Lycurgus

Not observing this, Euripides, from too blind a rivalry, sometimes falls under the same censure.

Aeschylus, with strange violence of language, represents the palace of Lycurgus as possessed at the appearance of Dionysus.

the halls with rapture thrill, the roofs inspired.

Here Euripides, in borrowing the image, softens its extravagance.

This is, like, a god of, like, chaos, and we're getting rid of him." And then, ironically, the god destroys them, not with lightning or, like, the way you might think, but, like, he basically turns their own buried madness loose inside of them, which then causes them to annihilate the very thing that they were trying to protect, usually their own family.

So take the story, for example, of Lycurgus.

This is a king up in Thrace, and this is basically, like, the wild lands of, like, the northern parts of Greece.

He's the oldest example of this kind of, like, resistance myth that we have, and he shows up all the way back in Homer's Iliad, literally in, like, kind of the earliest versions of Greek literature that we have.

And in the story, Lycurgus violently drives Dionysus and his worshipers out of his kingdom.

He says, "There's no place for this.

We are a place of order.

We're not doing this whole crazy ritual, eating the flesh and going up on the mountain, going into a trance thing." So he basically chases them with, like, like, cattle equipment until the young god has to dive into the sea just to escape.

Already today I have done enough fighting with them, for it is an unlucky thing to do.

King Lycurgus, in the land of Thrace, fought with the god, and it was a bad thing for him that he did so, for he did not live long.

He drove Bacchus, the god of wine, into the sea.

But the other gods were angry with him for this cause, and Zeus made him blind, and he perished miserably.

And when the summer was well nigh come again, the work was finished, and the old man Anchises commanded that they should tarry no longer, whereupon they sailed, taking also their gods with them.

There was a certain land of Thrace, which the god Mars loved beyond all other lands, whereof in time past the fierce Lycurgus, who would have slain Bacchus, was king.

Here, therefore, for the men of the land were friendly, or at the least had been before evil days came upon Troy, Aeneas builded him a city, and called it after his own name.

But after a while, as he did sacrifice on a certain day to his mother, even Venus, that he might have a blessing on his work, slaying also a white bull to Jupiter, there befell a certain horrible thing.

Alas! I fear that, since you left me, you have never once thought of Phyllis.

Cruel fate! Should you be at a loss to know who I, Phyllis, am, and whence? I, who admitted you, after a long course of wandering, into our Thracian harbors, and entertained you in so hospitable a manner; who increased your wealth from my own stock, supplied your wants by many gifts, and intended to have enriched you still more; who subjected to your rule the spacious kingdom of Lycurgus, too warlike and fierce to be awed by a female name; even from Rhodope, covered with eternal snow, to shady Haemus, and where gentle Hebrus rolls his sacred stream; on whom in an unlucky hour I bestowed my virgin love, and whom I suffered with treacherous hands to untie my chaste girdle.

Doubtless Tisiphone howled over us in that fatal night, and the wandering owl complained in mournful notes.

Alecto too was present, her hair wreathed with curling snakes, and lighted the tapers with infernal flame.

For it is an unlucky thing to do.

King Lycurgus, in the land of Thrace, fought with the god, and it was a bad thing for him that he did so, for he did not live long.

He drove Bacchus, the god of wine, into the sea.

But the other gods were angry with him for this cause, and Zeus made him blind, and he perished miserably.