The Tree-Bender

Once again, a lengthy interlude between one post and another – with the principal culprits being two stressful quarters and several months of summer spent between lethargy, vice, and a mountain of Latin reading. Although it has been far too long, I doubt my mundane adventures will do much to change the tone of my translation.

This passage contains the second messenger speech (the earlier one being at 677-774), and to my regret I didn’t give much explanation of the purpose of these scenes before. For sections a hundred lines in length, several minutes each, the messenger is the focal point of the theater, the medium through which all information comes about offstage events. This is an entirely commonplace and expected feature of Greek drama, and these verbal pictures tend to include the greatest “action” of the play: murders (Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers), chariot crashes (Hippolytus), eye trauma (Oedipus the King), etc. We can interpret messenger monologues as compensations for the limits of the Greek stage, if we so desire. These passages might seem strange to the modern reader, considering that we tend to see theater as a highly visual medium; it is possible to, and some modern productions do, present the action onstage as it is described, although this likely did not occur in the ancient world. While I’m not experienced enough in production to compare these approaches, I have been assured by Kristin Mann, Hellenist, that the bare messenger speech can be tremendously effective. In this case, it seems dependent on the talent of the performer.

The action as described shows Dionysus at his most brutal and capricious. While he could simply kill Pentheus, he demonstrates his power over nature in a bizarre scene where he manipulates a tree just to get his hypnotized companion atop it. But he gets no payoff for his attempted voyeurism – the god instantly alerts his Bacchae to the presence of the male interloper (the messenger is preserved, apparently only to relate the story back in Thebes). While they (oddly) don’t understand the first time he speaks, we are presented with a further exhibition of their superhuman strength and blindness to the nature of things. Pentheus is dismembered, even after he pleads to his mother in a touching moment, the final humanization of the cruel tyrant. His gruesome end shows the god’s power to turn humanity into something animal. Pentheus is described as a lion, the Bacchae as predators.

Finally, it should be noted that the death of Pentheus does not necessarily spell the end of the play’s action. The Bacchae are turning towards Thebes, and our chorus of Theban women are in palpable danger, considering the god’s unpredictability and his tendency to involve even the innocent in his vindictive plans.

1043-1152

MESSENGER: When, after having left behind the dwellings

of the Theban land, Pentheus and I, passing beyond the streams

of Asopus, we went up the crags of Cithaeron –

for I followed the king – and also the stranger,

our guide for the spectacle.

            First off, we were sitting in a grassy vale,

preserving the silence with our feet and tongues,

so we might see and not be seen.

There was a hollow in the cliffs, damp with moisture,

shaded by pines, where the maenads sat,

keeping their hands at pleasant tasks.

Some again crowned their long-haired,

left-behind thyrsoi with ivy,

some, like spotted foals leaving behind their yokes,

echoed back the Bacchic song between themselves.

Wretched Pentheus, not seeing the crowd of women,

said this: “O stranger, where we’re standing,

I can’t take hold of the false maenads with my eyes.

Upon the hill-bank, walking to the stiff-necked firs,

I might see properly the maenads’ shameless act.”

            From there I saw a wonder from the stranger.

Grabbing the highest, heavenmost branch of a fir,

he brought it down, brought it down to the black earth.

He makes an arc, like a bow or a curved wheel

drawn with a compass, he drags its circular course.

The stranger handled it like a mountain twig,

bent it to the ground, doing what mortals cannot.

He sat Pentheus upon the fir branches

and released him straight up, an offshoot from his hands,

making sure not to unseat him –

it was fixed straight into the sheer heaven,

holding the despot sitting on its back.

Instead of looking down upon the maenads, he was seen himself.

But not yet was it clear that he was sitting up there,

and the stranger seemed to no longer be present,

and some voice from the heavens, one would guess Dionysus,

shouted out: “O young ones,

I’ve set this man down here, one who laughs

at you and me and my rites. Now punish him.”

And at the same time as he spoke these, a light

of holy fire rose up towards heaven and earth.

            The aether was silent, the wooded grove held

its leaves in silence, you didn’t hear the roar of beasts.

The women, having not received the sound clearly in their ears,

stood straight up and turned their eyes in different directions.

