Mysteries and Politics in Bacchae Hand Passion Chorus Describe in the Parodos Senses Which the Surrender to and the Passion on Reason Is Persuasive
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Looking at Bacchae 82 division in the articulate the fluid binary In to 6 human nature. helping articulate the fragile world chorus also help to of the the topography play of order and reason on the one the coexistence the human psyche and within The and liberation of disorder on the othe. beauty with and Mysteries and Politics in Bacchae hand passion chorus describe in the parodos senses which the surrender to and the passion on reason is persuasive. A a narrow focus real. And their hostility to Richard Seaford is very without a of surrender without and degree lived rationally passion life wholly to comes at a is arid. But surrender passion transient sensory experience to confine and can as be released is dificult to easily risk, in that emotion once force. a destructive as a life-enhancing the The idea that ancient Greeks have much to tell us can shade into the idea that were like us. But of if 'they just course, they really were just like us, Notes there would be no point in studying them (other than as self-legitimation). - In fact was - Greek culture unlike some cultures similar to be Roselli (2011) Wilson (2000) 6, Cartledge (1997) enough I See Carey (2013) 155, 23-5, to us, but at the same comprehensible time very different in a way that justifies 18, and Slater (1995) 100, 108 Csapo Karamanou and efforts to understand it. dimension of the see Hall, 2 For the intertextual play This with force to the Sommerstein in this volume. point applies particular modern staging of ancient - Orestes Greek drama. It can be and - which revisits elements of Choephori, generally is so as to 3 E.g. Electra 508-76, Aeschylus staged express something Orestes in Eumenides, Phoenissae within the mainstream of our 866-935, which reprises the trial of range preoccupations. Alternatively, a brave which revisit the dialogue between director to a 103-201,737-53, 1104-40 (if genuine), might attempt stage production which contributes to expanding Thebes. the In one sense such Eteocles and the scout in Seven against range. an attempt should be easy, given the narrowness 4 Easterling (1997b) 163-4. of our mainstream: from within any culture (including our own) the 5 Swift (2013) 132-3. mainstream looks much broader than it really is. But on the other hand such 6 Fragment 57. an is attempt risky, and requires a kind of effort on the not this time he has died and his special part only 7 The last instance, however, is ironic; by horribly of the translator, director and mother is holding his head in her hand as she complains about his poor performers, but also of the audience. Consider, from this perspective, the problem of staging Bacchae. There is hunting skills. at the heart of the a is to 8 Cf. Sophocles, Antigone 471-2, 853-6. play mystery. Dionysus bringing Thebes something mysterious, and Pentheus wants to know what it is. We have the vague sense 9 Phoen. 205-7. that beneath the surface there is 10 Phoen. 218-20. just something profound, even though it is and never made clear what it is. 11 Twenty-one times, as against five occurrences in the rest of the plays Mysteries can of course be solved. But our culture also fragments. equips us with the idea of a mere atmosphere of mystery, mystery without 12 81, 106, 177, 702-3. content, and this is what is generally conveyed by productions of Bacchae. 13 Finally in 1141 the thyrsos becomes the spike on which Agave carries her The ancient Greeks would not have understood this. Our word 'mystery sons head on her return from the hunt. derives from a Greek word (musterion) which refers to a kind of ritual. There 14 For the ubiquity of hunting in Bacchae and its association with the duality of were various Greek mystery-cults, notably those celebrated in various Dionysus see Segal (1997) ch.2. places in honour of Dionysus and those celebrated in honour of Demeter and her 15 Cf Cretans fr.472. daughter Korë at Eleusis near Athens. These cults are sometimes called simply 16 For choral mainadism in the play see Bierl (2013). the or But not about -or 17 West (1987) 61-3. mysteries' (Dionysiac Eleusinian). they were not just about - creating a mysterious atmosphere. They had a speciic purpose. 