The Bacchae and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)

Euripides' Bacchae serves as a sort of capper to the adventures of Dionysus, as he returns to Thebes from his trip to India and destroys it. It also serves as an introduction to the Theban plays. Deeper than that, the Bacchae is the pitting of the rational Pentheus against the chaotic primal nature of Dionysus, by which he is utterly destroyed. We'll return to some of this with Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. Also present in this collection or particular interest to our exploration of Greek myth, Iphigenia at Aulis, the tale of Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter to Artemis. This one is brutal. The underhandedness with which Iphigenia is treated by her father is heartbreaking. This also sets Achilles and Agamemnon against each other long before the events of the Iliad.