Epeisodion 1
Teiresias
Who is at the gates? Call from the house Kadmos, son of Agenor, who leaving the city of Sidon built this towering city of the Thebans. Let someone go and announce that Teiresias is looking for him. He knows why I have come and
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what agreement I, an old man, have made with him, older still: to twine the thyrsoi, to wear fawn-skins, and to crown our heads with ivy branches.
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Kadmos
Dearest friend, for inside the house I heard and recognized your wise voice, the voice of a wise man;
I have come prepared with this equipment of the god. For we must extol him, the child of my daughter, Dionysus, who has appeared as a god to men as much as is in our power. Where must I dance, where set my feet
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and shake my grey head? Show me the way, Teiresias, one old man leading another; for you are wise. And so I shall never tire night or day striking the ground with the thyrsos. Gladly I have forgotten that I am old.
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Teiresias
Then you and I have the same feelings,
for I too feel young and will try to dance.
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Kadmos
Then will we go to the mountain in a chariot?
Teiresias
But then the god would not have equal honor.
Kadmos
I, an old man, will lead you, an old man, like a pupil.
Teiresias
The god will lead us there without trouble.
Kadmos
Are we the only ones in the city who will dance in Bacchus’ honor?
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Teiresias
Yes, for we alone think rightly, the rest wrongly.
Kadmos
The delay is long; come, take hold of my hand.
Teiresias
Here, take hold, and join your hand with mine.
Kadmos
Having been born mortal I do not scorn the gods.
Teiresias
We mortals have no cleverness in the eyes of the the gods.Dodds admits that the text, as it appears in Murray, should be translated this way, but feels that the line should mean nor do we use cleverness on the gods or something similar. He argues for another reading that would allow this. Our ancestral traditions, and those which we have held throughout our lives, no argument will overturn, not even if some craftiness should be discovered by the depths of our wits. This translation, though literal, fudges on the meaning: ἀκραὶ φρένες must mean something like best or most subtle minds. Will anyone say that I do not respect old age,
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being about to dance with my head covered in ivy? No, for the god has made no distinction as to whether it is right for men young or old to dance, but wishes to have common honors from all and to be extolled, setting no one apart.
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Kadmos
Since you do not see this light, Teiresias, I will be your interpreter. Pentheus, child of Echion, to whom I gave control of this land, is coming here to the house now in haste. How fluttered he is! What new matter will he tell us?
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Pentheus
I happened to be at a distance from this land, when I heard of strange evils throughout this city, that the women have left our homes in contrived Bacchic rites, and rush about in the shadowy mountains, honoring with dances
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this new deity Dionysus, whoever he is. I hear that mixing-bowls stand full in the midst of their assemblies, and that they each creep off different ways into secrecy to serve the beds of men, on the pretext that they are Maenads worshipping;
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but they consider Aphrodite before Bacchus.
As many of them as I have caught, servants keep in the public strongholds with their hands bound, and as many as are absent I will hunt from the mountains, I mean Ino and Agave, who bore me to Echion, and
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Autonoe, the mother of Actaeon. And having bound them in iron fetters, I will soon stop them from this ill-working revelry. And they say that some stranger has come, a sorcerer, a conjuror from the Lydian land,
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fragrant in hair with golden curls, having in his eyes the wine-dark graces of Aphrodite. He is with the young girls day and night, alluring them with joyful mysteries. If I catch him within this house,
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I will stop him from making a noise with the thyrsos and shaking his hair, by cutting his head off.
That one claims that Dionysus is a god, claims that he was once stitched into the thigh of Zeus—Dionysus, who was burnt up with his mother by the flame of lightning,
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because she had falsely claimed a marriage with Zeus. Is this not worthy of a terrible death by hanging, for a stranger to insult me with these insults, whoever he is?
But here is another wonder—I see Teiresias the soothsayer in dappled fawn-skins
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and my mother’s father—a great absurdity—raging about with a thyrsos. I shrink, father, from seeing your old age devoid of sense. Won’t you cast away the ivy? Grandfather, will you not free your hand of the thyrsos?
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You persuaded him to this, Teiresias. Do you wish, by introducing another new god to men, to examine birds and receive rewards for sacrifices? If your gray old age did not defend you, you would sit in chains in the midst of the Bacchae,
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for introducing wicked rites. For where women have the delight of the grape-cluster at a feast, I say that none of their rites is healthy any longer.
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Chorus Leader
Oh, what impiety! O stranger, do you not reverence the gods and Kadmos who sowed the earth-born crop?
Do you, the child of Echion, bring shame to your race?
