1-170^[2]: Dionysus opens the play

DIONYSUS

So, here I am! Thebes!
I am Dionysos, son of Zeus. My mother was Semele and she was Kadmos’ daughter.
Zeus delivered me from my mother with one of his awesome lightening bolts.
(indicates the tomb behind him)
Up there!
I have left my godly appearance and taken on that of man and so, here I am now, walking by the brooks and creeks of Dirki, through the waters of Isminos.
Yes, I have taken the guise of a common man, I, a god, the god, Dionysos.
(again turns and points at the tomb)
I can see my mother’s tomb back there, near the royal palace. Struck dead by Zeus’ flame… and there! The smoke still raises from the ruins of her house, a potent sign that Hera’s savage anger towards my mother will never be quenched.
I thank and admire old Kadmos for turning this into a sacred monument in honour of his daughter.
Of course, it was I who shaded the tomb with vines, full of grapes.
I’ve left behind me the gold-rich farms of Lydia and Phrygia. I went through the stony walls of Bactria, and the wild and freezing lands of the Medes, the sun-washed fields of Persia, the whole of blessed Arabia and the rest of Asia. A land, spread far alongside the sea with cities full of sublime tall towers, full of Greeks and Barbarians all pleasantly mingled together.
And in all these lands I have shown my mysteries, taught my dances and established myself as a god.
This is the first Greek city I’ve visited, the first one I’ve come to introduce myself and my rites.
Firstly, I’ve stirred these Theban women, dressed them in fawn skins and armed them with the thyrsus and its ivy crown.
Kadmos’ daughters, you see, would not accept that my father was Zeus. They should have known better than to behave like that towards my mother. They were accusing her of having slept with some mortal or other and then blamed Zeus for my birth. Typical Kadmos’ trickery: protect the daughter’s honour and you protect your own. But the sisters kept spreading the rumour that my mother had slept with a human and that she had blamed a god for her “improper” pregnancy and that’s why, they say, that God had killed her.
So, to these Theban women, I’ve delivered a little bit of madness. Made them leave their house and rush off all in a rage to the mountains where they now live.
I’ve made them wear the dress of my rites and ceremonies and tore the logic out of their minds. The whole female population of Thebes. Then, I’ve sent them off to the mountains to live with Kadmos’ daughters, my mother’s sisters, among the wild beasts, in a wild forest, beneath the wild firs and rocks, without roof nor shelter over their heads.
This city must learn one way or another, whether it likes it or not, that it can’t stay uninitiated and ignorant of my rites!
This city must learn, one way or another, whether it likes it not that my mother was innocent and this city must apologise to her!
This city must learn, one way or another, whether it likes it not that I am here to reveal to the whole world that I am her son, Semele’s son and the son of Zeus!
Old man Kadmos has now left his crown to his daughter’s son, Pentheus. Now that’s a man who habitually fights with gods and leaves me out of all his libations and prayers. So, I shall show him and all his Thebans that I am truly a god. After that, after I’ve settled everything here and got them all to know me, I shall go elsewhere in the world, teaching the people about my strength as a god.
If the people of Thebes decide to take arms against my Maenads and pursue them from their mountain, I’ll stand at the head of my Maenads and enter the battle with them.
This is why I’ve taken on the guise of a man.

(From both sides of the stage we hear the tambourines and ecstatic sounds of women. It is that of the CHORUS of Maenads ... and, after a short pause they enter dancing wildly, frenzied, noisily ... )

Ah! My darling group of followers! Here you are! Come, come in, my darlings! You, who have followed me here, all the way from Tmolos, Lydia’s stronghold, that land inhabited by barbarians. Come, my travelling mates, my friends, play your Phrygian instruments, your drums and tambourines, the instruments that mother Rea and I discovered.
Play around here, around King Pentheus’ palace and let Kadmos’ city hear us. I’m off to visit the other Maenads, the Thebans, those whom I made live in the crags, peaks and valleys of Kitheron. I shall join them in their dances there.

(Exit DIONYSUS. The CHORUS of Maenads plays for a few moments before one begins to speak.)

