The Bacchae (570-648)

within Io! Hear my voice, hear it, Io Bacchae, Io Bacchae!

Who is here, who? From what quarter did the voice of the Joyful one summon me?

Io! Io! I say again; it is I, the child of Zeus and Semele.

Io! Io! Master, master! Come now to our company, Bromius.

Shake the world’s plain, lady Earthquake!

Oh! Oh! Soon the palace of Pentheus will be shaken in ruin. [*] —Dionysus is in the halls.

Revere him. —We revere him! —Did you see these stone lintels on the pillars falling apart? Bromius cries out in victory indoors.

Light the fiery lamp of lightning!

Burn, burn Pentheus’ home!

Oh! Oh! Do you not see the the fire, do you not perceive, about the sacred tomb of Semele, the flame that Zeus’ thunderbolt left?

Cast on the ground your trembling bodies, Maenads, cast them down, for our lord, Zeus’ son, is coming against this palace, turning everything upside down.

Barbarian women, have you fallen on the ground

so stricken with fear? You have, so it seems, felt Bacchus shaking the house of Pentheus. But get up and take courage, putting a stop to your trembling.

Oh greatest light for us in our joyful revelry, how happy I am to see you—I who was alone and desolate before.

Did you despair when I was sent to fall into Pentheus’ dark dungeon?

How not? Who was my guardian, if you met with misfortune? But how were you freed, having met with an impious man?

By myself I saved myself easily, without trouble.

Did he not tie your hands in binding knots?

In this too I mocked him, for, thinking to bind me, he neither touched nor handled me, but fed on hope. He found a bull by the stable where he took and shut me up, and threw shackles around its knees and hooves,

breathing out fury, dripping sweat from his body, gnashing his teeth in his lips. But I, being near, sitting quietly, looked on. Meanwhile, Bacchus came and shook the house and kindled a flame on his mother’s tomb. When Pentheus saw this, thinking that the house was burning,

he ran here and there, calling to the slaves to bring water, and every servant was at work, toiling in vain. Then he let this labor drop, as I had escaped, and snatching a dark sword rushed into the house. Then Bromius, so it seems to me—I speak my opinion—

created a phantom in the courtyard. Pentheus rushed at it headlong, stabbing at the shining air, as though slaughtering me. Besides this, Bacchus inflicted other damage on him: he knocked his house to the ground, and everything was shattered into pieces, while he saw my bitter chains. From fatigue,

dropping his sword, he is exhausted. For he, a man, dared to join battle with a god. Now I have quietly left the house and come to you, with no thought of Pentheus. But I think—at any rate I hear the tramping of feet inside—he will soon come to the front of the house. What will he say after this?

I shall easily bear him, even if he comes boasting greatly. For it is the part of a wise man to practice restrained good temper.

I have suffered terrible things; the stranger, who was recently constrained in bonds, has escaped me. Ah!

Here is the man. What is this? How do you appear in front of my house, having come out?

Stop, and put a stop to your anger.

How have you escaped your chains and come outside?