bakkhai
also by anne carson
available from new directions
The Albertine Workout
Antigonick
Glass, Irony & God
Nox
bakkhai
i wish i were two dogs then i could play with me
(translator’s note on euripides’ bakkhai)
Dionysos is god
of the beginning
before the beginning.
What makes
beginnings special?
Think of
your first sip of wine
from a really good bottle.
Opening page
of a crime novel.
Start
of an idea.
Tingle of falling in love.
Beginnings have their own
energy,
ethics,
tonality,
colour.
Greenish-bluish-purple
dewy and cool
almost transparent,
as a ripe grape.
Tone of alterity,
things just about to change,
already looking different.
Energy headlong
and heedless
and shot
like a beam. Ethics
fantastically selfish.
He is a young god.
Mythologically obscure,
always just arriving
at some new place
to disrupt the status quo,
wearing the start of a smile.
The Greeks called him “foreign”
and staged his incursion
into polis after polis
in stories like the one
in Euripides’ Bakkhai.
A shocking play.
Lecturing in Japan
Stephen Hawking was asked
not to mention that the universe
had a beginning
(and so likely an end)
because it would affect
the stockmarket.
Speculation aside,
we all need a prehistory.
According to Freud,
we do nothing but repeat it.
Beginnings are special
because most of them are fake.
The new person you become
with that first sip of wine
was already there.
Look at Pentheus
twirling around in a dress,
so pleased with his girl-guise
he’s almost in tears.
Are we to believe
this desire is new?
Why was he keeping
that dress in the back
of his closet anyhow?
Costume is flesh.
Look at Dionysos,
plucked prematurely
from his doomed mother’s womb
and sewn up
in the thigh of Zeus
to be born again later.
Life is a rehearsal
for life.
Here’s a well-known secret
about Dionysos:
despite all those legends
of him as “new god”
imported to Greece from the east,
his name is already
on Linear B tablets
that date to 12th-century BC.
Previousness
is something a god can manage
fairly well (“time”
a fiction for him)
but mortals
less so.
Look at those poor passionate women
who worship this god,
the Bakkhai,
destroyers of livestock
and local people
and Pentheus the king.
They had a prior existence once.
The herdsman describes them
lying at peace in the mountains
“calm as buttons on a shirt.”
This is the world before men.
Then the posse arrives
and violence begins.
What does this tell us?
The shock of the new
will prepare its own unveiling
in old and brutal ways.
Dionysos does not
explain or regret
anything. He is
pleased
if he can cause you to perform,
despite your plan,
despite your politics,
despite your neuroses,
despite even your Dionysian theories of self,
something quite previous,
the desire
before the desire,
the lick of beginning to know you don’t know.
If life is a stage,
that is the show.
Exit Dionysos.
cast
Dionysos
Teiresias
Kadmos
Pentheus
Guard
Herdsman
Servant
Agave
and
Bakkhai
bakkhai
PROLOGUE
[enter Dionysos]
Dionysos:
Here I am.
Dionysos.
I am
son of Zeus, born by a lightning bolt out of Semele
– you know this story —
the night Zeus split her open with fire.
In order to come here I changed my form,
put on this suit of human presence.
I want to visit the springs of Dirke,
the river Ismenos.
Look there — I see
the tomb of my mother,
thunderstruck Semele,
and her ruined house still smoking
with the live flame of Zeus.
I’m glad
my grandfather Kadmos named this place sacred,
I’m glad
he keeps it clean.
I myself
planted it all round with vines
in the clear key of green.
The story so far:
I crossed Lydia, Phrygia, Baktria, Media, Arabia and the whole coastland of Asia
to come here
to this Greek city
to make myself known:
my rituals, my dances, my religion, my livewire self!
I am something supernatural —
not exactly god, ghost, spirit, angel, principle or element —
There is no term for it in English.
In Greek they say daimo —
can we just use that?
So,
I set all Asia dancing
and then I came here
first
of all the cities of Greece:
I came to thrill you, Thebes.
Don’t doubt I will.
Here’s what you’ll need:
fawnskin,
thyrsos,
absolute submission.
My mother’s sisters failed to understand this — they’ve
been going around saying
Dionysos wasn’t born of Zeus,
Kadmos just made that up
after Semele slept with a perfectly ordinary person.
It was wrong of them to say such things.
I have stung them from
their homes,
they are gone mad upon the mountains.
The whole bursting female seed-pod of Thebes is gone mad.
I’ve put them in Dionysian uniform
and they sit beneath pine trees
staring at their own green hands.
So they will learn,
so Thebes must learn,
to call me son of Zeus
and call me
daimon.
Now Thebes has a new leader.
Kadmos appointed him.
He’s Kadmos’ grandson. Name is Pentheus.
This man is against me.
He does not acknowledge me in libation or prayer.
But I am a god. I’ll show him. Him and all his Thebans.
Then I’ll be on my way to another land in visible triumph.
But if Thebes comes forth in anger
to drive my Bakkhic women from the mountains
I shall lead them as an army into battle.
That’s why I’ve changed to mortal form —
how do I look?
Convincingly human?
O dear women! My cadre, my sisterhood, my fellow travellers —
you who left your distant lives
to wander all the way from Lydia with me —
lift up your tambourines!
bang loud your drums!
Surround Pentheus’ house with noise and let the city see you!
I’ll go to Mt Kithairon
and get them dancing there.
[enter Bakkhai]
ENTRANCE SONG OF THE BAKKHAI
From Asia I come,
from Tmolos I hasten,
to this work that I love,
to this love that I live
calling out
Bakkhos!
Who is in the road?
Who is in the way?
Stay back,
stand quiet.
I shall sing Dionysos —
I shall make the simplest sentence explode with his name!
