lion without snares — you can see for yourself.
CHORUS: From what wilderness?
AGAVE: Cithaeron —
CHORUS: Cithaeron?
AGAVE: — killed him there.
CHORUS: Who struck the first blow?
AGAVE: The privilege was mine, first. "Blessed Agave" — that is what they call me in the sacred bands.
CHORUS: Who else?
AGAVE: Cadmus's —
CHORUS: Cadmus's what?
AGAVE: — daughters touched this beast after me, after me. This was a lucky catch.
AGAVE: Share now in the feast.
CHORUS: Share in what, poor woman?
AGAVE: The calf is young — the down on his cheek is just now thickening beneath his crown of soft, flowing hair.
CHORUS: Yes, with that mane he does look like a wild beast of the fields.
AGAVE: Bacchus, the skillful huntsman, skillfully set the maenads on this quarry.
CHORUS: Yes, our lord is a hunter.
AGAVE: Do you praise me?
CHORUS: I praise you.
AGAVE: And soon the people of Cadmus —
CHORUS: — and your son Pentheus too —
AGAVE: — will praise his mother, for having taken this lion-born prey.
CHORUS: An extraordinary one.
AGAVE: Extraordinarily so.
CHORUS: You glory in it?
AGAVE: I am overjoyed — great, great and visible deeds have been accomplished in this hunt.
CHORUS: Show it now, unhappy woman, show the citizens this victorious prey you have come bearing.
AGAVE: You who dwell in the fine-towered city of the Theban land, come, look upon this catch, this beast we daughters of Cadmus hunted down — not with the barbed javelins of Thessaly, not with nets, but with the bare points of our white-armed hands. What use, then, is it to boast, and to acquire the weapons the spear-makers forge, all for nothing? We, with these very hands, seized this creature and tore its limbs apart. Where is my aged father? Let him come near. And where is my son Pentheus? Let him take up the jointed ladders and set them against the house, so he may nail to the triglyphs this head of the lion I have brought back, having hunted it myself.
CADMUS: Follow me, carrying the wretched burden of Pentheus, follow, servants, to the front of the house, where I bring this body I have labored over through countless searching, found scattered in the folds of Cithaeron, no two pieces lying in the same spot, lying in a wood hard to search. For I had already come within the city walls, back from the Bacchae with old Teiresias, when I heard of my daughters' outrage; and I turned back again to the mountain to bring home my son, killed by the maenads. And I saw Autonoe, who once bore Actaeon to Aristaeus, and Ino with her, still frenzied and wretched among the thickets, and someone told me that Agave was coming this way with maddened step — and it was no idle report I heard, for I see her now, and it is no fortunate sight.
AGAVE: Father, you may now boast the greatest thing — that you sowed daughters far the best of all mortals; all of them I mean, but above all myself, who left the shuttle at the loom for greater things, to hunt wild beasts with my own hands. See, I carry in my arms, as you can see, this prize I have won, so that it may be hung up before your house. You, father, take it in your hands; and glorying in my catch, call your friends to a feast — for you are blessed, blessed, now that we have accomplished such deeds.
CADMUS: Oh grief beyond measuring, beyond even looking at — a murder your wretched hands have accomplished. A fine offering you have felled for the gods, and to this feast you summon Thebes, and me. First I mourn your sorrows, then my own. How justly the god has ruined us — but how far beyond justice — lord Bromius, and yet born of our own house.
AGAVE: How harsh old age is for mortals, and how grim to look upon. I wish my son were a fine hunter, taking after his mother's ways, when he went reaching after wild beasts among the young men of Thebes. But all he knows how to do is fight against gods. He needs correcting, father — you must do it. Who will call him here before my eyes, so he can see how fortunate I am?
CADMUS: Oh, oh — once you understand what you have done, you will feel a terrible, terrible grief. But if you remain forever in the state you are in now, though not fortunate, you will not seem to know your own misfortune.
AGAVE: But what of this is wrong, or what is there to grieve over?
CADMUS: First, lift your eyes to this sky above.
AGAVE: There — look, I have. Why did you tell me to gaze at it?
CADMUS: Does it still seem the same to you, or does it appear changed?
AGAVE: It's brighter than before, and more radiant.
CADMUS: And that trembling — is it still in your soul?
AGAVE: I don't know what you mean by that. But I am becoming somehow clear-minded, changed from the thoughts I had before.
CADMUS: Can you hear me, then, and answer clearly?
AGAVE: Yes — I've quite forgotten what we said before, father.
CADMUS: Into what house did you go in marriage?
AGAVE: You gave me to Echion, the Sown Man, so they say.
CADMUS: What son, then, was born in your husband's house?
AGAVE: Pentheus, from his union with me.
CADMUS: And whose face is it, then, that you hold in your arms?
AGAVE: A lion's — so the women hunting with me said.
CADMUS: Look at it properly now. It's a small effort to see.
AGAVE: Ah, what do I see? What is this I'm carrying in my hands?
CADMUS: Look at it closely, and understand it more clearly.
AGAVE: I see the greatest grief — wretched me.
