Bacchae

Bacchae (Bakchai)

    Alternative Title: The Bacchic Women; Bacchants

    Author: Euripides

    First Performance: c.405 BC, Athens

    First English Translation: 1782

    Genre: Greek trag. in verse

    Setting: Before the palace of Pentheus in Thebes, mythical past

    Cast: 7m, 1f, extras, chorus (f)

The god Dionysus returns in disguise to his birthplace, the city of Thebes. He is angry that the women of Thebes have denied that he is divine and so, with his chorus of Asian women, has driven them wild in Bacchic orgies. Pentheus, King of Thebes, is furious on his return to find his city in such uproar, especially when he discovers the priest Tiresias and his grandfather Cadmus have also joined with the Maenad women. Pentheus orders the destruction of Tiresias' shrine and the capture of Dionysus....

[The entire page is 553 words long]

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