Agave at the Turn

And now we have our anagnoresis, as Agave realizes, far too late, exactly what she is holding after encountering her father Cadmus returning from the forest with the rest of her scattered son. She, while not being the 'central figure' of the play (an unresolved question) undergoes the most typically tragic transformation, from unknowing to knowing.

The question of guilt, which I'll raise again next time, and responsibility backgrounds all of the action here. Pentheus' sin and the deservedness of his punishment are more or less inarguable, but the collateral damage inflicted seems incommensurate. It's true that Agave and her sisters did deny the divinity of Dionysus - but they've already been humiliated by being forced into Bacchantry, and being forced to murder one's offspring, and undergo ritual pollution, perhaps seems excessive. In a truly just world, all punishments would fit all crimes; it's not as in the Oresteia, where an abstract and unknowable Fate controls all things - Dionysus is right there! But, as is illuminated, Dionysus' justice is imperfect, strange, and unquestionable. And poor Cadmus? Poor Cadmus.

Anyway, this will all come into play at the end, which lies before us. Let's tear into the stichomathia.

CA: Follow me, my slaves, you carrying the pitiable weight
of my boy Pentheus, come over to the palace,
where I'm taking myself, weary from endlessly searching
for it, finding him torn to pieces in the folds of Cithaeron,
not all in one place, but scattered, hidden through the trees.
When I heard what my daughters had done,
I'd already entered the walls of the city, along with
old man Teiresias after we left the Bacchic dance.
I bent my course back to the mountain and cared for
the child who died because of the maenads.
At some point I saw Autonoe who bore Actaeon
to Aristaeus, and Ino then as well, still
stung by madness inside that miserable oaken forest.
Someone told me that Agave was waltzing around
in the Bacchic dance, but we heard nothing at all.
Ah! I see her face - it's a most terrible sight.
AG: Father, the greatest thing's happened, worthy for you to boast of-
you've sown the best daughters, better by far than all
other mortals. I mention them all, but especially me,
I who left behind the loom's shuttled rods
and became something greater, capturing beasts with these hands.
I carry this in my arms, as you can see, the magnificent
prize I took, a prize to be hung in front of your house.
Take it in your hands, father.
First exult in my quarry and
then call our friends to the feast! You're a lucky man,
blessed, for the things I've brought to fruition.
CA: O Pentheus! Grief! Immeasurable, impossible to look upon!
A murder you've carried out with those horrible hands!
You've paid a noble sacrifice to the gods
and are calling me and the Thebans to a feast.
It's terrible - first these evils were yours, and now they're mine.
The god acted justly towards us, but too much-
lord Bromios, born in this house, has destroyed it.
AG: So sullen and discontent the old age of men appears
to my eyes. I hope my child does well in the hunt,
and equals his mother's fortunes, whenever
he takes aim at beasts alongside the young men of Thebes.
But that boy, and he alone, goes to war
against the gods. You should admonish him, father,
he should hear it from you. Who will call him to my sight,
so he might see how happy I am?
CA: Ah, ah! When you learn what you've done, you'll
be tormented by a terrible pain. But if you stay forever
in the condition you're trapped in right now,
you won't be fortunate, but perhaps not unfortunate either.
AG: What about this would be unwell or agonizing?
CA: First you must direct your eyes to the sky.
AG: All right! What's this you're advising me to see?
CA: Is it the same, or has there been any change for you?
AG: It's brighter than before . . . and more . . . translucent.
CA: But is there some distraction in your spirit?
AG: I don't know the word for it. I'm made thoughtful,
having changed my thoughts around from before.
CA: Could you listen and distinguish it clearly?
AG: I think I've forgotten the things we said before, father.
CA: Which house did you come to after your wedding-song?
AG: As they say, you gave me to the sown man, Echion.
CA: What child was born to your husband in the palace?
AG: Pentheus, from the partnership of me and his father.
CA: Whose face do you hold now in the crooks of your arms?
AG: Of a lion, as the woman who went hunting told me.
CA: Look at it rightly. It's a simple effort to perceive.
AG: Ah! What am I looking at? What am I carrying in my hands?
CA: Inspect it and learn more clearly.
AG: I see a hideous pain - and I am wretched.
CA: Does it seem to you to resemble a lion?
AG: No. But I hold the lamentable head of Pentheus.
CA: Mourned by me before you recognized him.
AG: Who killed him? How is this in my hands?
CA: Unfortunate is the truth, as in this ill-starred hour.
AG: Tell me, although my heart fears what's about to come.
CA: You murdered him, your siblings alongside you.
AG: Where did he die? In what house? In which places?
CA: Where the dogs had earlier split apart Actaeon's body.
AG: Why did this unlucky man go to Cithaeron?
CA: He went to sneer at the god and also your Bacchae.
AG: How did it happen that we swooped down upon him there?
CA: You were in madness, the entire city was consumed by Bacchus.
AG: Dionysus has destroyed us, I've learned this now.
CA: You insulted him with hubris. You denied his divinity.
AG: Where's my beloved son's body, father?
CA: I searched all around, and I carry it here.
AG: Are all the parts together in good order?
[----Here at least one line is missing----]
AG: What part of my folly matched that of Pentheus?
CA: The same thing happened to you - impiety towards the god.
And so he united everything in single destruction,
you and he himself, with the result that he shattered the house,
and me, everyone that's bereft of male offspring,
the saplings of your womb, poor woman,
I see it all dying away, the worst, the harshest thing,
the man through whom the house recovered its sight-
you, my son, born from my son, held the palace together;
you were a terror to the city. No one who looked upon
your face ever wished to harm an older man,
because you grasped worthy and proportionate justice.
Now, I, great Cadmus, dishonored, will be thrown out
of the house, I who sowed the race of Thebans
and reaped that most beautiful harvest.
O most beloved of men - although you no longer live,
I still number you among my beloved, child -
no longer will you touch this chin with your hand,
embracing your mother's father and saying, o child,
"Who does you wrong, who dishonors you, old man?
Who is so wicked that he troubles your heart?
Tell me, I will punish any man who wrongs you, father."
Now I am miserable, and you are wretched,
a pitiable mother; kindred in suffering.
If any man think to despise the gods,
let him observe this man's death, and believe them real.
XO: I feel your pain, Cadmus. Your grandson paid the
appropriate penalty, but one painful to you.
AG: O father, you see how much this catastrophe affects me..
[---------------------------At least two lines
are missing, including the beginning of the next speech---------]

Notes:
Actaeon was a grandson of Cadmus and son of Autonoe who while hunting accidentally happened upon Artemis bathing in the wilderness. Artemis, to protect her reputation for chastity, turned Actaeon into a stag, whereupon he was killed by his own hunting dogs.
The text makes numerous references to the autochthonous foundation myth of Thebes, where Cadmus defeated a dragon and planted its teeth in the ground, after which they sprouted into men.