The Bacchae of Euripides
disguise. This second-sight, the exaltation of spirit, and the feeling
of supernatural strength come to Pentheus as they came to the two Old
Men. But to them the change came peacefully and for good; to Pentheus it
comes by force, stormily and for evil, because his will was against the
God.
P. 131, l. 976, O hounds raging and blind.]--_i.e._ Spirits of Madness.
This lyric prepares us for what follows, especially for Agave's
delusion, which otherwise might have been hard to understand. I have
tried to keep the peculiar metre of the original, the dochmiac, with a
few simple licences. The scheme is based on u-- --u-- or --uu --u-- the
latter being much commoner.
P. 133, ll. 997-1011.--The greater part of this chorus is generally
abandoned as unintelligible and corrupt. The last ten lines ("Knowledge,
we are not foes," &c.) will, I think, make sense if we accept a very
slight conjecture of my own, [Greek: aenton], "let them blow", instead
of the impossible [Greek: aei ton]. The four lines before that ("A
strait pitiless mind," &c.) are an almost literal translation of the MS.
reading, which, however, is incorrect in metre, and therefore cannot be
exactly what Euripides wrote.
P. 134, l. 1036, And deem'st thou Thebes so beggared.]--The couplet is
incomplete in the MS. But the sense needed is obvious.
P. 137, l. 1120, Let it not befall through sin of mine, &c.]--This note
of unselfish feeling, of pity and humanity, becomes increasingly marked
in all the victims of Dionysus towards the end of the play, and
contrasts the more vividly with the God's pitilessness. Cadmus is always
gentle, and always thinking of the sufferings of others; and, indeed, so
is Agave, after her return to reason, though with more resentment
against the oppressor.
Pp. 139-143, ll. 1165-1200.--This marvellous scene defies comment. But I
may be excused for remarking (1) that the psychological change of the
chorus is, to my mind, proved by the words of the original, and does not
in the least depend on my interpolated stage directions; (2) the
extraordinary exultation of Agave is part of her Bacchic possession. It
is not to be supposed that, if she had really killed a lion, such joy
would be the natural thing.
P. 141, _after_ l. 1183, _The Leader tries to speak_, &c.]--It is also
possible that by some error of a scribe two lines have been omitted in
the MS. But I think the explanation given in the text more probable and
more dramatic.
P. 142, l. 1195, And Pentheus, O Mother?]--The Leader mentions Pentheus,
I suppose, in order deliberately to test Agave's delusion, to see if she
is indeed utterly unconscious of the truth.
P. 146, l. 1267, More shining than before, &c.]--The sight of the pure
heaven brings back light to her mind--that is clear. But does she mean
that the sky is brighter because of her madness which still remains, or
that it is brighter now, after having been darkened in her madness?
P. 149, l. 1313, And now I fare forth in dishonour.]--He has not yet
been sentenced to exile, though he might well judge that after such
pollution all his family would be banished. But probably this is another
mark of the unrevised state of the play.
P. 151, l. 1330, For thou must change and be a Serpent Thing, &c.]--A
prophecy like this is a very common occurrence in the last scenes of
Euripides' tragedies. "The subject of the play is really a long chain of
events. The poet fixes on some portion of it--the action of one day,
generally speaking--and treats it as a piece of vivid concrete life, led
up to by a merely narrative introduction (the Prologue), and melting
away into a merely narrative close. The method is to our taste
undramatic, but it is explicable enough. It falls in with the tendency
of Greek art to finish, not with a climax, but with a lessening of
strain" (_Greek Literature_, p. 267).
The prophecy was that Cadmus and Harmonia should be changed into
serpents and should lead a host of barbarian invaders--identified with
an Illyrian tribe, the Encheleis--against Hellas; they should prosper
until they laid hands on the treasures of Delphi, and then be destroyed.
Herodotus says that the Persians were influenced by this prophecy when
they refrained from attacking Delphi (Hdt. ix. 42).
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh & London
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE.
ANDROMACHE: A Play.
CARLYON SAHIB: A Play.
THE EXPLOITATION OF INFERIOR RACES, IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES:
An Essay in "Liberalism and the Empire."
EURIPIDIS FABULAE: Brevi Adnotatione Critica Instructae,
Vols. I. and II.
EURIPIDES: The Trojan Women.
Electra.
_Translated into English Verse._
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
The dochmiacs (poetic metres) on page 92 express extreme agitation or
distress. The u refers to an unstressed syllable and the m-dash refers
to a long or stressed syllable. In the text version they have been
replaced with u-- --u-- and --uu --u-- whereas in the HTML version
images of the original have been used.
Minor variations in spelling and punctuation have been preserved.