In the Library
The Bacchae
Euripides, 405 BCE
- Form
- Form Play
- Difficulty
- Difficulty Moderate
- Reading time
- Reading time 50 minutes
- Translated by
- Translated by T.A. Buckley (1850)
- Original
- Original grc
- Chapters
- Chapters 11
- Length
- Length 12k words
£1.99
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There are many forms of divine things; and the Gods bring to pass many in an unexpected manner
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About the book
A stranger arrives in Thebes, smiling, golden-haired, easily caught and chained, and the young king who cages him has no idea he has just imprisoned a god. This is Dionysus come home in disguise, and Pentheus, who rules by reason and refuses to bow, will learn what it costs to deny the wild thing in human nature. Euripides' last play follows the women of Thebes up the mountain into ecstasy, drumming, dancing, suckling wild animals, and then turns that rapture to horror: lured into a dress to spy on them, Pentheus is torn apart by his own mother, who carries his severed head down the slope in triumph, certain it is a lion's, until the frenzy clears and she sees. Nothing in Greek theatre is more terrifying than her slow waking. The god is beautiful and pitiless, real in a way Pentheus learns too late; the play knows the worship we refuse will have us anyway.