We start today's segment of the Bacchae with another choral passage known as the Second Stasimon (the First Stasimon was the previous choral episode). It contains a last appeal to Thebes, a denouncement of the hubris of Pentheus, and a reaffirmation of the chorus' faith in Dionysus, even though their leader is in captivity. It also, interestingly, ends with an extension of the choral passage as an exchange of song with Dionysus known as an epeisodion before returning to more typical tragic verse.
However, the most interesting part of this section is the first manifestation of Dionysus' power and will lead us into a discussion of Greek special effects. Dionysus' maenads, although they have escaped from prison, are concerned about their missing leader; the god answers their prayers by causing an earthquake which shatters Pentheus' palace and delivers him to freedom. Apparently no guards were stationed. We then see the interaction between the god and his followers, their insistent praise, and his warm but distant handling of their apprehension.
So what actually happened on stage? Was there a physical indication that palace had indeed collapsed? Dodds admits the possibility but is tentative in calling it a certainty, only venturing that offstage noise was likely used as accompaniment. He also claims that "palace miracles" were likely a common event in plays addressing the coming of Dionysus, citing as evidence the fragments of Aeschylus' Lycurgeia (xxxii). Which is only one set of plays, but whatever. A later scholarly interpretation of the same question which makes some bolder inferences (if I remember correctly) is Victor Castellani's "That Troubled House of Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae". I might review the article later, as I have currently left it 700 miles from my present location. It is certainly not unfeasible that our Greek thespians could have created mechanical devices to pull the ever-present prop house apart, at least.
In a certain sense, this scene is all about perception. Our interlocutors repeatedly draw our attention toward the events at hand - if there is no physical evidence of the house falling to pieces, there is definitely elements in the performance which make it clear. The chorus repeatedly asks variations of "Don't you see?" to either the audience or each other, directing us towards and through the action, real-or-imagined (part of a complex idea scholars call deixis (dake-sis)). Even if we see nothing of the palace actually collapsing, there is another wrinkle. As people perhaps uninitiated into the cult of Dionysus, we may be unable to see the evidence of the divine power, since we have not ascended to the necessary plane. This is especially apt, given the earlier exchange between Dionysus and Pentheus where the mortal king is repeatedly mocked for not being able to perceive the manifestations of divinity. In this spot, we may ourselves be like Pentheus, called to observe the rituals of a deity or to run a terrible risk.
However, the most interesting part of this section is the first manifestation of Dionysus' power and will lead us into a discussion of Greek special effects. Dionysus' maenads, although they have escaped from prison, are concerned about their missing leader; the god answers their prayers by causing an earthquake which shatters Pentheus' palace and delivers him to freedom. Apparently no guards were stationed. We then see the interaction between the god and his followers, their insistent praise, and his warm but distant handling of their apprehension.
So what actually happened on stage? Was there a physical indication that palace had indeed collapsed? Dodds admits the possibility but is tentative in calling it a certainty, only venturing that offstage noise was likely used as accompaniment. He also claims that "palace miracles" were likely a common event in plays addressing the coming of Dionysus, citing as evidence the fragments of Aeschylus' Lycurgeia (xxxii). Which is only one set of plays, but whatever. A later scholarly interpretation of the same question which makes some bolder inferences (if I remember correctly) is Victor Castellani's "That Troubled House of Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae". I might review the article later, as I have currently left it 700 miles from my present location. It is certainly not unfeasible that our Greek thespians could have created mechanical devices to pull the ever-present prop house apart, at least.
In a certain sense, this scene is all about perception. Our interlocutors repeatedly draw our attention toward the events at hand - if there is no physical evidence of the house falling to pieces, there is definitely elements in the performance which make it clear. The chorus repeatedly asks variations of "Don't you see?" to either the audience or each other, directing us towards and through the action, real-or-imagined (part of a complex idea scholars call deixis (dake-sis)). Even if we see nothing of the palace actually collapsing, there is another wrinkle. As people perhaps uninitiated into the cult of Dionysus, we may be unable to see the evidence of the divine power, since we have not ascended to the necessary plane. This is especially apt, given the earlier exchange between Dionysus and Pentheus where the mortal king is repeatedly mocked for not being able to perceive the manifestations of divinity. In this spot, we may ourselves be like Pentheus, called to observe the rituals of a deity or to run a terrible risk.
519-616
(Enter CHORUS)
CHORUS: Daughter of Achelous,
blessed maiden, queen Dirce,
you once held the Zeus’ baby
in your streams,
when Zeus, having begotten him,
seized him out of the divine fire
and put him into his thigh,
and put him into his thigh,
shouting out this:
“Go, Dithyramb, come
and enter my male womb,
I reveal you to Thebes
O Bacchus, known by this name.”
