PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

BACCHUS.

TIRESIAS.

CADMUS.

PENTHEUS.

AGAVE..

OFFICER.

MESSENGERS.

CHORUS OF ASIATIC BACCH.

THE

BACCHE.

THIS tragedy is of a singular nature, and very different from any thing that remains to us of the Athenian theatre: the best critics have ranked it among the finest tragedies of Euripides; and in respect of its composition it is so; but to us it is the least interesting of any of them; for we cannot so far assume the prejudices and sentiments of a Grecian audience as to be affected with a story of their Bacchus and his frantic Mænades; yet we can be sensible to fine writing, and the distress of Cadmus and Agave in the last scene is touched with a masterly hand. But it is peculiarly valuable for its learning, as it gives us the best account now extant of the Orgies of Bacchus; those rites, even to the dress and manners of the Bacchæ, are so particularly described, that later and even cotemporary writers seem to have taken their accounts of them from hence; so that it would be an absurd affectation to burden the page with unnecessary notes. The first choral Ode is truly tragic in the original acceptation of the word, and not only remarkable for the elegance of its composition, but precious as a religious relic, all that remains to us of those songs in honour of Bacchus, from whence tragedy derived its origin and its name: the religious air, with which it is prefaced, gives it a solemnity, and in a manner hallows the whole drama.

P. Brumoy is inclined to think, that this tragedy partakes something of the satiric piece, if it be not altogether one, as well as the Cyclops; but without reason he judges better when, from the subject and the turn of most of the scenes, he conjectures it to be a sacred tragedy, and to have been exhibited during the jollity of the feast of Bacchus. This was a time which demanded the attention of the moral poet, as the festivity was now corrupted with much licentiousness and debauchery: ever true to the cause of virtue, he not only inculcates an awful reverence of the gods, but endeavours to call back his countrymen to that decorum, that chastity and sobriety, which the god required, and which had been so shamefully violated: the Athenian stage, under the conduct of Euripides, pleaded the cause of religion and morality as warmly and as eloquently as the schools of the philosophers.

One is surprised to find that Euripides concludes five of his tragedies with the same words: however naturally the reflection might arise from the subject of the other four, it does not seem to be pertinent to this; the proper moral of which is, as it was expressed by Cadmus on the death of Pentheus,

If there be

A man, whose impious pride contemns the gods,
Let him behold his death, and own their pow'r.

The scene is at Thebes, before the vestibule of the palace of Pentheus.

THE

ВАССНЕ.

v. 1-28.

BACC. NOW to this land, the realms of Thebes, I come,
Bacchus, the son of Jove, whom Semele,

Daughter of Cadmus, 'midst the lightning flames
Brought forth; the god beneath a mortal's form
Concealing, on the brink of Dirce's fount,
And where Ismenus rolls his stream, I tread.
I see my mother's tomb rais'd near the house
In which she perish'd by the thunder; yet
Its ruins smoke, th' ætherial fire yet lives,
The everlasting mark of Juno's hate
Wreck'd on my mother. Cadmus hath my praise,
Who to his daughter rais'd this shrine, the ground
Hallow'd from vulgar tread; the clust❜ring vine
I gave to wreath around its verdant boughs.
Leaving the Lydian fields profuse of gold,
The Phrygian, and the Persian plains expos'd
To the sun's rays, and from the tow'red forts
Of Bactria passing, from the frozen soil
Of Media, from Arabia the blest,

And all that tract of Asia which along
The salt sea lies, where with Barbarians mix'd
The Grecians many a stately-structur'd town
Inhabit, to this city, first of Greece,

I come, here lead my dance, my mystic rites
Establish here, that mortals may confess

The manifest god. Of all the realms of Greece
In Thebes I first have rais'd my shouts, thus cloth'd
With a fawn's dappled hide, and in my hand

Thy thyrsus hold, this ivy-wreathed spear:
For that the sisters of my mother (least
Becomes it them) declared that not from Jove
I sprung, but pregnant by some mortal's love
That Semele on Jove had falsely charg'd
Her fault, the poor device of Cadmus; whence
They arrogantly said that Jove enraged
Slew her, because she falsely urged his love
As her excuse for this my madd'ning stings
Impell'd them to forsake the house, and roam
Distracted o'er the mountain, where perforce
They wear the habit of my orgies. All

The females, who from Cadmus draw their birth,
Have I driv'n frantic from their houses forth;
And with the sons of Cadmus mix'd beneath

The dark-green firs, whose boughs o'er-roof the rocks,
They sit. This city must be taught to know,
Howe'er averse, that with my mystic rites
She is not hallow'd; and that I defend
The cause of Semele, to mortal men
Avow'd a god, the son of thund'ring Jove.
Cadmus his honours and imperial state
Resigns to Pentheus, from his daughter sprung:
He with profane contempt against me wars,
Drives me from the libations, in his vows
Deems me not worthy mention: for which cause
To him, and all the Thebans, will I shew
Myself a god. Things well appointed here,
Hence to some other realm will I remove,
And shew myself: but should the Theban state
In rage attempt with hostile arms to drive
My Bacchæ from their confines, I will head
My Mænades, and lead them to the fight.
For this have I put off my godlike form,
Taking the semblance of a mortal man.
But you, my frolic train, who left the heights
Of Tmolus, Lydian mount, ye female troop,
Whom from barbaric coasts I led with me