The Bacchae (990-1075)

Oh house once fortunate in Hellas,

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.[*].

What is it? Do you bring some news from the Bacchae?

Pentheus, the child of Echion, is dead.

Lord Bacchus, truly you appear to be a great god.

What do you mean? Why have you said this? Do you rejoice at the misfortunes of my master, woman?

I, a foreign woman, rejoice with foreign songs;

for no longer do I cower in fear of chains.

Do you think Thebes so lacking in men?

Dionysus, Dionysus, not Thebes, holds my allegiance.

You may be forgiven, but still it is not good

to rejoice at troubles once they have actually taken place, women.

Tell me, speak, what kind of a death did he die, the unjust man who did unjust things?

When we left the dwellings of the Theban land and crossed the streams of Asopus,

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,

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

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,

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,

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 [*]: in this way the stranger drew the mountain bough with his hands and bent it to the earth, doing no mortal’s deed.

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.

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,