The Bacchae
Ancient Philosophy
Bacchus’ Birth
• Zeus loved Semele and had an affair with
her unknown to Hera.
• Deceived by Hera, Zeus came to Semele
in his divine form.
• Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a
chariot, with lightnings and thunderings,
and launched a thunderbolt.
• Semele is incinerateced
Bacchus’ Birth
• Zeus, snatching the sixth-month abortive
child from the fire and sewed it in his thigh.
• At the proper time, Zeus undid the stitches
and gave birth to Dionysus.
• The other daughters of Cadmus spread a
report that Semele had bedded with a
mortal man, and had falsely accused
Zeus, and that therefore she had been
blasted by thunder.
Bacchus
• Bacchus was thus half mortal and half divine.
• The rule was that only those who were fullblooded immortals could gain admittance to Mt.
Olympus.
• Bacchus set himself the goal of making
everyone worship him so that the gods would
have to admit him to Mt. Olympus.
• He did and, thus, became the last god allowed
onto Mt. Olympus.
Bacchus
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Ivy
Bull
Snakes
Grapes and wine
Feminine features
Cadmus
• The founder of Thebes
• Zeus, disguised as a bull, carried away Europa, Cadmus’ sister.
• Cadmus went looking for his sister, but the Oracle of Delphi told him
to abandon the search.
• Instead he was to go forth until he met a cow.
• He was to follow this cow wherever it should lead and found a city
upon the spot where it lay down.
• At that spot, he killed a dragon, offending Ares.
• Cadmus populated his new city by sowing dragon teeth, which
sprouted into warriors that fought with one another until only five
remained.
• Cadmus taught them the alphabet, which he had brought from
Phoenicia
Cadmus
• He placated Ares and married Harmonia, one of
Ares’ daughters.
• His daughters were Agave, Ino and Semele.
• Agave and Ino spread the rumor that Semele
had intercourse with a mortal and blamed it on
Zeus, which was why she was destroyed.
• Cadmus and Harmonia were turned into
serpents.
Initial Scene
• Mixtures and contradictions
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Divine mortal
Foreign native
Death (Semele) and eternity (ivy)
Moving from pure barbarian cities to mixed to pure
Hellenic city
– Move from edge of Hellenic world to the center of it
– Nature (fawn skin) and artificial (city)
– Unfamiliar family members
Divine Possession
I have goaded them from the house in
frenzy, and they dwell in the mountains,
out of their wits; and I have compelled
them to wear the outfit of my mysteries.
[35] And all the female offspring of Thebes,
as many as are women, I have driven
maddened from the house, and they,
mingled with the daughters of Kadmos , sit
on roofless rocks beneath green pines.
Possession of Women
• Alienated and downtrodden
• Outside of the city-return to nature from
the artificiality of civilization
• Refuse to perform the assigned jobs
Pentheus
• fights against the gods as far as I am
concerned and drives me away from
sacrifices, and in his prayers makes no
mention of me, for which I will show him
and all the Thebans that I was born a god.
Possession
• Ecstatic conversion experience
– Dance
– Drums
– Flutes
• Rearrangement of the self with a new system of
meaning
– Produce of alienation and sense of meaninglessness
• Transcending a contaminated world through
purity
Dervishes Dancing with the Divine
Origin
• Shamanistic experience of mediating
group conflicts by traveling to a different
level of reality
• Cultural revitalization movements
– Religion
– Great Cultural Revolution of China
– Marxist movements of the 20th century
Chorus-Purity
Blessed is he who, being fortunate and
knowing the rites of the gods, keeps his
life pure and [75] has his soul initiated into
the Bacchic revels, dancing in inspired
frenzy over the mountains with holy
purifications
Paradise
• Transcend to a better world
• “The plain flows with milk, it flows with
wine, it flows with the nectar of bees”
• Miracles
– Release of followers from jail
Teiresias and Cadmus
• Both convert
• Old become young
• The only coverts in the city
Thyrsos
War on Freedom
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Children's game TAG ban in Massachusetts elementary school.
Sweets Ban" in Massachusetts elementary school forbids frosted cupcakes for
birthday celebrations.
"Noise Ban" in New York forbids dog barking for over five minutes AND "out of tune
ice-cream trucks."
"Bull fighting Ban" in Barcelona
"Low-slung pants Ban" in Louisiana AND teeth "grills" in Texas
"Cell phone Ban" in New York High Schools
"Happiness Ban" prohibits smiling on Passport photos
"Gift Bag Ban" disallows the giving of "diaper bags filled with baby formula" to new
mothers in Massachusetts hospitals as they "discourage natural breast feeding."
"Pan-handling Ban" in Atlanta, Georgia
And in case you thought irony was dead: The banning of comedian Jon Stewart's
book "America: A Citizen's Guide To Democracy Inaction" in Mississippi Libraries due
to its "profane" cover. (FYI: This ban was later lifted)
South Dakota ban on abortion
Trying to define marriage
Suspension of habeas corpus
Legalization of torture and secret spying on Americans
Pentheus
• Contrived Bacchic rites
• Bacchus is “a sorcerer, a conjuror”
• Engage in orgies-”to serve the beds of men, on the
pretext that they are Maenads worshipping; [225] but
they consider Aphrodite before Bacchus.”
