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Summary OCR Classical Civilisation A Level: Notes on Bacchae
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Worship of DionysusCharacteristic symbols:
Bulls
Serpent
Ivy
Wine
Had a strong association with:
Nature
Fertility
Mythological creatures: satyrs, centaurs, sileni.
Euphoria & ecstasy (pleasure)
o Achieved through ceremonies involving wine and bringing one closer to
nature.
Rituals/ Dionysiac mysteries:
Using trance inducing substances & lots of wine (dance and music were also used) to
remove inhibition – going wild, not holding back, cathartic.
Wine played a huge role – what one felt while drinking was caused by being
possessed by Dionysus’ spirit.
Bulls and goats were associated with wine so worshipped:
o Bulls: horns = vessels wine drunk from.
o Goats: flesh provided wineskin.
Offerings were left at the ritual:
o Because they hoped Dionysus would make their lives better.
o Such as fig, ivy, wine, music and frankincense.
Bacchae: Scene by Scene
Semele = Dionysus’ mother who slept with Zeus
Agave, Autonoe, Ino = Her sisters who didn’t believe her
Actaeon = son of Autonoe
Pentheus = son of Agave, King of Thebes
Cadmus = ex-king of Thebes & grandfather to P and D
Maenads/bacchants = followers of Dionysus
Chorus has strong views about what happens on-stage:
The chorus: hostile to Pentheus and rejoice in his death.
,Prologue: p2-5
Synopsis: Dionysus introduces himself and his reason for coming to Thebes disguised as the
human leader of the Dionysiac cult (telling his story)
Euripides often opened with a single character explaining what’s going on – unlike
Sophocles who preferred dialogue.
Many Gods deliver prologues in Euripides’ plays – BUT only in Bacchae does the God
stay on to play a major role.
‘I, Dionysus, son of Zeus’: starts with a God on stage not above it on the mechane –
unusual – Euripides tends to push boundaries
‘Green clusters of a vine’: vines & ivy are linked with Dionysus.
He has ‘travelled’: exotic to the Greeks ‘Bactria’ ‘Medes’ ‘Rich Arabia’.
‘it’s fair towered cities filled with Greeks and barbarians’: barbarians were anyone
that was not Greek, Athens is used to this mix as it is a high trade spot
‘Revealed to mankind as a God’: he is here to be worshipped.
‘thyrsus’: main symbol of Dionysiac worship – staff wrapped with ivy.
‘I have stung them into a frenzy….on the mountain’ ‘sitting on bare rock under the
green pine trees’- REVENGE:
o Possessed the women to teach the city a lesson (Greek women ran the
household so without them everything halts)
o Semele’s sisters didn’t worship D so he is punishing them by driving ALL
women out of Thebes (they didn’t personally offend him but still don’t
worship him)
o Hubris – leads to nemesis from the God (Dionysus) who now aims to tackle
Pentheus.
‘Attempts to take the bacchants…I shall fight them’.
‘I have out aside my true form…of a mortal man’: disguised to take revenge.
‘Tmlous’: mountains in Lydia – his bacchants have followed him from Persia (the
chorus)
‘Mother rhea’: Zeus’ mother, Dionysus’ grandmother – Dionysus trying to prove
himself as Greek because he is a bit foreign
‘Cithaeron’: mountain just outside Thebes
‘Come to this royal house of Pentheus….city of Cadmus’: wants the bacchants to
annoy the royal family.
By end: clear that his purpose behind his coming actions is to be worshipped & this
set the scene (vengeful and complicated family background)
Parodos: p5-9
Synopsis: 1st entry of the chorus – they sing a hymn in honour of Dionysus as they have come
to Greece following their cult leader.
Begins like a Greek prayer.
‘Bromios’: another name for Dionysus, means ‘the Thunderer’ to draw attention to
his wildness and power.
‘Blessed is he who is good fortune’ - aka anyone who honours these us blessed:
, o ‘Knows the rites of the God’.
o ‘Who leads a life of reverence’.
o ‘Who dances in the mountains’.
o ‘Who honours the rights of great mother Cybele’
‘Cybele’: Persian mother goddess embodying fertility of the earth.
‘ivy’
Then begins to talk about the life of Dionysus starting with his birth.
‘when his mother was carrying him….. hidden away from Hera’: telling the myth –
Semele dies in childbirth due to the thunder strike from Zeus, Dionysus is born
premature, Zeus saves him and sows him into his thigh to protect from Hera.
‘thrust him prematurely’: Dionysus is twice born as he was born then but also when
he came out of zeus’ thigh
‘he crowned the child….untameable beasts in their hair’: why maenads have snakes
in their hair
Then talks about what the women have done so far.
Far from their shuttles and looms, strung into a frenzy by Dionysus’: pointing out that
they should be at home weaving – breaking from traditional domestic lives.
Then emerges into cult of Dionysus aspects:
‘The Curetes’: minor divinities of Crete who played a role in the story of Zeus’ birth
o (z’s father Cronus feared a prophecy where his son would overthrow him so
swallowed his children as soon as they were born – when Zeus was born Rhea
went to Crete, gave birth in a gave and the curetes beated drums to prevent
z’s cries from being heard)
‘corybants’: spirit of nature associated with Cybele and Dionysus
Lexis of pleasure, music, dancing:
o ‘Dance of ecstasy’
o ‘Phrygian flutes’
o Biennial dance’
‘satyrs’: traditional companions of Dionysus – associated with sexual freedom, wine,
music and ecstatic dance.
Oreibasia: mountain dancing
o Gather at night to drink, dance to loud music of drums & high-pitched flutes.
o ‘With running and dances he spurs on the stragglers’.
o ‘Ground flows with milk, flows with wine, it flows with the nectar of bees’ –
prolepsis to 1st messenger speech.
o ‘Blazing flame of the pine torch’
o ‘Eating raw flesh’.
o ‘Tossing his long, thick hair in the breeze’: shows D as sexy, fertile & feminine.
o ‘Deep booming drum’: noisy, chaotic
o ‘Joyfully singing’ ‘music of the pipes’ (aulos)
o ‘euoi’: a bacchic cry
o Participants felt joy – outsiders (Pentheus) felt suspicion, revulsion & fear.
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