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winnietingguo
Dionysus14b.ppt
Boundary compressor, cross dresser
(chapter 8; 24:05)
Bacchae
(Euripides)
Peloponnesian War
Bachus=Dionysos
Semele
Cadmus&Tiresias
Pentheus
Agave
*
Theatre of Dionysus at Athens: Origin of Drama
*
Euripides’ Bacchae
“I reached the salt sea, lined by towered
cities thronged with Greeks and men
of other races, all together, teaching
my dances, establishing my rites, to
make these lands known to my divinity”
MYSTERY CULT (inscription):
“It is not permitted that someone should
lie here who has not been made to celebrate
as a bacchos.”
Setting: Thebes
*
Theban royal family tree
*
Dionysos walks on stage with a
chorus of Asian women
*
Cadmus (line 180):
“But here I am, dressed in the costume of the god,
prepared to go. Insofar as we are able, Tiresias,
we must do honor to this god, for he was born my
daughter’s son, who has been revealed to men, the
god, Dionysus. Where shall we go, where shall we
tread the dance, tossing our white heads in the
dances of the god… Surely I could dance night and
day, untiringly beating the earth with my thyrsus!
How sweet it is to forget my old age.”
*
Tiresias:
“They tell me, right in the midst of their
rites, the keep the wine bowls constantly
refilled; first one, then another woman
sneaks off to the woods, to the nest she
serves for some lust fellow”
“I’ll stop that showoff tossing his hair by
chopping off his pretty head from his body”
Tiresias (line 285):
“You sneer, do you, at the story that Dionysus was
sewed into the thigh of Zeus? Let me teach you
what that really means. When Zeus rescued
from the thunderbolt his infant son, he brought
him to Olympus. Hera, however, plotted to hurl
the child down. Zeus, breaking off a fragment of
the ether, molded from it a dummy Dionysus.
This he showed to Hera, but with time men
garbled the word and said that Dionysus had been
sewed into the thigh of Zeus.”
*
Historical Allegory (Euhemerus, ca. 300 B.C.):
According to Cadmus, Aktaion punished because
he boasted that he was a better hunter than Artemis
*
Pentheus
interogates
Dionysos
*
Pentheus (line 470):
“Tell me the benefits that those who know your
mysteries enjoy.
Dionusus: I am forbidden to say. But they are
worth knowing.
P: Your answers are designed to make me curious.
D. No, our mysteries abhor an unbelieving man.
You say you saw the god. What form?
Whatever form he wished, the choice was his,
not mine.
P: You evade the question.
D. Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
*
More cat and mouse games (line 500):
D.: I give you sober warning, fools: place no chains on me
P.: But I say: chain him, I am the stronger here.
- You do not know the limits of your strength
You do not know what you do. You do not know
who you are.
- I am Pentheus, the son of Echion and Agave.
D. Pentheus: you shall repent the name.
*
*
*
[Breasts swollen with milk,
new mothers who had left their babies behind at home
nestled gazelles and young wolves in their arms,
suckling them. Then they crowned their hair with leaves,
ivy and oak and flowering bryony. One woman
struck her thyrsus against a rock and a fountain
of cool water came bubbling up. Another drove
her fennel into the ground, and where it struck the earth,
at the touch of god, a spring of wine poured out.
Those who wanted milk scratched at the soil
with bare fingers and the white milk came welling up.
Pure honey spurted, streaming, from their wands.
If you had been there and seen these wonders for yourself,
you would have gone down on your knees and prayed
to the god you now deny.
Garden of the Hesperides
*
*
[carried up by their own speed, they flew like birds
across the spreading fields along Asopus’ stream
where most of all the ground is good for harvesting.
Like invaders they swooped on Hysiae
and on Erythrae in the foothills of Cithaeron.
Everything in sight they pillaged and destroyed.
They snatched the children from their homes. And when
they piled their plunder on their backs, it stayed in place,
untied. Nothing, neither bronze nor iron,
fell to the dark earth. Flames flickered
in their curls and did not burn them. Then the villagers
furious at what the women did, took to arms.
And there, sire, was something terrible to see.
For the men’s spears were pointed and sharp, and yet
drew no blood, whereas the wands the women threw
inflicted wounds. And then the men ran,
routed by women! Some god, I say, was with them.]
Maenads and Satyrs
*
*
D.: (line 810): Wait, would you like to see their
revels on the mountains.
I would pay a great sum to see that sight.
Why are you so passionately curious?
Of course, I would be sorry to see them
drunk.
But for all your sorrow, you would love to see
them, right?
Pentheus gets wig with long curls, a woman’s
dress, thyrsus and fawn skin.
*
Dionysos to Pentheus:
“You and you alone will suffer for your
city. A great ordeal awaits you, but
you are worthy of your fate.”
- (line 915) I seem to see two suns blazing
in the heavens. And now two Thebes, two cities
and each with seven gates. And you--you are a
bull who walks before me there. Horns have
sprouted from your head. Have you always
been a beast.
*
*
[Breasts swollen with milk,
new mothers who had left their babies behind at home
nestled gazelles and young wolves in their arms,
suckling them. Then they crowned their hair with leaves,
ivy and oak and flowering bryony. One woman
struck her thyrsus against a rock and a fountain
of cool water came bubbling up. Another drove
her fennel into the ground, and where it struck the earth,
at the touch of god, a spring of wine poured out.
Those who wanted milk scratched at the soil
with bare fingers and the white milk came welling up.
Pure honey spurted, streaming, from their wands.
If you had been there and seen these wonders for yourself,
you would have gone down on your knees and prayed
to the god you now deny.
[Breasts swollen with milk,
new mothers who had left their babies behind at home
nestled gazelles and young wolves in their arms,
suckling them. Then they crowned their hair with leaves,
ivy and oak and flowering bryony. One woman
struck her thyrsus against a rock and a fountain
of cool water came bubbling up. Another drove
her fennel into the ground, and where it struck the earth,
at the touch of god, a spring of wine poured out.
Those who wanted milk scratched at the soil
with bare fingers and the white milk came welling up.
Pure honey spurted, streaming, from their wands.
If you had been there and seen these wonders for yourself,
you would have gone down on your knees and prayed
to the god you now deny.
[carried up by their own speed, they flew like birds
across the spreading fields along Asopus’ stream
where most of all the ground is good for harvesting.
Like invaders they swooped on Hysiae
and on Erythrae in the foothills of Cithaeron.
Everything in sight they pillaged and destroyed.
They snatched the children from their homes. And when
they piled their plunder on their backs, it stayed in place,
untied. Nothing, neither bronze nor iron,
fell to the dark earth. Flames flickered
in their curls and did not burn them. Then the villagers
furious at what the women did, took to arms.
And there, sire, was something terrible to see.
For the men’s spears were pointed and sharp, and yet
drew no blood, whereas the wands the women threw
inflicted wounds. And then the men ran,
routed by women! Some god, I say, was with them.]
[carried up by their own speed, they flew like birds
across the spreading fields along Asopus’ stream
where most of all the ground is good for harvesting.
Like invaders they swooped on Hysiae
and on Erythrae in the foothills of Cithaeron.
Everything in sight they pillaged and destroyed.
They snatched the children from their homes. And when
they piled their plunder on their backs, it stayed in place,
untied. Nothing, neither bron ze nor iron,
fell to the dark earth. Flames flickered
in their curls and did not burn them. Then the villagers
furious at what the women did, took to arms.
And there, sire, was something terrible to see.
For the men’s spears were pointed and sharp, and yet
drew no blood, whereas the wands the women threw
inflicted wounds. And then the men ran,
routed by women! Some god, I say, wa s with them.]