• Excuse to get drunk
• Shows power
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Arrested some
Will hunt others down
Will cut off Bacchus’ head
Will hang Bacchus
Pentheus
• Repressed desires of a hierarchical order
• Mad women
– Are the sane insane, or the insane sane?
Teiresias
• Sensible person is not sensible
• “For two things, young man, [275] are first among men:
the goddess Demeter--she is the earth, but call her
whatever name you wish; she nourishes mortals with dry
food; but he who came afterwards, the offspring of
Semele, discovered a match to it, the liquid drink of the
grape, and introduced it [280] to mortals. It releases
wretched mortals from grief, whenever they are filled
with the stream of the vine, and gives them sleep, a
means of forgetting their daily troubles, nor is there
another cure for hardships. He who is a god is poured
out in offerings to the gods, [285] so that by his means
men may have good things.”
• Do not mock the god
Cadmus
“Even if, as you say, he is not a god, call
him one; and tell a glorious falsehood,
[335] so that Semele might seem to have
borne a god, and honor might come to all
our race.”
Pentheus
• Effeminate stranger
• Pollutes women
• Deserves death by stoning
Cadmus
“O wretched man, how little you know
what you are saying! You are mad now,
and even before you were out of your
wits.”
Bacchus
• Bacchus and his followers are captured
– His followers were miraculously freed
Bacchus and Pentheus
• Bacchus
– Accuses Pentheus of impiety and insanity
• Pentheus
– Rituals at night
– Will imprison Bacchus
– Actually imprisons a bull
Bacchus
• Sends an earthquake to destroy Pentheus’
palace
– Illusion of fire in palace
– Jousted with the air
Messenger
• serpents licking their jaws
• wolf-pup, gave them white milk
• stream of water sprang forth. Another let her
thyrsos strike the ground, and there the god sent
forth a fountain of wine.
• All who desired the white drink scratched the
earth with the tips of their fingers and obtained
streams of milk; [710] and a sweet flow of honey
dripped from their ivy thyrsoi;
• Torn cattle apart by their bare hands
Pentheus
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Plans to send army against the Bacchae
Wants to see them in their drunkenness
Lascivious—repressed sexuality
Dresses as a woman
– Overcomes shame
Bacchae
• First drive him out of his wits, send upon
him a dizzying madness, since if he is of
sound mind he will not consent to wear
women's clothing, but driven out of his
senses he will put it on. I want him to be a
source of laughter to the Thebans, led
through the city in [855] women's guise
after making such terrible threats in the
past.
Chorus
• Oh, for life to flow towards the good, to be
pure and pious day and night, and to
honor the gods, [1010] banishing customs
that are outside of justice. Let manifest
justice go forth, let it go with sword in
hand, slaying through the throat [1015] this
godless, lawless, unjust, earth-born
offspring of Echion.
Pentheus
• Spy
– See what is hidden by being hidden
Messenger
• Pentheus killed by his mother-Agave
• Went to view the lascivious acts of the
women
• Bacchus put Pentheus in a pine tree and
alerted the women to his presence
• The women tore down the tree
• Dismembered Pentheus
Agave
• Thought she killed a young lion
– Lion=king of beast
– Symbol of political order
• Realized she killed her own son
• Cadmus
– If anyone scorns the gods, let him look to the
death of this man and acknowledge them.
Dionysus
• Cadmus and Harmonia live a life of war
• Agave in exile
Lessons
• The return of the repressed
– Alienated and excluded individuals
dismember the political order
• Over time, social orders become rigid and
obsessed with control
– Not all forces can be controlled
– Control releases uncontrollable forces
Ending Chorus
Many are the forms of divine things, and
the gods bring to pass many things
unexpectedly; [1390] what is expected has
not been accomplished, but the god has
found out a means for doing things
unthought of. So too has this event turned
out.
Themes
• The Bacchae depicts a struggle to the death
between the twin forces of control (restraint) and
freedom (release), and permits Dionysus to
provide an answer to this question.
• The god's implicit message is that not only is
there space within society for the irrational, but
that such a space must be allowed for that
society to exist and thrive.
• By denying or opposing the irrational, as
Pentheus did, the person who opposes it, or the
society that denies it, will be torn apart.
Dualities
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life-death
creation-destruction
natural-artificial
divine-human
reason-irrationality
male-female
young-old
foreign-native
order-chaos
Apollo-Bacchus
the tyranny of order-the murderous frenzy of collective passion
long hair-cut hair
Human Error
• tendency toward oversimplification
• Denying one of the polarities of a polar
universe
Amathia
• it is the opposite of wisdom
• It means recklessness, deep ignorance about oneself
and the nature of the universe.
• It leads to excess, impatience. It is a trait possessed by
many of the old and almost all of the young.
• Pentheus is the prime example of a man inflicted with
this trait.
– He is impatient, bullying, and at times brutal.
– He irrationally rejects Dionysus and the new religion;
• Dionysus' excessive revenge is hardly the act of a wise
man.
• Religion can become just as brutal and oppressive as a
tyrant like Pentheus.