Definitely one of the more brutal Greek tragedies.

After reading this one and Medea, I get the impression that if Euripides were alive today he would be making horror movies.

this one really has it all. homoerotic rival foil characters. fanatic fevered bacchic maenad girls' night. dismemberment

In disguise, Dionysus returns to the land of his birth, Thebes. He is angry at the women of Thebes for denying him his rights of worship and sends them all mad. The women become his Bacchantes and run into the forest to revel in Dionysus's ownership. They become drunk with wine and dance in wild displays of Dionysian rituals. He is especially angry with the family of Cadmus and seeks their destruction.
The chaste and prudish King of Thebes, Pentheus, is furious when he returns to discover that the women, including his mother, have gone into the forest. His grandfather, Cadmus, and the seer, Tiresias, also decide to join the women in the woods, wisely realizing the danger of going against the gods' wishes.
Pentheus orders the destruction of Tiresias' shrine to restore order, and he imprisons Dionysus in disguise. The women, however, have not been able to overcome. So, after Dionysus regains his freedom, God convinces Pentheus to dress as a woman and enter the forest as one of the Bacchantes to go among them in disguise, find his mother, and bring her back to the city.
After dressing as one of the female Bacchantes, Pentheus enters the forest and finds the women's dwelling place. However, Dionysus achieves his ultimate revenge by driving the women into their madness to think that Pentheus is a wild beast. At Pentheus' mother's insistence, the women fall upon him and tear him to pieces. Agave, his mother, holds Pentheus' head in her hands, imagining it as a wild beast, and Dionysus' revenge is complete.
After the horrible act, Dionysus releases the women from their madness, and Agave realizes she has destroyed her son. Dionysus reveals himself as the God and tells the former Bacchantes that he had Pentheus killed because he refused to honor and worship him and thus put himself against the gods' will.
Agave and Cadmus protest the dreadful punishment bestowed on Pentheus and Cadmus' family, who will be exiled.

,,Када ћу у свеноћном бдењу
повести коло босонога,
вијорити русим косама,
поигравати несташно к'о лане
по зеленим ливадама,
када умакне ловцу, мрежама
и нахушканим псима?"

Quando penso a questa tragedia penso solo a Dioniso. E’ lui “ Le Baccanti”. Sullo sfondo in cui si muovono le sue donne, le menadi, rese folli da lui, è Dioniso che tira le fila del dramma. E’ lui che rifiutato dagli uomini come essere divino scaglia la sua furia cieca contro di loro, contro la sua stessa famiglia, fino a permettere che la madre uccida il figlio Penteo.
E’ la tragedia che segue il suo corso al ritmo di tamburelli e flauti, mentre il grido del dio “ Euoè” riecheggia per tutta la montagna fra i balli dei satiri e delle baccanti volteggianti in preda al delirio.
E’ la hybris greca che acceca Penteo e lo castiga, lui che ha negato la natura divina di Dioniso. Non ci sono eroi positivi qui. Dioniso e Penteo si scagliano l’uno contro l’altro accecati dalla vendetta. Forse solo Tiresia riconosce ciò che è giusto fare: coltivare saggezza e venerare gli dei e per questo si piega ad onorare un dio in cui poco crede. Un dramma che avvicina l’uomo al sacrificio da rendere al dio, una divinità che qui è orgoglio e violenza espresse al suo massimo grado. Qui Dioniso non è il dio della vite che rimedia alle fatiche dell’uomo, lo sollazza e lo solleva dalle sue pene, qui è cattiveria e vendetta.

Reading Daisy Dunn’s Not Far from Brideshead reminded me of E. R. Dodds’ superb edition of Euripides’ Bacchae and revived my desire to revive my long dormant Greek. Along with the aid of the Perseus Word Study app and Arrowsmith’s translation, I’ve read The Bacchae again, this time the entire Greek text. And what a splendid vade mecum Dodds’ commentary has been! In my days of teaching Greek tragedy in translation I loved presenting The Bacchae with its chorus of wild women from Asia to students as a gripping (and ripping) horror show, with the sparagmos and the omophagos of Pentheus literally at the hands of his mother and aunts, but I’d not realised the maenads would eat the babies they snatched from the village and was unaware that Agave’s recovery of her senses paralleled a Siberian shaman’s awakening from a trance. Reading Greek also took me back in memory to that marvellous decade in Austin at the University of Texas when for a short time Arrowsmith, along with Carne-ross, Herington, and Sullivan (my Latin tutor) made the Classics a vital area of contemporary literary culture. Of course it didn’t last and by the next decade it was all blown to the winds, but for one brief decade Classical studies in Austin seemed like a very heaven.

