Classics

Bacchae

By Euripides

Translated by Ian Johnston

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Euripides' Bacchae, the last of the surviving Greek tragedies, was not performed during the lifetime of the playwright. Its first production took place a year later (in 405 BC) in the annual competition for tragic drama, where it won first prize. It has remained one of the best-known and most frequently performed Greek tragedies ever since, one of the greatest works of classical Greek culture.

The Bacchae holds up a desperate view of human experience, a vision that led Aristotle to call Euripides "the most tragic of the poets." Here the royal power in the polis, represented by the young king of Thebes, Pentheus, is quite incapable of dealing with a political crisis in an effective way, and the god who has initiated the crisis, Dionysus, a son of Zeus and a cousin of Pentheus, displays a selfish, arrogant, and unforgiving malice which leads him to destroy in the most horrific way the oldest human royal family in Greek legend because he believes he has been insulted by the citizens of Thebes. Whatever hopes men entertain for a peaceful harmony between the gods who rule the world and the human beings who live in it are here exposed as futile and cruel delusions.

Category: Classics
ISBN (softcover): 978-0-9797571-2-9
e-ISBN: 978-1-935238-15-7
Author: Euripides
Translator: Ian Johnston

Please let me express my thanks for your excellent, most readable translation of The Bacchae
As part of the drama minor programme, I am producing The Bacchae, and I've decided to use your... translation. Having read your translation for my Greek Tragedy class, I found your version surprisingly accessible for a translation that’s so faithful to the Greek.

— Fredericton, New Brunswick
Thank you so much for your...translations of Euripides and Aristophanes. I am home schooling my children in Lima, Peru... My daughter who is in tenth grade is reading through the classic literature. The (other) translations I found of Euripides' 'The Bacchae' and Aristophanes' 'Peace', 'Birds', and 'Frogs' were not very good. I thank you so much for providing a much clearer translation in a format...

— Lima, Peru
I read the text on Bacchae and I found it very useful. ~ Macedonia

— Macedonia