He ordered it again. As the Cadmeian maidens understood

clearly the command of Bacchus, they darted forth

no lesser than a dove in swiftness,

running in the eager courses of their feet,

mother Agave and her kindred kind,

all the Bacchae, through the torrential valley

and the mountain crags, maddened by the breath of the god.

As they saw the king sitting in the fir tree,

first they threw at him boulders they hurled violently

as they climbed an adjacent rock,

and he was struck by branches of fir.

Others tossed their thyrsoi through the air

at Pentheus, the unfortunate target. But they didn’t succeed.

Having a height greater than his preparation,

the wretched man sat there, taken up in mindlessness.

Finally, having struck oaken branches like thunder,

they tore up the roots with ironless bars.

Since they accomplished not the aim of their toils,

Agave said: “Come, surround it in a wheel,

grab a young branch, maenads, so we may seize

this climbing beast, so he won’t report

the god’s secret dances. They applied countless hands

and ripped the pine away from the earth.

Torn from his perch, thrown to the dirt,

he fell to the ground with its many nails,

Pentheus fell. Then, near to evil, he learned.

            His mother, priestess of death, led in front

and fell upon him. He swept the helmet away

from his scalp, so that when poor Agave saw him,

she wouldn’t kill him, and he touched her cheek and said:

“I’m your son Pentheus, mother,

whom you bore in the house of Echion.

Mother, pity me, don’t murder your own child

because of the errors I’ve made.”

            She, spitting out froth and turning round

her distorted pupils, not thinking what she should –

she was held fast by Bacchus; he did not persuade her.

Seizing his left hand near the forearm,

setting her foot against the ill-fated man’s ribs,

she ripped out his shoulder, not by her own strength –

the god gave the ability to her hands.

Ino went to work after the other one,

tearing flesh, and Autonoe and the entire crowd

of Bacchae took hold. There was a shout all around

with him groaning every time he breathed,

as they all hooted. One carried his forearm,

another his foot inside its boot. The ribs were

stripped of their meat. All the women, bloodying

their hands, played catch with Pentheus’ flesh.

            The body lay in pieces, part under

the rugged rocks, part in the woods’ deep foliage,

not easily found. His tormented head

which his mother had taken in her hand, she stuck it

atop a thyrsus, and carried it across the middle

of Cithaeron, like that of a mountain-hunting lion,

leaving her sisters in the hands of the maenads.

Exultant in her ill-starred hunt, she went

outside the walls, calling up Bacchus,

her fellow hunter, companion in the chase,

glorious in victory – for whom she wins tears as triumph.

            Then I left on foot from this scene,

before Agave went towards the palace.

What’s best is prudence and reverence for the divine.

I think this is mortals’ greatest possession,

but only for those that make use of it.

(Exit MESSENGER)

Strangers and Manifestations

And after a long pause while the quarter started, we return to the Bacchae. This episode deals with the chorus' imagination of what is taking place in the mountain hills - as such, it creates the effect of portraying events for the audience which may or may not be accurate. Does their possession by Dionysus enable the chorus to see Pentheus' discovery and capture miles away? Certainly the god has powers of foresight and omnipresence, but how much carries over? We will find out in the next segment, which contains the messenger's lengthy description of affairs in the forest.

Ambiguity also reigns in terms of the narrative structure of the chorus. I'm not certain if I've mentioned this before, but Attic Greek (like many of its relatives) has no punctuation; the punctuation in our texts is placed there at the whim of the editor, and one must remember always that it serves as a reconstructed guide. When does the chorus-imagined speech of Agave end? Does it incorporate the repeated passage about manifest justice? Does it recur and involve the rest of the choral ode? My guess is entirely that - a guess - so feel free to interpret the passage as you will.

A further issue with this portion of the play is that "this passage is the hardest in the play, and full of textual uncertainties" (Dodds 202). The apparatus criticus (an explanation of variant readings between different manuscripts) is more extensive than usual here, and as I lack the expertise to offer any suggestions myself, I have read the passage as a compromise between Dodds' reconstruction and that of Gilbert Murray, which is the current text on the translation-aide website Perseus. Also of note: one line is stolen directly from Euripides' other play Medea, likely by some ancient grammarian or commentator. Additionally, it certainly does not help that this section contains numerous equational sentences and garbled syntax, so it may be best to conceptualize it as a series of connected phrases and fragments rather than a grammatically coherent song.

