The Bacchae of Euripides by C. K. Williams

Author:C. K. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466880566
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

THE BACCHAE of Euripides

The royal palace of Thebes.

To one side, a tomb covered with vines, and the rubble of a house, with smoke rising from it.

Enter Dionysus

DIONYSUS

I am Dionysus. I am Bacchus.

Bromius and Iacchus.

Dithyrambus and Evius.

I am a god, the son of Zeus,

but I have assumed the semblance of a mortal,

and come to Thebes, where my mother, Semele,

the daughter of King Cadmus, gave birth to me.

Her midwife was the lightning bolt that killed her.

There is the river Dirce, and there the stream

Ismenus. Over there, near the palace,

is my mother’s tomb, and her ruined house,

still smoldering with the living flame of Zeus,

Hera’s unrelenting hatred towards her.

I praise Cadmus. He made the ruins hallowed ground,

dedicated to his daughter. I myself

caused these vines to grow so thickly on them.

I was in Phrygia before I came here,

and Lydia, where the earth flows gold. I passed

the broiling plains of Persia, and Bactria’s

walled towns. The Medes then, their freezing winters,

then opulent Arabia and down

along the bitter, salt-sea coast of Asia

where Hellenes and barbarians mingle

in teeming, beautifully towered cities.

When I had taught my dances there, established

the rituals of my mystery, making

my divinity manifest to mortals,

I came to Greece, to Thebes, the first Greek city

I’ve caused to shriek in ecstasy for me,

the first whose women I’ve clothed in fawnskin and in

whose hands I’ve placed my ivy spear, the thyrsus.

Why did I choose Thebes? Because my mother’s sisters,

who should have been the last to even think

of saying such a thing, started rumors:

that Dionysus was not the son of Zeus,

that Semele’s lover had been a mortal

and she’d imputed the disgrace to Zeus, a fraud

Cadmus had contrived. They kept whispering

that Zeus destroyed her because she’d lied and said

he was her lover. Therefore I’ve stung them

with madness, and goaded them raving from their houses.

They’re living on the mountain now, delirious,

dressed, as I’ve compelled them to be dressed,

in the garments of my rituals.

And all the rest, the whole female seed of Thebes,

I’ve driven frenzied out of house and home.

They’re with the daughters of King Cadmus now,

huddled on bare rocks beneath the pines.

This city must learn, and know, against its will or not,

that it is uninitiated in my mysteries.

As for Semele, her memory

will be vindicated when I appear

to mortal eyes as the power she bore Zeus.

Cadmus has abdicated now to Pentheus,

the son of Agave, another of his daughters,

and Pentheus is warring with divinity

by excluding me from rituals

and not invoking my name in prayers.

Because of this, I’m going to demonstrate to him

and to all Thebes the god I really am.

When order is established, I’ll go on,

revealing my identity in other lands.

But if, by rage and force of arms, the citizens

of Thebes drive the Bacchae from the mountain,

then I lead the army of my Maenads into war.

This is why I have assumed a mortal shape,

shedding my divine form for a human’s.

Dionysus calls to the Chorus.

Now, women, come: all you who left the ramparts

of Tmolus, who left Lydia, left barbarian lands

to follow me and worship me, my women: come.

Bring the drum we brought from Phrygia,

the drum that pulses with the beat of Mother Earth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.