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The Bacchae | Introduction

Euripides was more than seventy years old and living in self-imposed exile in King Archelaus’s court in Macedonia when he created The Bacchae, just before his death in 406 B.C. The play was produced the following year at the City Dionysia in Athens, where it was awarded the prize for best tragedy. Ever since, The Bacchae has occupied a special place among Greek dramas and particularly among the eighteen surviving plays of Euripides. It was a favorite of the Romans in the centuries following the decline of the Greek Empire. It persisted through the ‘‘dark ages’’ of Medieval Europe and was among the first classical plays translated into vernacular languages during the Renaissance. Alongside Medea and Sophocles’s Oedipus the King (also known as Oedipus Rex) it is one of the most produced ancient plays of the twentieth century.

The simple plot of The Bacchae mixes history with myth to recount the story of the god Dionysus’s tumultuous arrival in Greece. As a relatively new god to the pantheon of Olympian deities, Dionysus, who represented the liberating spirit of wine and revelry and became the patron god of the theatre, was not immediately welcomed into the cities, homes, and temples of the Greeks. His early rites, originating in Thrace or Asia, included wild music and dancing, drunken orgies, and bloody sacrifice. Many sober, conservative Greeks, particularly the rulers of the many Greek city-states, feared and opposed the new religion.

Pentheus, the king of Thebes, stands as a symbol in the play for all those who opposed the cult of Dionysus and denied the erratic, emotional, uninhibited longings within all human beings. He confronts the god, faces him in a battle of wills, and is sent to his bloody death at the hands of his own mother and a frenzied band of maenads, female worshipers of the god.

In half a century of playwriting, Euripides tackled many difficult and controversial topics and often took unconventional stands, criticizing politicians, Greek society, and even the gods. The Bacchae, however, has proven frustratingly ambiguous in its treatment of gods and men. Writing the play in exile, while watching the glory of Athens disintegrate near the end of the Peloponnesian War, Euripides explores the disintegration of old systems of belief and the creation of new ones. He questions the boundaries between intellect and emotion, reality and imagination, reason and madness. At the end of it all, however, it is not quite clear whether the tragic events were meant to glorify the gods and reinforce their power and worship among the Greeks, or condemn the immortals for their fiendishness, their petty jealousies, and the myriad sufferings they inflict on humankind.

The Bacchae Summary

The setting of The Bacchae is the royal palace of Thebes, where Pentheus has succeeded his grandfather, Cadmus, as king. The play begins with a prologue spoken by Dionysus, the great god of wine and revelry himself. He announces that he has successfully spread his cult throughout Asia and returns now to the land of his mother, Semele, in order to teach the Greeks how to worship him through dancing, feasting, and sacrifices.

Some of the women of the city, including his own mother's sisters, have denied his status as a god, claiming he is simply a mortal and that the great Zeus killed his mother for lying about her lover. In threatening tones he describes how he has already driven the women of Thebes mad and sent them to the hills around the city, where they wear the animal skins of bacchants, priestesses of Dionysus, carry the ivy-entwined thyrsus (a symbol of his worship), and dance and sing hymns of praise to the new god. Now he is ready to turn his attention to King Pentheus, who opposes his worship and denies his existence.

To accomplish his task, he has come to Thebes disguised as a mortal and brought with him a chorus of his Asian followers. Together, he claims, they will try to persuade the Thebans to accept him into their rites of worship, even fight them if necessary. Then he will leave Thebes and spread his cult throughout Greece.

Dionysus leaves to join the bacchants on Mount Cithaeron as his Chorus enters to sing and dance for the people of Thebes. The Chorus' song explains the origins of the god and describes how the Greeks can become worshipers themselves. They sing about Dionysus's mother, Semele, who conceived the god with Zeus, ruler of all the immortals on Mt. Olympus; and how she was tricked into asking Zeus to reveal himself to her in all his godlike glory. Zeus complied, appearing to Semele as a lighting bolt and killing her instantly in his flame. Zeus himself plucked the unborn Dionysus from the fire and sealed him up in his thigh, later giving birth to his half-human, half-divine son.

To worship Dionysus, the Chorus sings, followers need only to crown themselves with ivy, wear deer skins lined with goat hair, carry the branches of oak and fir trees, delight in the bounty of the vine, and make ritual animal sacrifices. If they do, the land will overflow with natural beauty and riches—fawns and goats, wine and honey.

The women worshipers of Dionysus are interrupted in their revels by the arrival of Tiresias, the famous blind prophet. Tiresias has come to collect Cadmus; the two elders have rediscovered their youth in the worship of Dionysus, and they are headed to the hills around Thebes to dance and sing the god's praises. Before they can leave, however, King Pentheus returns to the city from a trip abroad. He heard about the flight of women from his city and hurried back to contain the madness. He proclaims the worship of Dionysus false and immoral, reveals he has already caught andjailed many of the mad women, and soon will have them all captured and safely imprisoned.

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