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The Bacchae of Euripedes
In general Dionysus is known as a god of Vegetation, especially the vine and the grape and the process of making wine, and the consumption of the liquor.But his being and nuture encompass far more as does his teachings. A good source for the profound meaning of his worship and its most universal implications can be found in Euripedes' tragedy the Bacchae ( The Bacchic Women)
At the opening of the play Dionysus comes in anger to Thebes; his mother's integrity has been on trial by her relatives, and the magnitute and power of this very godhead have been clallenged and repudiated; the sisters of Agave claim ( and Pentheus agrees) that she was impregnated by a mortal and that Damus was responsible for the story that Zeus was the father of her child. Because of this Zeus killed her with a blast of lightning. (1-63).
Dionysus : I, Dionysus, the son of Zeus,
have come to this land of the Thebans; my mother Semele, the daughetr of Dadmus, gave birth to me, delivered by
a fiery blast of lightning. I am here by the stream of Dirce and the waters of the Ismenus, not as a god but in
disguise as a man. I see here near the palace the shrine that commemorates my mother, who was struck dead by the
lightning blast, and the ruins of her home, smoldering yet from the flame of Zeus' fire that still lives-- the
everlasting evidence of Hera's outrage against my mother. I am pleased with Cadmus for setting this area off as
a holy sanctuary dedicated to his daughter, and I have enclosed it round about with fresh greenery of the clustering
vine.
I left the fertile plains of gold in Lydia and Phrygia and made my way across the sunny plateus of Persia, the
walled towns of Batria, the grim land of Medes, rich Arabia, and the entire coast of Asia Minor, where Hellenes
and non-hellenes, live together in teeming cities with beautiful towers. After having led my Bacchic dance and
establish my mysteries in these places, I have come to this city of the Hellenes first.
I have raised the Bacchic cry and clothes my follows in fawnskin and put into their hands the thyrus- my ivy-covered
shaft- here in Thebes first of all Greece, because my mother's sisters claim(at least of all they should) that
I, Dionysus, was not begotten of Zeus but that Semele became pregnant by some mortal man and through the clever
instigations of Cadmus laid blame on Zeus; they gloatingly proclaim Zeus because of her deception struck her dead.
And so these same sisters I have stung with madness, driving them from their homes, and they inhabit Mt, Cithaeron,
bereft of sense; I have compelled them to take up the symbols of my rituals, and all the women of Thebes-the entire
female population-I have driven from their homes in frenzy. together with the daughters of Cadmus they sit out
in the open air on rocks under the evergreens. For although it does wish to, this city must learn full well that
it is still not completely schooled in my Bacchic mysteries and I must defend the reputation of my mother Semele
by showing myself to mortals as the god whom she bore to Zeus.
Cadmus has handed over the prerogatives of his royal power to his daughters's son, Pentheus, who fights against
my godhead, thrusting me aside in sacrifices and never mentioning my name in prayers.
Therefor I shall show myself as a god to him and all the Thebans. And when I have settled matters here, I shall
move on to another place to reveal myself. If the city of Thebes in anger tries by force to divide the Bacchae
down the mountains, I shall join them in their madness as their war commander. This then is why I have assumed
a mortal form and changed myself into the likeness of a man.
O you women whom I have taken as companions of my journey from foreign lands, leaving the Lydian mountain Tmolus
far behind, come raise the tambourines, invented by the great mother Rhea, and by me, and native to the land of
Phrygia.
Come and surround the royal palace of Pentheus and beat out your din so that the city of Cadmus may see. I will
go to my Baccha on the slopes of Cithaeron, where they are, and join with them in theri dances.
(64-167 is the Chorus that reveals the celebration of their gods mysteries with a very mystic aura.
Chorus:
Leaving Asia and holy Mt. Tmolus, we run
in sweet pain and lovely weariness with estatic Bacchic cries in the wake of the roaring god Dionysus. Let everyone,
indoors or out, keep his respectful distance and hold his tongue in sacred silence as we sing the appointed hymn
to Bacchus.
Happy is the one who blessed with the knowledge of the divine mysteries, leads a life of ritual purity and joins
the holy group of revelers, heart and soul, as they honor their god Bacchus in the mountains with holy ceremonies
of purification. He participates in mysteries ordained by the great mother, Cybele herself, as he follows his god
Dionysus, brandishing a thyrsus.