976-1042

CHORUS: Go to the mountain, swift dogs of madness,

where the maidens of Cadmus form their band;

goad him to madness,

attack him! The man in the woman-mocking dress,

an insane spy upon the maenads.

His mother, watching from a smooth rock

or a crag, will see him first

as he observes them – she will shout to the maenads:

“Who is that man running through the hills,

a sentry of Cadmus’ people, who goes and goes

from hill to hill, O Bacchae? Who gave him birth?

He wasn’t born from a woman’s blood – he’s

the offspring of some lioness

or of the Libyan Gorgons."

Go on, manifest justice – go on, sword-bearer,

murder him, cut through his throat,

kill the godless lawless mindless

earthborn spawn of Echion.

He, with unjust mind and illegal rage

against you, Bacchae, and your mother’s rites,

he’s set in his raging heart

and frenzied purpose,

trying to defeat the invincible through violence:

Death will correct his opinions, Death

who accepts no excuses in the matters of the gods.

To live life as a mortal should is painless;

I do not envy wisdom,

I rejoice in pursuing it. Other matters

are great and visible. O, may life flow

towards what is good, acting right

and being pious day and night, discarding

customs that are apart from justice,

and honoring the gods.

Go on, manifest justice – go on, sword-bearer,

murder him, cut through his throat,

kill the godless lawless mindless

earthborn child of Echion.

Be manifest as a bull or a many-headed serpent,

something to see, or appear as a blazing lion.

Go forth, o Bacchus, with smiling face

throw a deadly noose around this man

who hunts the Bacchae, as he falls beneath

the herd of maenads.

(Enter a MESSENGER)

MESSENGER: O house, which was earlier successful

in the land of Greece, house of the old man of Sidon,

who sowed the earthborn harvest of the serpent Ophis

in his land, how I groan on your behalf. I am your slave,

but still, good servants care about their masters’ affairs.

CHORUS: What’s this? Will you reveal news about the Bacchae?

MESSENGER: Pentheus, son of Echion, is dead.

CHORUS: O lord Bromios, as a great god you are revealed.

MESSENGER: What are you saying? What do you mean?

Do you rejoice, women, that things fared badly for our master?

CHORUS: I’m a foreign woman, and rejoice with barbarian song:

for no longer am I in chains, or cower in fear.

MESSENGER: Do you think Thebes has no men [ - - -

- - - here some text has been lost - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ]?

CHORUS: Dionysus, Dionysus, not the Thebans,

has power over me.

MESSENGER: I sympathize with you, o women,

but to rejoice in evil that has occurred is not something good.

CHORUS: Tell me, speak, in what way that unjust man,

who contrived unjust things, in what way did he die?

Notes:

The Gorgons are a group of ancient monstrous female creatures who vary in number and origin, depending on our sources. Medusa was notably a Gorgon.

Sidon is the Phoenician home city of Cadmus.

What is Good is Always Loved

As mentioned earlier, Victor Castellani (whom I keep confusing with Philip Vellacott, who wrote a poor translation of the Bacchae) wrote the article  "That Troubled House of Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae"(TAPA, 1974) about the question of what happens to the palace during the earthquake scene. Now, back in my nest, I took the time to read it again.

Taking a middle ground between two opposing camps, Castellani argues that something does happen to the palace - but not very much, because of 1) the limitations of Greek stagecraft and 2) linguistic evidence throughout the play which focuses on the prefix "dia-", which means "through", or, more importantly here, "split" or "apart". Castellani posits that some sort of device onstage formed a visible split or crack in the house which persisted until the end of the play; the earthquake scene might also have included the crashing of drums and a flame spurting from Semele's visible tomb. [I think Castellani might have missed good evidence in Pentheus' speech in this section of the play: if P. sees a double Thebes and a double sun, might he not see a double palace? The palace is the only part of Thebes that would be visible.]

The question is perhaps not fully answerable, but the article does offer a good alternative to the two other camps (for a more detailed list of previous scholarship, read the article), which argue that 1) since characters say so, the house is fully destroyed during the earthquake - which is problematic, since people later enter and leave the house, and 2) that the earthquake/damage is entirely imaginary. The latter option still stands, but it is certainly less exciting to imagine, and it leaves the audience without a physical manifestation of Dionysus' power.

