[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bacchae.jpg]]

->"ἥκω Διὸς παῖς τήνδε Θηβαίων χθόνα
->Διόνυσος, ὃν τίκτει ποθ᾽ ἡ Κάδμου κόρη
->Σεμέλη λοχευθεῖσ᾽ ἀστραπηφόρῳ πυρί"
-->--'''Opening lines'''[[labelnote: Translation]]I have come, the child of Zeus, to this land of Thebes. I, Dionysus, whom Semele the daughter of Cadmus once bore, brought forth by the fire of lightning.[[/labelnote]]

''Bacchae'' is a Greek tragedy composed by Creator/{{Euripides}} and performed posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC, where it and the accompanying tragedies won first prize.

The play follows the young god of wine and ecstasy Dionysus' return to Thebes, where most of his mortal family -- his grandfather Cadmus, his aunts (Ino, Agave, and Autonoe) and his cousin Pentheus -- have openly denied his divinity, claiming instead that Semele was [[BoltOfDivineRetribution killed by Zeus]] for pretending he was the father of her illegitimate child, who in reality Zeus rescued, raised and deified. Dionysus is enraged by this insult to him and his mother and seeks revenge against the whole city.

As a result, he drives his aunts and the rest of the Theban women mad, causing them to desert their homes and dwell in the mountains with his own followers, the maenads/bacchants. He then turns his attention upon Pentheus, the present king of Thebes, who dares to θεομαχεῖν (make war against a god) -- not a wise thing to do.

Pentheus soon captures Dionysus, who is disguised as a mortal priest, and questions him. Frustrated by his evasive replies, the king has him imprisoned. However, Dionysus quickly escapes, destroying Pentheus's palace with an earthquake.

The god then takes advantage of Pentheus's desire to see the secret orgiastic rites of his followers, convincing him to dress as one of the women and spy upon them. Soon the doomed king is disguised and led from the safety of Thebes into the mountains, where Dionysus enacts his punishment upon both his cousin and his aunts.

The play is available online [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0091 here]]... if you're not in the mood to translate ancient Greek, you could look [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0092 here]] or [[http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/bacchan.html here]]. Note: There is a massive gap in the text near the end.
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!! ''Bacchae'' provides examples of:

* AbdicateTheThrone: Cadmus gave over the rule of Thebes to young Pentheus, his grandchild.
* AboveGoodAndEvil: Dionysus, being a god.
* AgentScully: Pentheus thinks Dionysus isn't a real god and is just someone lying to form a cult. The Bacchae themselves felt the same way, which is why Dionysus decides to drive them mad and send them to the mountains as punishment.
* AmazonBrigade: Though not all the time, the maenads fit this trope when hunting or fighting with their thyrsoi.
* AmbiguouslyBi: As translator Anne Carson notes, Pentheus spends rather a lot of time describing Dionysus' androgynous beauty.
* AngelUnaware: Dionysus takes the appearance of a mortal throughout the play.
* AnimalMotifs: As Dionysus guides Pentheus to the maenads, the king thinks that the god has taken on the appearance of a bull.
* AwfulTruth: For Agave, that she didn't kill an animal but her own son. Cadmus has to slowly break the news to her...
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Pentheus and Dionysus are cousins. Pentheus [[{{Foreshadowing}} also mentions another cousin]], [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Actaeon]], in the play.
** The whole royal house of Thebes is one big screwed up family. Virtually none of them have a happy ending.
* BlindSeer: Tiresias.
* BoltOfDivineRetribution: Semele's sisters claim that her death was the result of this.
* BoomerangBigot: Pentheus is openly scathing about [[LongHairedPrettyBoy Dionysus's]] OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous appearance, but as soon as he succumbs to Bacchic frenzy, he is only too keen to dress as a woman.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The Bacchae tend to fill this role, mostly because of their Dionysus-inspired ecstasy.
* BullyingADragon: Pentheus persecutes the Bacchae because their wild and subversive behavior undermines his power as king, but he ultimately can't do anything to them. However [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} weird]] and [[DudeLooksLikeALady girly]], Dionysus is a ''god.''
* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler: All that's left on Pentheus is his head, which Agave presents to Cadmus, thinking it's the head of a mountain lion.]]
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Pentheus decides to deny the existence of a god, then accompany a suspicious man into the mountains to watch a group of AxCrazy women perform secret rites because the suspicious man cleverly appeals to Pentheus’s [[SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny sexual curiosity about the Maenads]].
* DisguisedInDrag: Dionysus convinces Pentheus to disguise himself as a maenad in order to spy on them.
* DownerEnding: It '''is''' a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin tragedy]]...
* DramaticIrony: The audience knows from the prologue that the "Bacchant" is Dionysus himself. Pentheus isn't so lucky.
* DrivenToMadness: Dionysus drives all the women of Thebes mad from their homes.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Dionysus's morality is arguable [[AboveGoodAndEvil for a number]] [[OmniscientMoralityLicence of reasons]], but he's at the very least flippant. However, he takes his mother's reputation very seriously.
* ExactWords: Dionysus promises Pentheus he will return to the city in his mother's arms. [[spoiler: Pentheus does...in several pieces.]]
* ForcedTransformation: At the end, Cadmus and his wife Harmonia are turned into serpents by Dionysus.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Pentheus himself mentions [[Myth/ClassicalMythology his cousin, Actaeon]], and Cadmus reminds his grandson of Actaeon's horrible fate for challenging a goddess.
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: Dionysus enters Thebes disguised as a human priest of himself. Pentheus doesn't recognize him as a god because, in Dionysus' words, he's too impious. He appears in a more obviously divine form at the end of the play, which could be interpreted as more eldritch.
* GodInHumanForm: Zeus in the backstory and Dionysus for most of the play.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Pentheus wants to keep his city orderly to the point where he basically runs a fascist state and is so blinded by his orthodoxy, he doesn't recognize a god in his presence. Dionysus wants to be rightly recognized as a god and clear his mother's name, to the point where he is willing to cross the MoralEventHorizon.
* GreekChorus: Composed of the Bacchantes.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Dionysus has a human mother and divine father, but he's technically a full-blown PhysicalGod and not a demigod like other half-human half-god figures in Greek mythology.
* {{Homage}}: Pentheus' death is CallBack to both Orpheus' dismemberment at the hands of maenads, and Dionysus (as Zagreus) being similarly dismembered by Titans.
* HornedHumanoid: When Pentheus starts to hallucinate after being dressed up like a bacchante, he perceives Dionysus as having bull's horns. (Older myths, especially those connected to the Orphic Mysteries, described Dionysus/Zagreus as having horns.)
* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: Is foreshadowed a few times in the play by mentions of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Actaeon]], and finally happens to Pentheus.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Pentheus spends a lot of the first act ranting about how Dionysus' cult is corrupting women sexually... but he jumps at the opportunity to spy on them naked himself.
* ImportantHaircut: Pentheus starts to punish the "Bacchant" he caught (Dionysus in disguise) by cutting off his hair.
* InsaneEqualsViolent: Agave is driven mad... with some tragic results.
* KilledOffscreen: As per usual in Greek theater, [[spoiler:the gruesome death of Pentheus]] is exposited by a witness after the fact.
* MadeOfPlasticine: The maenads rip apart people and animals rather easily. It is noted that this is not normal and it is a sign that Dionysus is influencing the flesh they attack to make it easier to rip apart.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Agave is horrified when she realizes that she killed Pentheus.
* NeverAcceptedInHisHometown: Dionysus comes from Thebes and is the son of a Theban princess, but he was rejected there and gains followers in Asia instead. By the time the play starts he has come back to Thebes to prove himself as a god and be worshipped by them too, by force if he has to.
* NonViolentInitialConfrontation: Pentheus angrily confronts a disguised Dionysus verbally, and Dionysus ultimately convinces him to dress as a woman to spy on the Bacchae, luring Pentheus to his (offstage) violent death.
* NotEnoughToBury: [[spoiler: Pentheus’ body parts are scattered all over Mt. Cithaeron. Only his head makes it back to Thebes.]]
* NudeNatureDance: The Bacchae love to do this, complete with suckling baby animals on their own breasts.
* ObliviousToHints: Multiple characters try to convince the king to accept Dionysus -- none succeed.
* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler: Agave does this to Pentheus, though unknowingly]].
* OrderVersusChaos: Pentheus wants to keep the traditional, established society of Thebes, and Dionysus wants to set it on its head.
* ParentalIncest: Pentheus is ''really'' interested in seeing all the immoral things the women of Thebes are up to, with a very particular emphasis on his mother.
* PlayAlongPrisoner: Dionysus, being a god, is perfectly capable of escaping when he is captured by Pentheus, but chooses to not reveal himself for a long time.
* PrettyBoy[=/=]DudeLooksLikeALady: Dionysus is very ''very'' pretty. Pentheus describes his feminine beauty at great length.
* SelfMadeOrphan: Discussed; Pentheus says he really hopes his mother isn't doing anything ''too'' outrageous, or he'll "have" to kill her for the honor of his house. Of course, the maenads don't actually do any of the things Pentheus assumes a bunch of women hanging out alone in the wilderness would do, so that's not how things go.
* SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: Pentheus pretty quickly convinces himself sexual misconduct is going on among the women of Thebes, and despite constantly decrying it, is ''very'' interested in seeing it for himself.
* TooDumbToLive: It's a very bad idea to deny the gods...
* TornApartByTheMob: [[spoiler: This is how Pentheus dies. He's torn to pieces by the Bacchantes, including his own mother. This is actually a reference to Dionysus' (Zagreus) own death at the hands of the Titans.]]
* {{Tragedy}}
* TragicMistake: Faced with a palace Dionysus struck down as a warning, the unruly [[AngelUnaware "Bacchant"]] who had miraculously escaped from his prison, and the messenger who recounts the wonders of Dionysus and his maenads, [[ObliviousToHints Pentheus makes the wrong choice]]: to continue waging his war against the god.
* WigDressAccent: Dionysus convinces Pentheus to disguise himself as one of the maenads with long hair, a dress, a fawnskin, and a thyrsus.
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Semele died from asking to see Zeus in his true form, and was burned to cinders as a result.
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