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Delahoyde & Hughes
Orpheus
THE BACCHAE
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Euripides' play The Bacchae (a.k.a. The Bacchants),
posthumously produced in 405 b.c.e., addresses issues of rationalism
vs. religion. The play begins with Dionysus before the tomb of his mother
Semele at the palace of Thebes. In addition to winning new converts here,
he is enacting vengeance against his mother's sisters -- Agave, Autonoë,
and Ino -- who slanderously called Semele a liar about the father of her fetus
being Zeus. They are stricken mad and roaming Mount Cithaeron, near Thebes,
with other Maenads (or Bacchae -- the sane worshippers of Dionysus who
function as the Chorus).
Old Cadmus, founder of Thebes, has abdicated, leaving the rule to his
grandson Pentheus, son of Agavê, who stands adamantly against
bacchanalianism. Cadmus and the ubiquitous prophet Tiresias, though both
ancient, don fawnskins and carry thyrsi in honor of the arrival of
Dionysus, although it turns out that Cadmus is treating the event more
like a festival than as a sacred happening. They try to calm Pentheus,
but Pentheus announces that he has imprisoned some of the worshippers and
he will flush out more. He has an APB out for a foreigner "with long
yellow curls smelling of perfumes, / with flushed cheeks and the spells
of Aphrodite / in his eyes. His days and nights he spends / with women
and girls, dangling before the the joys / of initiation in his mysteries"
(894). He accuses Tiresias of promoting more gods for his own monetary
benefit. "When once you see / the glint of wine shining at the feasts of
women, / then you may be sure the festival is rotten" (895). Tiresias
praises Dionysus for
A disguised Dionysus is bound and led before Pentheus. Pentheus questions
him and cuts off his hair, despite Dionysus stating, "My hair is holy. /
My curls belong to god" (902). Pentheus has him imprisoned in a dark
stable. Immediately, thunder, lightning, earthquakes level Pentheus'
palace. Dionysus reports that when Pentheus tried to bind him, Pentheus
found instead a bull. Pentheus enters and has a fit. A messenger brings
news of the Maenads and Pentheus decides to send the army after them.
Yet, somehow Dionysus persuades Pentheus to spy on the Maenads -- a
forbidden sight -- by adopting a female disguise: "If they knew you were
a man, they would kill you instantly" (913). Pentheus returns in drag,
waving a thyrsus.
After a tense choral song, a messenger reports the death of Pentheus.
When he and Dionysus had gone to view the "shameless orgies" of the
Maenads, Pentheus could not see well, so Dionysus made a pine tree bend
down. Pentheus climbed on and went up. Agavê spotted an intruder
and commanded the Maenads to tear down the tree. Pentheus plunged
downwards and, despite his pleading, the Maenads, especially his aunts,
tore him limb from limb; others played ball with scraps of his flesh
(922).
Agavê enters with Pentheus' head stuck on her thyrsus, proud of her
kill -- a mountain lion, she thinks. Cadmus and others carry various
pieces of his body back on a stretcher. Agavê is gradually brought
back to her senses and slowly realizes the horrible truth. Dionysus
enters triumphant and commands that Cadmus and his daughter live in exile
(although Cadmus and his wife Harmonia will end well). Euripides ends the
play with a formulaic chorus (essentially: it's a funny world, but what
are you gonna do?) he uses also for Medea, Alcestis, and
Helen.
inventing liquid wine
But Pentheus is a "Reckless fool" (897).
as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift,
suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it
comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles
of the day. There is no other medicine
for misery. And when we pour libations
to the gods, we pour the god of wine himself....
(895)
Euripides. The Bacchae. Trans. William Arrowsmith. Literature of the Western World. Volume 1. 3rd ed. by Brian Wilke and James Hurt. NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992. 886-933.
Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001.