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‘I Propose to argue first’, writes M. R. Glover1 of the Bacchae, ‘that Euripides is here, as elsewhere, a realist, giving us a picture of Dionysus’ worship as it really was; and that the miracles are meant as evidence of some supernatural power; and secondly that, if we want to know his judgment on that religion, we shall come nearest to his thought, if not his vocabulary, in saying that it seemed to him devilish.’ The point of view expressed in the opening words reduces the ‘riddle’ of the Bacchae to manageable proportions. As a piece of life, a study of religious psychology, to be set beside the Hippolytus and the Ion, the play becomes comprehensible. It reveals the poet in his old familiar role, watching men and women with his own rare insight and truthfulness, and noting with fidelity their tragic conflicts of the spirit and their bewildering catastrophes. Miss Glover's first proposition, therefore, is undoubtedly correct. Whether Euripides was as emotionally involved in his subject as the second proposition suggests might be much more open to doubt. H. J. Rose,2 on the first point, takes substantially the same position. He writes:
‘To call the play an attack on or a defence of religion in general or any form of it in particular is quite to miss the meaning. It is a study, by a poet who was deeply interested in all religious phenomena, of one of the most notable of them… As he neither attacks nor defends sexual passion in the Hippolytus, but studies it sympathetically and with profound pity for its victims, so here he deals with an equally potent force, which he shows exalting some of those affected by it to the raptures of the chorus, and ruining others like Pentheus and Agave.
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References
Page 49 note 1 J.H.S. 1929, pp. 82–8.
Page 49 note 2 Handbook of Greek Literature, p. 197.
Page 50 note 1 ‘We must,’ writes H. D. F. Kitto, ‘if we want poetry and drama, allow the poet his symbols’: Greek Tragedy, p. 382. (To use the jargon of the sociologists, Dionysus incarnates conveniently, in the symbolism of the drama, the Group-Personality (Gesammtpersönlichkeit) against which Pentheus is opposing his single will.) And later, p. 383: ‘Dionysus, then, is non-moral and especially non-rational. It is not his business to inculcate chastity and sobriety, nor will he obey the laws of our reason—resembling in this the deities in the Hippolytus.’ This is, in short, the modern view. See, further, W. B. Sedgwick (C.R. xliv, pp. 6–8), who decides on this basis that the problem of the Bacchae is ‘more imaginary than real’. See also G. M. A. Grube's valuable chapter on the gods in his Drama of Euripides.
Page 50 note 2 In The Riddle of the Bacchae, 88 ff. The theory was adapted by Verrall in The Bacchants of Euripides. The writers, remarks Kitto, were ‘sceptics more fortunate than Pentheus’.
Page 50 note 3 In Euripides and His Age, pp. 188, 189.Google Scholar
Page 50 note 4 Op. cit., p. 82.
Page 50 note 5 As Grube, G. M. A. remarks, ‘the god of wine lays bare the emotional nature, the fundamental passions’. Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc. lxvi, p. 53.Google Scholar
Page 50 note 6 Op. cit., p. 183.
Page 51 note 1 Plutarch, Alexander, init.
Page 51 note 2 J.H.S., loc. cit.
Page 51 note 3 ‘Euripides himself makes no secret of the fact that he is fascinated by the thrilling service of the Thracian god, so much so that his play, the Bacchae, is our richest source of information on the cult’ (W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, p. 114).
Page 52 note 1 Herodotus ix. 34. The passage is worth noting. καl γάρ
ἠ καl Мελάμπους τѽυ ἐυ ᾌργει γuυαІκѽυ μαυεІσἑἑν ώς μІνοι ἈpγεīoI ἐκμỊσωoũʋτo ἐκ πύλου παύσαι τἀς σϕετἑpας γʋνɑς γuνīκας τὖς υούσου, μισθòνπροετεευατο τὖς βασιληíης τỏ ᾑμIσν This same Melampus is recorded in Her. ii. 49 as one of the pioneers of the Dionysiac cult. If so, as Macan remarks, he may possibly ‘have cast out Beelzebub by the aid of Beelzebub on homoeopathic principles’. A κἁωαρσΙς, in other words, quite Aristotelian! A Pentheus gifted with σωφρσὑυη might have adopted the same method.
Page 52 note 2 J.H.S., 1929, pp. 84–5.
Page 52 note 3 Cf. Matt. x. 34–6 ούκ ἦλωoʋ βαλεīʋ, ἁλλἀ μἁxαιραυ. ᾖλθϏυλιxsἁσαιαὐιοῠ.
