1 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:09,792 In the story of Oedipus we saw the disillusion of identity in Sophocles' 2 00:00:09,792 --> 00:00:12,827 play. Turning now to the Bacchae of Euripides 3 00:00:12,827 --> 00:00:16,740 we're going to see another identity dissolve before our eyes. 4 00:00:16,942 --> 00:00:22,069 It's going to happen in a slightly different way in completely tied up with 5 00:00:22,069 --> 00:00:26,454 this figure of Dionysus. Dionysus is a God who's details we're 6 00:00:26,454 --> 00:00:31,514 going to discover in this play are fascinating inversions of normal ways that 7 00:00:31,514 --> 00:00:35,292 great Gods are suppose to behave. He has another name. 8 00:00:35,292 --> 00:00:38,800 Dionysus and Bacchus. Both of them are equally Greek. 9 00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:42,310 Sometimes, when we run into multiple names on the gods. 10 00:00:42,310 --> 00:00:46,991 One of them belonged to the Greeks. One to, the Romans or someone else. 11 00:00:46,991 --> 00:00:50,826 That's not the case. I mean, he's known as both Dionysus and 12 00:00:50,826 --> 00:00:55,377 Bacchus in the Greek material. He has a story behind him that is 13 00:00:55,572 --> 00:01:00,643 fascinating, complex, and interesting. He is indeed a Olympian god, he belongs. 14 00:01:00,643 --> 00:01:05,128 He's definitely one of them. He shows up early on in the tradition. 15 00:01:05,323 --> 00:01:08,899 Early mentions of Dionysus' name show up on pottery. 16 00:01:09,094 --> 00:01:12,800 We have him, attestatations of him as a standard Greek. 17 00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:18,399 God from as far back as we have stations of any standard Greek god. 18 00:01:18,399 --> 00:01:22,181 But some of the things he does are a little strange. 19 00:01:22,181 --> 00:01:28,217 And in fact seem to be purposefully inverted examples of normal Greek custom. 20 00:01:28,217 --> 00:01:34,180 And normal ways of worshipping the Gods. Most Greek rituals happen out in the open 21 00:01:34,180 --> 00:01:37,016 in broad daylight. We do them in public. 22 00:01:37,234 --> 00:01:40,580 In crowds. At very standard altars in large. 23 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,588 Monumental temples. Animal sacrifices performed. 24 00:01:43,588 --> 00:01:46,537 It's a carefully controlled killing of an animal. 25 00:01:46,537 --> 00:01:51,411 The animal is then cooked, carved up and served out to people to be part of their 26 00:01:51,592 --> 00:01:56,105 healthy diet that they then eat. There was a pu, very public aspect to 27 00:01:56,105 --> 00:02:01,160 these general components or the rights. Dionysian rights are the opposite in each 28 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:04,530 of these times. Rather than being at daytime, they happen 29 00:02:04,530 --> 00:02:07,539 at night. Rather than being open, open and in broad 30 00:02:07,539 --> 00:02:11,751 daylight, they happen in secret. Rather than being in the center of the 31 00:02:11,751 --> 00:02:14,580 city, they happen in the Hinter lands. And their. 32 00:02:14,580 --> 00:02:18,175 Not at a main temple. Their in the, hillsides, the crazy 33 00:02:18,175 --> 00:02:21,203 hillsides. Kafirin is going to play another role, 34 00:02:21,203 --> 00:02:25,630 when it comes to the Dionysian rights. We have a. 35 00:02:25,630 --> 00:02:31,682 Wild form of tracking down live animals and ripping them up with their bare hands 36 00:02:31,682 --> 00:02:36,496 rather than the idea of kind of, controlled killing of the animal in a 37 00:02:36,496 --> 00:02:40,416 temple sacrifice. And then finally, eating the meat raw. 38 00:02:40,416 --> 00:02:46,124 This is what Dionysian celebrants do rather than cooking it and eating it after 39 00:02:46,124 --> 00:02:50,320 it's been prepared. The Dionysis and his rights seem. 40 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:55,500 So, carefully, to. Turn on its head each component of Greek 41 00:02:55,500 --> 00:02:59,995 sacrificial rite the main component of Greek religious ceremonies. 42 00:03:00,190 --> 00:03:05,988 It seems to be, it seems as though this is actually built in as a inversion of what 43 00:03:05,988 --> 00:03:11,525 normally counts as, as Greek practice. In crucially important, here you see it in 44 00:03:11,525 --> 00:03:16,340 the vines and the little, small. The grapes that are attached to them in 45 00:03:16,340 --> 00:03:22,061 the iconography around Dionysus included in the wonderful ceramic behind us. 46 00:03:22,256 --> 00:03:26,742 Dionysus is a God of wine. You take this beautiful fruit over here, 47 00:03:26,937 --> 00:03:32,333 and put it up in the in with some special processes blend it together, let it 48 00:03:32,333 --> 00:03:36,363 ferment for awhile and you get this beautiful drink over here. 49 00:03:36,559 --> 00:03:40,784 This drink tastes good. It tastes a little strange maybe at first 50 00:03:40,784 --> 00:03:43,737 and after awhile you. Might start to like it. 51 00:03:43,737 --> 00:03:47,190 And if you do, you get welcomed into another world. 