But you expelled me, blessed Dirce,
while I controlled crown-wearing
bands upon your banks.
Why’d you reject me? Why’d you flee?
Yet, by the grape-cluster, the grace
of the Dionysiac vine,
Bromios will still matter to you.
Such rage, such rage
does the earthborn race display,
and also Pentheus, descended
from dragons, whom Echion
planted under the ground;
a wild monster, not
a mortal man, who fights
against the gods
just like a bloody giant.
He will quickly enclose me,
a follower of Bromios, in nets,
and currently is holding
a member of this band prisoner,
hidden away in dark prisons.
Do you look upon these things,
O Dionysus child of Zeus, and see
your prophets in contests of force?
Come down from Olympus ,
shaking your golden thyrsus,
and restrain the hubris of this bloodthirsty man.
O Dionysus, where do you assemble
your mobs with your thyrsus, on
Nysa, the mother of beasts, or
on the mountaintops of Corycia?
Perhaps in the heavily wooded
hollows of Olympus , where
Orpheus once played the cithara
and called together the trees with his songs,
called together the fierce animals.
O blessed Pieria ,
the god of Euoe reveres you,
he will soon be present, dancing
the Bacchic dances; he’ll stride past
the swift-flowing Axios,
leading his twirling maenads,
and father Ludias, giver of
happiness to mortals, whom they say
anoints the land of fine horses
with his beautiful waters.
(DIONYSUS is heard)
DIONYSUS: Oh,
hear me, hear my speech,
O my Bacchae, my Bacchae.
CHORUS: Who’s this? From where
does the clamor of Euoe call me now?
DIONYSUS: Oh, oh, I call again,
it is the child of Semele and Zeus.
CHORUS: O our master, our master,
come now to our gathering,
O Bromios, Bromios.
DIONYSUS: Queen of earthquakes, shake the ground of this land!
CHORUS: Ah, Ah!
Swiftly it shakes the palace of Pentheus
to pieces in a tumult.
Dionysus is throughout the palace.
Now be reverent to him! – We are reverent.
Do you see the stone lintel of the column
in ruination? Bromios shouts
under the roof inside.
DIONYSUS: Take up the fiery lightning-torch!
Burn, burn down the house of Pentheus!
CHORUS: Ah, Ah!
Don’t you perceive the fire, don’t you discern it,
around the sacred tomb of Semele,
where she, struck by lightning,
left a flame from Zeus’ thunder?
Throw, throw yourselves earthward,
trembling maenads! For our lord,
the son of Zeus, is present,
breaking the palace into pieces.
(DIONYSUS enters)
DIONYSUS: Barbarian women, were you so amazed with fear
that you fell to the ground? It seems you perceived that
the house of Pentheus is shaken to pieces. But stand up,
take courage, and stop the trembling of your bodies.
CHORUS: O greatest light of our joyous revelry,
such was my joy at seeing you when alone in solitude.
DIONYSUS: Did you come to faintheartedness when I was sent in
so I would fall into the dark enclosures of Pentheus?
CHORUS: How could I not? Who would be my guardian, if misfortune
happened to you? But how did you free yourself from that outlaw?
DIONYSUS: I saved myself easily, without any trouble.
CHORUS: Didn’t he bind your hands in snares and chains?
Notes
Achelous (akh-ey-loose) is a high-echelon river god who controls streams on the mainland after he was defeated by Oceanus, god of the sea.
Dirce (deer-kay) is a personified river that flows near Thebes.
Dithyramb is variously 1) Dionysiac choral performance, 2) a member of the Dionysiac band, 3) Dionysius himself as a quasi-personification of choral song.
As for Echion, recall that he was sowed into the earth as the tooth of a dragon by Cadmus and only then turned into a man.
Nysa is a mountain sacred to Dionsyus which is difficult to place, esp. given that there are over a dozen different mountains named Nysa.
Corycia is part of Mt. Parnassus.
Axios and Ludias are rivers in Macedon.
Notes
Achelous (akh-ey-loose) is a high-echelon river god who controls streams on the mainland after he was defeated by Oceanus, god of the sea.
Dirce (deer-kay) is a personified river that flows near Thebes.
Dithyramb is variously 1) Dionysiac choral performance, 2) a member of the Dionysiac band, 3) Dionysius himself as a quasi-personification of choral song.
As for Echion, recall that he was sowed into the earth as the tooth of a dragon by Cadmus and only then turned into a man.
Nysa is a mountain sacred to Dionsyus which is difficult to place, esp. given that there are over a dozen different mountains named Nysa.
Corycia is part of Mt. Parnassus.
Axios and Ludias are rivers in Macedon.
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