$13.67
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Sunday, May 19 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Saturday, May 18. Order within 8 hrs 4 mins
In Stock
$$13.67 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.67
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Robin Robertson
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Bacchae (Vintage Classics) Paperback – February 4, 2016

by Euripides (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 46 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$13.67","priceAmount":13.67,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"67","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"WX5fyBvHWuRX3H%2FsUoHeKRmkuO04nzNxZX%2F1zHezqD8FbChf4cXkq8zU%2BIV%2BowHdYRAWBXaOaqKzdG05W6k8H9YMKTZIcOi5O1xA26JrwGnc9jo9hp7HSdMHLwTbR19cYUfn4AZblUICYYI23%2BaSqw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

This stunning translation, by the acclaimed poet Robin Robertson (Forward Prize, Man Booker shortlist 2018), has reinvigorated Euripides' devastating take of a god's revenge for contemporary readers, bringing the ancient verse to fervid, brutal life.

Dionysus, god of wine and ecstasy, has come to Thebes, and the women are streaming out of the city to worship him on the mountain, drinking and dancing in wild frenzy. The king, Pentheus, denouces this so-called 'god' as a charlatan. But no mortal can deny a god and no man can ever stand against Dionysus.

'The dialogue is taut, volcanic and often exquisitely beautiful... Euripides deserves to have his exquisite verse transformed into modern speech, and in Robertson I believe he has found a poet who can do that.' Edith Hall, Literary Review
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    128 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage Classics
  4. Publication date
    February 4, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    5.08 x 0.31 x 7.8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0099577380
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0099577386
  8. See all details
Next page
Books with Buzz
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Frequently bought together

Bacchae (Vintage Classics)
$13.67
Get it as soon as Sunday, May 19
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
Medea
$9.39
Get it as soon as Sunday, May 19
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Choose items to buy together.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Classics; 1st edition (February 4, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 128 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0099577380
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0099577386
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 0.31 x 7.8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 46 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Robin Robertson

Robin Robertson

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Robin Robertson was brought up on the north-east coast of Scotland and now lives in London. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has published five collections of poetry and has received a number of honours, including the Petrarca-Preis, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and all three Forward Prizes. His selected poems, Sailing the Forest, was published in 2014. The Long Take was awarded the 2018 Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
46 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Aristppheron
5.0 out of 5 stars the Robin Robertson translation is the best I've seen in English
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
While nothing matches the glory of the original Greek, the Robin Robertson translation is the best I've seen in English.
7 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
John L. Murphy
5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite Greek tragedy, with a great intro + smooth translation
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2014
This tragedy's all about showdowns. Dichotomies and conflicts, as Daniel Mendelsohn, emphasizes in his preface, create a character unique to the genre. Dionysus "hovering between divine majesty and human weakness, magnificence and pettiness--and between male and female--the teasing, seductive, playful, epicene god is a great study in ambiguity." This god, an effeminate foil for the law-and-order bent, but fatally lured Pentheus, draws him and the audience into a diabolically clever trap. The horror than felt, as Pentheus is punished and then his corpse torn apart, while his own mother than slowly comes out of the bacchanalian frenzy to realize her own complicity, deepens what could have been but a strange depiction of subliminal drives into a portrayal of compassion after cruelty.

Mendelson explains how this drama "explores both the benevolent and the punishing faces of divinity." Ecstasy and terror follow instead, as the natural wonder and delight transfers through a breakout of the repressed tendencies within us, once under some spell cast, into dread and sorrow. Euripides tells this story swiftly; this can be read in a short sitting, and it moves as rapidly as a well-written thriller might in an short television production today on some "prestige" cable network. Like shows now, the critics stay divided. As Mendelsohn notes, consensus is lacking "because its subject--among other things--is the irrational, and how conventional intellectual resources wither in the face of a wildness, a potency beyond reason."

From Robin Robinson's translation, an excerpt illustrates the swift concision of his rendering. Cadmus mourns Pentheus' end: "If anyone still disputes the power of heaven./ let them look at this boy's death/ and they will see that the gods live." Certainly the reaction of this grandfather captures the human response to the whims and imperatives of a divine plan unfathomed by mortals, yet again.

This edition includes a supplement, complete with a glossary on how to pronounce names, as this assumes we now lack this preparation. A chart of who's related to who, and an introduction to Euripides, about whom we know nearly nothing, helps the reader. It's sobering to be reminded that out of a thousand works performed in the 5th c. BC from Greece, we have only 33 of them today.
8 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

I. Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars A great translation of an incredible piece of theatre
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2021
Verified Purchase
A few months ago I read Robin Robertson’s translation of Euripides’ Medea. That inspired me to read his translation of the equally brilliant Bacchae. This was Euripides’ last play, produced posthumously by his presumed son in 405BCE. It won first prize at that year’s City Dionysia.
This edition has a useful introduction that explains how the play would have been produced and explores the mythological background and the themes of the play.
The blurb on the back says that this translation is “ripe for theatrical delivery” but I’m not aware of any production in my part of the world (London) for years, and I suspect that poor old Euripides would be no-platformed these days. Why? Well a plot summary reads: man dresses up in women’s clothes, invades a women-only space and gets torn to pieces by his mother and her sisters. His mother then comes onstage with her son’s head on the end of a stick.
This is a complex play that has defied simple interpretations for nearly two and a half thousand years. It has patriarchy, feminism, xenophobia, gender fluidity and much much more. Pentheus, the man who dresses up as a woman, starts out as the macho, traditionalist king of Thebes who finds himself beguiled by an annoyingly attractive man/god, Dionysus, who happens to be his cousin. Dionysus, with his company of “Asian women” (the Chorus), plans to introduce his cult into Pentheus’ kingdom. Pentheus’ mother, Agave, and her two sisters are the first converts. They lure the women of Thebes away from their looms and up into the mountains where they drink vast quantities of wine, dance and indulge in frenzied orgies in honour of Dionysus. When Pentheus decides to get the women back under manners he first calls for his armour. It is Dionysus who persuades him that he would be better off wearing a dress. Pentheus then goes the whole hog and puts on a wig and a headdress to boot. He then parades through the city before going for a hike up the mountain….and that’s where the tragedy unfolds……Agave marching onstage with her son’s head on a stick is fantastic theatre. There’s nothing like it in Shakespeare. What does it mean? The overthrow of male tyranny? Matriarchy gone mad? The triumph of liberalism over traditional values? You decide.
Report
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic in elegant wrapping
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2018
Verified Purchase
I firmly believe that Bacchae has a lot to teach us, as we might be going through a period not too dissimilar from that which Athens underwent after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War. It was in the decadent period that followed that Dionysus makes his appearance once again, and it was only through the horrors of the World Wars (European Civil Wars perhaps?) that he returned, with his drug-infused madness during the 60s. Is our destiny similar to that of Thebes?

I really love the package of this Vintage Classis. The snake was one of Dionysus symbols, and the introduction is adequate to kick start the story.
2 people found this helpful
 Report
Aerthemis
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
Great read.
Report