The Bacchae

“The city must learn its lesson however reluctantly, that it lacks the blessing of my rites. I must defend the cause of Semele, my mother, by showing myself to mortals as the god she bore to Zeus.”

When the play opens, Dionysus has already caused his aunts, Cadmus’ daughters, to go mad because they rejected the notion that Zeus fathered their sister Semele’s baby. Here, he suggests that his motivation for punishing Thebes has a personal dimension: defending his mother’s honor. Perhaps his insistence on a mortal disguise reflects the duality of his motivations—not only to ensure that his divinity is respected but also that Semele is respected as the mortal mother of a god.

“But if the people of Thebes, growing angry, take up arms and seek to drive my followers from the mountains, I shall engage them, leading my maenads into battle.”

Both Dionysus and Pentheus threaten to engage armies, but the actual battle that the play explores is between the wills of Dionysus and Pentheus. Dionysus repeatedly tests Pentheus, offering him multiple opportunities to accept the god, but each time, Pentheus responds with scorn and threats. Dionysus does ultimately lead his maenads against Pentheus not as an army but a frenzied mob that tears him apart with their bare hands.

“Soon the whole land will be dancing, when the Roaring One leads his groups of worshippers to the mountain, to the mountain, where the female throng awaits him, driven from their places at the loom and shuttle by the madness of Dionysus.”

Here, the Chorus seems to anticipate a ritual dance, which may have had some relevance to ritual in historical time. “The Roaring One” is one of the names Dionysus was known by and is suggestive of his animal associations (130). The notion of the women being led from “their places at the loom and shuttle” to the mountain potentially speaks to a ritualized transgression that takes the women away from order and civilization, represented by the loom and shuttle, and into disorder and violence (130).

“TEIRESIAS: We do not chop logic when speaking of divinity. The traditions of our forefathers that we have inherited, as old as time, shall not be overthrown by any clever argument, though it be devised by the subtlest of wits.”

The text of Teiresias’ speech has been debated. There seems to be an inherent contradiction in Teiresias referring to inherited traditions “as old as time” and the Bacchae presenting Dionysus as newly arrived in Thebes from the East (132). One way of understanding what seem like logical contradictions is the nebulous nature of mythical time. At the end of the play, Cadmus will return with the apparently meticulously collected remains of Pentheus almost immediately after Agaue returns to the city with his head. “[A]ny clever argument” could be a reference to sophists’ claims to be able to manipulate arguments to win arguments rather than to move everyone closer to the best and most true ideas (132).

“If I catch him inside the borders of this land, I’ll cut his head off his shoulders and put a stop to his making his thyrsus ring and shaking his locks.”

The Bacchae is saturated with foreshadowing. Here, Pentheus is determined to capture the foreigner from Lydia who has brought the Bacchic rites to Thebes and repeatedly threatens to kill him. Instead, it is Pentheus who will lose his head, figuratively and literally.

“You possess a fluent tongue, as if you were a man of sense, but your words lack all judgment. The good speaker whose influence rests on self-assurance proves to be a bad citizen; for he lacks intelligence.”

In response to Pentheus scolding him for recognizing Dionysus’ divinity, Teiresias gives a lengthy, discursive speech arguing for why Pentheus should honor the god. This excerpt from that speech’s opening may reflect Athenian anxiety about the uses to which persuasive speaking have been put in the city, a recurring feature in Euripides’ plays. As is often the case in the ancient Greek worldview, persuasion is neither good nor bad inherently but can be used for good or bad ends. It can be harmful if it compels people to align with bad ideas and beneficial when it leads people closer to truth.

“To declare that he is Semele’s child is a lie that does us credit: people will think she gave birth to a god and the honour will reflect on us, on the whole family.”

Cadmus urges Pentheus to accept Dionysus’ divinity if for no other reason than the status that having a family member among the gods confers. In ancient Greek ‘religious’ practice, generally, what mattered was not personal belief so much as observing the proper rituals and giving the gods their due honors. Cadmus seems to be trying to give Pentheus a reason to observe those rites by appealing to the family’s status. The statement an also be understood as another moment of foreshadowing, as “the whole family” will suffer for Pentheus’ refusal to take his grandfather’s advice (136).

“To be clever is not to be wise, and thoughts that go beyond mortal limits spell a short life.”

