Bacchae
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Dionysus
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You who are eager to see what you ought not and hasty in pursuit of what ought not to be pursued—I mean you, Pentheus, come forth before the house, be seen by me,
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wearing the clothing of a woman, of an inspired maenad, a spy upon your mother and her company. Pentheus emerges. In appearance you are like one of Kadmos’ daughters.
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Pentheus
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Oh look! I think I see two suns, and twin Thebes, the seven-gated city.
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And you seem to lead me, being like a bull and horns seem to grow on your head. But were you ever before a beast? For you have certainly now become a bull.
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Dionysus
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The god accompanies us, now at truce with us, though formerly not propitious. Now you see what you should see.
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Pentheus
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How do I look? Don’t I have the posture of Ino, or of my mother Agave?
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Dionysus
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Looking at you I think I see them. But this lock of your hair has come out of place, not the way I arranged it under your headband.
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Pentheus
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I displaced it indoors, shaking my head forwards and backwards and practising my Bacchic revelry.
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Dionysus
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But I who ought to wait on you will re-arrange it. Hold up your head.
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Pentheus
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Here, you arrange it; for I depend on you, indeed.
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Dionysus
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Your girdle has come loose, and the pleats of your gown do not extend regularly down around your ankles.
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Pentheus
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At least on my right leg, I believe they don’t. But on this side the robe sits well around the back of my leg.
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Dionysus
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You will surely consider me the best of your friends,
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when contrary to your expectation you see the Bacchae acting modestly.
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Pentheus
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But shall I be more like a maenad holding the thyrsos in my right hand, or in my left?
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Dionysus
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You must hold it in your right hand and raise your right foot in unison with it. I praise you for having changed your mind.
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Pentheus
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Could I carry on my shoulders the glens of Kithairon, Bacchae and all?
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Dionysus
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You could if you were willing. The state of mind you had before was unsound, but now you think as you ought.
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Pentheus
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Shall we bring levers? Or shall I draw them up with my hands,
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putting a shoulder or arm under the mountain-tops?
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Dionysus
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But don’t destroy the seats of the Nymphs and the places where Pan plays his pipes.
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Pentheus
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Well said. The women are not to be taken by force; I will hide in the pines.
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Dionysus
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You will hide yourself as you should be hidden, coming as a crafty spy on the Maenads.
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Pentheus
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Oh, yes! I imagine that like birds they are in the bushes held in the sweetest grips of love.
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Dionysus
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You have been sent as a guard against this very event.
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Perhaps you will catch them, if you yourself are not caught before.
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Pentheus
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Bring me through the midst of the Theban land. I am the only man of them who dares to perform this deed.
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Dionysus
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You alone bear the burden for this city, you alone. Therefore the labors which are proper await you.
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Follow me. I am your saving guide: another will lead you down from there.
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Dionysus
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And you will be remarkable to all.
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Dionysus
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You will return here being carried—
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Dionysus
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In the arms of your mother.
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Dionysus
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Yes indeed, such luxury!
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Dionysus
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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
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to a great contest, and Bromius and I will be the victors. The rest the matter itself will show.
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Chorus
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Go to the mountain, go, fleet hounds of Madness, where the daughters of Kadmos hold their company, and drive them raving
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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:
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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
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or of Libyan Gorgons. Let manifest justice go forth, let it go with sword in hand, slaying through the throat
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this godless, lawless, unjust, earth-born offspring of Echion.
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Chorus
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Whoever with wicked mind and unjust rage regarding your rites, Bacchus, and those of your mother, comes with raving heart
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and mad disposition violently to overcome by force what is invincible—death is the discipline for his purposes, accepting no excuses when the affairs of the gods are concerned; to act like a mortal—this is a life that is free from pain. The text and meaning of these and the following lines are highly uncertain. The above translation is based on the paraphrase that Murray includes in his apparatus qui iniuste etc. (v. 997), ei sententiarum castigatrix in rebus divinis indeprecabilis Mors est.
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I do not envy wisdom, but rejoice in hunting it. But other things are great and manifest. Oh, for life to flow towards the good, to be pure and pious day and night, and to honor the gods,
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banishing customs that are outside of justice. Let manifest justice go forth, let it go with sword in hand, slaying through the throat
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this godless, lawless, unjust, earth-born offspring of Echion.
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Chorus
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Appear as a bull or many-headed serpent or raging lion to see.
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Go, Bacchus, with smiling face throw a deadly noose around the hunter of the Bacchae as he falls beneath the flock of Maenads.
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Second Messenger
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Oh house once fortunate in Hellas,
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house of the Sidonian old man who once sowed in the ground the earth-born harvest of the serpent Ophis, how I groan for you, though I am a slave, but still the masters’ affairs are a concern to good servants.This line is most likely interpolated from Eur. Med. 54.
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Chorus Leader
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What is it? Do you bring some news from the Bacchae?
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Messenger
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Pentheus, the child of Echion, is dead.
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Chorus Leader
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Lord Bacchus, truly you appear to be a great god.
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Messenger
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What do you mean? Why have you said this? Do you rejoice at the misfortunes of my master, woman?
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Chorus Leader
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I, a foreign woman, rejoice with foreign songs;
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for no longer do I cower in fear of chains.
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Messenger
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Do you think Thebes so lacking in men?
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Chorus Leader
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Dionysus, Dionysus, not Thebes, holds my allegiance.
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Messenger
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You may be forgiven, but still it is not good
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to rejoice at troubles once they have actually taken place, women.
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Chorus Leader
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Tell me, speak, what kind of a death did he die, the unjust man who did unjust things?