CHORUS

I’ve left the Asian land, the wholly mount of Tmolos and worked my way here,
In speed and hard labour!
In speed
And
In sweet labour,
With a joyous exhaustion
I’ve come to you, singing ecstatic songs for Dionysos, the god who bellows thunders.
Who – who’s there?
Who – who’s in the road?
Who – who’s outside their house?
Let them all shut themselves inside their homes!
Let them all shut their mouths
In holy silence!
O, my Lord, Dionysos!
My voice will always sing your praise!
Blessed is he who knows the sacraments and sacred rites of the gods
And performs Dionysos’ cleansing rituals high on the mountains,
His soul in unison
With the god’s band of followers –
For he lives a life pure!
And blessed is he, too, who has faith in the mysteries of our Great Mother, Cybele

And wears the garland of ivy,
And waves a Dionysian staff
And bows to Dionysos
He, too, is blessed indeed!
Come, Maenads!
Maenads Come!
Let’s bring back Dionysos the god who bellows thunders strong!
A god born of god!
Bring him back from the mountains of Phrygia!
Bring him back, Maenads,
To the streets of Greece
Bring back
Dionysos!
A long while ago, at the time when his mother’s stomach
Was full with him and with pain,
Zeus sent his bolt of burning light at her,
Relieving her of the child, of the pain and of her life,
Untimely all, all done before time!
And immediately, Zeus snatched the child
And
Made a womb out of his
Holy thigh, then quickly sowed the wound with
golden needles,
Lest his
Wife, Hera, sniffed out the act!
Then, when the Fates weaved whole his time in the womb, Zeus brought forth Bull-horned Dionysos and placed a garland of writhing snakes amidst his tresses, a cause for Beast-eating Maenads to do the same with their wild hair.
A garland of snakes upon the head of a god
A garland of snakes upon the heads of his Maenads!
O Thebes! Garland yourself with ivy!
Thebes! You who nurtured Semele,
Adorn yourselves richly with branches of bryony
And dance wildly with branches of fir and oak!
Put on the dappled fawn skins on your back and crown your heads with soft curls of white wool.
Wrap holy ivy around the rebellious wand of our god and hold it with reverence –
And when our god, Dionysos, the god who bellows thunders, arrives with his ecstatic band – there, high upon the mountain, Upon the mountain, to where the women have escaped from their loom and their shuttlecock^[3] – all those women, made wild by the frenzy Dionysos sent them, that’s when the whole of Thebes shall dance, shall dance wildly, ecstatically!
When Dionysos arrives upon the mountain.
Home of the Kouretes!
most sacred land of Zeus!
Crete’s deepest valley!
There the three crested Corybantes invented this drum!
A piece of skin tightly drawn over a circle,
Which when in frenzy they bring together its loud beat with that of the soft breath of the Phrygian Flutes.
This drum they’ve put in mother Rhea’s hands for her to accompany the wild cries of the Maenads.
Ah, but the sly Satyrs stole it from her hands and straightaway united it with the crazy dances of Dionysos that come every second year.
A splendid joy for the god.
Happy is that Satyr who runs freely in the valley, dressed in the soft, holy skin of a deer, seeking the blood of a slaughtered stag and the joy of eating raw flesh as he charges deep into the mountains of the Phrygians and the Lydians.
First among the blessings, Thunderous Dionysos!
In the valley flows the milk and the sweet wine.
In the valley the nectar from the bees runs freely and so do the smoky smells that are like Syrian incense.
And
There the god, holding a fennel torch, lit high, jumps and runs, jumps and runs until he urges his maenads into the mystic dance and with his cries makes them wild.
Look there how he lets his curly tresses loose to the whims of the wind’s breath.
And
Then, triumphantly he shouts:
Blessings, blessings!
Sing for Dionysos with the heavy sounds of the drum.
Blessings, blessings to the blessed God, with Phrygian shouts and cries, when the sweet-voiced sacred flute plays loud songs in harmony as they travel up the mountain, that mountain.
Joyfully then, like the filly follows her mare, the maenad kicks her legs high.