Euripides'in anlattığı olayın şiirselliğine kendi kaptırarak anlatmak istediğini aslında tam anlatamadığı bir eser olan "The Bacchae / Bakkhalar", erkekle kadınlığın birleştiği şarap tanrısı Zeus'un oğlu Dionysos'un ona tapınmayı reddeden Thebai kralı Petheus'tan aldığı intikamını konu alıyor. Euripides'in aslında insan gibi duygularıyla hareket eden Tanrıları eleştirdiği oyunda Dionysos'un zamanla farklılaşarak İsa'ya dönüştüğünü söyleyebiliriz. Söyleyemesek bile aralarında fazlasıyla benzerlik olduğu ortada. Zaman zaman eksik metne rağmen başarılı bir şekilde yazılmış ve çevrilmiş eser, mitolojik evrenin sınırlarını daha da genişletiyor.

18.08.2014
İstanbul, Türkiye

Alp Turgut

http://www.filmdoktoru.com/kitap-labo...

This is the greatest Greek play I have read. I am just speechless. The way Euripides crafted this play was just...no words can give it justice. The rising intensity, the characters, the writing. I'll leave the rest of my thoughts for my actual review but...wow. Just wow.

Innombrables sont les manifestations de la volonté divine; innombrables aussi les événements qu'ils accomplissent contre notre attente. Ceux que nous attendions ne se réalisent pas ; ceux qu'on n'attendait pas, un dieu leur fraye la voie.



Les Bacchantes (Βάκχαι) sont une pièce écrite par Euripide (-480;-406), mais jouée un an après sa mort en -405, et ayant remporté le prix du concours de théâtre Athénien des fêtes de Dionysos. Elle met en scène le dieu lui-même, retournant dans la patrie de sa mère, séduite par Zeus, et venant chercher vengeance du mépris de ses tantes, qui taxaient d'affabulation l'origine divine de leur neveu, et qu'il punit en les rendant folles. Il s'oppose aussi frontalement à Penthée, son cousin, qui tente follement de s'opposer aux menées du dieu asiatique en enfermant celles et ceux qui lui rendent un culte, si bien que ce Penthée finit lui-même déchiré par sa propre mère en proie au délire, alors qu'il tentait d'espionner les mystères du culte rendu à son rival.

n  Le sol de lait ruisselle, il ruisselle de vin, du nectar des abeilles. Il ruisselle - tandis que monte comme une vapeur d'encens de Syrien

Ce qui ressort de cette pièce, c'est le caractère ambivalent de Dionysos: il offre d'un côté un abord galant, un teint frais, de longs cheveux, des traits délicats, et ses propos son plein de gaité et d'alacrité: il est le dieu du vin et du miel, des douceurs qui font oublier les soucis, délient les langues, font naître l'amour et les discours inspirés; mais d'un autre côté, ce même Dionysos offre un spectacle inquiétant: l'oubli de la raison, la folie, engendrent la violence aveugle, une force démesurée et débridée, un gout du sang, une cruauté joyeuse et sans frein qui plongent dans la stupéfaction et l'horreur ceux qui reviennent à eux-même, après s'être laissé allé à l'ivresse. Au lendemain de la fête, tous les hommes sont perdants: celui qui s'est opposé au dieu, comme celui qui s'y est soumis, tous sont soit tués, soit ravagés par le chagrin; seul triomphe le dieu.

n  O mon enfant, dans quel terrible malheur nous sommes tombés, toi, malheureuse! et tes sœurs chéries, et moi, misérable! Je m'en irai chez les Barbares, malgré ma vieillesse, en étranger. Il m'est encore prédit que je conduirai en Grèce une horde barbare.n

Cette pièce peut offrir de nombreuses prises à l'interprétation, et je propose la mienne à prendre cum grano salis. Penthée représente l'homme raisonnable qui veut enfermer la part de divin et d’irrationnel dans ses raisonnements, comme il charge le dieu de fers dans la pièce. Il ne s'agit pas de critiquer l'usage de la raison en général, mais de celle qui s'aventure sur les terres du déraisonnable. C'est une critique du rationalisme, assez semblable à celle que Platon met dans la bouche de Socrate lorsque le vieux philosophe se moque de ceux qui cherchent à rationaliser tous les mythes, et tirer du sens de ce qui n'en a pas. C'est une critique de ceux qui veulent manier la folie et l'enthousiasme, religieux ou politique, pour leurs propres fins, croyant que leurs raisonnement seront une borne suffisante à la fureur qu'ils alimentent: ils finiront mis en pièce par ce qu'ils ont cru diriger. Mon interprétation, car comme le souligne Tirésias dans la pièce: un rhéteur habile, et fort de son audace, sans raison, n'est qu'un fléau pour la cité.