Very enjoyable. The whole story is seen as a tragedy, but I, personally, had a lot of fun.

I wonder why Nietzsche, who drank only water and milk in his lifetime, was influenced by a god of wine. On the contrary, Dyonisus is not a god who Socrates could respect, because his actions challenge Socrates' beliefs. And Socrates had no problem with alcohol. Who said that birds of a feather flock together ?

“Truth is an unbearable thing”

Dionis (Bahus), bog vina i pozorišta. Njemu u čast antički Atinjani dva puta godišnje održavaju festivale tragedije i komedije. Predstave za 17.000 gledalaca kreću od jutra, svaki dan po 3 tragedije i jedna komedija, 4 dana zaredom. Sad, ako je bilo vina koliko i teatra, da li su se gledaoci dovoljno opustili da se i sami uključuju u predstave?

Uglavnom, Dionis, Zevsovo dete, dolazi u Grčku da uspostavi svoju religiju, nakon što je to uspeo u Aziji.
"Pa sam po celoj Aziji
orgije moje nametnuo i kult učvrstio.
Bog sam po liku i obličju.
Tebu sam prvu od svih u Grčkoj izabrao
da je svojoj orgijskoj pesmi potčinim.
Grad mora - protiv svoje volje -
bahanalije da prihvati."

Pentej (zahvaljujući večito čudnim rodbinskim vezama starih Grka, shvataš da mu je to brat od tetke) mu to ne dozvoljava, želi da spreči moralnu propast koju promovišu Dionisove bahanalije. Ali, Pentej nije tu, i Dionis za to vreme zaludi žene Tebe. Njegove bahantkinje odaju počast prirodi ili organizuju orgije, zavisi koga pitaš, a Pentej po povratku uzvikuje: "Vratiću robinje razbojima."

Da skratim i ovako kratku priču, dolazi do sukoba, a nama je jasno ko će izvući deblji kraj. Međutim, najtragičnija osoba ni ovaj put nije onaj koji gubi glavu (bukvalno), već ona koja ostaje za njim (Pentejeva majka Agave).

Iako Euripid odaje počast Dionisu, dvanaestom bogu koji je našao mesto na Olimpu, jasno je da se ovde radi o sukobu varvarske religije i kulture sa grčkom. Nije Dionis ovde neki pozitivac - bahanalije, orgije, nezadrživo divljanje njegovih sledbenika - s druge strane tu je lepota vina, koje "zaustavlja bol, od tuge leči nesrećne, poklanja blaženi san, daje zaborav, a i najveći je lek od jada i podstrekač ratnog elana."

Sviđa mi se još jedan jak ženski lik, posle sjajnih Klitemnestre i Antigone. Stalno nas uče o ograničenom uticaju žena u antičko vreme - čitajući Eshila, Sofokla i Euripida, žene ne zvuče toliko bespomoćno.

Festival grčke tragedije (za jednog gledaoca)
Euripid prvi put izlazi na pozornicu, dočekan ovacijama tog jednog prisutnog. Ako su Eshil i Sofokle moderna grčke tragegije, Euripid je post-moderna, kažu. Nisu mi Bahantkinje najomiljenija tragedija, ali dopada mi se Dionis, taj autsajder među bogovima, a i deo kada majka u bunilu kida sina na delove, može da se meri sa... Pa, kud ćeš tragičnije od toga?

1. Car Edip (Sofokle)
2. Agamemnon (Eshil)
3. Antigona (Sofokle)
4. Eumenides (Eshil)
5. Bahantkinje (Euripid)
6. The Libation Bearers (Pokajnice - Eshil)
7. Oedipus at Colonus (Sofokle)

deserved

A dark and bloody play about the wraith of the gods and the inability of man to fully suppress his more bestial appetites. This is the sort of stuff I want to write!

....no, I don't know why Elvis's mugshot is on the cover either.