by Anne Carson
And
given the way he threatened me,
I’d like to see him made mock of,
paraded through town in all his ridiculous female finery.
So
I’ll go rig him up, put on his dress — he’ll
wear that dress to Hades
after his mother slaughters him with her own hands.
And he will come to know Dionysos,
son of Zeus,
true and consummate god,
god of the intensities of terror,
god of the gentlest human peace.
3rd CHORAL ODE
Bakkhai:
When shall I
set my white foot
in the allnight dances,
when shall I
lift my throat
to the dewy air,
like a fawn
skylarking
in the
green joy of the meadow —
she runs
free
from the hunt and the hunter,
she leaps
over the net
as he cries up his dogs,
with storms
in her feet
she
sprints
the plain,
races
the river
flies
down
to the shadows that deepen the trees,
overjoyed!
at the sheer absence of men.
What is wisdom?
What feels better
than to hold your hand over the head of your enemy?
Who
does
not
love
this
feeling?
It moves
so slowly
– the force of the gods —
yet it is absolutely guaranteed
to arrive.
To punish
human folly
and the arrogance
of a private theology.
Ingenious
how a god can hide
and then
leap out
on the unholy man.
To think or act outside the law is never right.
But this is valid —
this thing we call the daimonic
ancient,
elemental,
fixed in law and custom,
grown out of nature itself.
What is wisdom?
What feels better
than to bring your hand down on the head of your enemy?
Who
does
not
love
this
feeling?
Happy is he who escapes the winter sea,
finds a harbour,
prevails over pain.
Still, one man will always outdo another in wealth or power.
And hopes
are countless, they come on like waves,
rising
and
falling.
Just be happy,
day to day:
this I call blessed.
[enter Dionysos]
Dionysos:
You! Pentheus! I’m talking to you!
Still so keen on seeing sights you should not see?
Still hungry for mischief?
Come out and show me your Bakkhic get-up,
your maenad-suit,
your costume for spying on women.
[enter Pentheus]
You look like one of Kadmos’ daughters!
Pentheus:
You know, I seem to see two suns.
And a double Thebes, each with all its seven gates.
And you look like a bull leading me in procession —
you’ve got horns growing out your head!
Were you perhaps an animal all the time?
You’re certainly a bull at the moment.
Dionysos:
The god is with us now.
He’s come round, he’s on our side.
You’re seeing as you ought to see.
Pentheus:
How do I look?
Is this the way Ino stands?
Or Agave my mother?
Dionysos:
I feel I’m seeing them in person.
But here, this bit of hair is out of place —
I had it tucked under, did I not?
Pentheus:
I was tossing my head back and forth like a maenad inside the house.
Dionysos:
I’ll redo it — I’m here to serve you. Hold still.
Pentheus:
Oh lovely. You redo it. I’m in your hands.
Dionysos:
And your belt is loose, your pleats uneven,
the hem’s slipping down around your ankles.
Pentheus:
Is it? Possibly, on the right anyway.
Over here it hangs straight, so far as I can see.
Dionysos:
You’ll think me your best friend I’m sure,
when you see how sober and sensible the Bakkhai are,
not what you expect.
Pentheus:
Do I take the thyrsos in my right hand
or like this,
to look really Bakkhic?
Dionysos:
Right hand.
Raise it in time with your right foot.
I’m so glad you had a change of heart!
Pentheus:
I’ll be able to lift Mt Kithairon on my bare shoulders,
Bakkhic women and all, am I right?
Dionysos:
No problem. Your whole attitude before was unsound
but not anymore!
Pentheus:
Should we take crowbars?
Or shall I just put my shoulder under the mountain and shove?
Dionysos:
Be careful though, you musn’t do damage to the temples of the Nymphs
or the places where Pan plays his pipes.
Pentheus:
Good point. Brute force is out. Doesn’t work with women anyhow.
I’ll hide in the pines.
