The Bacchae (; , Bakkhai; also known as The Bacchantes ) is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis and Alcmaeon in Corinth, and which Euripides' son or nephew is assumed to have directed.Rehm (1992, 23). It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.
The tragedy recounts the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, who were punished by the god Dionysus (who is Pentheus's cousin) for rejecting his cult. The play opens with Dionysus proclaiming that he has arrived in Thebes with his votaries to avenge the slander, repeated by his aunts, that he is not the son of Zeus. Disguised as a foreign holy man, the god intends to introduce Dionysian rites into the city, but the Thebans reject his divinity and king Pentheus orders his arrest.Murray Gilbert. Euripides and His Age. Oxford University Press. 1965.
Eventually, Dionysus drives Pentheus insane, luring him to the mountains. The play ends with the women of Thebes, driven by Dionysus's orgiastic frenzy, tearing Pentheus apart, while his mother Agave bears his head on a thyrsus to her father Cadmus.Corrigan, Robert W. editor. Classical Tragedy, Greek and Roman; Eight Plays in Authoritative Modern Translations. Euripides. Bagg, Robert, translator. The Bakkhai. Applause Theatre Book Publishers. 1990. Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 193.
Regarded as Euripides' masterpiece,Bacchae. Encyclopaedia Britannica The Bacchae is classified among the greatest ancient tragedies.Euripides. Slavitt, David R., editor. Bovie, Palmer, editor. Epstein, Daniel Mark, translator. Euripides, 1. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1998. The Bacchae is distinctive in that the chorus is integrated into the plot and the god is not a distant presence, but a character in the play, indeed, the protagonist.
Background
The Dionysus in Euripides' tale is a young god, angry that his mortal family, the royal house of Cadmus, has denied him a place of honor as a deity. His mortal mother, Semele, was a mistress of Zeus; and while pregnant, was tricked by a jealous Hera to request Zeus to come to her in his true form. Being only a mortal, she was struck down by Zeus' thunderbolts while in his presence and was killed.Euripides, Bacchae, 1–64
Zeus then saved Dionysus, who was in Semele's womb, by sewing him into a cavity in his thigh. When Semele died, her sisters said it was Zeus' will and accused her of lying; they also accused their father, Cadmus, of claiming Semele was pregnant by Zeus to cover up an affair with a mortal man. Most of Semele's family refused to believe Dionysus was the son of Zeus, and the young god was spurned by his household. He traveled throughout Asia and other foreign lands, gathering a cult of female worshipers, the Maenads.Euripides, Bacchae, 1–64
At the start of the play, Dionysus returns to Thebes, disguised as a stranger, to take revenge on the house of Cadmus. He has also driven the women of Thebes, including his aunts, into an ecstatic frenzy, sending them dancing and hunting on Mount Cithaeron, much to the horror of the young Pentheus, king of Thebes who also is Dionysus' cousin. Complicating matters, Pentheus has declared a ban on the worship of Dionysus throughout Thebes.Euripides, Bacchae, 1–64
Plot The play begins before the palace at Thebes, with Dionysus telling the story of his birth and his reasons for visiting the city. Dionysus explains he is the son of a mortal woman, Semele, and a god, Zeus. Some in Thebes, he notes, do not believe this story. In fact, Semele's sisters—Autonoë, Agave, and Ino—claim it is a lie intended to cover up the fact that Semele became pregnant by some mortal. Dionysus reveals that he has driven the women of the city mad, including his three aunts, and has led them into the mountains to observe his ritual festivities. He has disguised himself as a mortal for the time being, but he plans to vindicate his mother by appearing before all of Thebes as a god, the son of Zeus, and establishing his permanent cult of followers.
Dionysus exits to the mountains, and the chorus (composed of the titular Bacchae) enters. They perform a choral ode in praise of Dionysus. Then Tiresias, the blind and elderly seer, appears. He calls for Cadmus, the founder and former king of Thebes. The two old men start out to join the revelry in the mountains when Cadmus’ petulant young grandson Pentheus, the current king, enters. Disgusted to find the two old men in festival dress, he scolds them and orders his soldiers to arrest anyone engaging in Dionysian worship, including the mysterious "foreigner" who has introduced this worship. Pentheus intends to have him stoned to death.Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 198.
The guards soon return with Dionysus himself in tow. Pentheus questions him, both skeptical of and fascinated by the Dionysian rites. Dionysus's answers are cryptic. Infuriated, Pentheus has Dionysus taken away and chained to an angry bull in the palace stable, but the god shows his power. He breaks free and razes the palace with an earthquake and fire.Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 218.
