"Quando falta o bom-senso ao homem audaz e simultaneamente poderoso e hábil na palavra, ele torna-se um cidadão perigoso."
28


Com obras destas, fica difícil escolher um tragediógrafo de eleição. Os três grandes poetas gregos autores de tragédias (Ésquilo, Sófocles, Eurípides) competem belamente, não haja dúvida. Já quase desisto da insistência de que o primeiro deles é realmente o melhor... quase.

Agora a parte gira.

De três anos à boleia em Clássicas, o latim não resistiu lá muito bem, mas isto, curiosamente, ficou:

As Grandes Dionísias, celebravam-se no início da primavera e duravam vários dias durante os quais o público participava em sacrifícios, cerimónias cívicas (como homenagens fúnebres, militares etc.) e, claro, assistia à representação teatral.
Um dia estava reservado à comédia e três à tragédia (com a representação de 3 tragédias + 1 drama satírico).

E quem era este público?
Certamente homens (embora as mulheres, garantidamente, participassem nos primeiros dias do festival para as procissões e sacrifícios) e certamente aliados da Liga de Delos (uma das coligações entre cidades aliadas durante a guerra aos persas - a par da Liga do Peloponeso -, liderada por Atenas. Estas ligas representavam o expoente máximo da democracia grega - gorado pela guerra, claro, do Peloponeso.

De entre as representações que aí tomavam lugar, nas Dionísias, sabemos hoje, ironicamente, que muito poucas obedeciam à temática dionisíaca. Isto talvez se explique - entre várias outras razões de origem esotérica - pelo facto do dionisismo ser um culto flagrantemente feminino. Ora pois, a cultura helénica assentava fortemente na fórmula do patriarcado, logo, em valores misóginos.*

Em As Bacantes, Eurípides - frequente concorrente no festival - retoma a tragédia mítica e traz-nos um rei (Penteu) derrotado pela força do deus (Baco), e um traçado geral da forma como o homem soberano encara a postura, o papel e o "potencial" da mulher ateniense (diga-se desde já que, quando as mulheres são retratadas como Ménades - sacerdotisas bárbaras de Baco - a despedaçar homens e animais em êxtases orgiásticos, o suposto potencial não é propriamente simpático...).

À parte isso, não deixa de ser curiosa a escolha de Eurípides por várias outras razões, entre elas a forma como escolhe apresentar os deuses e os homens - neste caso, o deus e o homem:

Desde logo, porque, para um grego, existem três categorias de seres vivos:

Animais;
Humanos;
Mortais.

Estes últimos obedecem, por ordem, a estas qualidades:

Racional e mortal;
Racional e imortal.

Espantosamente, nem Penteu nem Baco parecem honrar o primeiro desses atributos. Falta a ambos, desde logo, aquilo a que um ateniense chamaria de aretê (virtude essencial para a formação de um herói, por exemplo) e que consistia no respeito pelos valores morais da civilização. Neste caso, e para Penteu, o respeito pelos deuses; para Baco, o respeito pelo inimigo.

Assim, e porque a ambos manca essa qualidade, o rei desrespeita o deus e o deus vinga-se no rei (e na família toda que isto é uma tragédia que se preza!)

Ficam os reis desde já avisados, e contra isto pouco há a dizer:


"Infinitas são as manifestações da vontade divina; infinitos os acontecimentos que os deuses desencadeiam contra o que tinhamos previsto. Os que esperamos, esses não se realizam, os que não esperamos, um deus lhes abre o caminho."
91


Esta peça fez Eurípides subir na minha consideração ao ponto de ficar envergonhada pelas vezes que já disse não gostar da sua Medeia.
É assim bom!





* sobre esta temática, e os desafios contemporâneos de interpretação e encenação, existem vários estudos muito interessantes, nomeadamente: "Rebel Women, Staging Ancient Greek Drama Today", editado por John Dillon and S. E.Wilmer

A farla da padrone in questa tragedia sono: la follia e il delirio dettate dall'estasi, la brutalità e il misticismo. La storia di Penteo risulta oltremodo cupa e suggestiva, perciò la consiglio caldamente ai cultori del genere. Non attribuisco il massimo della valutazione perché trovo che questo dramma sia leggermente sottotono paragonato al capolavoro euripideo: Medea.