Run, run, Bacchae, bringing the roaring god, Dionysus, son of a god, out of the Phrygian mountains to the spacious
streets of hellas. Once his mother carried him in her womb, the lightning bolt flew from the hand of Zeus and she
brought the child forth prematurely with the pains of a labor forced on her too soon, and she gave her life up
in a fiery blast. Immediately Zeus, the son of Cronus, took up the child and enclosed him in the secret recess
of his thigh with fastenings of gold, and hid him from Hera thus in a second womb.
When the Fates had so decreed, Zeus bore the bull-horned god and wreathed his head with a crown of serpents, and
so the Maenads hunt and catch wild snakes and twine them in their hair.
O, Thebes, crown yourself with ivy, burst forth luxuriant in verdant leaves and lovely berries, join the Bacchic
frenzy with branches torn from leaves of oak or fir and consecrate your cloak of dappled fawnskin with white tufts
of purest wool. Be reverent with the violent powers of the thyrsus. Straightway the whole land will dance its way(
whoever leads the sacred group represents the roaring god himself) to the mountain, to the mountain where the crowd
of women waits, driven in their labors at the loom by the maddening sting of Dionysus.
O secret chamber on Crete, holy cavern where Zeus was born, crested helmets invented this drum of hide stretched
tight for us and breath Phrygian flutes, and they put it into the land of the mother Rhea, so that she might beat
an accompaniment to the cries of her Bacchic women. the satyrs in their frenzy took up the drum from the mother
goddess and added it to the music of their dances during the festivities in which Dionysus delights.
How sweet it is in the mountains when, out of the rushing throng, the priest of the roaring god falls to the ground
in his quest for blood and with a joyful cry devours the raw flesh of the slaughtered goat. The plain flows with
milk and wine and the nectar of bees; but the Bacchic celebrant runs on, brandishing his pine torch, and the flame
streams behind with smoke as sweet as Syrian frankincense. He urges on the wandering band with shouts and renews
their frenzied dancing, and his delight locks toss in the breeze. Amid the the frantic shouts is heard his thunderous
cry:"Run, run Bacchae, you the pride of Tmolus with its streams of gold. Celebrate the god Dionysus on yuor
thundering drums, honoring thie deity of joy with phrygian cries and shouts of ecstasy, while the melodious and
holy flute sounds its sacred accompaniment as you throng, to the mountain, to the mountain."
Ever Bacchanal runs and leaps in joy, just like a foal that frisks beside her mother in pasture.
Tiresias : Who attends the gate? Summon Cadmus from the house, the son of Agenor, who came from Sidonia and fortified
the city of Thebans. Let someone go an announce that Tiresias wants to see him. He already knows for what reason
I have come. I made an agreement with him, even though I am old and he is even older, to make myself a thyrus,
wear a fawnskin, and a crown my head with shoots of ivy.
Cadmus: My dearest friend, I knew your voice from inside
the palace and reconized the wise words of a wise man. I have come ready with the paraphernalia of the god. For
since Dionysis, who has revealed himself to men as a god, is the son of my daughter, I must do everything to magnify
his greatness. Where should we go to join the others in the dance, shaking our grey heads in ecstasy? Tell me,
old man, Tiresias, for you are old too and wise. I shall never grow tired by night or day as I strike the ground
with my thursus. It will be a sweet pleasure to forget that we are old
Tiresias: You experience the same sensations as I do, for I feel young again and shall attempt to dance.
Cadmus: Shall we not proceed to the mountains by chariot?
Tiresias: No, the god would not have as appropriate honor.
Cadmus: I will lead the way for you, two old men together.
Tiresias: The god will lead the two of us there without any difficulty.
Cadmus: Are we to be the only men of the city to dance in honor of Bacchus?
Tiresias: We are the only ones who think the way one should; the others are wrong and perverse.
Cadmus: We delay too long; give me your hand.
Tiresias: Here it is, take hold and join our hands together.
Cadmus: Being a mere mortal, I am not scornful of the gods.
Tiresias: About the gods we have no new wise speculations. The ancestral beliefs which we hold are as old as time,
and they cannot be destroyed by any argunebt or clever sublety invented by profound minds. How could I gelp being
ashamed, one will ask, as I am about to join in the dance at my age, with an ivy wreath on my head? The god does
not discriminate whether young or old must dance in his honor, but he desires to be esteemed by all alike and wishes
his glory to be magnified, making no distinctions whatsoever.
Cadmus: Since you are blind, Tiresias, I shall be a prophet
for you, and tell you what I see. Pentheus, son of Echion, to whom I have given my royal power in Thebes, comes
in haste to this palace. How excited he is; what news has he to tell us?
