THE BACCHANALS OF EURIPIDES[1]
PROLOGUE
_The permanent scene covered by movable scenery representing a wide
landscape--the valley of the Dirce. A pile of buildings occupies the
middle, to which the central entrance is an approach: these are the
Cadmeia and royal palaces. That on the left is the palace of Pentheus,
and further to the left is the mystic scene of Bacchus's birth--a heap
of ruins, still miraculously smouldering, and covered by trailing
vines. On the right is the palace of Cadmus, and the scene extends to
take in the Electron gate of Thebes, and (on the right turn-scene) the
slopes of Cithaeron._
DIONYSUS enters, in mortal guise, through the distance archway, and (in
formal prologue) opens the situation. He brings out the points of the
landscape before him, dear as the site of his miraculous birth and the
sad end of his mortal mother. Then he details the Asiatic realms
through which he has made triumphant progress, Lydia, Phrygia,
sun-seared Persia, Bactria; the wild, wintry Median land; Araby the
Blest, and the cities by the sea; everywhere his orgies accepted and
his godhead received.
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