The Bakkhai by Euripides

A young king doubts the power of Dionysus

Dionysus was born of a human mother, Semele, but Semele’s royal family rejects this proposition as ridiculous. Therefore, Dionysus shows up in disguise at the court of his young cousin, Pentheus, accompanied by a chorus of his barbarian female worshippers (the Bakkhai). Dionysus is disguised as one of his priests, a very handsome long hair priest who carries the sacred staff, the thyrsus. Before his arrival, however, Dionysus has charmed all the women of Thebes to be his sacred worshippers, and they have fled to the mountains and run around in a frenzy with fawnskins on, killing wild animals with their bare hands. The women include his royal aunts, including Agave, Pentheus’s mother. Young King Pentheus is disgusted by this display of female wildness and he takes Dionysus captive, cuts off his hair, and pens him up. The god then erodes Pentheus’s reason and, rather than sending the army to capture the woman and return them to the city, Pentheus decides to dress as a woman, and climb the tallest pine to spy on their carnal rituals. But his mother, assisted by the other Theban woman, think he is a mountain lion and tear his body to pieces. Agave enters the stage bearing Pentheus’s severed head and is talked back into shocking reason by her grieving father.

The heart of this play is the dialogue between the captured good looking Dionysus and the curious (bicurious?) young King. The erstwhile priest gets this rational controlling young man to dress up like a woman, preen, and sends him off to the mountain to spy on these frenzied women. Once Pentheus gets what he came for, the rest of the play is Dionysus taking his terrible revenge. Don’t ignore the call of the wild, because it will come get you at the end. Part of the question is why does the whole family have to suffer? Dionysus is not merciful.