Dirce
place · 4 works · 6 mentions · 12 anchored passages
Dirce's clear stream · Dirce's ford · Dirce's springs · Dirce's stream · Dirce's streams · Dirke · spring of Dirce
in the texts
Phoenissae
Sacred spring and stream near Thebes, recurring landmark throughout the window.
beside Ismenus’ streams and the fountain of Dirce see the great army of the enemy.
and I arrived here weeping, to see after a long time my home and the altars of the gods, the training ground, scene of my childhood, and the water of Dirce, from which I was unjustly driven to live in a foreign city, a stream of tears flowing from my eyes.
In days gone by the sons of heaven came to the wedding of Harmonia, and the walls and towers of Thebes rose to the sound of Amphion’s lyre, in the midst between the double streams where Dirce waters the grass-green field before Ismenus;
Antigone
A Theban stream named in the Chorus' celebration of dawn and deliverance.
Shaft of the sun, fairest light of all that have dawned on Thebes of the seven gates, you have shone forth at last, eye of golden day, advancing over Dirce’s streams!
Ah, spring of Dirce, and you holy ground of Thebes whose chariots are many, you, at least, will bear me witness how unwept by loved ones, and by what laws I go to the rock-closed prison of my unheard-of tomb!
Bacchae
A sacred fountain/stream near Thebes associated with the birth and worship of Dionysus.
Daughter of Acheloüs, venerable Dirce, happy virgin, you once received the child of Zeus in your streams, when Zeus his father snatched him up from the immortal fire and saved him in his thigh, crying out:
I am here at the fountains of Dirke and the water of Ismenus.
Heracles
Spring/river at Thebes, named first in Heracles' vow of vengeance and later invoked in celebratory hymn.
the rest will I tear apart with my feathered shafts and fill Ismenus full of bloody corpses, and Dirce’s clear stream shall run red with gore.
come Dirce, fount of waters fair;