Pentheus: Although I happened to have been away from Thebes, I have heard of the new evils that beset the city;
the women have abandoned our homes on the pretense of Bacchis rites, and gad about on the dark mountainside honoring
by their dances the new god, Sionysis, whoever he is, Bowls full of wine stand in the midst of each group, and
they sneak away one by one to solitary places where they satisfy the lust of males. Their pretext is that they
are Maenad Priestesses, but they put Aphrodite ahead of Bacchus. All those I have caught are kept safe with their
hands tied by gaurds in the state prison. The others, who still roam on the mountain, I shall hunt out, including
my own mother, Agave, and her sisters, Ino, Autonoe, the mother of Actaeon. And when I have bound them fast in
iron chains, I shall soon put an end to this evil Bacchism.
They say too that a stranger has come here from Lydia, some wizard or sorcerer, with scented hair and golden curls,
who has the wine-dark charms of Aphrodite in his eyes. He spends both night and day in the company of young girls,
enticing them with his Bacchic mysteries. If I catch him here in my palace, I'll cut off his head and puty a stop
to his thyrus-ounding and head tossing. That fellow is the one who claims Dionysus is a god, who was once swen
up in the thigh of Zeus, when he was in fact destroyed by the fiery blast of lightning along with his mother, because
she lied and said that ZEus had been her husband. Whoever this stranger may be, does he not deserve to hang for
such hubris?
But here is another miracle-- I see the prophet Tiresias in a dappled fawnskin, and my mother's father, a very
funny sight, playing the Bacchant with a wand of Fennel reed. I refuse. sir, to stand by and see you behave so
senselessly in your old age. You are my gradfather; won't you toss away your garland of ivy and rid your hand of
the thyrsus?
You persuaded him, Tiresias. Why? By introducing this new divinity among mankind do you hope that he will afford
you an additional source of income from your omens and your sacrifices? If it were not for your grey hairs, you
would not escape being bound and imprisoned along with the Bacchae for initiating evil rites.
As far as women are concerned, I maintain that whenever the gleam of wine is in their feasts, there can be nothing
further that is wholesome in their ceremonies.
Chorus: What sacrilege, sir! Do you not have respect for the gods and Cadmus, who sowed the seeds from which the
earth-born men arose; are you the son of Echion, who was one of them, brining shame on your own family?
Tiresias: Whenever a wise man takes a good theme for his argument, it is no great task to speak well. You seem
to be a man of intelligence from the glibness of your tongue, but there is no good sense in your words. A headstrong
man who is powerful and eloquent proves to be a bad citizen because he is wanting in intelligence.
This new divinity you laugh at -- I could not begin to tell you how great he will become throughout Hellas. For,
young man, there are two divinites who are foremost among mankind: the goddess Demeter ( she is the earth, call
her whatever name you wish), who provides mortals with the nourishment of dry and solid food; and Dionyssus, the
sone of Semele, who comes next who discovered and brought to men the moist aaand liquid drink of the grape, as
a counterpart to the food of Demeter, His blessing releases the suifferung mortals from their pain when they take
theri fill of the juice of the vine, he gives them sleep aand makes them forget their daily troubles, and they
have no other cure for their cares. He, being a god, is poured in libation to the gods, and so through him mankind
recieves all good things.
Do you laugh at the legend of this god was sewen up in the thigh of Zeus? I shall instruct you in the basic truths,
when Zeus snatched Dionysis out of the fiery lightning and brought the infant to Olympus as a god, Hera wished
to throw him out of heaven, but Zeus opposed her and devised a plan that was worthy of a god. He broke off a portion
of the sky that surrounds the earth and formed a likeness of the child and gave it to Hera. Now the word for hostage
(homeros) and the word thigh (meros) are similar, and so men confused the two words; and instead of telling how
the likeness of the god was given as a hostage to Hera, they invented the story about Zeus' thigh.
And this god is a prophet, for Bacchic frenzy and madness hold a great deal of prophetic power. Whenever the god
enters wholly into a person's body, he makes the one possessed capable of fortelling the future. This god also
shares a portion of the power of Ares, for when an an army, in battle dress in formation, flees through fear before
ever lifting a spear, this too is a madness that comes from Dionysus. Furthermore, some day you will see him on
the rocks of Delphi, leaping over the plateau between the two mountain peaks amid torches, brandishing and striking
the Bacchic wand, a great god throughout Hellas.
Pentheus, beleive me,; do not be overly confident that force is all powerful in human affairs, and do not think
that you are wise when that attitude that you hold is sick. Recieve the god into the city, pour him libations,
crown your head, and celebrate his worship.
More to come, as this is being typed out as of present as a special project of the sub creators.