Act I

PENTHEUS: It so happens I've been away from Thebes, but I hear about disgusting things going on, here in the city—women leaving home to go to silly Bacchic rituals, cavorting there in mountain shadows, with dances honouring some upstart god, this Dionysus, whoever he may be. Mixing bowls in the middle of their meetings are filled with wine. They creep off one by one to lonely spots to have sex with men, claiming they're Maenads busy worshipping. But they rank Aphrodite, goddess of sexual desire, ahead of Bacchus.

DIONYSUS: I've arrived here in the land of Thebes, I, Dionysus, son of Zeus, born to him from Semele, Cadmus' daughter, delivered by a fiery midwife—Zeus' lightning flash. Yes, I've changed my form from god to human, appearing here at these streams of Dirce, the waters of Ismarus. I see my mother's tomb— for she was wiped out by that lightning bolt. It's there, by the palace, with that rubble, the remnants of her house, still smoldering from Zeus' living fire—Hera's undying outrage against my mother.

From The Bacchae, by Euripides