CADMUS: Does it look to you like a lion?
AGAVE: No — wretched me, I am holding Pentheus's head.
CADMUS: Mourned, yes, before you ever knew it.
AGAVE: Who killed him? How did he come into my hands?
CADMUS: Cruel truth, how badly timed your arrival is.
AGAVE: Speak — my heart is pounding at what is to come.
CADMUS: You killed him, you and your sisters.
AGAVE: Where did he die? At home, or in what place?
CADMUS: Where the hounds once tore Actaeon apart.
AGAVE: But why did this ill-fated boy go to Cithaeron?
CADMUS: He went to mock the god and your Bacchic rites.
AGAVE: And how did we come to be there ourselves?
CADMUS: You were driven mad, and the whole city was seized with Bacchic frenzy.
AGAVE: Dionysus destroyed us — now I understand.
CADMUS: Yes, outraged by your outrage — you would not acknowledge him as a god.
AGAVE: And my son's dearest body, father — where is it?
CADMUS: I searched for it with difficulty, and I carry it here.
AGAVE: Is it all properly joined together, limb to limb?
AGAVE: And what part of my madness fell to Pentheus's share?
CADMUS: He became like you — he did not honor the god. And so the god bound you all together in a single ruin — you, and him, so as to destroy this house, and me as well, since I fathered no sons of my own and now see this shoot of your womb, wretched woman, dead in the ugliest, vilest way — the one through whom our house had looked up again, who held together, my child, my household, born from my own daughter, and to the city you were a source of dread. No one, seeing your face, wished to insult the old man, for you would exact just punishment. But now I will be cast out of my house in dishonor, I, great Cadmus, who sowed the race of Thebes and reaped the fairest harvest. O dearest of men — for even though you are no more, still you will be counted among the dearest to me, my child — never again will you touch this chin with your hand and, calling me your mother's father, embrace me, child, saying: Who wrongs you, who dishonors you, old man? Who troubles your heart and grieves you? Tell me, so I may punish whoever wrongs you, father. But now I am wretched, and you are pitiful, your mother is pitiable, and your kin are pitiful. And if there is anyone who scorns the gods, let him look upon this death and believe in them.
CHORUS: I grieve for you, Cadmus. Your grandson has his justice, deserved, yes, but bitter for you.
AGAVE: Father, look how everything of mine has turned around—
DIONYSUS: You will be changed into a serpent, and your wife, turned savage, will take a snake's shape in turn—Harmonia, whom you won from Ares though you were born mortal. And the oracle of Zeus says you will drive a wagon drawn by heifers, leading a horde of foreigners, with your wife beside you. You will sack many cities with your countless army; but when they plunder the oracle of Loxias, they will meet a miserable homecoming. Yet Ares will rescue you and Harmonia, and settle your life in the land of the blessed. This I say, Dionysus, born not of a mortal father but of Zeus. If you had learned wisdom when you refused to, you would now be happy, with the son of Zeus for your ally.
CADMUS: Dionysus, we beg you—we have wronged you.
DIONYSUS: You learned who I am too late. When it mattered, you did not know.
CADMUS: We know it now. But you press us too hard.
DIONYSUS: Because I, a god, was outraged by you.
CADMUS: Gods should not let their anger match mortals'.
DIONYSUS: Long ago my father Zeus ordained all this.
AGAVE: Ah, it is decided, old man—wretched exile.
DIONYSUS: Then why delay what must be?
CADMUS: My child, what terrible ruin we have come to—all of us—you, poor woman, and your sisters, and I, wretched man. I will go as an old exile to live among foreigners, and it is further fated that I lead a mixed foreign army into Greece. And Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, my wife, turned serpent with a serpent's savage nature, I will lead against the altars and tombs of Greece, at the head of spearmen. I will find no rest from misery, wretched as I am—not even sailing down over the Acheron will I find peace.
AGAVE: Father, and I—robbed of you—I too go into exile.
CADMUS: Why do you throw your arms around me, poor child, like a swan white with age circling its helpless young?
AGAVE: Where can I turn, cast out from my homeland?
CADMUS: I do not know, my child. Your father is little help now.
AGAVE: Farewell, my house, farewell, city of my fathers. I leave you in disgrace, an exile from my own chambers.
CADMUS: Go now, my child, to the home of Aristaeus—
AGAVE: I grieve for you, father.
CADMUS: And I for you, my child, and I have wept for your sisters too.
AGAVE: Terribly did lord Dionysus bring this violence upon your house.
DIONYSUS: Yes—for I suffered terribly at your hands, my name unhonored in Thebes.
AGAVE: Farewell, my father.
CADMUS: Farewell, my poor daughter. You will find that hard to reach.
AGAVE: Lead me, friends, to where I may gather my sisters, my companions in exile, poor souls. May I go where foul Cithaeron will never see me, nor I see Cithaeron with my own eyes, and where no memorial of the thyrsus stands—let those belong to other Bacchae.
CHORUS: The gods wear many shapes. They bring many things to pass beyond our hope. What men expected is not fulfilled, and for the unexpected a god finds a way. Such was the outcome of this story.