“Truth is an unbearable thing”

Siempre me cuesta mucho trabajo delinear las caracteristicas de los escritores de tragedias clásicas, a veces siento que se tratara de una voz común tratando distintas maneras. A lo mejor esto sucede porque no soy una especialista en este tipo de literatura y siempre que me acerco a ella es por cuestiones académicas o para trabajar un texto. Sin embargo, no quiere decir que no las disfrute. Las Bacantes es, desde el aspecto narrativo, una delicia. Pues si bien, el misterio es revelado al lector (o en este caso, espectador) desde el principio, el impacto de la resolución es tal que nos sorprende tanto como a los personajes. Además, las partes poéticas están muy bien colocadas, (y no me refiero a las rimas o a cuestiones de lenguaje, sino de construcción de imágenes), aumentando el sentido de divinidad de Dioniso.

İçinde Dionysos olunca okuması da ayrı bir zevk veriyor.

This is a marvelous play and one of my favorites. Anne Carson's new translation is poetic and lovely, but in some places I think she takes the modernization a little too far and some words feel anachronistic and jarring.

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.

Carlsberg don’t review ancient Greek mythology, but if they did…

Pentheus’ mam Argave has gone out on the raz with the maenad girls and they’ve all had one-too-many cabby savs. They’ve smashed it up on the woodland dancefloor to Bacchus’ Greatest Hits all night and now they’re ambling around aimlessly, carrying their shoes and clamouring for a decent kebab.

Meanwhile, Agave’s dad Cadmus is on the Guinness with his weird mate Tiresias, who is blind and fancies himself as a clairvoyant (he’s savage at the pub quiz; great with riddles) he used to be a cross-dresser back in the day, all to try and prove a point to Hera and Zeus about women enjoying “ the no pants dance” more than men...

Turn’s out the proprietor bloke who runs the woodland club, the one who procures all the booze, is an absolute mentalist called Dionysus. He’s been embroiled in some argy-bargy with Agave’s lad Pentheus; somehow manages to get him sloshed, then convinces him to dress up in women’s clothes and go out on the town!

So Pentheus goes to the woodland club looking for his mam, and it all goes a bit “Pete Tong” from here. Basically, he climbs this massive tree, falls - because he’s off his chops - then his mam and her mates naturally confuse him for a proper lush kebab, and proceed to rip him limb from limb!

Cadmus wasn't best pleased when he found out what happened later in the taxi queue; Agave was too proud of the kebab she’s snagged to care - she had a right pounding headache... not as bad as the one Pentheus’ had though...

The End.

We have forgotten "that agreement, age with age, we made to deck our wands, to dress in skins of fawn and crown our heads with ivy."

* * *

Oh Bacchae! Oh Bacchae!
Follow, glory of golden Tmolus
hymning Dionysus with a rumble of drums,
with the cry,
Euhoi! to the Euhoian God,
with the cries in Phrygian melodies,
when the holy pipe like honey plays
the sacred song for those who go
to the mountain!
to the mountain!

* * *

We do not trifle with divinity.
No, we are the heirs of customs and traditions hallowed by age and handed down to us by our fathers. No quibbling logic can topple them, whatever subtleties this clever age invents.
People may say "Aren't you ashamed? At your age, going dancing, wreathing your head with ivy?" Well, I am not ashamed. Did the gods declare that just the young or just the old should dance? No, he desires his honour from all mankind. He wants no one excluded from his worship.

“Your name means grief you are suited for it”


Dionysus remains my favorite of the pantheon

This is why I dont go to parties

This is really hard to rate because it's so unusual.

This story is highly influenced by a religion that is almost all but lost, and it's unusual—even for Greek tragedies—that a god, Dionysus, is perhaps the protagonist.

It's incredibly violent.

It's a revenge play of sorts.

It hints at esoteric rituals and initiations.

It's a tragedy.

Short observations:

The mania of the maenads, apart from the violence, reminds me of Pentecostal churches... the drums, playing with snakes, the ecstatic revelry of being "taken by the spirit."

Is this one of the earliest cross-dressing stories? "Presenting" is a theme here. Pentheus accuses Dionysus of being feminine in dress and hair length, and later, Dionysus convinces Pentheus to dress in the clothes of a maenad (female worshipers of Dionysus) to observe them.

Pentheus wasn't likable, but I felt pity for Agave and Cadmus at the end.

I don't think feminist theory is the accurate way to take this play, but it's interesting to think about, considering what women “get up to” outside of society.

I’m still new to reading the classics, especially for pleasure. The Bacchae was a great way to get my feet wet — funny, playful in syntax and plot, and richly (and dare I say, queerly) erotic. In the Norton edition, which I read, the translator’s fidelity to the original wordplay (as well as his reconstruction of a missing portion of the text) was especially notable.

113th book of 2021.

CADMUS
And whose head do you hold in your hands?

AGAVE (averting her eyes)
A lion's . . . The huntresses . . . They said . . .

CADMUS
Look at it properly. Just a quick glance.

AGAVE
What is it? What am I holding in my hands?

CADMUS
Look closely now. Be sure.

AGAVE
Ah! No! No! I see the greatest sorrow.

CADMUS
Does it still look like a lion?

AGAVE
No! No. It is . . . Oh gods! It is Pentheus's head I hold.

CADMUS
Now you see who I was mourning.

AGAVE
Who killed him? How did he come to be in my hands?

CADMUS
This is too hard, this truth. It took so long to come to this.

AGAVE
Tell me! Please! My heart beats with terror.

CADMUS
You killed him. You and yours sisters.

AGAVE
Where did it happen? Here, at home? Where?

CADMUS
On Cithaeron, where the dogs tore Actaeon apart.

AGAVE
Cithaeron? But why was Pentheus there?

CADMUS
He went to mock the gods, and your rituals.

AGAVE
But we - why were we there?

CADMUS
You were out of your wits.
The whole city was possessed by Bacchus.

AGAVE
I see. Dionysus has destroyed us all.

CADMUS
You enraged him. You denied him as a god.

AGAVE
And where, Father, is the rest of my poor son?

CADMUS (pointing to the stretcher)
Here. I found all I could.

AGAVE
Is he complete, and recently arranged?
But why should Pentheus suffer for my crime?

CADMUS
Like you, he refused the god.
And so the god ruined us all:
you, your sisters, and this boy.
This house is destroyed as well, and me with it.
I have no male heirs, and now I have lived to see
the fruit of your womb so shamefully destroyed.
(addressing the corpse) It was through you, my boy,
that this house regained its sight.
It was you, my daughter's son,
who held the palace together and the citizens in line.
It was you who would punish anyone who slighted me.
But now I shall be dishonoured,
an outcast from my own home.
I, Cadmus the great, who sowed the Theban race
and reaped that glorious harvest.
Dearest of men - for even in death
I count you as the man I love the best -
no more will you stroke my beard, child,
no more will you hug me, call me 'Grandfather' or say:
'Has anyone wronged you or shown you disrespect?
Has anyone disturbed or hurt you?
Tell me, Grandfather, and I will punish them.'
But now there is grief for me and a shroud for you,
and pity for your mother and her sisters.
If anyone still disputes the power of heaven,
let them look at this boy's death
and they will see that the gods live.