The rest of the article draws some conclusions about how the house of Pentheus is symbolized by the palace and its destruction, and how language used throughout the play foreshadows or echoes its eventual destruction. It drags on, as articles do, and makes some speculative claims, as articles also do. In my opinion, the first part is the more interesting part, and provides a clever and moderately convincing theory for how we might imagine the stage effects of the original production.

This installment contains the third stasimon, one of my favorite parts of the play. The strophe contains a beautiful and grammatically complex simile comparing a Bacchant woman to a fawn in danger who comes to a time of great joy; this probably symbolizes the coming defeat of Pentheus and the resultant security for the Bacchae - who have been portrayed throughout as chaste and endangered, despite their obvious physical power. The antistrophe describes the inability of man to contest against divine power and his folly in competing with divine law. Divine law is not presented as the result of reason and logic, but instead as precedent and good fortune. Humans do not know the true characteristics of gods like Dionysus; they must guess at appropriate behavior, repent if the deity is angered, and live in uncertainty about the nature of their gods and the correct path to avoid retribution from inherently unknowable powers. (Some have argued, and might have a point, about this fundamental uncertainty being a critical difference between Greco-Roman religion and the modern Abrahamic monotheisms.)

Continuing in this vein, both strophe and antistrophe end with what fits the more modern definition, a repeated chorus. There are alternate interpretations explained in Dodds, but I like to consider this chorus, which asks questions about the nature of knowledge and does not answer them, a stunning encapsulation of grappling with uncertainty. The questions "What is wisdom?" "What is the best gift from gods to men?" and their answers (?) could be read as a confirmation of the might of Dionysus or, perhaps, a pair of rhetorical addresses that remain unanswered in any convincing sense.

Two answers are provided: one is the proverb "What is good is always loved". Does it justify the murder of Pentheus, as something "good"? The question underlying this is one asked often in Greek culture, of how to define what "good" is; stating this sentence may simply ask a third impossible question.

The other answer is contained in the atypical ending choral song, which was the first part of the play I translated. A man upon the sea is lucky enough to survive, and he is apparently happy; a person who overcomes work is the same; the hopes of man are sometimes realized, and sometimes not. The chorus here should perhaps be stressing the prospect of deliverance through Dionysus, that gods can promise a consistent and reliable end to mortal pain - as they have said about Dionysus. Instead, they offer the message that life is inconstant, and the only person who can be truly called happy is he who incurs no risk of a reversal of fortune, because death has sealed off that possibility. 

P.S. Sorry, this was a really fascinating passage, and I didn't get to discuss everything in as much detail as I would have liked, so here is some truncated food for thought. Take notice of Pentheus' vision of the god as a bull - the bull is a symbol of the feral side of D.'s power, and has repeatedly appeared; D.'s success in feminizing P.; the chilling, repetitive, cruel use of foreshadowing by Dionysus as he toys with his disturbed and defenseless victim.

862-976

CHORUS: When will I stamp my white foot

in the all-night dances,

breaking forth in revelry,

tossing my head in the dewy air,

like a fawn playing in

the green pleasures of the meadow,

when it has escaped the dreadful hunt,

gotten beyond the watchers,

over the well-woven nets,

as the shouting hunter stretches out

the chase of his dogs?

In the exertion of swift running,

like the winds, she bounds over

a plain beside a river, delighting

in the solitary places apart from men

and the shoots of the forests with shady leaves.

What is wisdom? Is there a greater honor

given from gods to men,

than to hold your hand in power

over the heads of your enemies?

What is good is always loved.

Divine power is provoked only

with difficulty, but it’s trustworthy

all the same. It rectifies those of mortals

who pay heed to ignorance and those

not giving due honor to the gods

in their mindless judgment.

They intricately conceal

the lengthy pace of time

and hunt down the unholy man.

It’s not necessary ever to understand

or contemplate anything

that goes beyond the laws.

It is a light expense

to think that, whatever the divine is,

that which has been law for a long time

is eternal and rooted in natural law.

What is wisdom? Is there a greater honor

given from gods to men

than to hold your hand in power

over the heads of your enemies?

What is good is always loved.

