The permanent scene covered by movable scenery representing a wide landscape—the valley of the Dirce. A pile of buildings occupies the middle, to which the central entrance is an approach: these are the Cadmeia and royal palaces. That on the left is the palace of Pentheus, and further to the left is the mystic scene of Bacchus's birth—a heap of ruins, still miraculously smouldering, and covered by trailing vines. On the right is the palace of Cadmus, and the scene extends to take in the Electron gate of Thebes, and (on the right turn-scene) the slopes of Cithaeron.

DIONYSUS enters, in mortal guise, through the distance archway, and (in formal prologue) opens the situation. He brings out the points of the landscape before him, dear as the site of his miraculous birth and the sad end of his mortal mother. Then he details the Asiatic realms through which he has made triumphant progress, Lydia, Phrygia, sun-seared Persia, Bactria; the wild, wintry Median land; Araby the Blest, and the cities by the sea; everywhere his orgies accepted and his godhead received. Now for the first time he has reached an Hellenic city: and here—where least it should have been—his divinity is questioned by his own mother's sisters who make the story of his birth a false rumor, devised to cover Semele's shame, and avenged by the lightning flash which destroyed her. To punish his unnatural kin he has infected all their womenkind with his sacred phrensy, and maddened out of their quiet life, they are now on the revel under the pale pines of the mountain, unseemly mingled with the sons of Thebes: so shall the recusant city learn her guilt, and make atonement to him and his mother. Pentheus, it seems, is the main foe of his godhead, who reigns as king over Thebes, the aged Cadmus having yielded the sovereignty in his lifetime to his sister's son: he repels Bacchus from the sacred libations, nor names him in prayer. So he and Thebes must learn a dread lesson, and then away to make revelation in other lands. As to force, if attempt is made to drive the Maenads from the mountains, Bacchus himself will mingle in the war, and for this he has assumed mortal shape.

He calls upon his 'Thyasus of women,' fellow-pilgrims from the lands beyond the sea, to beat their Phrygian drums in noisy ritual about the palace of Pentheus till all Thebes shall flock to hear; he goes to join his worshippers on Cithaeron. {70}

PARODE, OR CHORUS-ENTRY

The Chorus enter the orchestra, Asiatic women in wild attire of Bacchic rites, especially the motley (dappled fawnskin) always associated with abandon: they move with wild gestures and dances associated with Asiatic rituals.

The wild ode resumes the joyous dance that has made their whole way from Asia one long sacred revel—

Toilless toil and labour sweet.

Blest above all men he who hallows his life in such mystic rites, and, purified with holiest waters, goes dancing with the worshippers of Bacchus, and of thee, mighty Mother Cybele, shaking his thyrsus, and all his locks crowned with ivy. Bacchus's birth is sung, and how from the flashing lightning Jove snatched him and preserved in his thigh, until at the fated hour he gave him to light, horned and crowned with serpents. Wherefore should Thebes, sacred scene of the miracle, be one blossom of revellers, clad in motley and waving the thyrsus, the whole land maddening with the dance. The Chorus think of the first origin of such noisy joys, when the wild ones of Crete beat their cymbals round the sunless caverns where the infant Jove was hidden, and these rites of Rhoea soon mingled for the frantic Satyrs with the third year's dances to Bacchus. Then the ode recurs to the bliss of such holy rites, luxurious interchange of wild energy and delicious repose. They long for the climax of the dance, when, with luxuriant hair all floating, they can rage and madden to the clash of heavy cymbals and the shout EvoË, EvoÊ, frisking like colts to the soft breathing of the holy pipe, while the mountain echoes beneath their boundings. {178}

EPISODE I

The blind prophet Teiresias enters from Thebes, and is soon joined by Cadmus from the palace. Old as they are they have put on the livery of the god, and will join in the dance, for which supernatural strength will be given: they alone of the city are wise.

The ancestral faith, coeval with our race,
No subtle reasoning, if it soar aloft
Ev'n to the height of wisdom, can o'erthrow.

They are stopped by the entrance of Pentheus, as from a far journey. His opening words betray his anxiety as to the scandal in his realm—the young women of his family, even his mother Agave, all gone to join the impious revels.

In pretext, holy sacrificing Maenads,
But serving Aphrodite more than Bacchus.