Dionysus and Pentheus are once again at odds when a herdsman arrives from the top of Mount Cithaeron, where he had been herding his grazing cattle. He reports that he found women on the mountain behaving strangely: wandering the forest, suckling animals, twining snakes in their hair, and performing miraculous feats. The herdsmen and the shepherds made a plan to capture one particular celebrant, Pentheus' mother. But when they jumped out of hiding to grab her, the Bacchae became frenzied and pursued the men.Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 218.
The men escaped, but their cattle were not so fortunate, as the women fell upon the animals, ripping them to shreds with their bare hands. The women carried on, plundering two villages that were further down the mountain, stealing bronze, iron and even babies. When villagers attempted to fight back, the women drove them off using only their ceremonial staffs of fennel. They then returned to the mountain top and washed up, as snakes licked them clean.Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 218.
Dionysus, still in disguise, persuades Pentheus to forgo his plan to defeat and massacre the women with an armed force. He says it would be better first to spy on them, while disguised as a female Maenad to avoid detection.Euripides. Ten Plays by Euripides. Trans. Moses Hadas and John Mclean. New York: Bantam Books, 1981, p. 299 Dressing Pentheus in this fashion, giving him a thyrsus and fawn skins, Dionysus leads him out of the house. At this point, Pentheus seems already crazed by the god's power, as he thinks he sees two suns in the sky, and believes he now has the strength to rip up mountains with his bare hands. He has also begun to see through Dionysus' mortal disguise, perceiving horns coming out of the god's head. They exit to Cithaeron.
A messenger arrives to report that once the party reached Mount Cithaeron, Pentheus wants to climb an evergreen tree to get a better view and the stranger uses divine power to bend down the tall tree and place the king in its highest branches. Then Dionysus, revealing himself, calls out to his followers and points out the man in the tree. This drives the Maenads wild. Led by Agave, his mother, they force the trapped Pentheus down from the tree top, rip off his limbs and his head, and tear his body into pieces.
After the messenger has relayed this news, Agave arrives, carrying her son's bloodied head. In her god-maddened state, she believes it is the head of a mountain lion. She proudly displays it to her father, Cadmus, and is confused when he does not delight in her trophy, but is horrified by it. Agave then calls out for Pentheus to come marvel at her feat, and nail the head above her door so she can show it to all of Thebes. But now the madness begins to wane, and Cadmus forces her to recognize that she has destroyed her own son.Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 242.
As the play ends, the corpse of Pentheus is reassembled as well as is possible, and the royal family is devastated and destroyed. Agave and her sisters are sent into exile, and Dionysus decrees that Cadmus and his wife Harmonia will be turned into snakes and lead a barbarian horde to plunder the cities of Hellas.Euripides. Vellacott, Philip, translator. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Penguin Books. 1954. . p. 242.
In classical history In his biography of the Roman statesman and general Marcus Licinius Crassus, the ancient historian Plutarch claims that after his defeat and death at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, Crassus' head was sent to the king of Parthia, Orodes II, where it was used "as a prop, standing in for the head of the tragic Pentheus" in a production of The Bacchae.
Modern productions
Dramatic versions
Joe Orton's play The Erpingham Camp (television broadcast 27 June 1966; opened at the Royal Court Theatre on 6 June 1967) relocates The Bacchae to a British holiday camp. An author's note states: "No attempt must be made to reproduce the various locales in a naturalistic manner. A small, permanent set of Erpingham's office is set on a high level. The rest of the stage is an unlocalised area. Changes of scene are suggested by lighting and banners after the manner of the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of Shakespeare's histories."Orton, Joe. 1976. The Complete Plays. London: Methuen. p. 278. . In 1970, Brian De Palma filmed Richard Schechner's dramatic re-envisioning of the work, Dionysus in 69, in a converted garage. Wole Soyinka adapted the play as The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite with the British Royal National Theatre in London in 1973, incorporating a second chorus of slaves to mirror the civil unrest in his native Nigeria."Performing the Bacchae" , The Open University. Caryl Churchill and David Lan used the play as the basis of their 1986 dance-theatre hybrid A Mouthful of Birds. In 1989 Costas Ferris adapted The Bacchae for his film Oh Babylon and retells it in a more modern guise. Andre Gregory related in My Dinner With Andre that he put on a production at Yale University and campaigned to have a real cadaver's head used for Pentheus', but the actress playing Agave refused. The Bacchae 2.1, a theatrical adaptation set in modern times, was written by Charles Mee and first performed in 1993.The Bacchae 2.1 on the web. Swedish director Ingmar Bergman directed The Bacchae three times: as an opera (1991) for the Royal Swedish Opera, as a film (1993) for Sveriges Television, and on stage (1996) for the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. These three versions received great acclaim amidst some mixed reviews.See: Rolandsson, Ottiliana, Pure Artistry: Ingmar Bergman, the Face as Portal and the Performance of the Soul, PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2010; especially Chapter 4: "The Embodiment of Ritual and Myth as Text and as Performance."