This excerpt from the Chorus’ song features word play in the Greek text, with the words for wise (sophos) and wisdom (sophia). It speaks to a central theme in ancient Greek texts that the play explores: the need to acknowledge the limits of human knowledge. Pentheus and Semele’s sisters may present clever arguments to deny Dionysus’ divinity, but they lack the wisdom to recognize that mortals cannot access divine knowledge. Cadmus’ argument for why the city should recognize Thebes (reflected honor by having a god in the family) may be a poorer argument, but it demonstrates wisdom, since it prompts him to err on the side of honoring a god.

“DIONYSUS: This very moment he is near me and witnesses what I am suffering.

PENTHEUS [looking around]: And where is he, then? I certainly don’t see him!

DIONYSUS: Where I am; but you are impious yourself, and so do not see him.”

Here, Dionysus effectively declares himself to be the god that he claims to serve, but Pentheus is too blind to receive the message, as Dionysus himself is aware. In the first half of the play, Dionysus seems to give Pentheus opportunity to reverse his course. To an extent, it seems a procedural exercise since Pentheus’ stubbornness prevents him from changing his views.

“DIONYSUS: You have a name that makes you ripe for disaster.”

Penthos in Greek means “grief.” Thus, Pentheus’ name encapsulates his story. Grief is evoked each time his name is uttered, and grief is the state in which he, his grandfather, and his aunts end the play. His name and its meaning can also be seen as reflecting the inevitability of his end and the futility of Dionysus’ test.

“He found a bull near the stall where he was leading me to be imprisoned, and tried to throw his ropes round this creature’s knees and hooves, panting with rage and biting his lips, while sweat dripped from his body. I sat quietly beside him, watching.”

In this excerpt, Dionysus explains how he deluded Pentheus into believing the bull he was struggling to capture was the foreigner from Lydia. The contrast between Pentheus’ frenzied state and Dionysus’ dispassionate observation highlights his duality. He is capable of driving mortals into madness but can also be portrayed as calm and gentle.

“I saw three bands of female worshipers, one of which Autonoe led, the second your mother, Agaue, and the third Ino.”

Scholars debate the extent to which the play reflects historical worship of Dionysus and the extent to which it influenced future ritual enactments. After Semele’s death, Cadmus has three surviving daughters: Ino, Autonoe, and Pentheus’ mother, Agaue. It is possible that the three bands of female worshippers are not only a consequence of Cadmus having three daughters but may also reflect ritual practices in historical Thebes and potentially other regions.

“DIONYSUS: Then put on a linen dress over your flesh.

PENTHEUS: What? Am I to give up being a man and rank as a woman?”

Pentheus initially both resists Dionysus’ suggestion that he disguise himself as a woman to spy on the Bacchants and seems titillated by the idea. Men and women occupied separate spaces in ancient Athens. The scene may reflect anxiety about and fascination with transgression of boundaries and the danger of doing so. Dionysus’ intention seems to be to humiliate Pentheus publicly, convincing him to walk through Thebes in women’s dress.

“I will go to dress Pentheus in the garments he will take with him to Hades’ realm, when he has been slaughtered by his mother’s hands. He shall learn that Dionysus, son of Zeus, is by turns a god most terrible and most gracious to mankind.”

Dionysus has now set in motion the events that will lead to Pentheus’ destruction, and this is reflected in his blunt statement that is not so much foreshadowing as it is prophecy. Dionysus’ insistence that he is both “terrible” and “most gracious” to mortals reflects his duality (150). Descriptions of the maenads peacefully engaged until he provokes them into a frenzied mob illustrates both his “terrible” and his “gracious” effects (150).

“DIONYSUS: The god accompanies us; he was hostile before, but now is in league with us; now you see what you should see.”

When Pentheus emerges from the palace in his maenad dress, he already appears to be under the god’s spell, claiming to be seeing double. This excerpt is Dionysus’ response to Pentheus. Presumably, the god is no longer “hostile” because his plan is underway (152). Previously, Pentheus did not recognize the god. Now, he is seeing what Dionysus provokes him to see, to bring his punishment to fulfillment.

“PENTHEUS: Take me through the midst of the land of Thebes; I am the only man among them to dare this deed.

DIONYSUS: You are the only one who bears the burden for this city, the only one. And so you face the trial you have deserved. Now follow; I will escort you there safely, but another will you back from there…

PENTHEUS: Yes, my mother!”

