Euripides' Bacchae, Focus Classical Library (Focus Classical Library)

Rating:
Summary: Euripides on the absolute necessity of obeying the gods
Review: Given that the performance of all of the ancient Greek tragedies were done at a festival dedicated to Dionysus, it is ironic that only one surviving play features the god in a leading role. Composed around the year 406 B.C.E. by Euripides, shortly before the tragic poet's death, the "Bacchae" dramatizes the myth of the return of Dionysus to his birthplace of Thebes, where the deity exacts a horrible revenge on the people because they have failed to honor his divinity by adopting his orgiastic worship. In doing so, Euripides takes his Athenian audience back to the Dionysian roots of its theater tradition and beyond, going back all the way to the wine god's ecstatic cult.

The name of the play comes from the chorus, a group of foreign women who are passionately devoted to Dionysus (who was also known as Bacchus). Having followed their god from Asia Minor to Greece, these bacchants worship Dionysus voluntary, totally reveling in the emotional freedom and sense of joyous community that the god allows them. In their parados the bacchants dance wildly, praising the holy and irresistible gifts of Dionysus (Euripides even writes the song is the only extant example of a dithyramb, which was the choral ode associated with the prehistoric rituals of the Dionysian cult). In contrast to the bacchants are the women of Thebes, who do not appear on stage until near the end of the tragedy, and who perform the god's rites unwillingly and only by divine compulsion.

The tragic hero in the play, albeit an unsympathetic one, is Pentheus, the king of Thebes. Pentheus stubbornly refuses Dionysus to be worshipped in Thebes, even though he is warned by Teiresias, the fabled blind prophet of Thebes (who appears in Sophocles' "Oedipus the King"). Pentheus is not only stubborn, he is also insolent and glib, making him as guilty of hubris as any tragic hero of Greek drama. For this affrontery to Dionysus, Pentheus is punished in a way as extreme as any in Greek mythology.

To extract his revenge Dionysus gets Pentheus to dress as a woman, a daughter of Cadmus, so that he can sneak into the forest outside of Thebes to see the secret rites of the bacchants. However, the power of the wine god drives Agave, Pentheus's mother, and the other women of Thebes to madness. They abandon their homes to roam the hills of Cithaeron, where they nurse the young of wild animals and drink the wine provided by their god. There they wore fawn skins and crowns of ivy, waving thyrsoi (fennel wands bound with vine leaves and tipped with ivy), while dancing by torchlight and shouting a ritual cry. Even with all the miracles and warning signs, Pentheus stubbornly continues to resist Dionysus, and is condemned to die: not as the brave king defending his city but as a transvestite voyeur torn to pieces by his mother and the women on whom he had come to spy.

The final scenes, in which Cadmus, the former king of Thebes, returns to find his daughter, who is carrying the head of her son, convinced in her madness that it is a trophy, the head of a lion she believes she and the bacchants have killed. The anagnorisis (recognition) scene written by Euripides is as powerful as any in Greek drama as Agave struggles against returning to her sense and the reality of the horrific deed she has done. Of course, Agave is being punished as well, for she was unable to believe that the child of Semele was begotten of Zeus and that Dionysus was therefore divine. Not since Aeschylus's "Prometheus Bound" have we seen a Greek god portrayed in a drama as being so devoid of pity for human suffering. Only human beings respond with sympathy to others in the face of tragic loss. For Dionysus all that matters is that humans having been punished for daring to go against the will of a god.

In terms of both the chorus and the individual characters, the "Bacchae" is the extant Greek tragedy that best lends itself to a contemporary performance. Certainly the chorus of bacchants offers amply opportunities for creative presentation on stage, while the scenes provides the confrontation between Pentheus and Dionysus as well as the dramatic monologues by the Messenger, Cadmus, and Agave. But the religious and political implications of the "Bacchae" are equally significant.

Rating:
Summary: Euripides on the absolute necessity of obeying the gods
Review: Given that the performance of all of the ancient Greek tragedies were done at a festival dedicated to Dionysus, it is ironic that only one surviving play features the god in a leading role. Composed around the year 406 B.C.E. by Euripides, shortly before the tragic poet's death, the "Bacchae" dramatizes the myth of the return of Dionysus to his birthplace of Thebes, where the deity exacts a horrible revenge on the people because they have failed to honor his divinity by adopting his orgiastic worship. In doing so, Euripides takes his Athenian audience back to the Dionysian roots of its theater tradition and beyond, going back all the way to the wine god's ecstatic cult.

The name of the play comes from the chorus, a group of foreign women who are passionately devoted to Dionysus (who was also known as Bacchus). Having followed their god from Asia Minor to Greece, these bacchants worship Dionysus voluntary, totally reveling in the emotional freedom and sense of joyous community that the god allows them. In their parados the bacchants dance wildly, praising the holy and irresistible gifts of Dionysus (Euripides even writes the song is the only extant example of a dithyramb, which was the choral ode associated with the prehistoric rituals of the Dionysian cult). In contrast to the bacchants are the women of Thebes, who do not appear on stage until near the end of the tragedy, and who perform the god's rites unwillingly and only by divine compulsion.

The tragic hero in the play, albeit an unsympathetic one, is Pentheus, the king of Thebes. Pentheus stubbornly refuses Dionysus to be worshipped in Thebes, even though he is warned by Teiresias, the fabled blind prophet of Thebes (who appears in Sophocles' "Oedipus the King"). Pentheus is not only stubborn, he is also insolent and glib, making him as guilty of hubris as any tragic hero of Greek drama. For this affrontery to Dionysus, Pentheus is punished in a way as extreme as any in Greek mythology.

To extract his revenge Dionysus gets Pentheus to dress as a woman, a daughter of Cadmus, so that he can sneak into the forest outside of Thebes to see the secret rites of the bacchants. However, the power of the wine god drives Agave, Pentheus's mother, and the other women of Thebes to madness. They abandon their homes to roam the hills of Cithaeron, where they nurse the young of wild animals and drink the wine provided by their god. There they wore fawn skins and crowns of ivy, waving thyrsoi (fennel wands bound with vine leaves and tipped with ivy), while dancing by torchlight and shouting a ritual cry. Even with all the miracles and warning signs, Pentheus stubbornly continues to resist Dionysus, and is condemned to die: not as the brave king defending his city but as a transvestite voyeur torn to pieces by his mother and the women on whom he had come to spy.

The final scenes, in which Cadmus, the former king of Thebes, returns to find his daughter, who is carrying the head of her son, convinced in her madness that it is a trophy, the head of a lion she believes she and the bacchants have killed. The anagnorisis (recognition) scene written by Euripides is as powerful as any in Greek drama as Agave struggles against returning to her sense and the reality of the horrific deed she has done. Of course, Agave is being punished as well, for she was unable to believe that the child of Semele was begotten of Zeus and that Dionysus was therefore divine. Not since Aeschylus's "Prometheus Bound" have we seen a Greek god portrayed in a drama as being so devoid of pity for human suffering. Only human beings respond with sympathy to others in the face of tragic loss. For Dionysus all that matters is that humans having been punished for daring to go against the will of a god.

In terms of both the chorus and the individual characters, the "Bacchae" is the extant Greek tragedy that best lends itself to a contemporary performance. Certainly the chorus of bacchants offers amply opportunities for creative presentation on stage, while the scenes provides the confrontation between Pentheus and Dionysus as well as the dramatic monologues by the Messenger, Cadmus, and Agave. But the religious and political implications of the "Bacchae" are equally significant.