Euripides' BACCHAE Complete

Translated, with notes, by Th. Buckley.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

58 pages - You are on Page 19

Bacchus: Io! hear ye, hear ye my song, Io Bacchae! O Bacchae!

Chorus: Who is here, who? from what quarter did the shout of Evius summon me?

Bacchus: Io, Io, I say again! I, the son of Semele, the son of Jove!

Chorus: Io! Io! Master, master! come now to our company. O Bromius! Bromius!
Shake this place, O holy Earth![35] O! O! quickly will the palace of
Pentheus be shaken in ruin--Bacchus is in the halls. Worship him. We
worship him. Behold these stone buttresses shaken with their pillars.
Bacchus will shout in the palace.

Bacchus: Light the burning fiery lamp; burn, burn the house of Pentheus.

Chorus: Alas! Dost thou not behold the fire, nor perceive around the sacred
tomb of Semele the flame which formerly the bolt-bearing thunder of Jupiter
left?

Chorus: Cast on the ground your trembling bodies, cast them down, O Maenads,
for the king turning things upside down is coming to this palace,
[Bacchus,] the son of Jupiter.

[35] The earth and buildings were supposed to shake at the presence of a deity. Cf. Callimach. Hymn. Apol. sub init. Virg. AEn. iii. 90; vi. 255. For the present instance Nonnus, 45. p. 751.

ηδη δ' αυτοελικτος εσειετο Πενθεος αυλη,
ακλινεων σφαιρηδον αναϊσσουσα θεμεθλων,
και πολεων δεδονητο θορων ενοσιχθονι παλμωι
πηματος εσσομενοιο προαγγελος.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Bacchae

Euripides Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Sophocles

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/euripides/bacchae.asp?pg=19