The Bacchae

This spirit of the dance, who leads it or personifies its emotion, stands more clearly perhaps than any other daimon, halfway between earth and heaven.

A number of difficult passages in Euripides' Bacchae and other Dionysiac literature find their explanations when we realize how the god is in part merely identified with the inspired chief dancer.

In part he is the intangible projected incarnation of the emotion of the dance.

The collective desire personified.

Now this is where we get the very different stories.

Now Plutarch tells us that at this very moment during the wedding, the court had been enjoying a performance of a Greek play, the Bacchae by Euripides.

And if you're interested in this play, we're going to have a full episode on it in series two.

But for those not familiar with the play right now, all you need to know is that it's a tragedy about some women in Thebes that the god Dionysus has driven insane.

To be honest, even if it was a completely different play being performed, or even if there was no play at all, if an actor was present, in this case, Jason Of Tralas, if he'd have been present and picked up the head and quoted that line, everyone present would have still got the joke.

They still would have found it hilarious.

Even without the rest of that specific play, if Jason had quoted that line, everyone at that wedding would be familiar enough with the Bacchae, would have known enough of the Greek myth context to find it hilarious.

Jason would have got what every actor craves, attention and applause, and it would have gone down a storm because we can imagine the line to have been as recognisable to them as to be or not to be is to us.

Um, in my workshop that I have with Dickie, we were reading, um, about Dionysus.

Uh, there's a play by Euripides called, um, The Bacchae, and it's just a-- it's, like, Dionysus interacting with the world, and, uh, it's pretty cool.

Um, so yeah, I've been-- I think mythology is probably the strongest source of inspiration that I have.

Um, recently I've been trying to kind of, like, create my own mythos.

Its guiding idea is beautifully simple: to bring the world to the National Theatre and the National Theatre to the world.

Indhu is also an acclaimed director, whose National Theatre productions include The Great Wave, Ugly Lies the Bone, Kerry Jackson: The Father and The Assassin, and Bacchae, which was a big and spectacular, a production, and one that was, really got a lot of attention because it was a playwright's debut, and that was the first time that that had ever happened in the main space of the National Theatre, which is something very, very exciting.

I've often thought that it is a liability.

I'm a playwright and a, it is a liability being a woman, but the much greater liability is having a pulse.

Uh, so that's one way.

Um, and then also we've got, uh-

uh-... a school's tour of Bacchae touring.

We've got a, a primary school tour going in, that's The Last Wild, which is with the Unicorn Theater.

This spirit of the dance, who leads it or personifies its emotion, stands more clearly perhaps than any other daimon, halfway between earth and heaven.

A number of difficult passages in Euripides' Bacchae and other Dionysiac literature find their explanations when we realize how the god is in part merely identified with the inspired chief dancer.

In part he is the intangible projected incarnation of the emotion of the dance, the collective desire personified.

On what does the collective desire or collective dread of the primitive community chiefly concentrate? On two things, the food supply and the tribe supply, the desire not to die of famine and not to be harried or conquered by the neighboring tribe.

In lyrics he sometimes gives us a symphony of beautiful sounds, with repeated words or groups of synonyms without very much regard to the sense.

seventeen of his plays are extant the cyclops is the one surviving satyr drama it deals with the adventure of odysseus in the cyclops cave in a spirit of conventional buffoonery with some exceptions the earlier plays are more cheerful in tone than the later and it has been thought that euripides inspired by pericles ideals wished to glorify athens while his disappointment in their failure and disgust at the excesses of the democracy may have saddened the last part of his life much attention has lately been paid to euripides attitude to women it used to be said that he was a misogynist but the fact seems that he tries to show women with their real good and bad qualities instead of conventional virtues invented for them by men in the media jason has won the golden fleece and brought medea home as his bride he then tires of her and for political reasons weds glauci he attempts to justify his conduct on the plea that medea is really better off in greece than in a barbarian land medea in a passion of jealousy resolves on the only possible vengeance the murder of their two children she commits this crime and escapes leaving jason in despair medea's account of the grievances of her sex exceeds the demands of the situation but we must remember that women were present at tragic performances the genius of euripides forces us to sympathize with the wife and mother witch and murderess though she be rather than the respectable jason who has done nothing against conventional greek morality but is none the less depicted as a quibbler and a coward against this must be set the many virtuous heroines in euripides alcestis for example dies without a murmur to save admetus her amiable but mean-spirited husband when she is restored by the intervention of heracles we can only feel that admetus is worthily deprived even of the dignity of suffering even where euripides shows the commoner failings of women he does so with a certain sympathy electra has been called a typical old maid in other dramatists she is a tragic heroine rebellious in bondage and dignified under oppression in euripides electra she is banished from court wedded to an old peasant and burdened with tasks that make her weary and querulous the vengeance of orestes on aegisthus is shown as a sordid crime electra sends for clytapnestra who arrives in state but sad at heart not knowing of her paramour's death we see the pathos of her sin and splendour for a moment she pities electra who answers ironically and invites her into the cottage where she lives there orestes slays his mother after the deed both brother and sister are plunged in remorse the dioscuri order orestes to go wandering and electra to marry his friend pylades and we can hardly determine which of the murderers has the heavier punishment it is worth noting that the wickedness of the chief characters is contrasted with the almost tiresome virtue of electra's nominal husband the old peasant euripides fully believed that moral goodness was independent of rank the final achievement of euripides life was the bacchae in earlier plays he had criticised the traditional religion but now he seems to return to orthodoxy the subject of the play is the introduction of the bacchic worship at thebes and the fate of pentheus who attempted to thwart its spread the whole population including even tiresias and the aged king cadmus is given up to this orgiastic cult pentheus imprisons bacchus and forbids the rites the god escapes and lures pentheus to disguise himself and spy on the bacchanals who are out on mount cytheron pentheus is quickly detected and is torn to pieces by his mother agave and the other maenads who in their frenzy think he is a young lion In the ravings of a gavey and the ecstatic hymns of the chorus are some of the most inspired passages of Euripides.

Greek literature by Henry Julius Wettenhall Tillyard.

Comedy.

Euripides fully believed that moral goodness was independent of rank.

The final achievement of Euripides' life was the Bacchae.

In earlier plays he had criticized the traditional religion, but now he seems to return to orthodoxy.

The subject of the play is the introduction of the Bacchic worship at Thebes and the fate of Pentheus, who attempted to thwart its spread.

This spirit of the dance, who leads it or personifies its emotion, stands more clearly perhaps than any other daimon, halfway between earth and heaven.

A number of difficult passages in Euripides' Bacchae and other Dionysiac literature find their explanations when we realize how the god is in part merely identified with the inspired chief dancer.

In part he is the intangible projected incarnation of the emotion of the dance.

The collective desire personified.