The Bacchae
Gilbert Murray (1902)
Euripides's last tragedy, written in self-imposed exile in Macedonia and performed posthumously in Athens around 405 BCE. The god Dionysus returns to Thebes to punish his cousin King Pentheus for denying his divinity, driving the city's women into ecstatic madness. The play is often read as Euripides's final word on reason, religion, and the dangers of refusing what in human nature cannot be rationalized.
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