52 00:03:47,190 --> 00:03:53,374 It's understood that Diony-, Dionysian wine takes you from the s-, world and the 53 00:03:53,374 --> 00:03:58,063 space that you're used to, and puts you literally outside of yourself. 54 00:03:58,063 --> 00:04:03,568 There's an ecstatic component to being a Dionysian revel, by Dio-, Dionysian 55 00:04:03,568 --> 00:04:06,762 reveler. Wine, yes, is going to be a part of many 56 00:04:06,762 --> 00:04:11,519 religious ceremonies in antiquity, but wine to extraordinary excess is 57 00:04:11,519 --> 00:04:16,072 characteristic of Dionysus. It is of a sort of central part of what 58 00:04:16,072 --> 00:04:22,054 the Dionysian worship is all about. The, the idea of being not just tipsy, not 59 00:04:22,054 --> 00:04:26,919 even just plain drunk. But a being absolutely completely gone 60 00:04:26,919 --> 00:04:30,478 drunk. That's a part of worshiping Dionysus. 61 00:04:30,710 --> 00:04:37,210 It's also a piece of the overturning of all the other normal components of Greek 62 00:04:37,210 --> 00:04:40,770 ritual that Dionysian ritual seems to involve. 63 00:04:40,770 --> 00:04:48,610 It is A consistent though a piece of the Greek pantheon as we were saying. 64 00:04:48,793 --> 00:04:53,005 Dionysus is pretty commonly looked at with some kind of strange eyes. 65 00:04:53,188 --> 00:04:58,072 Even in the Greek materials we're going to look at he might be a foreign god, he 66 00:04:58,072 --> 00:05:01,917 might be a newcomer. They kind of wonder where it is that he 67 00:05:01,917 --> 00:05:05,091 came from. All of these though, are to be built on 68 00:05:05,091 --> 00:05:10,463 top of what we think to be historically an indication that Dionysus is as old as any 69 00:05:10,463 --> 00:05:13,881 other Greek god. And he seems to have been from the very 70 00:05:13,881 --> 00:05:18,032 beginning always suspect. So he's that person in the family that has 71 00:05:18,032 --> 00:05:20,825 always. Then wondered about as to whether he 72 00:05:20,825 --> 00:05:26,207 actually is fully a part of the family. In the Bacchae, we're going to see some 73 00:05:26,207 --> 00:05:31,669 themes worked out, that same kind, that are parallel to the kinds of themes we saw 74 00:05:31,669 --> 00:05:36,592 worked out in the Homeric hymns. They'll be reference to Dionysus's birth. 75 00:05:36,592 --> 00:05:42,188 He'll be trying to secure his place in the Pantheon, and find a stable position for 76 00:05:42,188 --> 00:05:44,818 himself. He's going to busy, involved in 77 00:05:44,818 --> 00:05:48,730 establishing his rights, and making sure that human beings. 78 00:05:48,730 --> 00:05:54,803 Perform those rights, rights for him, all this is a lend itself to myth and ritual 79 00:05:54,803 --> 00:06:00,651 type of analysis we're going to see in the plays of Dionysus, in the back I by 80 00:06:00,651 --> 00:06:05,771 Bacchae by Euripides, we're going to see a welcoming of particular tool that we have 81 00:06:05,771 --> 00:06:10,381 of myth and ritual that's going to claim that again, myths are there in order to 82 00:06:10,381 --> 00:06:14,645 give a background story behind ritual activity that you and I normally do. 83 00:06:14,645 --> 00:06:19,544 It seems as though the Bacchae fits very well into this kind of template for the 84 00:06:19,544 --> 00:06:23,289 myths and how they go. The background of Thebes is something that 85 00:06:23,289 --> 00:06:28,015 came up when we started to talk about Oedipus and Thebes again, shows up in the 86 00:06:28,015 --> 00:06:30,954 Bacchae. Interesting for us to st, take a moment 87 00:06:30,954 --> 00:06:34,584 here and just look a little bit more closely at this tradition. 88 00:06:34,584 --> 00:06:39,807 We mentioned last time Capaneus and his own connection particularly the theme of 89 00:06:39,807 --> 00:06:42,761 [FOREIGN] birth that shows up in his story. 90 00:06:42,761 --> 00:06:47,358 But there's a little more to it that we want to make sure we pull out. 91 00:06:47,555 --> 00:06:53,070 Theme shows up in tragedies that survive from Athens especially as a kind of mirror 92 00:06:53,070 --> 00:06:56,419 image of the Athens that Athenians like to imagine. 93 00:06:56,419 --> 00:07:01,015 The Athens of stability, the Athens of rationality, of clear-headedness. 