DIONYSUS: Pentheus, I call on you

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They snatched children from their homes and all the booty (including bronze and iron) that they carried off on their shoulders did not fall onto the dark earth, although it was not fastened. They bore fire on their hair and it did not burn. The villagers, enraged by the plundering of the Bacchae, rushed to arms. Then, my king, there was a terrifying sight to behold. The weapons that the villagers threw did not draw any blood, but when the Bacchae hurled the thyrsus from their .hands they inflicted wounds on many. Women routed men-a feat not to be accomplished without the power of some god. Back they came to where they sallied forth, to the very streams which the god made gush for them. They washed their hands of blood and snakes licked the stains from their cheeks. And so, my lord, receive into the city this god, whoever he is. He is great in many respects but especially in his reputed gift to mortals, about which I have heard, the grape, our remedy for pain and sorrow. With no more wine there could be no more love and no other pleasure for mankind besides. Pentheus refuses to listen to the pleas of the messenger and is determined to rush to arms for an assault on the Bacchae. But the stranger, Dionysus, finds a way to restrain him by appealing to Pentheus' basic nature and psychology-in general, the complex neurosis that stems from his repressions, in particular, his prurient preoccupation with sex and his desire to see the orgies that he insists are taking place (8 11-6 1) : DIONYSUS: Would you like to see the women banded together in the mountains? PENTHEUS: Yes, indeed. I would give a ton of gold for that. DIONYSUS: Why are you driven by such a great desire to see them? PENTHEUS: Actually, it would pain me to see them drunk. DIONYSUS: Nevertheless you would be pleased to see what' is painful to you? PENTHEUS: TO be sure, if I watched in silence crouched beneath the firs, DIONYSUS: But they will track you down, even if you go in secret. PENTHEUS: Then I shall go openly; what you say is right. DIONYSUS: YOU will undergo the journey, then? Let me lead you. PENTHEUS: Come, as quickly as possible; I begrudge you this delay. DIONYSUS: Then dress up in a fine linen robe. PENTHEUS: What is this? Am I to change from a man to a woman? DIONYSUS: If you are seen there as a man, they will kill you. PENTHEUS: Again, what you say is right. You are like some sage of long ago. DIONYSUS: Dionysus gives me this inspiration. PENTHEUS: In the garb of a women? But shame holds me back! DIONYSUS: YOU are no longer interested in watching the Maenads ? PENTHEUS: What dress did you say that you would put on me? DIONYSUS: I shall set on your head a long flowing wig. PENTHEUS: And what is the next feature of my outfit? DIONYSUS: A robe that falls to your feet, and a band around your head. - PENTHEUS: What else will you give me? DIONYSUS: A thyrsus in your hand and a dappled fawnskin cloak. PENTHEUS: I cannot bring myself to put on the costume of a woman. DIONYSUS: But if you attack the Bacchae in battle, you will shed blood. PENTHEUS: This is true; I must first go as a spy. DIONYSUS: TO be sure, it is wiser than to hunt out evil by evil. PENTHEUS: HOW shall I get out of the city without being seen? DIONYSUS: We shall take a deserted route, and I shall lead the way. PENTHEUS: Anything, ratheruthan have the Bacchae laugh at me. I shall go into the house and make preparations that are for the best. DIONYSUS: SO be it, and I am at your side ready for everything. PENTHEUS: I am going inside, I shall either proceed with arms or follow your instructions. DIONYSUS: Women, this man is ready to be caught in the net. He will go to the Bacchae and he will pay the penalty with his life. Dionysus, now do your work; for you are not far away. We shall exact our retribution. First we shall inflict upon him delirious madness and drive him out of his wits; in his right mind he would not want to dress up in the costume of a woman, but once driven from reason he will put it on. My desire is to make him the laughingstock of the Thebans as they see him led in a woman's garb through the city in return for the terrible threats that he uttered before. I go now to deck out Pentheus in the dress with which he will go down to the realm of Hades, slaughtered by the hands of his mother. He will know Dionysus as the son of Zeus and a deity of his own right, among mankind most dread and most gentle. The dressing of Pentheus in the garb of the Bacchae suggests the ceremonial decking out of the sacrificial victim. Pentheus, by the ritual donning of his costume, falls under the spell and the power of the god and eventually will be offered up to him.

