‘But now an unarmed boy will conquer Thebes, whom neither weapons, wars nor horses delight, but hair drenched in myrrh, soft garlands, purple and gold woven into embroidered robes’. The last major such addition to the pantheon was the god Dionysus/Bacchus, who became one of many of Zeus’ children born outside of the supreme god’s marriage with Hera/Juno.

233–38, 260–62, 352–54, 453–59, 487, 957–58. on 520. In his train, Bacchus brings hallucination and paranoia — surreal dissolution of identity, collapsing and re-doubling roles at will — and the story of Pentheus is a classic and exemplary case.

While pregnant with the divine child, Semele died, consumed by Zeus' lightning. It has already been noted that Euripides makes fear of female sexual license, perceived as a threat to the patriarchal order of the city-state, one of the primary motivations for Pentheus’ resistance to the new cult.

Pentheus was astonished and set out for Mount Cithaeron to spy on the rites of Father Liber….

The second messenger appears on stage, bringing terrible news of Pentheus’ death. A point emphasized by Hardie (1990) 229.

This possibility is raised when Pentheus’ henchmen, having been ordered to arrest Bacchus, return instead with a captured stranger who, as we have just seen, identifies himself as Acoetes. Both of those would have served the needs of aspiring politicians; they came in handy for jury trials.

The indiscriminate crowd that initially rushed to worship Bacchus has become a band of Maenads rushing upon Pentheus: (3.715–16). In both Euripides’ play and Ovid’s epic, Pentheus is committed to preserving the status quo and unable to adjust to new situations.73 He does not listen to his advisers and the warnings of his kin and proves incapable of viewing the world from another perspective. (the English ‘enigma’ and ‘enigmatic’ derive from it), i.e.

There are the henchmen whom Pentheus sends out to capture Bacchus and who return, blood-spattered, with someone identifying himself as Acoetes (3.572–76). This quasi-universal acceptance of Tiresias as a prophetic authority serves as cue for the Pentheusepisode: the Theban king is the odd-man-out, whose ill-considered mockery of Tiresias sets the stage for his tragic downfall (, . In the Greek tragedy the riddle of Bacchus’ identity remains confined to characters, the play (in particular, of course, Pentheus) and does, concern the audience, for whom, as we have just seen, Euripides clarifies the situation before the action begins. Somewhat later, ‘Acoetes’ sounds another arch note in professing the veracity of his account: per tibi nunc ipsum (nec enim praesentior illo. What is Pentheus' state of mind, and how to get that across?

Given his parentage, this is not altogether surprising: as the offspring of a mortal mother and a divine father, he might well have been expected to belong to the class of semi-divine ‘heroes’. Instead of pursuing a path of accommodation, Pentheus fatally opts for confrontation; instead of embracing his divine kin (Bacchus, after all, is his cousin — Semele and Agave are sisters), he chooses blanket rejection, turning himself into a blasphemous. Created by. is returning home now to Thebes, for it is his intention to introduce Note also that, as in this play, the god can be pictured as worshiping himself, as yet another participant in his own festivities. 27Bacchus’ overt narrative presence is much reduced in the Ovidian episode vis-à-vis the Euripidean model. Create.

More crucially still, in explaining how he became a follower of the god, he tells the tale of how a group of wicked Tyrrhenian sailors, his erstwhile shipmates, were transformed into dolphins by Bacchus.

A herdsman arrives, recounting a terrible tale of the Bacchae on the mountain.

: the Theban king exhibits an ‘absence of self-control,… willingness to believe the worst on hearsay evidence… or on none whatsoever,… brutality towards the helpless…; and a stupid reliance on physical force as a means of settling spiritual problems’.

incommunicate. The setting for this episode is the city of Thebes, which, as we have seen, was founded by Cadmus, after his search for his abducted sister Europa proved fruitless. This tragedy was, as far as we can tell, Ovid’s most important source and model.

on 540–42. He provides a fairly detailed autobiography, culminating in the narrative of the Hymn. 5All three texts share the same basic plot; but there are noteworthy variations on the level of detail. ], All three texts share the same basic plot; but there are noteworthy variations on the level of detail. Ovid similarly characterizes Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, as Martia proles at Fast. There is a complexity, lack of awareness, and self‐denial in both these characters that …

"fellow . Euripides has to do with the captive arrested by Pentheus’ henchmen. He then delivers Cadmus’ fate: the old man and his wife, Harmonia, are to be turned into snakes and destined to return to Greece as barbarian invaders (though eventually they’ll be brought to the “Land of the Blessed”). 500 (Dionysus speaking about himself): καὶ νῦν ἃ πάσχω πλησίον παρὼν ὁρᾷ (‘Even now.

Bacch. Carm. 432-436, the cross-dressing scene. 4 ‘Bacchus’ by Caravaggio (1593–94). come to know himself — with two references (one proleptic, one retrospective) to Tiresias’ unquestioned and welldeserved renown throughout Greece. in contact with Euripides’ tragic plot is an inventive touch, and not just from the point of view of Ovid’s metamorphic programme, as the tale told by Acoetes serves in addition as a cautionary tale for Pentheus. "oriental ladies" (p. 420). This leads to the grim denouement, in which Bacchus distorts the perception of Pentheus’ mother Agave and her sisters, as well as the other Maenads, so that they misrecognize the disguised king as a wild beast which, in accordance with Bacchic rites, they proceed to tear limb from limb with their bare hands. So Zeus gave to Hera a piece of sky.

or followers — like a congregation. Pentheus agrees to cross-dress and goes into the palace ruins to put on his outfit, which Dionysus helps him with.