94 00:07:01,015 --> 00:07:05,677 All of these things show up in the Athenian, in the drama set in Athens. 95 00:07:05,677 --> 00:07:10,930 When the Athenians talk about a strange place, where things are a little bit odd. 96 00:07:10,930 --> 00:07:14,506 Off kilter, everything's a little bit off, a little bit off. 97 00:07:14,674 --> 00:07:17,301 They often times are going to talk about thiep. 98 00:07:17,301 --> 00:07:22,181 Thiep represents to them a place that has a deep background and important mythic 99 00:07:22,382 --> 00:07:26,666 rootedness in the past. But when the Athenians spin it, they spin 100 00:07:26,666 --> 00:07:31,887 the stuff in the legends of Thebes, that particularly looks odd, strange, and 101 00:07:31,887 --> 00:07:35,065 weird. There's a strong background in Cadmus' 102 00:07:35,065 --> 00:07:39,895 family of a certain kind of violence. Remember Cadmus, we talked about in 103 00:07:39,895 --> 00:07:44,531 previous lecture on Oedipus, was originally a Phoenician, and he is, winds 104 00:07:44,531 --> 00:07:48,910 up coming over to Greece because he's chasing his own sister, Europa. 105 00:07:48,910 --> 00:07:54,641 Europa's chasing after Zeus in the form of a bull trying to she falls in love with 106 00:07:54,641 --> 00:07:58,247 the bull, and tries to make contact with that bull. 107 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:03,592 Cadmus is on his way to try to find her, when he runs into his serpent, kills the 108 00:08:03,592 --> 00:08:06,490 serpent, sells the dragon teeth and recall. 109 00:08:06,490 --> 00:08:10,584 And those teeth go into the ground. The beings that sprout up, that become the 110 00:08:10,584 --> 00:08:14,944 founding families of Thebes, these humans all turn on each other and start to kill 111 00:08:14,944 --> 00:08:17,921 each other. Fratricidal violence shows up in Cadmus' 112 00:08:17,921 --> 00:08:18,560 family. Then. 113 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,884 Cadmus' Daughter. So Ino, Semele, Actaeon, and Agave each 114 00:08:22,884 --> 00:08:27,581 has a troubling story. Semele, some of you all will know is a 115 00:08:27,581 --> 00:08:31,533 very famous story, is actually the mother of Dionysus. 116 00:08:31,533 --> 00:08:36,752 So Dionysus is deeply connected with Thebes in his own family lineage. 117 00:08:36,752 --> 00:08:42,419 Yes Dionysus has on one hand a mortal mother when Semele, the story famously 118 00:08:42,419 --> 00:08:48,608 goes is impregnated by Zeus she through some trickery of Hera, insists that Zeus 119 00:08:48,608 --> 00:08:52,560 show himself to her in his full glory. When Zeus does, 120 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:56,346 She is immolated. Zeus then snatches up the infant and 121 00:08:56,346 --> 00:08:59,362 Dionysus is then born from Zeus' own thigh. 122 00:08:59,362 --> 00:09:03,780 In a kind of male womb taking over where a female womb started. 123 00:09:03,990 --> 00:09:07,566 So Zeus then gives birth to Dionysus a second time. 124 00:09:07,566 --> 00:09:12,405 And Dionysus then joins the Pantheon but poor Semele is immolated. 125 00:09:12,615 --> 00:09:18,085 In addition, the daughter of to the daughter of Semele there are the daughters 126 00:09:18,085 --> 00:09:22,082 of Autonoe and Ino. Autonoe, her son Actaeon dies by being 127 00:09:22,082 --> 00:09:26,855 ripped apart by his own hunting dogs. A terrible violent death that shows up 128 00:09:27,024 --> 00:09:29,446 also shows up also in the family of Cadmus. 129 00:09:29,446 --> 00:09:33,294 Ino also dies. She dies herself by plunging into the sea 130 00:09:33,294 --> 00:09:38,284 with her own son in her arms, when her husband turns in a frenzy and chases her 131 00:09:38,284 --> 00:09:43,085 down and tries to kill her. There's awful things percolating in Cadmus 132 00:09:43,085 --> 00:09:46,516 his family. Agave who's story we're going to see in 133 00:09:46,516 --> 00:09:51,832 Euripides' Bacchae has a terrible, terrible version of things happen to her 134 00:09:51,832 --> 00:09:55,264 too. Each of these installments shows us that 135 00:09:55,466 --> 00:10:01,589 Cadmus' family is visited infected with this kind of violence in a way that it's 136 00:10:01,589 --> 00:10:07,376 not quite like the house of Atreus where that violence is constantly turning in on 137 00:10:07,376 --> 00:10:12,490 itself and unable to heal itself. Instead it just seems that awful things. 138 00:10:12,490 --> 00:10:16,496 Seemingly at random, continuously visit this poor family. 139 00:10:16,496 --> 00:10:22,065 Each of them has a connection with this figure of Bacchus or Dionysus, who's story 140 00:10:22,065 --> 00:10:23,560 we'll talk about next.