The chorus sings of the joys of their worship and the justice of their triumph over impiety, and at the end of their song Dionysus exerts final and complete mastery over Pentheus, who is delirious (9 12-70) : DIONYSUS: Pentheus, I call on you, the one who desires to see what he should not see and hastens upon what he should not do. Come forward out of the house, let me behold you dressed in the garb of a woman, a Bacchic Maenad, about to go as a spy on your mother and her group. PENTHEUS: I think that I see two suns, and the image of Thebes with its seven gates appears double. You look like a bull as you lead me forward, with horns growing out of your head. Were you then an animal? Now, indeed, you have become a bull. DIONYSUS: The god walks with us; he is on our side although he was not kindly disposed before. Now you see what you should see. PENTHEUS: Tell me how I look. Do I not have the carriage of Ino or my mother, Agave? DIONYSUS: Looking at you I seem to see those very two. But this lock here that I had fixed under your hairband has fallen out of place. PENTHEUS: I shook it loose indoors while I was tossing my head back and forth like a Bacchic reveller. DIONYSUS: Well, we, whose concern is to serve you, shall put it back in place. Bend your head. PENTHEUS: Fine, you deck me out properly, for I am now dedicated to you. DIONYSUS: Your belt is loose and the folds of your dress do not hang straight to your ankles. PENTHEUS: They are not straight at the right foot but here on the left the dress hangs well at the heel. DIONYSUS: YOU will, I am sure, consider me the best of your friends, when contrary to your expectation you witness the temperance of the Bacchae. PENTHEUS: Shall I be more like one of the Bacchae if I hold my thyrsus in my right or my left hand? DIONYSUS: You should hold it in your right hand, and raise it and your right foot at the same time. PENTHEUS: Will I be able to lift up on my shoulders Mt. Cithaeron with its glens full of Bacchae? DIONYSUS: YOU will, if you wish; before your mind was not sound, but now it is as it ought to be. PENTHEUS: Let us take crowbars, or shall I thrust my shoulder or my arm under the peaks and crush them with my hands? DIONYSUS: DO not destroy the haunts of the nymphs and the places where Pan does his piping. PENTHEUS: Your words are right; women must not be overcome by force; I will hide myself among the firs. DIONYSUS: YOU will find the hiding place that you should, corning upon the Maenads as a crafty spy. PENTHEUS: Indeed I can see them now in the bushes like birds held fast in the enticing coils of love. DIONYSUS: Yes, of course, you go on a mission to guard against this very thing. Maybe you will catch them, if you yourself are not caught first. PENTHEUS: Take me through the middle of Thebes, for I am the only man among them who dares this deed. DIONYSUS: You alone bear the burden of toil for this city-you alone. And so the struggle which must be awaits you. Follow me, I shall lead you there in safety, but another will lead you back. PENTHEUS: My mother. DIONYSUS: A spectacle for all. PENTHEUS: It is for this I am going. DIONYSUS: YOU will be carried home. PENTHEUS: What luxury you are suggesting. DIONYSUSIn: the hands of your mother. PENTHEUS: YOU insist upon pampering me. DIONYSUS: Pampering of sorts. PENTHEUS: Worthy of such deserts I follow you. a Pentheus imagines he will return in a splendid carriage, with his mother by his side. This terrifying scene is built on more than this one irony and laden with a multiplicity of ambiguities. How bitter now appear the earlier taunts of Pentheus against Cadmus and Tiresias. In his delirium, does Pentheus really see the god in his true and basic character-a beast? Or does his vision spring from his own warped interpretation of the bestial nature of the worship? A messenger arrives to tell of Pentheus7 death (1043-1152): MESSENGER: When we had left the town of Thebes behind and crossed the stream of the Asopus, we made our way up the slopes of Cithaeron, Pentheus and I (for I followed with my master) and the stranger who led us to the scene. First we took a position in a grassy glen, with silent footsteps and not a word, so that we might see and not be seen. It was a valley surrounded by cliffs, watered by streams, and shaded by pines; here Maenads sat, their hands occupied in their joyous tasks. Some were restoring a crown of ivy on a thyrsus that had lost its foliage, others, happy as fillies let loose from their painted yokes, were singing Bacchic hymns in answering refrains. But poor Pentheus, who could not see this crowd of women, said: "My friend, from where I stand I am too far away to see these counterfeit Maenads clearly, but if I climbed up a towering pine on the hill side, I could properly behold the orgies of the Maenads."

