I apologize this post is late. I had extended family visiting (a very rare occurrence), plus church stuff that took up my time during the week.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN ANCIENT GREEK SCHOLAR. FOR THE FULL DISCLAIMER, READ HERE.
For I have come
to refute that slander spoken by my mother’s sisters—
those who least had right to slander her.
They said that Dionysus was no son of Zeus,
but Semele had slept beside a man in love
and foisted off her shame on Zeus—a fraud, they sneered,
contrived by Cadmus to protect his daughter’s name.
They said she lied, and Zeus in anger at that lie
blasted her with lightning. Because of that offense
I have stung them with frenzy, hounded them from home
up to the mountains where they wander, crazed of mind,
and compelled them to wear my ritual uniform.
Every woman in Thebes—but women only—
I drove from home, mad. There they sit,
all of them, together with the daughters of Cadmus,
beneath the silver firs on the roofless rocks.
Like it or not, this city must learn its lesson:
it lacks initiation in my mysteries;
so I shall vindicate my mother Semele
and stand revealed to mortal eyes as the god
she bore to Zeus.
(Dionysus; lines 25-43)
Introduction
When people think of Euripides, they think of The Bacchae. It is widely regarded as his best play and possibly one of the best Greek tragedies to have survived. In my opinion, The Bacchae is certainly unique—in it’s storytelling and in its dark themes—but I found Helen, Andromache, Alcestis, and Hippolytus to be far more interesting plays. Helen especially captured my imagination from the first time I read it about five years ago and continues to to this day (I’m not entirely sure why, but I have my theories).
Anyway, the play centers around the god Dionysus (Bacchus) at the time when he first comes onto the scene of the world. The story goes that Semele, daughter of Cadmus (the mythological founder of Thebes), one day caught the attention of Zeus. While she was bathing in a river, he saw her and wanted her. Semele ended up getting pregnant.
Zeus’ wife Hera was not pleased with this. She disguised herself as an old woman and tricked Semele into getting Zeus to prove that it was really him who impregnated her. When Semele and Zeus met again, she makes him swear by the River Styx (the most powerful oath a god could make) to grant any request she has. Rashly, Zeus agrees and Semele demands he reveal his true form to her. Zeus tries to talk her out of it, but she remains adamant. Zeus only reveals a little bit of his true form, but it was enough to incinerate her. Zeus manages to save the baby inside Semele, still barely a fetus, and sews it onto his thigh (hence why Dionysus is referred to as “The Insewn”). Dionysus is later “birthed” from Zeus’ thigh.
Dionysus introduces wine to the world and becomes associated with everything wine can represent: vineyards, grapes, alcohol, merriment, escapism, revelry, and altered states of consciousness (including madness). A mystery cult also sprung up around him.
Fun fact: most of the Greek tragedies I have gone through for this blog were originally performed in Athens during a festival dedicated to Dionysus called the City Dionysia.
After Semele’s death, her sisters believe she was punished by Zeus for claiming she bore his child. They believed she actually had a fling and her and their father Cadmus was trying to cover it up. Additionally, Cadmus’ grandson Pentheus has taken over as ruler of Thebes after Cadmus abdicates (due to old age) and he is in agreement with his aunts and mother. When news starts spreading about a new religion revolving around this new god Dionysus, he immediately begins to shut it down when it arrives in Thebes. Dionysus, angered at his mother being slandered and at the repression of his worship, responds by making the women of the city mad and driving them into the wilderness. There, they partake in revelries and display superhuman strength like ripping large animals to pieces with their bare hands. All of Pentheus’ aunts, as well as his mother Agave, are among these women.
It’s at this point the play starts. Dionysus visits Thebes disguised as one of his worshipers and sets into motion events that will become Pentheus’ undoing.
All quotes from The Bacchae are from the William Arrowsmith translation. This translation is found in the Complete Greek Tragedies which were originally edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. I will be using the Third Edition which was edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most.
This Play Bothers Me
I’m afraid this section is going to be more of a ramble than anything. It may not even come out completely coherent. Basically, I’m going to be trying to figure out my thoughts about this play in real time. Something about it bothers me, but I don’t know how to articulate it well. I’m hoping in the process of writing this I can figure it out.
In the Complete Greek Tragedies’ introduction to this play, as well as in its Wikipedia article, it mentions that there is/was a debate about whether or not Euripides, in his old age (The Bacchae was composed at the end of his life and performed a year after his death), was recanting of his harsh statements about religion and devotion to the gods in his previous plays. Or, was this play further criticism of religion—particularly religious fanaticism?
From my point of view, Euripides really confuses the subject to the point that I’m not sure what he’s trying to get at (except that maybe he’s just trying to tell an interesting story and nothing more). Let’s start with Pentheus, the current king of Thebes when the play opens.
Pentheus is the antagonist of the play. He is persecuting the followers of Dionysus and forbidding Dionysian worship. He refuses to acknowledge that Dionysus is a new and legitimate god in the pantheon. He pays for this at the end of the play when Dionysus alters his mind, makes him dress up like one of the woman worshipers, then sends him to spy on the Theban women who were driven mad by Dionysus previously and are congregated in the wild some distance from the city. Pentheus is discovered by these women, and in their madness, believe Pentheus to be a mountain lion. They literally rip him to pieces (it’s the most graphic death scene I have read from ancient Greek literature since the Iliad and Odyssey). The first to attack him was his own mother Agave and his own aunts join in soon after. Agave triumphantly returns to Thebes with Pentheus’ head mounted on a stick. It is only when her madness clears that she realizes the horrible truth.