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Messenger
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When we left the dwellings of the Theban land and crossed the streams of Asopus,
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we began to ascend the heights of Kithairon, Pentheus and I—for I was following my master—and the stranger who was our guide to the sight. First we sat in a grassy vale,
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keeping our feet and voices quiet, so that we might see them without being seen. There was a little valley surounded by precipices, irrigated with streams, shaded by pine trees, where the Maenads were sitting, their hands busy with delightful labors. Some of them were crowning again
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the worn thyrsos, making it leafy with ivy, while some, like colts freed from the painted yoke, were singing a Bacchic melody to one another. And the unhappy Pentheus said, not seeing the crowd of women: Stranger,
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from where we are standing I cannot see these false Maenads. But on the hill, ascending a lofty pine, I might view properly the shameful acts of the Maenads. And then I saw the stranger perform a marvelous deed. For seizing hold of the lofty top-most branch of the pine tree,
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he pulled it down, pulled it, pulled it to the dark earth. It was bent just as a bow or a curved wheel, when it is marked out by a compass, describes a circular course The sense of the text here is not clear. The translation (which follows Dodds) assumes that the curved wheel is not a hollow circle connected to the hub by spokes, but a single piece of wood which has been cut into the shape of a circle. In the action described, a peg (τόρνος) is fixed into the center of the word-section. A string with a piece of chalk on one end is then attached to the peg, and the chalk, held tight against the string, is able to mark out an even circle. The bending of the tree thus resembles the circular path taken by the chalk.: in this way the stranger drew the mountain bough with his hands and bent it to the earth, doing no mortal’s deed.
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He sat Pentheus down on the pine branch, and let it go upright through his hands steadily, taking care not to shake him off. The pine stood firmly upright into the sky, with my master seated on its back.
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He was seen by the Maenads more than he saw them, for sitting on high he was all but apparent, and the stranger was no longer anywhere to be seen, when a voice, Dionysus as I guess, cried out from the air: Young women,
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I bring the one who has made you and me and my rites a laughing-stock. Now punish him! And as he said this a light of holy fire was placed between heaven and earth. The air became quiet and the woody glen
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kept its leaves silent, nor would you have heard the sounds of animals. But they, not having heard the sound clearly, stood upright and looked all around. He repeated his order, and when the daughters of Kadmos recognized the clear command of Bacchus,
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they rushed forth, swift as a dove, running with eager speed of feet, his mother Agave, and her sisters, and all the Bacchae. They leapt through the torrent-streaming valley and mountain cliffs, frantic with the inspiration of the god.
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When they saw my master sitting in the pine, first they climbed a rock towering opposite the tree and began to hurl at him boulders violently thrown. Some aimed with pine branches and other women hurled their thyrsoi through the air
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at Pentheus, a sad target indeed. But they did not reach him, for the wretched man, caught with no way out, sat at a height too great for their eagerness. Finally like lightning they smashed oak branches and began to tear up the roots of the tree with ironless levers.
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When they did not succeed in their toils, Agave said: Come, standing round in a circle, each seize a branch, Maenads, so that we may catch the beast who has climbed aloft, and so that he does not make public the secret dances of the god. They applied countless hands
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to the pine and dragged it up from the earth. Pentheus fell crashing to the ground from his lofty seat, wailing greatly: for he knew he was in terrible trouble. His mother, as priestess, began the slaughter,
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and fell upon him. He threw the headband from his head so that the wretched Agave might recognize and not kill him. Touching her cheek, he said: It is I, mother, your son, Pentheus, whom you bore in the house of Echion.
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Pity me, mother, and do not kill me, your child, for my sins. But she, foaming at the mouth and twisting her eyes all about, not thinking as she ought, was possessed by Bacchus, and he did not persuade her.
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Seizing his left arm at the elbow and propping her foot against the unfortunate man’s side, she tore out his shoulder, not by her own strength, but the god gave facility to her hands. Ino began to work on the other side,
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tearing his flesh, while Autonoe and the whole crowd of the Bacchae pressed on. All were making noise together, he groaning as much as he had life left in him, while they shouted in victory. One of them bore his arm, another a foot, boot and all. His ribs were stripped bare
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from their tearings. The whole band, hands bloodied, were playing a game of catch with Pentheus’ flesh. His body lies in different places, part under the rugged rocks, part in the deep foliage of the woods, not easy to be sought. His miserable head,
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which his mother happened to take in her hands, she fixed on the end of a thyrsos and carries through the midst of Kithairon like that of a savage lion, leaving her sisters among the Maenads’ dances. She is coming inside these walls, preening herself
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on the ill-fated prey, calling Bacchus her fellow hunter, her accomplice in the chase, the glorious victor—in whose service she wins a triumph of tears. And as for me, I will depart out of the way of this calamity before Agave reaches the house.
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Soundness of mind and reverence for the affairs of the gods is best; and this, I think, is the wisest possession for those mortals who adopt it.
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Chorus
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Let us honor Bacchus with the dance, let us raise a shout for what has befallen
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Pentheus, descendant of the serpent, who assumed female attire and the wand, the beautiful thyrsos—certain death—and a bull was the leader of his calamity.
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Kadmean Bacchae, you have accomplished a glorious victory, but one that brings woe and tears. It is a noble contest to cover one’s dripping hands with the blood of one’s own son.
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Chorus Leader
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But, for I see Pentheus’ mother Agave coming home, her eyes contorted, receive the revel of the god of joy!
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Agave
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Asian Bacchae—
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Agave
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I am bringing home from the mountain a
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freshly cut tendril to the house, blessed prey.
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Chorus
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I see it and will accept you as a fellow reveler.
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Agave
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I caught this young wild lion cub without snares,
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as you can see.
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Chorus
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From what desert?
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Agave
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Kithairon—
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Agave
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Slew him.
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Chorus
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Who struck him?
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I am called blessed Agave in the revels.
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Chorus
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Who else?
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Chorus
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Kadmos’ what?