The plays of Euripides . Nor I gaze back ; no thyrsus stem,Nor song, nor memory in the air.Oh, other Bacchanals be there,Not I, not I, to dream of them ! [Agave with her group of attendants goes out onthe side away from the Mountain, Dionysusrises upon the Cloud and disappears^ Chorus. There be many shapes of mystery.And many things God makes to be,Past hope or fear.I [And the end men looked for cometh not,1/ And a path is there where no man thought. So hath It fallen here, [^Exeunt,. NOTES ON THE BACCHAE INTRODUCTORY NOTE The Bacchae^ being from one point of view a religious I /drama, a kind

The plays of Euripides . Nor I gaze back ; no thyrsus stem,Nor song, nor memory in the air.Oh, other Bacchanals be there,Not I, not I, to dream of them ! [Agave with her group of attendants goes out onthe side away from the Mountain, Dionysusrises upon the Cloud and disappears^ Chorus. There be many shapes of mystery.And many things God makes to be,Past hope or fear.I [And the end men looked for cometh not,1/ And a path is there where no man thought. So hath It fallen here, [^Exeunt,. NOTES ON THE BACCHAE INTRODUCTORY NOTE The Bacchae^ being from one point of view a religious I /drama, a kind

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The plays of Euripides . Nor I gaze back ; no thyrsus stem,Nor song, nor memory in the air.Oh, other Bacchanals be there,Not I, not I, to dream of them ! [Agave with her group of attendants goes out onthe side away from the Mountain, Dionysusrises upon the Cloud and disappears^ Chorus. There be many shapes of mystery.And many things God makes to be,Past hope or fear.I [And the end men looked for cometh not,1/ And a path is there where no man thought. So hath It fallen here, [^Exeunt,. NOTES ON THE BACCHAE INTRODUCTORY NOTE The Bacchae^ being from one point of view a religious I /drama, a kind of mystery play, is full of allusions i/both to the myth and to the religion of Dionysus. 1. The Myth, as implied by Euripides. Semel^,daughter of Cadmus, being loved by Zeus, asked herdivine lover to appear to her once in his full glory;he came, a blaze of miraculous lightning, in theecstasy of which Semel^ died, giving premature birthto a son. Zeus, to save this childs life and make himtruly God as well as Man, tore open his own fleshand therein fostered the child till in due time, by amiraculous and mysterious Second Birth, the childof Semel6 came to full life as God. 2. The Religion of Dionysus is hard to formulateor even describe, both because of its composite originsand because of its condition of constant vitality,fluctuation, and development. {a) The first, datum, apparently, is the introductionfrom Thrace of the characteristic God of the wildnorthern mountains, a God