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CHAPTER FOUR

PENTHEUS (1)-BACCHAE 1-656

This chapter and the next examine principally the descriptive aspects of meaning of 's action. The examination must first answer the question of how built up his plot, and secondly questions about the motives of the dramatis personae.

The prologue (1-63) As in many of Euripides' other tragedies the prologue is spoken by a god. This god, , is returning to the city of Thebes where, once, for the first time and prematurely, he was born, and he returns not in the shape of the god that he is, but in the shape ofa man that he is not. These two factors that Dionysus is in Thebes, and that he is here in the shape of a man, are disclosed by the god in the opening lines (1-5); they are, so far as the perception of the audience is concerned, the key factors about the god in the plot, and in the prologue they are repeated em­ phatically, his presence 20-25, 32-36, 41, 42, 47-52, and his mortal shape 53-54. The programme which the god unfolds for Thebes forms the main point of the prologue, taking up 23-54. The section that precedes this ( 1-22) has the character of a poetic formula in the combination of ~xw (I have come) (1) with Amwv (leaving behind) (13), cf. Hee. 1-2, Tro. 1, and gives the audience information about events which took place in the period before the play opens, that is to say in the period that preceded ~xw (I have come) ( 1), and that is reiterated in rj).8ov (I came) (20). These events cover the episode from the myth of , which probably formed the material of Aeschylus' Semele, and immediately preceded his Pentheus; and also Dionysus' world-wide journeys before his present return to Greece, and the beginning of the action of the Bacchae. 85 In 23

85 The much disputed text of 20-22 has been transmitted rightly: (Amwv 8t ... 9' ... &7tEA9wv ... ) l; -njv8t 1tpw'toY ~A9ov 'EAA-fivwv 1t6ALY x&xtr xopEU<10t; XOtt XOt'tOt

the audience's attention in again fixed on Thebes, 86 the place of the dramatic action, and it now comes to light that the god is not in Thebes unprepared, but that he has seen to it that the ritual shrieks have already been heard there, the fawnskins and the thyrsus already worn (23-25); he had done this because his mother's sisters said that Dionysus was not the son of Zeus but of some mortal or other, and that Zeus had killed Semele in her pregnancy with his lightning, as punishment for the lies which she had put about (to save her honour?) on the cunning advice of her father (26-31 ). Therefore (toL-y&p ), explains the god, he has driven his mother's sisters mad, and forced them to put on the ritual clothing of his worship; and he has chased not only them, but all the women of Thebes, after driving them mad, out of their homes onto Mount Cithaeron, where they now live on unsheltered rocks under the pine-trees (32-38). As a con­ sequence, so the god concludes t}:iis argument of why he particularly chose Thebes as the first Greek city in which to establish his rites: this city must learn, even if it will not, that it has not been initiated into his rites; 87 and he, the god, must defend the good name of his mother Semele by appear­ ing as a god before men, a god whom she bore to Zeus (39-42). In this chain of cause and effect it becomes clear that 23-25 must be understood otherwise than appears at first sight: although at first it seemed that Thebes had been admitted to the ranks of cities honouring Dionysus, it is now clear that the city has not been initiated into the Dionysiac rites, but that a process of awakening lies in store for her. Let-

The god intends to introduce his rites to Greece; this is implicitly expressed by xal lxe.t, which is contrasted with lt; Tr)ll8t 1t6At11, and so refers to the East. The god's behaviour has visible effects on the stage among the group of Lydian women who have travelled to Greece with him, and to whom Dionysus is lµq>otllT)t; 8a(µw11. Wilamowitz's emendation to twt weakens this connection between Greece and Asia.-x8611ot (Chr. Pat.) for 1t6At11 (LP) is not necessary, cf. 58, where 1t6Att; also has the meaning of an area of culture and occupa­ tion. Pierson's putting 20 after 22 is not supported by the new papyrus (see note 86). Besides it spoils the balance of the passage: Dionysus' journey has as its goal the manifestation of his divinity-this is the sense of 13-22. The poet follows a parallel pro­ cedure in 23-42. The suggestion made by J. Roux and M. Lacroix, who begin a new pericope at 21, and connect the participles xope.uaott; and xatotG"t'r)aott; with avwA6Au~ot, so that 8£ in 23 must yield ton (Tricl.) is unacceptable for the same reason. 86 The most recent find of a papyrus of the Bacchae (17-26), P. Berol. Inv. 21235 (ed. pr. W. Brashear, ZPE 19 (1975) 300) gives an evident improvement of the text (which had already been conjectured by Pierson): 0~~~ tcxa8e. "(iit; for ~~ott; tfja8e. "(iit; LP, cf. R. Kassel ZPE 21 (1976) 35. 87 Elmsley and Bruhn (cf. Dodds) did not discern the only possible meaning for the construction of the participle after lxµot8e.t11, cf. Goodwin Moods and Tenses 904. But in ad­ dition, neither Murray, Dodds nor Roux take their translation far enough: it does not matter to Dionysus that Thebes still has to learn his rites, but it does that Thebes shall understand to the bitter end ( lx-) that she has not been initiated into his rites. Cf. Wilamowitz: 'Trotz allem Widerstand soil Theben fiihlen, dass ihm der Segen meiner Weihen fehlt'. .