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Reading Bacchae, Reading Dionysus
In this chapter, I address a number of key issues pertaining to Dionysus, Bacchae, and in particular the presentation of Dionysus in Bacchae. We start at the beginning: out of nowhere, Dionysus appears alone onstage, announcing his arrival in Thebes where he was born. It is a fitting entrance for a god of wine, theatre, ritual madness and mystery-cult. It is also a fitting start to a great play. I translate literally:
I have come here to Thebes. I am Zeusâs son
Dionysus, born to Cadmusâ daughter
Semele; the midwife was fire, riding on lightning.
Iâve swapped divine for human form
and here I am by the rivers Dirce and Ismenus.
Bacch. 1â5
Even against its will, this city has to learn
my rituals in full, since it is uninitiated.
I have to defend my mother Semele
and appear before these humans â the god she bore to Zeus.
39â42
And so I will show Pentheus that I am a born god â
him and all the Thebans.
47â8
Dionysus is a god of epiphany. In myth, he frequently appears to the very people who have impugned his rights (or his rites). In the Hymn to Dionysus, he turns his captors into dolphins. The Thracian king Lycurgus threatens Dionysusâ worshippers and ends up blinded by Zeus and hated by the gods (Hom. Il. 6.138â40) or, in another version, sealed in a cave (Soph. Ant. 955â8). Most famously of all, Euripidesâ Bacchae depicts Dionysus appearing in anthropomorphic form, as he emphasizes repeatedly in his prologue, to punish Pentheus. (Another hefty metaphysical tragedy from the late fifth century, Sophoclesâ Oedipus at Colonus, depicts a human being leaving the natural world for the supernatural; Bacchae depicts a god who has temporarily left the divine realm for the human.1) As Anton Bierl puts it, âWe can describe the plot of Bacchae overall as an epiphany of Dionysus.â2
What the actor playing Dionysus said through the aperture in his mask, as he entered the acting space on that early spring day, was, in Greek:
áŒÎșÏ ÎÎčáœžÏ ÏαáżÏ ÏÎźÎœÎŽÎ” ÎηÎČÎ±ÎŻÎ±Îœ ÏΞÏΜα
ÎÎčÏÎœÏ
ÏÎżÏ3
HÄkĆ Dios pais tÄnde ThÄbaian khthona
Dionusos
Or, in English: âI have come here to Thebes. I am Zeusâs son Dionysusâ.4 At first glance, this is an entirely conventional, natural way for a prologue-speaker to announce his arrival; a straightforward, generic Greek phrase which would not strike real-time listeners as being at all significant. Read schematically as the formal opening to a polysemous literary work, however, Dionysusâ words introduce a raft of intellectual concerns which are of great relevance to the text: epiphany, ontology, identity, divinity and naming. Especially in literary translation, Dionysusâ words may function programmatically:
Behold, Godâs Son is come unto this land of Thebes
Gilbert Murray, 1902
My name is Dionysus, son of Zeus
and Semele, Cadmusâ eldest daughter. Whoosh!
Derek Mahon, 1991
An empty space, and all of you, and me.
And who am I? Dionysus son of Zeus
Colin Teevan, 2002
So, Thebes, Iâm back
David Greig, 2007
Here I am.
Dionysos.
I am
son of Zeus
Anne Carson, 2015
I have come here to Thebes. Although this is not Dionysusâ first visit to Thebes, it is a symbolic first arrival. He has come from overseas. He brings a new cult. His first word is ጄÎșÏ (hÄkĆ, âI have comeâ), an otherwise unexceptionable verb which was âa favourite with supernatural visitantsâ in tragedy.5 In terms of tragic style, he is yet another divine prologue-speaker, and his entrance recalls that of Aphrodite in Euripidesâ Hippolytus.6 At the beginning of Hippolytus, Aphrodite says, âI am powerful and famous among humans and gods; I am called the goddess Cyprisâ (1â2). âThe core of the [first] sentence is Aph.âs announcement of her identity: âI am called the goddess Kypris.ââ7 Like Dionysus, she, too, speaks of divinity, honour and revenge (Hipp. 1â6). But Dionysus is exceptional. A quintessentially epiphanic deity, he stays on to complete his revenge plot in person; neither Aphrodite nor Hermes (in Euripidesâ Ion) do the same. Dionysusâ physical presence, dramatic and cultic immanence and interest in human behaviour collectively shape his Bacchae entrance. As one commentator puts it, âThe imperious affirmation of [Dionysusâ] divine personality rings out like a challenge and a threat.â8
I am Zeusâs son. Hesiodâs Works and Days opens with a hymn to Zeus rounded off by an appeal to justice (Op. 9â10). Aratusâ Phaenomena begins: âWe should start with Zeus [Dios], whom we never fail to mention. All the roads and all the plazas, oceans and harbours, are full of Zeus [Dios]. We all need Zeus [Dios] always, because we are his childrenâ (1â5). The apostle Paul famously alluded to this very passage when he spoke about the Unknown God to a crowd of Athenians (Acts 17.28). Greek tragedy, too, voiced similar ideas: âWhat could ever happen to humans without Zeus [Dios]? Was any of this not caused by a god [theokranton]?â; âNone of these things is not Zeus.â9 The very second word of Bacchae, in fact, is Dios (âof Zeusâ). Zeus is lord of Olympus and âfather of gods and menâ. He has authority in the divine hierarchy, a major stake in justice (dikÄ), and some influence on (if not control over) fate. As âZeusâs sonâ, Dionysus is special.
Dionysus. The name âDionysusâ, which dates back to pre-classical times, probably has something to do with Zeus and may ultimately derive from a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) concept, âson of the sky godâ. Compare Dionysusâ half-brothers Castor and Pollux: nicknamed the Dioscuri, they are sons of Zeus who are also, literally, âsons of Zeusâ (Dios-kouroi).10 Dionysus is certainly old enough to appear on Bronze Age tablets in the Mycenaean Greek form DI-WO-NU-SO(IO). The first part of his name, âDioâ, is usually explained as a derivative of the name âZeusâ related to the word-form Dios (âof Zeusâ). In turn, the words Dios and Zeus are related to the hypothetical PIE word for âheavenâ, which is also the name of the sky god, *diÄus. As for the second part of Dionysusâ name, ânysusâ, scholars once identified nĆ«sos with a hypothetical Thracian word for âsonâ, but this explanation has fallen out of favour. A sceptical view holds that âDionysusâ is not even a Greek...