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Teiresias
Whenever a wise man takes a good occasion for his speech, it is not a great task to speak well. You have a rapid tongue as though you were sensible, but there is no sense in your words.
A man powerful in his boldness, one capable of speaking well, becomes a bad citizen in his lack of sense. This new god, whom you ridicule, I am unable to express how great he will be throughout Hellas. For two things, young man,
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are first among men: the goddess Demeter—she is the earth, but call her whatever name you wish; she nourishes mortals with dry food; but he who came afterwards, the offspring of Semele, discovered a match to it, the liquid drink of the grape, and introduced it
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to mortals. It releases wretched mortals from grief, whenever they are filled with the stream of the vine, and gives them sleep, a means of forgetting their daily troubles, nor is there another cure for hardships. He who is a god is poured out in offerings to the gods,
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so that by his means men may have good things.
And do you laugh at him, because he was sewn up in Zeus’ thigh? I will teach you that this is well: when Zeus snatched him out of the lighting-flame, and led the child as a god to Olympus,
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Hera wished to banish him from the sky, but Zeus, as a god, had a counter-contrivance. Having broken a part of the air which surrounds the earth, he gave this to Hera as a pledge protecting the realA line of text has apparently been lost here.Dionysus from her hostility. But in time,
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mortals say that he was nourished in the thigh of Zeus, changing the word, because a god he had served as a hostage for the goddess Hera, and composing the story. The account given in lines 292f. of the development of this legend is based on the similarity between the Greek words for hostage (ὅμηρος) and thigh (μηρός).
But this god is a prophet—for Bacchic revelry and madness have in them much prophetic skill.
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For whenever the god enters a body in full force, he makes the frantic to foretell the future. He also possesses a share of Ares’ nature. For terror sometimes flutters an army under arms and in its ranks before it even touches a spear;
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and this too is a frenzy from Dionysus. You will see him also on the rocks of Delphi, bounding with torches through the highland of two peaks, leaping and shaking the Bacchic branch, mighty throughout Hellas. But believe me, Pentheus;
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do not boast that sovereignty has power among men, nor, even if you think so, and your mind is diseased, believe that you are being at all wise. Receive the god into your land, pour libations to him, celebrate the Bacchic rites, and garland your head.
Dionysus will not compel women
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to be modest in regard to Aphrodite, but in nature modesty dwells always you must look for that. For she who is modest will not be corrupted in Bacchic revelry. Do you see? You rejoice whenever many people are at your gates,
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and the city extols the name of Pentheus. He too, I think, delights in being honored. Kadmos, whom you mock, and I will crown our heads with ivy and dance, a gray yoke-team but still we must dance;
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and I will not be persuaded by your words to fight against the god. For you are mad in a most grievous way, and you will not be cured by drugs, nor are you sick without them.
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Chorus Leader
Old man, you do not shame Phoebus with your words, and honoring Dionysus, a great god, you are prudent.
Kadmos
My child, Teiresias has advised you well. Dwell with us, not apart from the laws. For now you flit about and have thoughts without thinking. Even if, as you say, he is not a god, call him one; and tell a glorious falsehood,
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so that Semele might seem to have borne a god, and honor might come to all our race. You see the wretched fate of Actaeon, who was torn apart in the meadows by the blood-thirsty hounds he had raised,
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having boasted that he was superior in the hunt to Artemis. May you not suffer this. Come, let me crown your head with ivy; honor the god along with us.
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Pentheus
Don’t lay a hand on me! Go off and hold your revels, but don’t wipe your foolishness off on me. I will seek the punishment of this
teacher of your folly. Let someone go quickly to the seat where he watches the flights of birds, upset and overturn it with levers, turning everything upside down;
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and release his garlands to the winds and storms. In this way I will especially wound him. And some of you hunt throughout the city for this effeminate stranger, who introduces a new disease to women and pollutes our beds.
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If you catch him, bring him here bound, so that he might suffer as punishment a death by stoning, having seen a bitter Bacchic revelry in Thebes.
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Teiresias
O wretched man, how little you know what you are saying! You are mad now, and even before you were out of your wits.
Let us go, Kadmos, and entreat the god, on behalf of him, though he is savage, and on behalf of the city, to do no ill. But follow me with the ivy-clad staff, and try to support my body, and I will try to support yours;
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it would be shameful for two old men to fall down. But let that pass, for we must serve Bacchus, the son of Zeus. Beware lest Pentheus bring trouble to your house, Kadmos; I do not speak in prophecy, but judging from the state of things; for a foolish man speaks foolishness.
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