Mythology
March 14, 2007
Bacchae
Two Groups of Maenads
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Chorus: Pious Asian followers of Dionysus
o Cultic details, choral hymns
o Give details of his birth and youth
Impious Theban women, made insane by Dionysus
o Resisted him originally
o Including Agave and her sisters
o Cult takes women out of the house and out of the boundaries of the city;
spoken of as being “out on the mountainside”
Historical Context
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Introduction of new religious cults into Athens; from the east
Violation of Mysteries (seeing, performing)
o Charges against Alcibiades 415 BC
 Sailed against Sicily; left with enormous expenditures
 On the eve of the fleet leaving, a number of statues of Hermes
were desecrated – very bad as he is god of travelling
 Alcibiades was implicated; charged with violation of Eleusinian
mysteries
 Performing a parody version of them to people who were
uninitiated
 Fled to other side
 Sicilian expedition failed miserably; a black chapter
o Charges against Socrates 399 BC
 Charges of introducing new gods, corrupting the youth, and not
believing in the gods of Athens
Pentheus
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Name: ‘grief’
New young king; similar to Zeus in Prometheus Bound
Obsessions: boundaries, distinctions, social order – sexuality, gender
Mistaken suspicions; paranoid
Confrontation with Teiresias
Armies, prisons, hunting
Dionysus
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Human form – foreigner
Appears in animal form mostly to Pentheus
Appears in divine form to Bacchants
Cannot be confined by ropes or chains
Calm, smiling
Miracles demonstrate his power
o Recognized by common people
Pentheus Transformed
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Dionysus says how would you like to see them on the mountain having their
orgies (not actually what is happening); appealing to a hidden desire
He says he wants to
Dionysus tells him to change out of his armor and put on women’s clothes
Says if he looks like a man he will get killed; Dionysus offers to dress him
Pentheus gets interested, asks what kind of outfit Dionysus has in mind
Becomes what he tried to suppress
Comes out of the palace with Dionysus in a Bacchic dress
Has double vision – insane and drunk
Under the influence of Dionysus
Thinks that Dionysus has been changed into a bull
Worried about his appearance; pleat of his dress and strand of hair
Cares about being a proper maenad
Dionysus leads him up the mountainside
Messenger speech describes that Pentheus is dead and tells how it happened
Dionysus puts Pentheus atop a pine tree so he can get a better view, also makes
him visible to the maenads
Dionysus appears in god form to the Bacchants, tell them that Pentheus rejects
him and the maenads; asks them to punish him
o Enthusiasmos
 Possession by a god
 Supernatural energy
Women throwing their Thrysus’ at Pentheus
Shaking the tree; mythical mirror image of Phallophoria
Pentheus falls to the ground, first person to tear at him was his mother
Pentheus has his realization, tells his mother not to hurt him
Agave believes she is a victorious hunter; thinks it is a lion; brings his head back
to the city to put it on the city wall saying how proud her son would be
Suffers the punishment he threatened
Sacrificial victim
Has been talking about hunting down the maenads
Hunter hunted; maenads catch him
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Thrysus – instrument of Dionysus
o Transformed into a part of the Thrysus
Anagnorisis and peripeteia
o Happen at the same time
o Has his downfall and then recognizes the god
Agave
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Punished for blasphemy with madness
Believes Semele was having an affair not with Zeus
Unwittingly destroys her only child
Gender inversion (hunter, fighter)
Gradual understanding
Funeral ritual for Pentheus
Exile, miasma
Cadmus
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Puts Pentheus’ body back together
Founder of city, exiled
House destroyed
Some legends say he was transformed into a snake – a Dionysiac symbol, but the
farthest thing from human
Ready to worship Dionysus, but still being punished
Needs to be thrown out so the city can be successful
Commoners were ready to accept him
Dionysus represents balancing of powers in democracy
Questions
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What distinctions dissolve under the influence of Dionysus?
Which rituals are perverted?
Who is destroyed? Who benefit?
Is Dionysus too cruel?