Dionysus Triumphant

Well, after two years and far too much intervening life anxiety/events to mention, here we come to the end of the Bacchae. For all intents and purposes, this marks the end of the project, although I might take some time in the future to examine the translation as a whole, fix typos, incongruities, etc. No plans to attempt to publish this, but perhaps somewhere down the line - if anyone has use for an elegant, practical translation; I never claimed to be much of a poet. To talk only the slightest smidgeon about translation theory, my position is that we, the translators, have the obligation to transmit the meaning of the original text and its words across without adding too much of ourselves. It's Euripides' play, not my own. Not that 'adaptations' don't have value, because they do - but I find it unconscionable when the translator doesn't make clear the degree of creative adaptation used. For my text, assume 'as little as possible'.

Anyway, to the final confrontation of the play, when Dionysus appears (the precise moment at which he enters the stage has been lost) to Agave and Cadmus, to dispense their final punishment - expulsion from Thebes for the two of them, polluted and polluted by proxy by the kin-murder of Pentheus.

At one point in the not-too-distant past, I had the opportunity to deliver a lecture on this play, and this final moment is what I focused the last half of my discussion upon. What is the nature of Dionysus' justice? The guilt of Pentheus cannot be argued against, nor, really, can the ultimate degree of his punishment - it may be gruesome, but this is Greek tragedy, after all. The position of Cadmus, however, raises some difficult problems. If you recall the beginning of the play, he, along with Teiresias, was imploring Thebes to follow the correct worship of Bacchus, dancing and attiring oneself correctly, and at scene's end off they go, dancing away for the remainder of the play. Cadmus receives a terrible punishment, but only through transference - not only did he not commit any wrongdoing, but he was actively worshiping Dionysus the correct way!

His 'unjust guilt' calls into question the goodness, the ethical position of Dionysus which the play has been building toward. No longer, at this point, is he righting wrongs done against him, the smarmy, playful, clever-tongued trickster; now, in a turn of phrase a colleague of mine once used, here is Dionysus as hollow vengeance god. Euripides clearly establishes his morality as divine morality, outside the realm and understanding of humans, separate in cause and effect, divorced from normal compassion; the eternally calm stranger exposes his poisonous tranquility not only to his enemies, but to his supposed followers. In this way the 'lesson' of the play mirrors a core tenet of Greco-Roman mythology: the gods must be honored, but they should not be trusted, for they are cold, strange elemental forces in a chaotic, uncertain universe.

1330-1392
DI: [---The introduction to Dioynsus' speech is lost---]
You'll transform and become a serpent, and your wife,
the woman you married, will shapeshift, exchange her form
for a snake's, Harmonia, born mortal, daughter of Ares.
As the oracle of Zeus proclaims, you'll drive a carriage of oxen,
alongside your wife, as a leader of barbarians.
You'll sack many cities in countless campaigns.
And when they tear to pieces the oracle of Apollo,
they'll have a tormented homecoming. Ares
will rescue you, and Harmonia,
and hand you down life in the land of the blessed.
Not born from a mortal father, but from Zeus, I,
Dionysus, say these things. If you had been prudent -
which you didn't wish to be -  you'd have prospered,
if you'd gained as an ally the offspring of Zeus.
CA: Dionysus, we beg of you, we've been unfair to you.
DI: You learned too late. You did not praise me when you should.
CA: We've learned these things. But you punish us too much.
DI: I was born a god. You have insulted me.
CA: The anger of gods shouldn't be like the anger of mortals.
DI: My father Zeus assented to all this long ago.
AG: Ah! It's decided, father, we're bitter exiles.
DI: So why do you delay what has to happen?
CA: My child, we've come upon a monstrous evil;
both you and your kin will have to suffer,
and I must endure misery. I will go to the barbarians,
an old man, a foreigner. So it was ordained for me
to lead a motley barbarian army against Greece.
And I will be a snake, and I will lead Harmonia,
child of Ares, my wife, in a snake's savage form,
against Greek altars and Greek burial-grounds,
as a leader of spearmen. I will not stop suffering
such evils, nor will I sail down Acheron's descent
and find myself any rest.
AG: O father, I'll be an exile, deprived of your presence!
CA: Why do you throw your arms around me, my child,
like a young swan does to one that's old and gray?
AG: Where can I turn, thrown out of my homeland?
CA: I don't know, my child. Your father's worthless as an ally.
AG: Farewell, palace, farewell, my home city.
I leave you behind, for misery,
an exile from your halls.
CA: Leave now, my child, for [the house/land] of Aristaeus--
[----line missing----]
AG: I grieve for you, father.
CA: And I for you, child.
and I weep for your sisters.
AG: For terribly did lord Dionysus
carry out this brutality
against your family.
DI: Because I suffered terribly; because of you;
my name was given no honor in Thebes.
AG: Goodbye, my father.
CA: Goodbye, o sorrowful daughter.
This journey and farewell will not be easy.
AG: Lead on, my attendants, so we can find
my pitiable sisters, companions in exile.
I will go to where
neither polluted Cithaeron can see me
nor where I can see it with my eyes
nor where anyone's ever dedicated a thyrsus.
Let other Bacchae care about these things.
XO: Many are the forms of divinities,
the gods plan many unexpected things;
what seems to happen is not fulfilled;
the god finds a path to the unforeseen.
And so such things conclude.

FIN

Notes:
Harmonia is Cadmus' wife, daughter of Ares and sometimes Aphrodite.
The legend of Cadmus the snake corresponds with the general mythic tradition where Cadmus takes on the form of a snake and has adventures in barbarian lands near the end of his life. Cadmus' death and afterlife, as prophesied here, are not well supported in the tradition.