O
blessed is he who,
blessedly happy is he who
knows the holy protocols, who
makes his life pure, who
joins his soul in congregation
on the mountains of Bakkhos!
Honouring the Mother
and the mysteries
with his thyrsos,
his ivy,
his submission to the god.
Come, Bakkhai!
Come Bakkhai,
bring your god home!
Bring Bromios down from the mountains of Phrygia
into the wide dancing streets of Greece!
Bromios,
the one whose
mother shimmered into fire
at the moment of his birth
when Zeus’ lightning bolt blew her apart
and Zeus sewed the infant into his own thigh
with golden stitches,
secret and safe
until the appointed time.
Then he was born
a god
with horns on his head
and snakes in his hair —
that’s why
the Bakkhai
like to play with wild things even now.
O Thebes! garland yourself
in all the green there is —
ivy green,
olive green,
fennel green,
growing green,
yearning green,
wet sap green,
new grape green,
green of youth and green of branches,
green of mint and green of marsh grass,
green of tea leaves, oak and pine,
green of washed needles and early rain,
green of weeds and green of oceans,
green of bottles, ferns and apples,
green of dawn-soaked dew and slender green of roots,
green fresh out of pools,
green slipped under fools,
green of the green fuse,
green of the honeyed muse,
green of the rough caress of ritual,
green undaunted by reason or delirium,
green of jealous joy,
green of the secret holy violence of the thyrsos,
green of the sacred iridescence of the dance —
and let all the land of Thebes dance!
with Dionysos leading,
to the mountains!
to the mountains!
where the mob of women waits!
They’ve forsaken their shuttles,
they’ve left their looms,
they’ve dropped their aprons
and taken up their stations
on Dionysos’ mountain!
He has stung them out of their minds.
Do you hear that pounding?
Do you hear the kettledrum?
The Korybants invented it
to mingle with the sweet shrill voice of the flute
and they gave it to the Mother,
who gave it to the Satyrs,
who gave it to us.
We dance to a drumbeat adoring our god.
He loves the drum!
He is sweet upon the mountains
when he runs from the pack,
when he drops to the ground,
hunting goatkill blood
and rawflesh pleasure,
longing for the mountains of home!
Bromios, leader of the dance!
EUOI!
His ground flows with milk,
flows with wine,
flows with nectar of bees.
Like smoke of incense streaming aloft
his pinetorch blazes.
He darts.
He runs.
He dances.
He touches them to fire if they lag
and rouses them with shouts if they wander,
and all the while his long hair streaming on the wind
and all the while his low voice pulsing into them,
Run, Bakkhai!
Run, Bakkhai!
You amazing golden creatures!
Sing Dionysos!
Sing glorying your god
in the thunder of drums!
To the mountains! To the mountains!
EUOI!
EUOI!
Look,
there she goes,
lost in joy,
like a colt from its mother frisking free,
the creature
of Bakkhos!
[enter Teiresias]
Teiresias:
You at the gates!
Call Kadmos out — go on, tell him Teiresias is here,
he’ll know why.
We have an agreement, one old man with another,
to try out this Dionysian business together —
fawnskin, thyrsos, garlands in the hair — the complete regalia.
[enter Kadmos from palace]
Kadmos:
I knew it was you, my old wise friend,
I heard your voice.
Look, I’ve got my gear on too — the costume of the god!
Now the important thing is
to promote Dionysos
every way we can,
he’s my daughter’s son after all.
So where are we headed?
I’m ready to dance or trance or toss our white heads
or whatever comes next.
You lead the way, Teiresias, you’re the wise one.
I’m merely enthusiastic!
&nb
sp; Isn’t it fun to forget our old age?
Teiresias:
Yes well, what is it they say,
you’re as young as you feel?
Kadmos:
We must get to the mountain.
Should we call a cab?
Teiresias:
That doesn’t sound very Dionysian.
Kadmos:
Good point. Let’s walk. We can lean on each other.
Teiresias:
The god will guide us, it won’t be hard.
Kadmos:
We’re the only ones in the city going?
Teiresias:
The only ones who have any sense.
Kadmos:
No more delay then, take my hand.
Teiresias:
Here we go, arm in arm.
Kadmos:
I don’t believe in despising the gods,
a mere human myself.
Teiresias:
And I don’t believe in philosophizing about it.
We know he’s a daimon,
we know there are certain traditions pertaining to that,
traditions as old as time,
why analyze further?
What wisdom is in it?
Will they say I look silly dancing around with ivy in my hair?
Well yes, but so what?
Dionysos didn’t specify his worshippers be young or old —
he wants reverence from all.
Kadmos:
You can’t see this, Teiresias, but here’s Pentheus
coming
and he has a wild look.
Wonder what’s got into him.
[enter Pentheus]
Pentheus:
I was out of the country but I kept hearing rumours
of trouble in our city.
Of women leaving home.
Of fake Bakkhic revels deep in the mountains.
Of women gone crazy for someone they call
“Dionysos”
whoever that is —
they say “daimon” followed by a nervous hush.
There’s a lot of wine involved and creeping off into corners with men.
Meanwhile they call themselves a prayer group!
Obviously it’s just sex. I’ve put most of them in jail.
A few escaped — Agave,
my own mother, for example, is still at large.
I’ve got the police on it.
Soon have them all locked up —
put a stop to this Bakkhic nonsense.
But people are talking about a certain Lydian stranger hanging around too.
A sort of magician.
Huckster.
Swoony type,
long hair, bedroom eyes, cheeks like wine.
He mingles with the young girls night and day,
claiming to show them some sort of mystic thing,
claiming this Dionysos is a son of god
and was sewn up in the thigh of Zeus —