It’s the bit in bold I’m struggling with - I can’t tell whether it should be ‘having given the Thyrsus into their hands’ (i.e. the Thebans’ hands) or ‘having taken the Thyrsus in my hand’. Translations I’ve looked at vary with their interpretation. Because I have translated the previous bit as ‘having worn a fawnskin’, I’m tempted to go for the second translation ( ‘having taken the Thyrsus in my hand’), but I’m reluctant to translate δους as ‘having taken’. Could anyone offer any help? Thanks
I’m getting in with my guesses before someone else gives the right answers.
πρώτας δὲ Θήβας τῆσδε γῆς Ἑλληνίδος ἀνωλόλυξα – I have excited with cries firstmost Thebes of this land of Greece
νεβρίδʼ ἐξάψας χροὸς – having fastened a fawnskin to a body
θύρσον τε δοὺς ἐς χεῖρα, κίσσινον βέλος· – and having given a thyrsus, an ivy wand, into a hand
I assume that χροὸς and χεῖρα refer to the speaker’s body and speaker’s hand? Maybe tragedy can drop the article which would be necessary in prose? Or maybe he is giving them to someone else?
Translation is mostly about solving problems in the target language. As you can see here David Kovacs renders the aorist participles with different english expressions in the same paragraph.
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ἐς τήνδε πρῶτον ἦλθον Ἑλλήνων χθόνα,
τἀκεῖ χορεύσας καὶ καταστήσας ἐμὰς
τελετάς, ἵν᾿ εἴην ἐμφανὴς δαίμων βροτοῖς.
πρώτας δὲ Θήβας τάσδε γῆς Ἑλληνίδος
ἀνωλόλυξα, νεβρίδ᾿ ἐξάψας χροὸς
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θύρσον τε δοὺς ἐς χεῖρα, κίσσινον βέλος·
I have now for the first time returned to Greece, having set everything in Asia a-dancing and having established my rites so that my divinity may be made manifest to mortals. And of Greek cities Thebes was the first I caused to ring with female cries: I clothed the women in fawnskin and put in their hands the thyrsus, that ivy-twined missile.
David Kovacs LCL 2003
The question you really want answered is WHY? For that I would recommend reading the proceedings from the 2015 Greek Verb conference[1] at Tyndale House Cambridge UK. Two weeks ago I returned an InterLibLoan copy of this to (antediluvian) Houston Baptist University. This books is the latest round in the 30+ year long verb aspect discussion. R. Buth[2] has an article there on the participle.
Yes he’s explaining what he’s done to Thebes, or more particularly to the women of Thebes (ανολολυξα applies to women’s cries). The participles make it clear he’s referring to them, not to himself: εξαψας active not middle, and δους giving not taking. He’s turned them into bacchants, bacchae, fawnskin and thyrsus being the standard bacchic accoutrements (as depicted on vase paintings), the σκευη of his οργια. He’s doesn’t dress like a bacchant himself. Calling the thyrsus a βελος foreshadows the action to come.