More under "maenad.". Ovid similarly characterizes Romulus and Remus, the founde, The obvious parallels to the Aeneas-story are all the more striking for being in overt contradiction with the earlier narrative, where it was reported that Cadmus’ Phoenician companions were slain to a man by the dragon prior to the foundation of Thebes.

Another word for such women 47 See Comm. Dionysus tells his backstory: Semele’s lover was Zeus, king of the gods, and their relationship made Zeus’ wife, Hera, jealous. This is a reference to the current scene in 400s-BCE Athens.

4.215–18). Let no one criticize the actions of the gods. On which account I have changed my form to a mortal one and altered my shape into that of a man.

But soon strange things were seen among them. Ethnocentrism, i.e. 72 See Comm.

4–5), And having taken a mortal form instead of a god’s, I am here…. While the author of the Hymn to Dionysus disposed of the transformation of the crew into dolphins in two and a half words (δελφῖνες δ᾽ ἐγένοντο, ‘they became dolphins’ Hymn. Pentheus interrogates Dionysus, who Pentheus thinks is a mortal man; Dionysus' answers are slippery and meant to madden the king. In four surviving scripts — Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Antigone, and Euripides’ Phoenician Women and Bacchae — he unerringly predicts the tragic doom of his royal interlocutors (and perhaps even helps to move events along, since his predictions are typically met with suspicion, denial, or even wrath). Agave and Semele's in which Pentheus was perched], and from the ground they tore it up, while he from his seat aloft came tumbling to the ground with lamentations long and loud; for well he knew his hour was come. It needs to be borne in mind, though, that, as discussed earlier (§3a), the vicissitudes of textual, The story of Pentheus and Bacchus was well established long before Ovid’s day. Thus, even in Ovid’s version there are glimmers of the cult’s utopian appeal arising from the collapse of the distinctions that define the socio-political order.80 In the worship of Bacchus the indiscriminate mixing of categories means that age, gender, socio-economic class, and legal status become irrelevant. , Acoetes is the lone member of his ship’s crew to recognize the divinity of the captive and, having been spared the metamorphic fate of his comrades, proceeds to join Bacchus’ entourage. the god. LitCharts Teacher Editions.

69 The following is based on Seidensticker (1972) 57–61. As we have seen, this aspect is toned down in the. The indiscriminate crowd that initially rushed to worship Bacchus has become a band of Maenads rushing upon Pentheus: ruit omnis in unum | turba furens (3.715–16). Aka Bacchus (Bakkhos), Bromios ("Roarer"), "The Bull," Iacchus. But the god changed into a dreadful lion there on the ship, on the bow, and roared loudly: amidships also he showed his wonders and created a shaggy bear which stood up ravening, while on the forepeak was the lion glaring fiercely with scowling brows. His mother first, a priestess for the occasion, began the bloody deed and fell upon him; whereon he tore the snood from his hair, that hapless Agave might recognize and spare him, crying as he touched her cheek, “O mother! Shortly thereafter, Tiresias proves his surpassing vatic ability by correctly, if riddlingly, foretelling the fate of Narcissus (an ingenious stand-in for Thebes’most famous son, Oedipus, who does not appear, The seer warns Narcissus’mother Liriope that the beautiful boy will only reach old age ‘if he does not come to know himself’ (, , 3.348). 3.511–25). We may also add the old (, ) of Thebes whom Pentheus tries to rally against Bacchus (3.3.538–42), as well as a fleeting reference to the Bacchus-defiant Acrisius, king of Argos (3.559–60). 20All in all, then, Pentheus is particularly lacking in the flexible intelligence that enables a person to respond in a healthy and balanced manner to the kind of divinity that is Bacchus — polymorphous, subversive of norms, destructive of boundaries, challenging the conventional order of things, and defying orthodoxy — in particular in the realm of gender-relations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jupiter insisted on women’s greater sexual gratification, whereas Juno no less adamantly asserted the contrary.

3Euripides begins his play with Bacchus’ arrival at Thebes and a detailed exposition of his world, carefully elaborated in the prologue (1–63, spoken by the god himself) and the chorus upon their entry onto the stage (64–169, sung by Lydian women).

Those of importance tended to be placed in some kind of familial relation to the sky father Zeus/Jupiter.

Instead of killing them, she and her two sons died.

478), archly evokes his own protean nature.

SamNeill166.

Aggressiveness bordering on brutality to protect the self against others, i.e.

See maenad, orgia. Bacch. the opening two lines of the set text.

62 Cf. (940–42), likewise recounts the birth of Dionysus, highlighting that a mortal woman gave birth to an immortal child. Without further ado, he storms to his doom. In his vain exhortation to his fellow Thebans he goes so far as to adduce the dragon of Mars, which his grandfather Cadmus slew, as a paragon of virtue that bravely gave its life in defence of its lair, fighting valiantly against overwhelming odds (3.543–46). 3.316–38). 3.339–40; 3.511–12, i.e. Ovid calls him. on 540–42.

85 The issues surrounding this testimonium are complex (some scholars have even suggested that Servius Auctus draws on Ovid for his summary of Pacuvius’ play! ethnocentrism coupled with a tendency towards violence. [25] So said he, but the master chided him with taunting words: ‘Madman, mark the wind and help hoist sail on the ship: catch all the sheets\. As for this fellow we men will see to him; I reckon he is bound for Egypt or for Cyprus or to the Hyperboreans or further still.