Some he has imprisoned, the rest he will hunt from the mountains, and put an end to the joyous movements of this fair stranger with golden locks, who has come to guide their maidens to soft inebriate rites. Suddenly he sees his hero ancestor and the prophet in Bacchic attire. Bitter reproaches follow; the scene soon settling down into the forensic contest. Teiresias elaborately puts the case for the god. Man has two primal needs: one is the solid food of the boon mother, the other has been discovered by the son of their Semele—the rich grape's juice: this beguiles the miserable of their sorrow, this gives all-healing sleep. The author of such blessings is recognized in heaven as a god: yet Pentheus puts scorn upon him by the story of the babe hidden in Jove's thigh. [This is explained away by a play upon words, as between ho meeros, thigh, and homeeros, a hostage: Jove hid the infant god in a cleft of air, a hostage from the wrath of HerÉ.] Prophecy is ascribed to the wine-god, for phrensy is prophetic; and he is an ally in war, sending panic on the foe ere lance crosses lance. He will soon be a god celebrated through all Greece and hold torchdance on the crags of Delphi. Let Thebes take her place among the worshippers, fearing nought for the purity of its daughters, who will be no less holy in the revel than at home.—The Chorus approve, and Cadmus follows on the same side, urging policy: a splendid falsehood making Semele the mother of a god will advance their household. Pentheus shakes off Cadmus's clasp in disgust: bids some of his servants go and overturn the prophet's place of divination, and others seek out the stranger who leads the rebels. Exit to the palace, while Teiresias and Cadmus depart, in horror at his impiety, in the direction of Cithaeron. {379}

CHORAL INTERLUDE I

Shocked at such defiance of heaven the Chorus invoke Sanctity, crowned as goddess in the nether world, to hear the awful words of Pentheus, uttered against the immortal son of Semele, first and best of gods, ruler of the flower-crowned feast, and the dance's jocund strife, and the laughter, and the sparkling wine-cup, and the sweet sleep that follows the festival. Sorrow closes the lot of such aweless, unbridled madness: stability is for the calmly reverent life, knitting whole houses in sweet domestic harmony. Clasp the present of brief life: no grasping after a bright future with far-fetched wisdom. Oh, for the lands where the graces and sweet desire have their haunts, and young loves soothe the heart with tender guile: fit regions for the Bacchanals, whose joy is Peace—wealth-giver to rich and poor. Away with stern austerity: hail the homely wisdom of the multitude. {439}

EPISODE II

An officer brings in Dionysus as prisoner; he has yielded himself without resistance, while as for the imprisoned worshippers their chains have fallen off spontaneous, and they are away to the revels on the mountains. In long-drawn parallel dialogue Pentheus questions the Stranger—struck with his beauty though he be. Dionysus calmly answers to every point, but allows the orgies are secret and must not be revealed to the uninitiated. The King threatens in vain.

Pen. First I will clip away those soft bright locks. Dio. My locks are holy, dedicate to my god. Pen. Next, give thou me that thyrsus in thy hand. Dio. Take it thyself; 'tis Dionysus' wand. Pen. I'll bind thy body in strong iron chains. Dio. My god himself will loose them when he will. Pen. When thou invok'st him 'mid thy Bacchanals. Dio. Even now he is present, he beholds me now. Pen. Where is he then? mine eyes perceive him not. Dio. Near me: the impious eyes may not discern him.

The king relies on his superior strength.

Dio. Thou knowest not where thou art or what thou art. Pen. Pentheus, Agave's son, my sire Echion. Dio. Thou hast a name whose very sound is woe.

Dionysus is removed a prisoner to the palace of Pentheus, while the latter retires to prepare measures against the Maenads.

