All 11 scenes summarized — a god's revenge on the city that refused him.
The Bacchae is structured around two long messenger speeches — the longest in Greek tragedy — that report what is happening on Mount Cithaeron, bracketed by Dionysus's prologue at one end and the recognition scene at the other. Scenes 1–4 are the arrival: the god, the chorus, the two old men in fawn-skins, the young king's refusal. Scenes 5–8 are the contest: Dionysus arrested, the prison shattered, the first messenger's report, and the seduction of Pentheus. Scenes 9–11 are the killing and the recognition: Pentheus dressed as a woman, the second messenger's report from the mountain, Agave with the head, and the long quiet judgement that ends the play.
The god in the city of his birth, the chorus from the east, the two old men, the young king's refusal.
The god alone in front of the palace where his mother died, in disguise as his own priest, telling the audience the whole plan. His aunts denied his divine birth; his cousin Pentheus, the young king, has banned the rites. He has driven every woman of the city onto the mountain in frenzy. Pentheus is next, and will pay on his own head. He summons the chorus he brought from the east and walks off to join the rites already happening above.
The chorus of eastern women, alone after the god has gone, sing the long entrance song. They tell their journey from Asia, the god's birth from Zeus's thigh, the rites Cybele the Mother gave their people, the joy of the mountain — milk and wine springing from the rock, the wreath of ivy, the maenad like a colt running by a river. They call on Thebes to crown its towers and join them. The song ends with the prophet Tiresias arriving at the door, blind, in fawn-skin, leaning on his staff.
Tiresias calls Cadmus out, dressed for the mountain. The two old men greet each other with affection and a slightly comic bravado — no horses, walking on foot, because to take horses would be to mistrust the god. Then Pentheus arrives, raging at the news his own city's women are loose on Cithaeron and a foreign charlatan is leading them. He sees the two old men in fawn-skins and is appalled. Tiresias answers with the philosophical defence of the god. Pentheus does not hear a word. He orders the shrine destroyed and the priest brought in chains.
The chorus's first long ode. They open in horror at Pentheus's blasphemy and ask the goddess of holiness if she has heard. They turn from him to the joy of the god — the dancing, the prayer, the laughter, the vanishing of care, the crowned slumber when pain is dead and hate forgiven. They warn against scorning what cannot be seen. They long, at the end, for a quieter country — Cyprus, Olympus, the dell of the Muses. The song ends with the guards returning, leading the foreign priest in chains.
The arrest, the broken prison, the first report from the mountain, the seduction.
The guards return leading the foreign priest, and the captain has news he cannot explain: the women Pentheus arrested earlier have all walked free of their cells, chains fallen, bars slid back, doors untouched. Pentheus mocks the prisoner's appearance and interrogates him line by line. The priest answers calmly: he is from Lydia, the rites came from Dionysus himself, the god stands close by. Pentheus cuts off his curl, takes his wand, and orders him chained in the stables. The prisoner is Dionysus.
The chorus invoke Dirce and beg the god, wherever he is, to lift his wand against the tyrant. From inside the palace a voice cuts through — it is Dionysus. The columns shake; fire leaps on Semele's tomb. The chorus throw themselves to the ground. The priest walks out unbound and tells them what happened inside: Pentheus chained a bull thinking it was him, ran from a fire he could not put out, then stabbed empty air at a phantom in the cell. The god allowed it, and walked out at his own time.
Pentheus comes out raging; the priest is calmly at the door. A herdsman runs in from the mountain and delivers the first long messenger speech — the women asleep in chastity, milk and wine springing from the rock, wolf-cubs at the breast, then the rampage: cattle torn apart, villages broken, armed men routed by wands. Pentheus orders his army out. The priest warns him. Then, almost in passing, the priest asks one quiet question — would you like to see them at their prayers? Pentheus, without thinking, says yes. The hinge.
The most quoted song in the play. The chorus on the long dances on the mountain, on the feet of a fawn fleeing through loveliness, on what wisdom is — to stand free of fear, to breathe and wait, to hold a hand uplifted over hate. They sing of the slow certain reach of the gods against those who scorn them, and of the simple happiness of being alive. Inside the palace, behind the door, the king is being dressed in women's clothes as they sing.
Pentheus dressed as a woman, the second messenger's report, Agave with the head.
The priest calls Pentheus out. The king emerges already half-mad: he sees double suns, double Thebes, the priest as a horned bull. He is in a long linen robe, a wig falling to his shoulders, fawn-skin and wand. The priest fixes the lock, smooths the sash, corrects the way the gown falls on the right foot. Pentheus turns inside the costume, asks if he stands like his mother, boasts of strength enough to lift Cithaeron. He goes off toward the mountain, led by the priest. Alone, Dionysus names the doom.
The chorus drop the composure of the earlier odes. They invoke the hounds of the maddened mind to drive the women to find Pentheus. They call on Justice to come with her sword and strike the throat. They summon the god — appear, whatever your shape or your name, mountain bull, snake of the hundred heads, lion of burning flame — to laugh aloud and drag the spy to his death. The song ends with a second messenger running in pale and shaken from the mountain.
The second messenger gives the longest speech in the play: the bent pine, the call from the sky, the dismemberment. Agave arrives at the gate carrying her son's head, calling it a lion she killed with her hands. Cadmus arrives with the gathered body and walks her back to the truth in real time, question by question, until the head in her hands is no longer a lion's. Dionysus appears above the house and pronounces exile. The chorus close: the end men looked for does not come.