Dal libro:

n  n    Il tempo è breve;
chi insegue l'immenso
perde l'attimo presente.n  n

we love unhinged women

Χωρίς λόγια. Μετάφραση Βάρναλη.

essentially copied straight from my very incoherent email to a friend and not at all edited for clarity, grammar or sense:

holy shit. this translation. this--holy shit. i'm wholly overcome, i read it straight through on the bus to and from my grandmother's tonight, and i can't--the LANGUAGE. the choruses. the dialogue of the theatrical parts that are so well translated that you understand exactly what is happening and i just. oh god. and then martha nussbaum wrote the introduction about balancing the worship of apollo and dionysus and what that means and how that is depicted in the play and now i'm basically dead of feelings. basically.

like. "oh will i, sometime, in the all-night dances, dance again, barefoot, rapt, again, in Bacchus, all in Bacchus again?

Will I throw my bared throat back, to the cool night back, the way, oh, in the green joys of the meadow, the way a fawn frisks, leaps, throws itself--"

the chorus is ALL THIS INCREDIBLE FLOW. and it's formatted beautifully, in a way that is hard to recreate here, really, but you just have to trust me that the LINE BREAKS are incredible i am in raptures over the line breaks. and dionysus. and nussbaum's introduction.

READ IT.

According to Lilly this is required reading for The Secret History, so thanks for the recc.

Good first read of the year, easier to read than I expected, maybe 2023 is the year I read lots of Greek plays?

Müthiş bir çeviri..
Ama o kadar..
Yunan tragedyası diye başlayıp şu kısacık kitabı zor bitirdim gerçekten..
Sanırım sevemiyorum bu Yunan Mitolojisini ya da o döneme ait eserleri..
Büyük bir heves ve istekle başlayıp da zorla biten bir kitap oldu maalesef..

The Ancient Greeks had raves
2 May 2013

tWe actually don't have a complete copy of this play though the edition that I read attempts to reconstruct the missing sections (which is mostly at the end) because, as they say, this is a popular play that is regularly performed. This in itself is a strange statement since I have never seen it performed (in fact I have only ever seen one Greek play performed, and that was Oedipus Tyrannous and that was by an amateur theatre group). Mind you, Greek plays tend to be short, meaning that they last generally only as long as about a third of a Shakespeare play (though when they were performed in ancient times, it would usually be along with three others plays).

tThe Bacchae is about change and about the resistance to change and how our attempts to resist change is generally futile. Mind you it is a tragedy and it does have a pretty bloody ending (in that a number of the main characters end up dead, though the progenitor of change, Dionysus, doesn't, but then again he is a god). There are two things that do strike me about this play, the first being how there are reflections of Christianity in it, particularly early Christianity, and the second involves reflections of the modern rave culture. However, before I go into exploring those two aspects of the play I should give a bit of a background so you may understand where I am coming from.

tThe cult of Dionysus was a rather new cult to appear in Ancient Greece, as far as the gods are concerned, and he was not one of the traditional gods of the pantheon. He apparently was introduced through migrations from the north, particularly through Thrace. The cult itself was a mystery cult, meaning that the rituals and celebrations tended to be conducted behind closed doors (and this comes out in the Bacchae, particularly since the main worshippers were women). The celebrations (as also comes out in the Bacchae) generally involved drunken revelries out in the bush.

tThe Bacchae itself is set in the mythical period of Ancient Greece in the city of Thebes. The king of Thebes, Penthius, is concerned about this new cult that has appeared that is seducing all of the women into joining. As such he goes out of his way to attempt to put an end to it, including arresting Dionysus. It is interesting that Dionysus, unlike the gods in many of the other Greek plays, has a major role. Most of the gods in Greek drama tend to only come in at the beginning or the end, either to provide an introduction, or to intervene in a hopeless situation. However Dionysus is one of the major characters in this play.

tAnyway Dionysius, in an attempt to defend his cult (and one wonders if his portrayal here is similar to the charismatic cult leaders that we have seen throughout history) convinces Pentheus to spy on one of the celebrations. However, in a drunken haze, the women in the midst of their celebration mistake Pentheus for an mountain goat, capture him, and tear him to pieces. However, the women do not get away scot free as they are exiled for, well, murder, despite their arguments that they were not in control of their faculties at the time.

tThe idea of the new cult is something that societies have faced throughout time, and it goes to show that the Roman persecution of Christianity is something that is not limited to that particular religion at that particular time. It is interesting to note that in the play Pentheus does not believe that Dionysus is a god, despite certain actions (such as blowing up his palace) that suggest otherwise. Further, the ignorance of the bacchic rites is also similar to Roman ignorance of certain Christian rites, such as the Lord's Supper.

