Introduction: The Bacchae of Euripides: A New Version
The Bacchae was written by Euripides, one of the three great Greek tragedians, the other two being Sophocles and Aeschylus. Euripides was the youngest of the three tragedians, and wrote his first tragedy when he was 25 years old. The Bacchae is considered to be one of Euripides’ greatest surviving works and was written in 407 BC while he was living in exile.
Have you read?
Lysistrata by Aristophanes, Book Review
What is The Bacchae of Euripides About?
In The Bacchae, there is a power struggle between two cousins, Pentheus, the King of Thebes and Dionysus, son of Zeus and Semelê (Dionysus is the only god to have a mortal parent), and the god of fertility and wine, and a patron of the arts.
After being absent for years, Dionysus arrives int Thebes disguised as a stranger. He is incensed because he thinks that he has been scorned, and that his mother’s sisters mocked her, and he is out to demand allegiance – after all he is a god, and wants to be worshipped – and exact revenge on his mother’s family.
“For they have scorned me [Dionysus] whom it least beseemed,
Semelê’s sisters; mocked by birth, nor deemed
That Dionysus sprang from Dian seed.
My mother sinned, said they; and in her need,
With Cadmus plotting, cloaked her human shame
With the dread name of Zeus; for that flame
From heaven consumed her, seeing she lied to God.
Thus must they vaunt; and therefore hath my rod
On them first fallen, and stung them forth wild-eyed
From empty chambers; the bare mountain side
Is made their home, and all their hearts are flame.”
Dionysus drives Semelê’s sisters insane and they flee to Mt. Kithaeron as his disciples. He seduces and possesses the women of Thebes – they are under his spell – and you have all these maidens on the mountainside in a trance dancing and worshiping Dionysus. It’s almost as if these women are in a cult and they are following their leader, Dionysus. There are wild sex orgies where people are consuming too much wine.
Some men from Thebes try to interfere and the women start to attack them. The men flee for their lives and the rip their herd apart – quite graphic and revolting. They dance on the mountain wearing the skins torn from animals.
Pentheus is upset because the women that Dionysus possesses include his mother Agave (Semelê’s sister), and his aunts. Pentheus is a young king who wants to keep the society together, so he finds what’s going on between the women and Dionysus objectionable. He doesn’t realize that Dionysus is a god. He accuses Dionysus – who appears disguised as a mortal man – of leading the women of Thebes astray and attempts to imprison him, which is a big mistake. Dionysus decides to exact his revenge.
An expert manipulator, Dionysus convinces Pentheus to spy on the women in the mountain disguised as a female. Agâvê, Pentheus’ mother is under a spell and doesn’t recognize her own son. Pentheus cries to his mother for mercy telling her who he is, but she cannot hear him because that’s Dionysus’ intent. Mother rips her son apart limb by limb. Even when he is dead, she still thinks that she is carrying a lion’s head.
That’s one of the worst things that can happen to a mother is to unknowingly kill her child. Agâvê ends up being exiled from Thebes. The reader knows that it isn’t really her fault because she is under Dionysus’s spell – another god behaving very badly.
It’s impossible for mortals to go against gods without disastrous results – gods represent forces that mortals cannot control or overcome. What was Pentheus thinking of when he tries to imprison Dionysus? In the play, Dionysus is a destructive force, whose true ways are unleashed when he is opposed. Gods believe that their raison d'être is to be worshipped and adored.
According to Anthony O’Hear in The Great Books,
“Euripides is warning us against closing our minds to the need we have for the type of experience that Dionysus represents: wine, obviously, but also music, dance, unity with nature and submersion in its beauty and grandeur, and group celebration of religious mysteries.”
Although I found some of the imagery in The Bacchae of Euripides very upsetting, I still recommend it because the metaphors in the play give us insights into what was going on in Greek society during that time. Euripides was known to write about society in his plays. In Stories From Greek Drama
,
“He [Euripides] was an innovator and a free thinker, who openly doubted the existence of the old gods and was condemned utterly by the older generation who regarded the plays of Sophocles as perfection…He was very popular with his own generation: he made them question their old beliefs; he gave them endless subjects for discussion and controversy, which they loved….He had also he gift of making his characters real people….”
Final Thoughts: The Bacchae of Euripides
Have your read The Bacchae?
Note: The version of The Bacchae of Euripides that I read is an older one, but it's never a bad idea to read newer versions of the classics where the language is more accessible.
The Bacchae of Euripides
Euripides VThe Complete Works of EuripedesMedea and Other PlaysEuripides III