18 For the role in Greek see of narrated space tragedy Kampourelli (2015). Mystic initiation was a rehearsal for death, which subjected the initiands to 19 62,661,751, 797, 1045, 1142,1177, 1219, 1292, 1384, 1385. individual suffering, to the fear of death, and then to a joyful conclusion. The Looking at Bacchae Mysteries and Politics in Bacchae 85 4 sequently, at their real death would subsequ be confident that was they that father who had almost certainly been initiated into pagan mystery-cult from suffering to joy they had pointof this transitiontion from the experienced before his conversion to Christianity. As a result of his conversion, he did not experiencing that in And it is mystery-cult Dionysus Bacchae of rehearsal. is feel obliged to respect the secrecy of the pagan mystery-cult. And he was in the mystic ofofall this has played any part in the attempts t But none Thebes. aware unlike all subsequent commentators of the mystic content of the bringing to scholars, translatslators or theatre whether directo Bacchae, by This Bacchae. In the last chapter of his Protrepticus ("Exhortation') he describes interpret understood of all ancient dramas. There: least Bacchae the three being guided by god as being 'initiated into those holy mysteries' (i.e. makes of understanding. for this failure and then launches an attack on various cult actions in reasons ritual. It had too be Christianity), depicted surrounding mystic kept first is the secrecy secret, the Bacchae, comparing them unfavourably to corresponding elements in The betorehand of the joyful concl. had known if the initiands they what he calls the mysteries of the Word (tou logou ta mustëria), the 'truly because terrihed in the initial the. sufficiently stages of not have been ritual. sacred mysteries' of Christianity. These, he says, 'are the bacchic revels would secrets of the for proraning mystery-cult Aeschylus was prosecuted (baccheumata) of my mysteries. Conversion to Christianity is mystic coula not make expicit the joytul of dramas. Euripides in Bacchae outcome initiation that is superior to the mystic initiation in Bacchae. In its elimination the Homeric Hymn to Demeter The narrative of ludes of the mystery-cults, Christianity claimed to be the true mystery. the mystic ritual. is he of men on the earth who has seen these with the goddess saying'blessed The third reason for the failure to understand Bacchae is this. It is emphasized and portionless will never have a share af but he who is uninitiated in the play that the cult that Dionysus brings to Thebes is for everybody. things, This dead below in the dank darkness. refers to initiation He wants to have honours from all' (208). This universal participation was such things when but the content of the ritual cannot in the into the Eleusinian mystery-cult, a general feature of Dionysiac cult. Such universal accessibility seems to Similarly n Bachae, the chorus of (narrated) myth be made explicit. contradict the confinement of secret knowledge to a few in mystery-cult. arrived in the theatre, blessed is he Dionysus' female followers, once sing However, there is less contradiction than it may seem. At the heart of the relation to the knowing the teletas of the gods, who, eudaimön (in right gods), Dionysiac festival we sometimes find a secret ritual performed by a small his soul to the thiasos (sacred band).... Teletas refers group on behalf of the whole polis. An example is the Athenian festival called is pure in life and joins - but - here the content of the ritual And I that it was secret to the Dionysiac mystery-cult, again Anthesteria. suspect ritual of this kind that, at the City be made Nevertheless, there are in Dionysia towards the end of the sixth century BC, was intriguing enough to cannot in the (dramatized) myth explicit. events which reflect develop into the public spectacle of tragedy. Moreover, at Eleusis large numbers both Homeric Hymn and Bacchae strange undoubtedly reflection is of the kind of were initiated every year, with the result that probably most citizens were the content of the mystic ritual. Such typical came to established. ('aetiological) myth that explains how a ritual Both initiates, and the secret initiation ritual together with its splendid public Bacchae and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter embody an aetiological myth of procession were regarded by the Athenians as important for the well-being of mystic ritual: both deities after long wandering arrive in disguise at a place their polis. Dionysus in Bacchae (39-40) insists that the polis must be initiated. (Thebes, Eleusis) where they manifest themselves in an epiphany and The emotion of a ritually enacted transition from the individual suffering of we know a certain death to collective joy in the afterlife was of political significance. Modern establish their mystery-cult. Despite the secrecy, do amount about what occurred in the ritual, for instance from Christian writers, democracy is an arrangement between autonomous individuals, whereas who did not respect the secrecy, or from some gold strips that were inscribed Athenian democracy was reinforced by - perhaps even dependent on - the with mystic formulae and then buried with the initiated dead. collective emotion of spectacular rituals. The second reason for the general failure to understand Bacchae is more The mystic transition from suffering to joy, and from individual isolation fundamental.