Verse play · 405 BC
The Bacchanals
The Bacchae
Translated by Arthur S. Way (1898)
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The Wine-god Dionysus comes in human guise to Thebes, where the young king Pentheus denies his godhead and tries to chain the stranger and suppress his rites. The god maddens the Theban women, drives them to the mountain, and lures Pentheus to spy on them in woman's dress, with a terrible end at the hands of his own mother Agave. Arthur S. Way's English verse translation, with rhymed choral odes.
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