CHORAL INTERLUDE II

The Chorus, addressing the landscape before them, expostulate with the sacred stream in which the infant god was dipped for not accepting the divinity whose mystic name is 'Twice-born.' They call upon Dionysus to see them from Olympus, his rapt prophets at strife with dark necessity, and, golden wand in hand, to come to their rescue against the threats of the proud dragon-brood. They are wondering what fair land of song may be holding their sacred leader, when cries from within put an end to the ode. {582}

EPISODE III

In wild lyric snatches shouts are interchanged between Dionysus within and groups of the disordered Chorus, bringing out the tumultuous scene—the earth rocking beneath them, sounds of crashing masonry, capitals of pillars hurled through the air; then by the machinery of the hemicyclium the whole scene left of the center disappears and is replaced by a tableau representing Pentheus' palace in ruins, and the smouldering tomb of Semele surmounted by bright flame. From the ruins steps Dionysus, unharmed and free, the metre breaking into accelerated rhythm. {613}

Dio. O, ye Barbarian women. Thus prostrate in dismay;
Upon the earth ye've fallen! See ye not as ye may,
How Bacchus Pentheus' palace In wrath hath shaken down?
Rise up! rise up! take courage—Shake off that trembling swoon.
Chor. O light that goodliest shinest Over our mystic rite,
In state forlorn we saw thee—Saw with what deep affright!
Dio. How to despair ye yielded As I boldly entered in
To Pentheus, as if captured, into that fatal gin.
Chor. How could I less? Who guards us If thou shouldst come to woe?
But how wast thou delivered From thy ungodly foe?
Dio. Myself myself delivered With ease and effort slight.
Chor. Thy hands had he not bound them In halters strong and tight?
Dio. 'Twas even then I mocked him: He thought me in his chain;
He touched me not nor reached me; His idle thoughts were vain!
In the stable stood a heifer Where he thought he had me bound;
Round the beast's knees his cords And cloven hoofs he wound,
Wrath-breathing, from his body The sweat fell like a flood,
He bit his lips in fury, While I beside who stood
Looked on in unmoved quiet.
As at that instant come,
Shook Bacchus the strong palace, And on his mother's tomb
Flames kindled. When he saw it, on fire the palace deeming,
Hither he rushed and thither. For 'Water, water,' screaming;
And every slave 'gan labor, But labored all in vain,
The toil he soon abandoned. As though I had fled amain
He rushed into the palace: In his hand the dark sword gleamed.
Then as it seemed, great Bromius—I say but, as it seemed—
In the hall a bright light kindled. On that
he rushed, and there,
As slaying me in vengeance, Stood stabbing the thin air.
But then the avenging Bacchus Wrought new calamities;
From roof to base that palace In smouldering ruin lies.
Bitter ruing our imprisonment, With toil forespent he threw
On earth his useless weapon. Mortal, he had dared to do
'Gainst a god unholy battle. But I, in quiet state,
Unheeding Pentheus' anger, Came through the palace gate.
It seems even now his sandal Is sounding on its way;
Soon is he here before us, And what now will he say?
With ease will I confront him, Ire-breathing though he stand.
'Tis easy to a wise man To practice self-command. {651}

Blank verse is resumed as Pentheus enters, and meets his escaped prisoner who calmly confronts him. As Pentheus begins to threaten, Dionysus advises him first to hear the messenger even now entering from Cithaeron. An elaborate Messenger's Speech describes the miraculous life of the Maenads as they lie on the mountains, careless but not immodest. At the touch of their thyrsus the rock yields dew and the soil wine; their fingers lightly scraping the soil draw streams of exquisite milk, and honey distils from their ivied staffs. A city-bred agitator stirred up the herdsmen to confront them, but the phrensied women drove the men before them, and tore the herds to pieces; like a flock of birds they skimmed along the land, and all gave way before them.

And what they threw across their shoulders, clung
Unfastened, nor fell down to the black ground,
No brass, nor ponderous iron; on their locks
Was fire that burned them not.

Then god-given fountains washed off the stains of their toil, and their serpents licked them clean. Even the Messenger advises submission to so mighty a god, dispensing such gifts.

Pentheus breathes nothing but defiance, and issues orders for the whole military force of Thebes to assemble. He is bewildered by the stranger, who doing or suffering still holds his peace. In long-drawn parallel verses Dionysus gradually assumes the friend, and—still warning the king that he is on the side of the god—insinuates into the mind of Pentheus the idea of visiting the scene, disguised in the feminine robes of the revellers. As the king retires to prepare, Dionysus proclaims that he is fallen into the net, and vengeance shall first deprive him of sense and then destroy him. {868}

