Talk:The Bacchae

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Contents 1 Date of Brad Mays movie 2 Dionysos and Jesus 3 The Great Elision and other matters 4 Picture of maenads 5 New Verse Blog-Link

[edit] Date of Brad Mays movie

According to us.imdb.com, the Brad Mays movie version was released in 2002

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0154187/

[edit] Dionysos and Jesus

It would be interesting to read about the connection between Dionysus and Jesus: the former may have been the prototype for the latter. Perhaps someone more erudite than myself would write about it?

You mean like Dionysus#Parallels_with_Christianity? Stan 17:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Great Elision and other matters

I guess I was expecting a more classicist account, including some literary/technical details; including most of all the issue of the Great Elision and the resolution of the play in that missing passage. I guess I'll try and author a bit on it, and on other scholarly/documentary matters concerning the play; including the one-time (though resolved) debate as to whether it was an early work or, as has been concluded, among his last and written in his final exile in Macedon. A discussion of its religious implications in the ancient world, and in the context of Euripides' political life re its symbolism and religious statement (considering the near-apostasy of the Herakles, which nearly got him under charges in Athens; or did it, in fact, I think?); The bacchae seems a reaffirmation of the Dionysiac faith - the god of theatre whom Euripides had served his life under/for - and skirts delicately about the issue of the Dionysia itself ("it is ill to speak of the Dionysia", went an ancient saying); that it takes place on stage although the chorus - the Stranger's attendants - mimicked, no doubt, the music of the celebrations that must necessariliy remain offstage. It is also unusual among all ancient tragedies in that the god of the action appears not on the proscenion, but from within the chorus and also on-stage with the protagonist himself (Pentheus). I think also there should be more poetry in the account of Dionysos' birth - for Zeus' true nature, his godhead, was the lightning, and it was by that that Semele was blasted and the babe within, being immortal, could not be burned; so he was hidden from Hera and, as the play orates, became the most powerful of all the gods (save Zeus himself), at least within the context of the Dionysian belief/rite (Bromios! O Bromios! Euoi! Euoi!). The choruses of the play are also known as being the most fabulous and beautiful and intense of Euripides' poetry, though though are difficult to understand in that context by way of direct translation; so much symbolism, adn the mysteries of the rite, are built into the play, and within the metre and style of the choral songs, that their nature can only be known by those who are fluent in ancient Greek (who are surprisingly many, as with Latin). I wish I was equipped to write about that; I'll see if I can find some resources and some of the main commentaries by classicist/critics to add to the article. And I'll try not to wax too poetic in any of the edits I may do. About that near-violation of the taboo on portraying the Dionysia that is inherent in the play, on the very Dionysian altar of the stage itself, for which the penalty was death: Euripides came to his end by being torn to death by the king's dogs while out for a walk at night...at a crossroads no less. What a way to go (see Actaeon , Adonis and similar); another interpretation of such a death may be that it was a divine sacrifice, the god calling a beloved servant home. Apparently the savagery of the speech in the elision was a legendarily powerful part of the play, some of the finest Euripides ever wrote; part o the theme of the choruses is somewhere "victory is the joy of smashing your enemies' skulls beneath your feet, or something to that effect; the thrill of a god's victory being unlike that of men, for it is a god's right and power to exact vengeance no those who would resist him (drinking, dancing or otherwise); in an earlier period and with more pointed language this might have been near-apostasic, as with the Herakles and others, but here it is an oration of the voice of Eurpides' patron deity; not a murderer, but a victor, and lord of all his own mysteries which Pentheus dared defy; it was not murder, but fitting execution; so the play is utterly religious, almost a reaffirmation of the cynicism of the plays written in his dire days in Athens before the exile in Macedon. Said also to be one of the most evocative ancient works expressing the wilds of Macedonia and evocative of its beauty; must have been quite melodic, and given his musical reputation, highly dandeable and sensuous (for which he was criticized; for using "tavern songs" as melodies and worse)Skookum1 06:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Postscript: somewhere in there I meant to add that the circumstances of Dionysos' birth are the reason for his primary aspect: "the immanence of god in man", as celebrated throughout the play; intoxication only being part of that immanence, but central to his ritual celebrations also; the intoxication of artistic creativity and poetry ("poetry" then meant a synthesis of word, music and dance, the context of which is lost to us as all the tragedians were also composers and chorus-leaders and singers; you had to teach the chorus and actors orally, although much of the melody is apparently built into the metre and tonality of the accents/words. Back to the immanence-of-god-in-man - this is the core point of the play; speculations on the elision imply that the God, in announcing his triumph over his victims (the content of the Elision) point out that they could not deny him, because he was already inside them; none were immune from its power; embrace him or be destroyed by your own self; hence the fate of Pentheus and of Agave, who wakes from the orgy to discover it is not a lion's head in her arms, but her own son's; it is then the elision begins...caused by a pious monk in Constantinople 9th-11th Century sometime who needed a page to practice writing on; thankfully in another ancient document there's a Christian parody/take-off on the Elision, in worse poetry but partly reconstructible; cited one of the classical scholars I read; I'd have to look up my notes. Skookum1 06:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of maenads

I added the picture of the young maenad initation from Brad Mays' film. I have a picture of Pentheus' slaughter as well. Should I add that? You can't see much but a bunch of bare bottomed women. I didn't know if it was appropriate or not. Smokingmaenad 06:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Verse Blog-Link

I attempted to add and am suggesting a link to the translation I prepared after taking a graduate course on the Bacchae of Euripides and published independently in 2005, again in web edition in January '08. I realize this may look like a conflict of interest, but I completed a BA in English and Classical Languages at UC Berkeley in 2003, checked the translation against philological commentaries & multiple translations, again with Professors at alma mater & graduate institution. I received nothing in compensation for this effort but compliments, presented portions at a San Francisco State University Forum on the Classical World in October of publication year: http://euripidesofathens.blogspot.com/2008/01/introduction.html TheAeduan (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)