Page 52 note 4 I Cor. ii. 14.
Page 53 note 1 Expositor's Greek Testament, G. G. Findlay ad loc.
Page 53 note 2 Op. cit., p. 377.
Page 53 note 3 Sedgwick, W. B., op. cit., p. 7.Google Scholar
Page 53 note 4 Not necessarily ‘thy knowing’ (ἒσιιἂξ εΙἑνɑḷ).
Page 54 note 1 Cf. Matt. xxv. 44, τóτε ἀποκριθᾑσουται αὺτ
κ⍺I αὐτoI, λέγουτες, Κύρıε,πóτσε εἲ
oμεν…ἐν φνλακ
καI oύ
Ịηκονἡσαμέν σοι
Page 54 note 2 Thomson, G., Aeschylus and Athens.Google Scholar
Page 55 note 1 The text of this famous document is as follows: ‘De Bacanalibus quei foederatei esent ita exdeicendum censuere—Nei quis eorum Bacanal habuise velet. Sei ques esent quei sibei deicerent necesus ese Bacanal habere, eeis utei ad pr(aetorem) urbanum Romam venirent deque eeis rebus ubei eorum verba audita esent utei senatus noster decerneret dum ne minus senator(i)bus C adesent (quom e)a res consoleretur. Bacas vir nequis adiese velet ceivis Romanus neve nominus Latini neve socium quisquam, nisei pr(aetorem) urbanum adiesent isque (d)e senatuos sententiad, dum ne minus senatoribus C adesent quom ea res consoleretur, iousiset. Ce(n)suere.’ (Corp. Inscr. Lat. 196.) The determination of the Senate to eliminate all secrecy in the interests of censorial control is apparent.
Page 55 note 2 Liv. xxxix. 9–18.
Page 55 note 3 See especially Liv. xxxix. 13.
Page 55 note 4 Tyrrell's, R. V. phrase in his Introduction—in many ways a most admirable and sensitive piece of writing.Google Scholar
Page 55 note 5 ‘It is only too certain’, writes Verrall, ‘that almost everywhere the Dionysiac religion, however pure and exalted in its proper intention, had a tendency to become, and did in the end become, just what Pentheus affirms it to be’ (C.R. viii, p. 88).
Page 56 note 1 See Momigliano, A., Claudius the Emperor and his Achievement, pp. 36, 37, 100, 101.Google Scholar
Page 56 note 2 C. R. viii, pp. 85–9.
Page 57 note 1 Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc., lxvi. 44–7.Google Scholar
Page 59 note 1 Kitto, H. D. F. discusses the question (the ‘real problem of the Bacchae’) in Greek Tragedy, pp. 380–2.Google Scholar
Page 59 note 2 Ibid., pp. 380–1; Grube, G. M. A., Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc. loc. cit.Google Scholar
Page 60 note 1 Grene's, D. remark strikes the keynote. ‘We must at all costs avoid an interpretation based upon what we believe the artist should have wanted to express.’ ‘It occurred to Mr. Grube’, says H. D. F. Kitto, ‘to read the text!’Google Scholar
Page 60 note 2 ‘To rein his wrath in soberness’, says Way. The phrase contains more than this. ‘Conservare una saggia tranquillità di spirito’, renders Cammelli.
Page 63 note 1 p. 151 (ed. Macmillan, 1892).
Page 63 note 2 is a difficult word. It expresses that thoughtless, crude, and unsympathetic attitude of the ‘natural man’ to ideas beyond the reach of his experience or understanding. See Tyrrell's note on the line.
Page 63 note 3 ‘The individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts, which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept in check’ (Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd). ‘Such a crowd’, says McDougall, ‘is lacking in self-consciousness and the sense of responsibility, and apt to be carried away by the consciousness of its own force, so that it tends to produce all the manifestations which we may expect of an irresponsible and absolute power.’ Quoted by S. H. Mellone, The Bearings of Psychology on Religion.
Page 65 note 1 Op. cit., p. 87.
Page 65 note 2 Tyrrell lists many verbal echoes in the Latin poem. See his edition of the Bacchae, notes on 11. 33, 59, and 987.
Page 65 note 3 Mellone, S. H., The Bearings of Psychology on Religion, p. 42.Google Scholar
Page 66 note 1 Dan. v. 20, 21.
Page 66 note 2 Grube, G. M. A. in the article frequently quoted above.Google Scholar