tSome have even suggested that Dionysus is a Christ figure, and the introduction to the play even has some similarities with the virgin birth. For instance, Dionysus is born of a woman but has Zeus as his father (though unlike Christianity, where the term 'conceived of the Holy Spirit' does not indicate a sexual union between God and Mary, where it is clear from this play that there was a sexual union between Zeus and Dionysus' mother, though this can be put down to our failure to understand, or accept, the possibility that conception can occur outside of sexual union, though these days this is changing). More interesting is that Dionysus mother is accused of extra-marital sex, which Mary also faced. Another interesting note is that after Dionysus' birth, Zeus hides him to protect him from being killed by a jealous Hera, which has reflections in the Christ story in that Jesus was spirited off to Egypt to protect himself from the murderous rampages of a jealous king.

tSome might suggest that I am drawing some rather tenuous examples here, but I would argue otherwise. One of the reasons is generally because of the fear of Christians to look outside the box. We are more than happy to accept the Bible, but to consider anything outside of that, particularly with regards to pagan representations (or could they be prophecies) of the Christ, can open up to many probabilities. I guess it has to do with the conservative bent that most Christians have, in that what has been done over hundreds of years has proven itself and anything that is new can be dangerous or even destructive. However, remember what Paul writes in the book of Thessalonians: test everything, hold onto what is good, and reject what is bad. He did not say 'reject everything' but to 'test everything' which includes age old traditions.

tI want to finish off with a comment on the modern rave scene. Okay, the idea of the outdoor rave out in the bush rose out of Britian where, in an attempt to stamp out drug use, the government made raves themselves illegal. However, it could also be suggested that the reason the mystery cults of ancient Greece met out in the bush was because they were also illegal. However (particularly since I have been to raves myself) there is something almost bacchic about the rave. The idea of taking drugs to induce feelings of pleasure, as well as the lights and the sounds adding to that, reflects what was occurring here in the Bacchae. In many cases, the rituals were sensual experiments in pleasure, which is similar to what happens at a rave. This also goes to show that the rave is not something new, but something that has been going on for centuries.

Najbolja od Euripida, zasad! :D DIONIS FOR LIFE!

Τι να πω γι' αυτό το υπέροχο έργο του Ευριπίδη, το κύκνειο του άσμα, μια από τις μοναδικές τραγωδίες που ασχολούνται εξ' ολοκλήρου με τον Διόνυσο και τις τελετές του. Αιματηρή αλλά και διδακτική. Κωμική σε κάποια σημεία και εκστατική σε άλλα, με ένα τραγικό τέλος. Μου άρεσε που υπάρχει αντικριστά το αρχαίο με το νέο κείμενο για άμεση σύγκριση καθώς και εκτεταμένος σχολιασμός που βοηθά στο να έχεις μια πληρέστερη κατανόηση του έργου. Περισσότερα λόγια είναι περιττά.

For those who don’t recognize the title, this ancient Greek theater piece is about the god Dionysus, god of wine. It was first performed in Athens, in 405 BC. And for those who still don’t catch the connection to my blog, it’s this: Many of the characteristics of Jesus are shared with this frivolous Greek god, and at least one of Jesus’ miracles—turning water into wine—also seems closely related. In fact, the late Byzantine play, The Passion of Christ, drew heavily on the Bakkhai.

Greek tragedies are a little hard for us to fully enter into two and a half millennia later, particularly as we struggle to understand on just at what level the Greeks believed in their gods, but the commentary of this book does a great job of making something foreign feel familiar. In the play, you’ll see Dionysus’ more unpleasant side … his usual ecstasy and abandon turn into vengeance and bloodlust, aimed toward a young king who seeks to discredit him. True to Greek form, the god wins, with no apparent attempt at a climaxing plot; we understand from the beginning that humans are doomed to subjection before the gods. The punishment for disbelief far exceeds the crime, with no hint of pity or apology, as befits the gods’ disdain for lesser beings.

I found the forty page introduction superb, and the notes following the play a bit less so, though still helpful in illuminating the setting.

Bu sefer kolaya kaçıyorum ve yorum yapmayıp kitaptan benim için kitabın özeti olan iki alıntı yapmayı tercih ediyorum.

"İnsani tutkular tanrılara yakışmaz" (s.62).

"Tanrılar insanların bahtında
türlü türlü gösterirler kudretlerini.
Türlü hallere sokarlar bizi hiç beklenmedik,
umduğumuz şeyler olmaz
ummadığımız hallere getirirler bizi.
İşte bu dram da böyle bitti" (s.64).