Then and there I saw the stranger do wondrous things. He took hold of the very top branch of a pine that reached up to the sky and pulled it down, down, down, to the black earth. And it was bent like a bow or the curving line of the circle of a wheel. Thus the stranger grabbed the mountain pine with his hands and bent it to the ground, a feat no mortal could accomplish. He sat Pentheus on the topmost branches and let the tree go, sliding it through his hands until it was upright again, slowly and carefully so that he might not dislodge him. It towered straight to towering heaven, with our king perched on top. He could be seen more clearly by the Maenads than he could see them. He was just becoming visible, seated aloft, when the stranger was no longer to be seen and from heaven a voice (I imagine that of Dionysus) cried aloud: "0 women, I bring the man who made a mockery of you and me and our mysteries; now take vengeance on him." As the voice spoke these words, a blaze of holy fire flashed between heaven and earth. The air grew still, every leaf in the wooded glen stood silent, and no sound of a beast was to be heard. The women had not made out the voice clearly and they stood up straight and looked around. He called again and when the daughters of Cadmus understood the clear command of Bacchus, they rushed forth as swift as doves in their relentless course, his mother, Agave, her sisters, and all the Bacchae. With a madness inspired by the breath of the god they darted over the glen with its streams and rocks. When they saw the king seated in the pine tree, they first climbed on the rock cliff that towered opposite and hurled stones at him with all their might and pelted him with branches of pines. Others hurled the thyrsus through the air at Pentheus, a pitiable target. But they were unsuc- . cessful, for the poor wretch sat trapped and helpless, too high for even their fanaticism. Finally with a lightning force they ripped off oak branches and tried to use them as levers to uproot the tree. But when these efforts too were all in vain, Agave exclaimed: "Come, 0 Maenads, stand around the tree in a circle and grab hold of it, so that we may catch the climbing beast and prevent him from revealing the secret revels of the god." And they applied a thousand hands and tore up the tree out of the earth. And from his lofty seat Pentheus fell hurtling to the ground with endless cries; for he knew what evil fate was near. His mother as priestess was the first to begin the slaughter. She fell on him and he ripped off the band from his hair so that poor Agave might recognize him and not kill him, and he cried out as he touched her cheek: "Mother, it is your son, Pentheus, whom you bore in the home of Echion. Have pity on me for my sins and do not kill me, your son." But Agave was not in her right senses; her mouth foamed and her eyes rolled madly as the god Bacchus held her in his power. And Pentheus could not reach her. She seized his left arm below the elbow and placing her foot against the ribs of her ill-fated son, wrenched his arm out of his shoulder. It was not done through her own strength but the god made it easy for her hands. From the other side, Ino clawed and tore at his flesh and Autonoe and the whole pack converged on him. All shouted together, he moaning with what breath remained, they screaming in triumph.

