- The Chorus sings of how they've abandoned Tmolus to follow Dionysus.
- They chant about how awesome Dionysus's wild dance parties are.
- The ladies talk about Dionysus' birth, how Hera tricked Semele into asking Zeus to appear in his godly form, lightning, which obliterated Dionysus's mother while he was still inside her. Somehow the unborn Dionysus survived the blast.
- To protect his son from Hera, Zeus sewed Dionysus into his own thigh, where the baby stayed until it was time for him to be born.
- The Chorus sings about how when Dionysus was first born he was swaddled in writhing snakes, and that's why his followers, the Maenads, twist snakes into their hair.
- The ladies beckon the people of Thebes to join the wild ritual dances going on in the mountains.