I start by putting myself in Pentheus’ shoes. Imagine you are a ruler of a city. Suddenly, a group of foreign women come in professing a god and a religion you have never heard of before. These women are dressed provocatively. They are upending social norms and conventional morality. They demand they be allowed to setup their religion in your city and their god be recognized. What would you do as the ruler?
The conventional wisdom is to not even let them in the city. They are a foreign threat. What if it turns out that their religion is false? I can’t imagine the currently established gods, like Zeus, would be all that happy. As a result, I don’t really blame Pentheus for responding the way he did—even if he turned out to be wrong. In this regard, I put Dionysus in the same category as I did Hera and Athena in regards to the Trojan War: gods who responded erratically and disproportionately to what is effectively a snub.
Here’s where Euripides muddies the waters. There are signs throughout that Dionysus worship, despite its presentation, is legitimate, and Pentheus was refusing to acknowledge the signs. The frenzied women of Thebes was one sign. Arguably, Pentheus should have suspected something was up when his very own mother and aunts became bacchants. He should have known that under normal circumstances his mother and aunts wouldn’t act the way they did.
Another sign mentioned in the play are the reports of the miracles happening around the bacchants. I already mentioned their superhuman strength and being able to rip apart large animals bare handed. Other eyewitness reports spoke of water, wine, and even milk, springing from the ground after the bacchants dug at it with their hands. Lastly, the bacchants that Pentheus had managed to throw in jail miraculously escaped. Their fetters just dropped and the doors to their cells opened by themselves.
The last sign I want to mention, the one I believe most muddies the waters, is toward the beginning of the play where the blind prophet Teiresias recognizes the legitimacy of Dionysus worship. In a humorous scene, Teiresias and Cadmus, two old men mind you, are introduced dressed like bacchants (feminine looking clothes made of animal skins with ivy crowns on their heads) and each holding a thyrsus (a stick with a pinecone on it—one of the symbols of Dionysus). They are going to the wilderness to give Dionysus his due.
Teiresias was the most regarded prophet in Greek mythology. He was the blind prophet who could see better than any man. Even after he died, he was still consulted (Odysseus visited the land of the dead to get his advice about getting back home). People ignored him to their own detriment. If this same Teiresias recognized that Dionysus was a legitimate god that was owed worship, then maybe, just maybe, Dionysus should be officially recognized. Pentheus should have at least questioned his anti-Dionysus position after watching the Teiresias, as well as his grandfather Cadmus whom he dearly loved, give credence to this new god.
You can dismiss the reports of miracles as rumors or exaggerations. You can rationalize the womens’ behavior as getting caught up in a craze (cultural bias can also help in dismissing their behavior). However, Teiresias is a legitimate authority. He gets messages directly from the gods themselves. He is a divinely appointed representative of the current order. And yet, he is saying this new god with his new worship is the real deal.
Pentheus can dismiss women, rumors, and foreigners, and perhaps be forgiven for it, but he doesn’t have an excuse to dismiss Teiresias or even his grandfather. And yet he does. Why? Human nature, I suppose. Once your mind is made up on something, especially if it’s ideological, there is very little that is going to change it.
The other reason is what I mentioned above: Pentheus is seeing an alien religion trying to set up shop in the city he rules. An alien religion that encourages people to behave inappropriately and demands immediate recognition. Pentheus believes everyone around him is going nuts (which, to be fair, many of them were thanks to Dionysus)–even his own grandfather.
I think the biggest problem I have is how unsympathetic Dionysus is toward Pentheus and the city of Thebes. He is merciless toward them. He refuses to acknowledge that Pentheus’ behavior is natural—especially considering he is the ruler of Thebes, the one in charge of protecting it. I can see why there were critics who believed Euripides was denouncing religious fanaticism. Dionysus came to Thebes with an all or nothing attitude: recognize him or be destroyed. It’s borderline infuriating. It’s made worse when the Chorus, foreign women and bacchants themselves, openly rejoice at Pentheus’ gruesome death. No recognition at all of the obligations Pentheus’ had as a ruler. No recognition of the fact that they’re practically foreign invaders. Or, perhaps, rather than not recognizing their place, they are apathetic… because they are fanatics.
You can acknowledge all of this. And yet, at the end of the day, Pentheus is the antagonist and Dionysus is the protagonist of the play. You can complain, but Dionysus was the one with power and was backed up by his father Zeus.
You see the mess Euripides has created? And maybe that was his intention.
That’s about all I have. I wish I could have done more, but due to things in life taking my time and attention it wasn’t possible. To me, the play just further reinforces my belief that ancient Greek religion was a mess and it was no wonder natural science (what came to be known as philosophy) sprang from the ancient Greeks.
That's all for The Bacchae by Euripides.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
Click here for the reading list I am going through.
Thumbnail: Pentheus being torn apart by the Maenads. A fresco found in Pompeii.