The Bacchae

Dionysus’ delivery of the prologue signals a meta aspect of Bacchae: The god who is being honored through tragic competitions at a festival in his honor will also appear in the play as a central character, disguised as a priest of himself. Bacchae was performed at the City Dionysia, an annual religious festival held in March in honor of the wine god. It was both a coming together of the community in ritual worship to benefit the whole and a competition in which playwrights sought first prize. As in the play itself, a duality can be said to define, at least in part, the festival context.

During his monologue, Dionysus states that Thebes “must learn its lesson, however reluctantly, that it lacks the blessing of my rites” (129). Especially considering the festival context in which the tragedy was performed, a key word in his statement is “city”: The consequences of Pentheus and Agaue’s impiety in denying Dionysus’ divinity will be felt by everyone, to varying degrees (129). No one will be left untouched. Cadmus, though he embraces Dionysian rites, will be punished. After Pentheus’s death, Cadmus is sentenced to wander, his daughters sent into exile, and the city will be left without its ruling family, a vulnerable position. Athenians in attendance at ritual performance in honor of Dionysus watched a play about the consequences a city suffers when its residents fail to give Dionysus his due.

In his opening speech, Pentheus accuses the maenads of using Dionysus as an excuse to worship Aphrodite, the implication being that they are engaging in unrestrained sexual activity outside conventional boundaries. Like Dionysus, Aphrodite was associated with fertility. In assuming the maenads’ activities relate to her worship rather than Dionysus’, Pentheus shows himself to be excessively rigid, overconfident, and unable to adapt. Teiresias and Cadmus both challenge him on this account, essentially noting that his inflexibility is leading him into impiety. Cadmus argues that having a god in the family brings prestige to all of them; thus, even if Pentheus does not believe in Dionysus, it is in his best interests (and the best interests of his family) to embrace him. Teiresias argues in a circuitous, rambling fashion, ultimately concluding that Pentheus is wrong to think he can divine the ways of the gods. Pentheus’ reasoning may be sound, but it lacks merit because he takes it to an extreme, failing to account for what cannot be explained by his own model of rationality. Teiresias’ reasoning may be chaotic, but it concludes with the proper idea.