CHORAL INTERLUDE III

As the crisis comes nearer the Chorus long for the moment of escape—the sensation of the hart that has leaped the net and with storm-wind haste escaped the hunter's pursuit and reached the silent shadow of the old hospitable wood. VICTORY IS THE JOY OF JOYS. Slow and true are the avenging deities, with printless foot hounding the impious along their winding path: for law is old as oldest time. VICTORY IS THE JOY OF JOYS. Happy the sailor in port, he whose race is o'er: hopes hover over thousands, but

Happiness alone is his
That happy is to-day. {928}

EPISODE IV

Pentheus appears from the palace of Cadmus in disguise as a Maenad. Infatuation has become a phrensy: he sees double, Dionysus seems a bull, his eyes penetrate into distance and perceive his mother and her comrades. Unconscious of the laughter of Dionysus he adjusts his feminine dress and practices the Maenad step. Irony is added:

Dio. Follow me! thy preserver goes before thee; Another takes thee hence. Pen. Mean'st thou my mother? Dio. Aloft shalt thou be borne— Pen. O the soft carriage! Dio. In thy mother's hands. Pen. Wilt make me thus luxurious? Dio. Strange luxury, indeed! Pen. 'Tis my desert.

Exclaiming in ambiguous phrase as to the awful end to which he is destined, Dionysus leads the king out towards Cithaeron. {986}

CHORAL INTERLUDE IV

The crisis is come! Ho, to the mountains; where the Chorus picture the scene already being enacted, the hunter of the Bacchanals caught in the inexorable net of death. VENGEANCE ON THE LAWLESS SON OF ECHION is the recurrent burden of the ode. Its prayer is to hold fast the pious mind, the smooth painless life at peace with heaven and earth, instead of fighting with the invincible, aweless outcast from all law. {1036}

EPISODE V

A Messenger's Speech describes the catastrophe. How Pentheus, arrived within sight of the orderly Maenads, was not satisfied, but desired a higher station from which to view their unseemly life. Then a wonder: the stranger bent down an ash tree, and seating Pentheus in a fork of it let the tree return to its position, holding the wretched king aloft, seen of all.

The stranger from our view had vanished quite.
Then from the heavens a voice, as it should seem,
Dionysus, shouted loud, "Behold, I bring,
O maidens, him that you and me, our rites,
Our orgies laughed to scorn; now take your vengeance."
And as he spake, a light of holy fire
Stood up, and blazed from earth straight up to heaven.
Silent the air, silent the verdant grove
Held its still leaves; no sound of living thing.
They, as their ears just caught the half-heard voice,
Stood up erect, and rolled their wandering eyes,
Again he shouted. But when Cadmus' daughters
Heard manifest the god's awakening voice,
Forth rushed they, fleeter than the winged dove,
Their nimble feet quick coursing up and down.

How then the Maenads set upon him and tore him to pieces, his own mother leading them on: in triumph dance they are bringing his head to the city. Adore the gods, is the moral. {1164}

CHORAL INTERLUDE V

A short outburst of triumph from the Chorus: then the {1180}

EXODUS

begins with the approach of the Maenads, Agave bearing her son's head on a thyrsus. In a brief lyric concerto between her and the mocking Chorus her phrensied triumph is brought out, and how she takes the bleeding object to be head of a young lion. At that moment the trumpet sounds, and the army that had been summoned appears at the Electran gate. Agave turns to them, and (in blank verse) calls all Thebans to behold the quarry she has taken without the useless weapons of the hunter; it shall be nailed up a trophy before her father's house. Shortly after enters on the right a melancholy procession of Cadmus and his servants bearing the fragments of Pentheus' body, with difficulty discovered and pieced together. In extended parallel dialogue between Cadmus and Evadne the phrensy gradually passes away from her and she recognizes the deed she has done. Cadmus sums up the final situation: all the house enwrapped in one dread doom. The Chorus sympathize with Cadmus, but have no pity for Agave. She then follows with a rhesis of woe, interrupted by {1365}

DIVINE INTERVENTION

Dionysus appears aloft, in divine form. The MSS. are defective here: from what we have the god appears to be painting the future of Cadmus: life in a dragon form, victories at the head of barbarian hosts, finally the Isles of the Blest. Agave as stained with blood is banished the land, vainly imploring the god's mercy. With lamentations at the thought of exile, which is the lot of both, the play ends.

[1] The quotations are from Milman's translation in Routledge's Universal Library.