Hippolytus; The Bacchae

In Hippolytus, the goddess Aphrodite, offended because the young hunter Hippolytus worships only the virgin goddess Artemis, makes his stepmother Phaedra fall in love with him, with tragic results for them all. In The Bacchae, the god Dionysus returns to his birthplace, Thebes, disguised as a young man, to punish the city for refusing his worship; the women of Thebes rush to the mountains in ecstasy, and the young king Pentheus, who tries to stop them, is lured to a terrible fate.

Euripides wrote Hippolytus in 428 BC and The Bacchae near the end of his life, in Macedonia, and The Bacchae is often thought his greatest play. These translations are by Gilbert Murray, whose versions brought Greek tragedy back to the modern stage. Compare Racine's Phaedra.