One carried an arm, another a foot with the boot still on; his ribs were stripped clean and they all with blood-drenched hands tossed the flesh of Pentheus among them like a ball. His body lies scattered, some pieces under hard rocks, others in the shady depths of the woods-not easy to find. His mother has taken his poor head and affixed it on the point of her thyrsus; she carries it like that of a mountain lion through the depths of Cithaeron, leaving her sisters and their Maenad bands. She comes within these walls, exulting in her ill-fated prey and calling on Bacchus, her partner in the hunt, her comrade in the chase, her champion of victory, who gave her tears as her reward. And so I am leaving now, before Agave reaches the palace, to get away from this misfortune. Temperance and reverence for the gods are best, the wisest possessions, I believe, that exist for mortals who will use them. Agave returns and awakens to the horror of her deed; the concluding scenes affirm the divine power of Dionysus. There are serious textual problems in the last section of the play, and a medieval work, the Christus Patiens, that drew upon Euripides is of some help-an interesting fact that rivets our attention to the parallels between Dionysus and Christ. The pathos and the horror of the butchering of Pentheus have helped some in their sympathetic view of the rash king as an ascetic martyr, who is killed in his crusade against the irrational tide of religious fanaticism. But too much in the makeup of this young man suggests the myopic psychopath, who, unable to accept human nature as it is, foolishly tries to suppress it. The basic impulses toward both the bestial and sublime are terrifyingly and wondrously interrelated; Dionysus is after all the god of mob fury and religious ecstasy and anything in between. Was the celebration of his worship a cry for release from the restraints of civilized society and a return to the mystic purity and abounding freedom of nature, or was it merely a deceptive excuse for self-indulgence in an orgy of undisciplined passion? The essential characteristics of Dionysiac religion are the possession by the god of his followers, the rending apart of the sacrificial animal, and the eating of the raw flesh (omophagy, a kind of ritual communion, since the god was believed to be present in the victim). The religious congregation (the holy thiasus) was divided into groups often with a male leader for each, who played the role of the god. The Bacchae, or maenads, are the female devotees, mortal women who become possessed. In mythology they are more than human, nymphs rather than mere mortals. Their mythological male counterparts are satyrs, who are, like them, spirits of nature; they, however, are not completely human but part man and part animal, possessing various attributes of a horse or a goat, for example, a horse's tail and ears, a goat's beard and horns (although in the later periods they are often depicted as considerably more humanized). Satyrs dance and sing and love music; they make wine and drink it, and they are perpetually in a state of sexual excitement. One of their favorite sports is to chase maenads through the woods.

Animal skins and garlands are traditional attributes of Bacchic revelers (although satyrs are usually nude); maenads in particular carry the thyrsus, a pole wreathed with ivy or vine leaves, pointed at the top to receive a pine cone. As we have seen, it is a magic wand that evokes miracles, but if necessary it can be converted into a deadly weapon. Sileni also attend Dionysus; they often cannot be distinguished from satyrs, although some of them are older (papposileni) and even more lecherous. Yet others are old and wise, like Silenus himself, the tutor of Dionysus. A story tells how once one of them was made drunk by adding wine to the water of a spring; when he was brought to King Midas, this Silenus philosophized that the best fate for man was not to be born at all, the next best to die as soon as possible after birth, a typical example of Greek pessimism and wisdom reminiscent of Solon and HerodotUs. Dionysus and his retinue are favorite subjects in Greek art. Dionysus, the male god of vegetation, was, as we should expect, associated with a fertility-goddess; his mother, Semele, was a full-fledged earth deity in her own right before she became Hellenized. The story of Zeus' birth on Crete, with the attendants who drowned out his infant cries by their frenzied music, suggests contamination with Dionysiac ritual. Certainly Euripides associates Bacchic mysticism with the ritual worship of both Rhea and Cybele. In some accounts Dionysus married Ariadne after she was deserted by Theseus, another enactment of the union of the male and female powers of fertility. Dionysus represents the sap of life, the coursing of the blood through the veins, the throbbing excitement of nature; thus he is a god of ecstasy and mysticism. Another myth told about his birth even more clearly established him in this role. Zeus mated with his daughter Persephone, who bore a son, Zagreus, which is another name for Dionysus. Hera in her jealousy aroused the Titans to attack the child. These monstrous beings, their faces whitened with chalk, attacked the infant as he was looking in a mirror, or they beguiled him with toys and cut him to pieces with knives. Afier the murder, the Titans devoured the dismembered corp~e.B~u t the heart of the infant god was saved and brought to Zeus by Athena, and Dionysus was born again-swallowed by Zeus and begotten on Semele. Zeus was angry with the Titans and destroyed them with his thunder and lightning. But from their ashes mankind was born. Surely this is one of the most significant myths in terms of the philosophy and religious dogma that it provides. By it man is endowed with a dual nature-a body, gross and evil (since he is sprung from the Titans), and a soul that is pure and divine (for after all the Titans had devoured the god). Thus basic religious concepts (which lie at the root of all mystery religions) are accounted for: sin, immorality, resurrection, life after death, reward, and punishment. It is no accident that Dionysus is linked with Orpheus and Demeter and the message that they preached. He is in his person a resurrection god; the story is told that he went down into the realm of the dead and brought back his mother, who in this account is usually given the name Thyone. In the emotional environment of Dionysiac ecstasy are to be found the essence and spirit of Greek drama.