Dionysos:
You’ll hide in the hiding place a man should have
who comes to spy on the Bakkhai.
Pentheus:
You know, I can see them in my mind’s eye,
little birds in the bracken,
all tangled up in sex.
Dionysos:
Well that’s your mission, right?
Catch them at it!
Unless you’re caught first.
Pentheus:
Take me right through the middle of the city:
I’m the only man bold enough to do this.
Dionysos:
Yes, you alone bear this burden on behalf of Thebes.
A contest awaits you: the contest of your destiny.
Follow me.
I am your guide and saviour.
Someone else will bring you home.
Pentheus:
My mother!
Dionysos:
You’ll be conspicuous to all.
Pentheus:
That’s my hope.
Dionysos:
You’ll be carried aloft.
Pentheus:
What a luxury!
Dionysos:
In the arms of your mother.
Pentheus:
Now you’re spoiling me!
Dionysos:
Indeed I
am.
Pentheus:
But I deserve it.
Dionysos:
You are an amazing strange man
and amazing strange experiences await you.
Your celebrity will reach high heaven.
Open your arms, Agave,
open your arms, daughters of Kadmos!
I am leading this young man to a great contest, to his ultimate performance.
And who will win?
I will win.
Bromios and I.
As for the rest: soon enough obvious.
[exit Pentheus]
4th CHORAL ODE
Bakkhai:
Run, you dogs of madness!
Run to the mountain
where the daughters of Kadmos
are dancing!
Sting them and drive them
to hunt down that man —
dressed up as a woman
he spies on women —
his eye has a crazy glow.
First
his mother will spot him
ducking and dodging,
hopping and hiding,
sneaking and sniffing
from cliff to crag
and
she will call out to her maenads:
Who is this man
come to our mountain
to hunt us from peak to peak,
O Bakkhai?
Who gave him birth?
Surely no woman!
His mother must be some lion, some Gorgon!
Into the throat
of
the
ungodly
unlawful
unrighteous
earthborn
son
of Echion
let justice
sink her sword
!
His judgment is wrong,
his anger chaotic,
his arrogance out of control.
He dispatches himself against you,
Bakkhos,
against your mother,
against your holy rites.
He is a violent man.
But
Death will discipline him.
Death takes no excuses.
To accept that we are mortal
helps us live without pain.
Myself,
I’ve no interest in wisdom.
I hunt another quarry,
by day,
by night:
the great clear joy of living pure and reverently,
rejecting injustice
and honouring gods.
Into the throat
of
the
ungodly
unlawful
unrighteous
earthborn
son
of Echion
let justice
sink her sword
!
Show yourself, Bakkhos!
Be a bull,
be a snake,
be a lion,
be manifest!
Come with your little net
and your fatal smile,
your little smile
and your fatal net,
hunt down the hunter!
Trip him and tangle him!
Let him fall under a pack of maenads!
[enter Servant]
Servant:
This house was fortunate once.
Founded by Kadmos,
who sowed an earthborn crop from dragon’s seed.
How I grieve for you, though I am but a slave,
still I grieve for you.
Bakkhai:
What is it? News of the Bakkhai?
Servant:
Pentheus is dead, the son of Echion.
Bakkhai:
O Bromios!
You are revealed to eye, mind and judgment a great god!
Servant:
I beg your pardon? What are you saying?
You women rejoice at my master’s downfall?
Bakkhai:
We are foreign, we sing a foreign song of joy.
No more cowering! No more prison!
Servant:
You think Thebes has no men left to govern you?
Bakkhai:
Dionysos, not Thebes, is my government.
Servant:
Understood, ladies, but to gloat over others’ misfortune
is not decent.
Bakkhai:
How did he die? I want to know details.
He was an unjust man.
A thoroughly unjust man.
Servant:
We had left behind the outskirts of Thebes and the river Asopos,
heading for Mt Kithairon — it was Pentheus in front,
me following,
and a stranger who offered to act as our guide.
