Title: Tragic Visions
Fandom: Bakkhai (Euripides, translated by Anne Carson)
Content notes: references to dismemberment, character death(s)
Length: 124 words
Summary: Seeing clearly is a perilous business
Author note: This is for kalypso, after our trip to Bakkhai at the Almeida.



Now you see as you should see
the bull-headed stranger says
as you gaze at the two suns
in the sky above Thebes.

He directs your Bakkhic disguise,
tucks a stray lock of hair into place,
and you shiver with pleasure.
Lovely. I'm in your hands.

So you are, poor stupid Pentheus:
your cousin Dionysos' hands,
though you don't know it yet,
won't know it till too late.

Quarry and sacrifice,
you go to meet your fate,
torn apart on mount Kithairon
like your cousin Aktaion.

Your mother, mad Agave,
sits with your head in her lap,
gloating over her kill
while your grandfather Kadmos weeps.

What's wrong? she asks,
Is something the matter?
and her father says
First look up at the sky.