The first two lines of the play stress the unusual bond between the wine god and his father in heaven. Dionysus calls himself the “Son of God” or Dios pais (Διὸς παῖς), and refers to his earthly mother as the “young girl” or kore (κόρη), which could also be “maiden” or “virgin.” Yes, mortals do mix with immortals. And as the ultimate hybrid, the God of Ecstasy is the miraculous result, both human and divine. As The Bacchae proceeds, these two sides of Dionysus are in constant tension. He wants to introduce the Greeks to a new sacrament for a new millennium, but he doesn’t want to repeat Zeus’s
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