Happy is he who has escaped a storm upon the sea,
and reached a harbor;
happy is he who has overcome his toils:
each man outdoes another man in another way
in terms of wealth and power.
Millions upon millions are the hopes of man:
some end in happiness for mortals, and others pass away
but he who lives in happiness every day of his life,
I consider that man blessed.

(Enter DIONYSUS)

DIONYSUS: You who are eager to see things which should be seen

and those which should not, I speak to you, Pentheus,

Come out in front of the house, so I may see you,

wearing the dress of a maenad, a female Bacchant,

a scout for an ambush upon your mother.

(Enter PENTHEUS)

You are dressed perfectly like one of Cadmus’ daughters.

PENTHEUS: It seems to me that I see two suns,

and a double Thebes, the seven-gated city,

and you seem to be before me in the shape of a bull,

and that horns have grown upon your head.

Were you then a bull before? You are certainly bull-like now.

DIONYSUS: The god accompanies us – he was not pleased before –

in alliance with us. Now you see what you should see.

PENTHEUS: How do I look? Aren’t I similar in form

to Ino, or to my mother Agave?

DIONYSUS: Looking at you, it seems I’m looking at them.

But this lock of hair has moved from where it sat,

not like I arranged it, under the headband.

PENTHEUS: Carrying on inside, and dancing around

in revelry, I tossed it out of place.

DIONYSUS: Well, I’ll arrange it again, since I care

to help you so. Now straighten your head.

PENTHEUS: Come, arrange it. For I’m depending upon you.

DIONYSUS: Your belt is loose, and your robes

aren’t stretching to your ankles correctly.

PENTHEUS: It seems fine to me on the right leg.

But on this side it’s straight against the knee.

DIONYSUS: Perhaps you should hold me first among your friends,

when you see the Bacchae are modest, not like as you said.

PENTHEUS: Should I hold my thyrsus in my right hand

or in the other, in order to simulate a Bacchant better?

DIONYSUS: You should hold it in your right hand and at the same time

raise your right foot. I’m pleased that you’ve changed your mind.

PENTHEUS: Will I be able to the hills of Cithaeron,

along with the Bacchae themselves, upon my shoulders?

DIONYSUS: You will, if you want. Earlier you weren’t

in a proper state of mind; but now you’re in the right place.

PENTHEUS: Should we carry crowbars? Or should we throw an elbow

or a forearm under the peaks, and pull them up with our hands?

DIONYSUS: You should not destroy the temples of the Nymphs

and the home of Pan, where his pipe-music rests.

PENTHEUS: You spoke beautifully. The women cannot

be conquered by force. I’ll hide myself in the pine-trees.

DIONYSUS: You will hide in your hiding when you should hide yourself,

coming as a crafty spy upon the maenads.

PENTHEUS: Ah! It seems to me that they are like birds in thickets,

in the beloved confines of lover’s beds.

DIONYSUS: So you are sent as a guard against this very thing.

Perhaps you’ll seize them all, if you are not seized first.

PENTHEUS: Escort me through the middle of Thebes.

I am the only man among them who dares to do this.

DIONYSUS: You alone suffer this for the city, you alone.

So the necessary struggles await you.

Follow me. I will be your guide and savior.

Later, another will lead you forth.

PENTHEUS: My mother, yes.

DIONYSUS: As a message for everyone.

PENTHEUS: I’m departing because of this.

DIONYSUS: You will return being carried.

PENTHEUS: You’re speaking of my extravagance.

DIONYSUS: In the hands of your mother.

PENTHEUS: You’re compelling me to luxury!

DIONYSUS: Yes, such luxury!

PENTHEUS: I claim what I deserve.

DIONYSUS: Monstrous, you are monstrous; a monstrous torment awaits you,

so your fame will be fixed in the heavens.

            Agave, kindred daughters of Cadmus,

reach out your hands. I bring a young man

into a great contest, in which I and Bromios

will be the winner. The rest, events will show.

(Exit DIONYSUS and PENTHEUS)

Notes:

Nymphs are minor nature goddesses who personify various aspects of nature - streams, forests, trees.

Pan is a half-goat, half-man nature divinity of uncertain parentage. He symbolizes the chaotic power of nature, music, fertility, and sexual aggression.