Dionysus and the audience know what Pentheus does not: that his daring will lead to his death. The exchange between him and Dionysus dramatically illustrates the limits of mortal knowledge. Pentheus has the ‘facts’ correct, but their meaning will be the reverse of what he expects. The “burden” he will bear for his city is death and the “trial he will undergo are suffering and death (153). His other family members will not be punished in the same way. His mother will bring him back to Thebes, but not in the way he anticipates.

“DIONYSUS: You are formidable, formidable, and formidable are the sufferings you will find there, such as will earn you renown that towers to heaven. Stretch out your hands, Agaue, and you, her sisters, daughters of Cadmus! I bring this young man to a great contest, whose winner shall be myself and the Roaring One. The rest the event will show.”

These are Dionysus’ words as he leads Pentheus off stage to Cithaeron, where he will meet his brutal end. The “renown” (kleos in Greek) that Pentheus will receive will, again, not be what he expects (154). He will be remembered for his violent death at his mother’s hands. The word for contest here in Greek is agon. Tragedies typically feature an agon: a formal debate between characters. Scholars have noted that Bacchae does not feature one.

“He threw the headband from his hair, so that the wretched Agaue might recognize him and stay her murderous hands. Touching her cheek, he spoke these words: ‘Mother, it is I, your son, Penthouse, whom you bore in the house of Echion! O Mother, pity me, and do not kill your son because of my offenses!”

In his final moments, Pentheus is released from his madness which amplifies his suffering because he knows what is happening to him. Similarly, at the end of the play, Cadmus reflects that Agaue’s madness shields her from suffering. Pentheus removing his headband evokes a familiar expression of grief by women in epic: Removal of the head covering signifies loss of control and disorder. Here, Pentheus removes his headband because he has regained control of himself and attempts to stave off his death, another reversal.

“One of them was carrying an arm, another a foot, still covered by its sandal; his ribs were stripped bare by the clawing nails, and every woman had blood on her hands, as she tossed Penthouse’ flesh in sport like a ball.”

The Messenger’s report is gruesomely explicit, describing the slaughter of Pentheus is all its shocking brutality. The simile of the ball intensifies the horror of what both Pentheus and the maenads have experienced. It is not a toy that is being tossed about but torn flesh, blood, and body parts. It is not an innocent game but the destruction of a son by his mother.

“Bacchants of Cadmus’ town, famous is the song of triumph you have fashioned, but its ending is lamentation and tears. A noble contest—to clasp a child with a hand that drips with his blood!”

After the Messenger delivers his report about events on Cithaeron, the Bacchants sing a brief song. The first half celebrates Dionysus. The passage above is from the second half of their song, in which celebration turns to lament. The Chorus’ attention has shifted to the survivors and the implications of the “contest” (agon) that pitted a mother against her own son.

“Oh, I grieve for these woes, first your own, and then mine! How he has destroyed us, the god, the king who is the Roaring One—justly but excessively, though he is our own kin!”

Here, Cadmus laments at the suffering Dionysus has brought to pass for his house of household: Agaue stands before him holding the head of her son and his grandson, while believing it to be that of a mountain lion. His words express still another reversal. At the beginning of the play, he encouraged Pentheus to embrace Dionysus’ divinity as a means of increasing the status of the whole family. Pentheus’ refusal has instead destroyed the whole family.

“If you remain to the end in this state, you will not deserve the name ‘fortunate’ but in your fancy you will have escaped misfortune.”

Cadmus’ reflections in the above passage comments on the inevitability of suffering that Agaue will experience as a result of opposing a god. Either she will remain in her maddened state, which has been disastrous, or she will emerge from her madness and realize that she has killed her own son. When mortals attempt to compete with gods, devastation ensues.

“But now I shall be an exile from my home, dishonoured—I, Cadmus the great, who sowed the Theban race and reaped that splendid harvest!”

This excerpt from Cadmus’ speech refers to the myth in which he founds the city of Thebes. Initially, Cadmus travels to the Greek mainland from Phoenician Tyre to search for his sister Europa. Following an oracle’s guidance, Cadmus stops at the site of the future city of Thebes. There, he kills a dragon and plants his teeth in the soil. A fierce tribe of men sprouts from the soil, some of whom become the inhabitants of the new city. His statement above reflects his dramatic status reversal, from revered founder to exile.