We came to a grassy glen,
walking silently,
looking to see and not be seen.
There was a hollow between two hills,
crossed by streams and shaded by pine trees
where the maenads were sitting happily working at little tasks.
Some were rewinding a thyrsos with tendrils of ivy,
others frisking like colts set free
and singing Bakkhic songs back and forth.
But Pentheus, the hapless man, couldn’t quite see the women
and said to our guide,
“From where I stand I can’t make out those imposters,
those maenads,
but up on the bank,
if I were to climb a tall pine,
I could get a good view of all their obscene goings-on.”
And then I saw the stranger work a miracle.
Seizing the top branch of a towering pine
he brought it down,
down,
down
to the black ground
curved taut like a bow
or a rim forced round a wheel.
So did the stranger force that pine tree down to earth —
no mortal could have done it.
Then he sat Pentheus upon the branch
and let the tree go straight up through his hands,
gradually, gently,
lest it unseat the rider.
And up the tree rose to the sky —
straight up — with my master crouched on top.
And now the maenads saw him more than he saw them,
still he was not completely visible on his perch.
But the stranger suddenly vanished
and a voice came out of the air —
it was probably Dionysos — shouting:
“Here he is, women! I bring you the man
who mocks me and mocks my holy rites.
Punish him!”
And as he said this
a column of fire shot between heaven and earth. Then silence fell.
Silence through the wood and on the leaves and every animal was silent.
You could hear not a twitch.
The Bakkhai got to their feet and were peering around —
they hadn’t clearly recognized the voice.
Again it rang out.
And now they knew his cry!
Off they shot with the speed of doves —
Agave, her sisters, all the Bakkhai —
racing over glen and stream and jagged rock,
maddened by the breath of god.
And when they saw my master sitting atop a pine tree
they climbed a facing hill and began pelting h
im with rocks,
they hurled pine boughs like javelins,
or used the thyrsos as a spear.
Yet they kept missing.
Poor Pentheus was out of range, although absolutely helpless.
Finally they started ripping off branches of oak
to use as crowbars
and uproot the tree.
It didn’t work.
Agave spoke:
“Come, maenads, stand round in a circle
and grip the trunk of the tree.
Up there’s a wild animal we must capture
or he’ll broadcast the secrets of our god!”
With that,
countless hands took hold of the pine tree and tore it from the ground.
And
down,
down,
down
he fell
to the ground
from his high seat,
yelping and sobbing.
Pentheus.
He was close to understanding his own doom.
Agave,
as priestess of the slaughter
launched herself first upon him.
He pulled the headdress from his head
in hopes that she,
his poor luckless mother,
would know him, would spare him —
he touched her cheek and cried out,
“Mother, it’s me! I am the child you bore in the house of Echion!
Pity me, mother,
do not murder your own child, whatever his mistakes!”
But she
was foaming at the mouth,
was rolling back her eyes,
was out of her mind.
Bakkhos had possessed her,
she did not even hear the boy.
Seizing his left arm by the wrist
she planted her foot against his ribs
and ripped the arm off at the shoulder —
not by her own strength, the god made it easy.
Meanwhile Ino was working away at the other side
stripping the meat from the bone,
and Autonoe with the whole mob of Bakkhai
attacked.
It was one float of hideous sound —
him gasping and groaning,
them shrieking their war cry.
One carried off an arm, another a foot still in its shoe,
his ribs were laid bare of flesh
and every woman
drenched in blood
for they were playing ball with his body parts.
So the corpse was lying all over the place,
some by the rocks, some in the woods,
hard to find.
But the head,
the terrible head,
his mother picks up
and (as if it were some mountain lion’s)
impales on top of her thyrsos!
And she’s carrying it now,
marching right down Kithairon,
leaving her sisters behind —
yes, she’s on her way here.
Exulting in that dark and bloody prize
and calling out —