I have been reading Anne Carson's translations of Greek tragedy. Bakkhai is a lesser-known drama, but deserves to be better known. It's theme is that it's not a terribly good idea to flout the divine, as Pentheus does. Dionysos in the beginning seems to be amenable to a wide range of behaviors, but Pentheus goads him until -- dressed as a woman -- he is murdered by his own mother in the presence of the Bakkhai (Bacchic women). As Anne Carson translates, Euripides at one point says:

To live and think and act within measure,
reverencing the gods,
this is a man's finest possession.

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.

کادموس: ای دیونوسوس بر ما رحم آور اگرچه گناهکارانیم
دیونوسوس: دریغا که مرا دیر به جا آوردی نه آن زمان که می بایست
آگاوه: اما خدایان را نشاید که خشم آدمیان را با خشم پاسخ بگویند.
.
باکخانت ها یا کاهنه های باکوس

deserved

I read this as a pdf from the Internet archive. Actually had to pull another version from Yale for the ending which was missing from the IA version. Two very different translations too. One very Shakespearian and the other rather straight and laking theatrical flair. I prefer the Shakespeare-y version.

I see direct parallels with the story of Jesus in Dionysus' birth and later in shedding his Godness, and manifesting as a human to walk among men. The way Dionysus speaks of his own Godliness when questioned about it is also Christlike.

Several centuries separates Euripides and Jesus. I wonder if Jesus and his contemporaries possibly learn of this play? Did his disciples? Did the gospels use The Bacchae? Dionysus did turn water into wine... I'm thinkin' yeah. Definitely. I'm gonna look into this a bit more.

Well, of course this play is a very important work. One that is probably a keystone to understanding the story of Jesus and yes of course also to future of the theatre.

"The truth is one. The sages speak of it by many names." Bhagvad Gita.

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.

Dionysus is the true God of Tits and Wine and there is a lot of that in here. Also madness, death, orgies, cross dressing and suckling wildlife. Imagine reading the script to some x-rated and campy, 80's video-nasty, but you can feel smugly pretentious about it.

Story wise, this is one of vengeance, with the debauched God returning to his late mother's homeland to avenge himself on his maternal family, those who dared deny both his greatness and his mother's story that her boyfriend was an Olypmian God.

Since extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, Dionysus proves his divinity by sending a bunch of women stark raving bonkers, and most of the play concerns Dionysus (disguised as a Dionysian priest) and Pentheus (King of Thebes and the God's cousin) having an argument about the former's divinity and spread of his worship. There's also voyuerism, house destruction, 'sparagmos' (move over defenestration, I've a new favourite word for an oddly specific murder technique) and a slightly Lovecraftian breakdown of sanity when faced with the divine, ultimately ending with Pentheus paying badly for his disrespect. The whole thing is gory and silly, and Dionysus is wonderfully sarcastic and cryptic throughout.

The play seems to have only one sole moral: do not piss off the Pantheon because they are an arrogant and vengeful bunch. As messages go it's brutally simple and brutally played out, and the simplicity of it manages to be a strength, with the play feeling more stupidly fun and gruesome than tragedy.

no thoughts just city state identity

I've read this before, but I just had to experience it again. I'm sure we've all had some experience with lunacy, whether in our reading or in the soft whisper of our lives. When I bring this story in to my imagination and let it grow, it becomes so horrifying that I can barely stand it. It may not be as flashy as anything modern usually is, but deep down, it cannot help but disturb. Crazy mobs? Impiety? Drunken revelry or plentiful bounty or peace from mortal woes? Or is it truly the bald-face madness of which is written? Is there truly any difference? *shudder*