This, dear friends, is a chilling reminder of why I seldom attend parties.

Dionysus is my favourite ancient Greek god. Why? Because he is the coolest, simple as. “He is life's liberating force.He is release of limbs and communion through dance.He is laughter, and music in flutes. He is repose from all cares -- he is sleep!" - The Young Bacchus by Caravaggio, 1595.Not only is he the god of theatre (a huge passion of mine) but he is also the god of wine, festivals, ecstasy and madness. Every set of self-respecting Gods needs one like him on the team. In a way he repr...

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of Greek tragedy. But when I attempt reviews, my tongue turns to ashes in my mouth. It’s not that they’re too old (I’ve reviewed older books), nor because they’re so foundational (I’ve reviewed equally fundamental books). It’s because I strongly suspect that I just don’t get it. It strikes me that the Greek tragedians were trying to accomplish something essentially different from what I’ve come to expect from literature.Greek tragedy has not even the slightest ele...

“Your name means grief you are suited for it”Dionysus remains my favorite of the pantheon

The Ancient Greeks had raves2 May 2013 We actually don't have a complete copy of this play though the edition that I read attempts to reconstruct the missing sections (which is mostly at the end) because, as they say, this is a popular play that is regularly performed. This in itself is a strange statement since I have never seen it performed (in fact I have only ever seen one Greek play performed, and that was Oedipus Tyrannous and that was by an amateur theatre group). Mind you, Greek plays te...

....no, I don't know why Elvis's mugshot is on the cover either.

113th book of 2021.CADMUSAnd whose head do you hold in your hands?AGAVE (averting her eyes)A lion's . . . The huntresses . . . They said . . . CADMUSLook at it properly. Just a quick glance.AGAVEWhat is it? What am I holding in my hands?CADMUSLook closely now. Be sure.AGAVEAh! No! No! I see the greatest sorrow.CADMUSDoes it still look like a lion?AGAVENo! No. It is . . . Oh gods! It is Pentheus's head I hold.CADMUSNow you see who I was mourning.AGAVEWho killed him? How did he come to be in my ha...

Dionysus returns to the land of his birth, the city of Thebes, in disguise. He is angry at the women of Thebes for denying him his rights of worship and sends them all mad. The women become his Bacchantes and run off into the forest to revel in the rights of Dionysus. They become drunk with wine and dance in wild displays of Dionysian rituals. He is especially angry with the family of Cadmus and seeks their destruction. The chaste and prudish King of Thebes, Pentheus, is furious when he returns

Antigone on PCPSophocles' Antigone is about tyranny, or more broadly authority: Creon's need for order vs. Antigone's need for personal freedom. Everyone loses, Creon most of all, and your reaction to Antigone might depend partly on your feelings about authority; if you're a pro-authority type of person, your sympathies might tend towards Creon.Here we have essentially the same debate. Dionysos shows up in his birthplace of Thebes to start his cult, with a band of ecstatic lady followers in tow....

This review is of the translation by Reginald Gibbons.οὐκ οἶσθ᾽ ὅ τι ζῇς, οὐδ᾽ ὃ δρᾷς, οὐδ᾽ ὅστις εἶ. (506)I've been trying to think of how I'd translate this line from Euripides's ΒΆΚΧΑΙ. Dionysos meets the king of Thebes, who introduces himself as Pentheus, and Dionysos remarks that the name is unlucky or sorrowful (507-508). The joke is that Pentheus's name (Πενθεύς) is derived from a word for sorrow (πένθος). The exchange goes thusly:ΠΕΝΘΕΎΣ. Πενθεύς, Ἀγαύης παῖς, πατρὸς δ᾽ Ἐχίονος.[PENTHEUS...

Don't mess with Dionysus.Again, the gods don't take slights well. To be fair, not having your mother acknowledged in her home town can irritate. Pentheus makes the classic mistake of discounting/refuting a god -- big mistake. So we have the hubris of the leader of Thebes leading to his ate (foolish act) resulting in nemesis, which to be fair is a kinda dark and disturbing. Not going to spoil it because it's too awesome, but if you have a familiarity with Orpheus you know where this is headed.I g...

This is the greatest Greek play I have read. I am just speechless. The way Euripides crafted this play was just...no words can give it justice. The rising intensity, the characters, the writing. I'll leave the rest of my thoughts for my actual review but...wow. Just wow.

This is why I dont go to parties

Very enjoyable. The whole story is seen as a tragedy, but I, personally, had a lot of fun.I wonder why Nietzsche, who drank only water and milk in his lifetime, was influenced by a god of wine. On the contrary, Dyonisus is not a god who Socrates could respect, because his actions challenge Socrates' beliefs. And Socrates had no problem with alcohol. Who said that birds of a feather flock together ?

4.5 stars || To see. There's a huge insistence on seeing in The Bacchae. It's the most recurring verb in the text. Everyone sees what is going on but does not really see what's behind it. These epiphanies take theatre, θέατρον, back to its etymological origins, θεάομαι, to see. The Bacchai, women rebelling to their domestic duties, give us a spectacle, θέαμα, of which Pentheus wants to be a viewer, θεατής. Dionysus reveals to us a terrible show. There's a marked confusion between fiction and rea...

This review is of the translation by Anne Carson. σπαραγμός Unfortunately this is my favourite version of this play. Something about Dr. Carson's sense of humour just fits perfectly with Euripides's Dionysos.

Translator: Philip VellacottThis was such a fascinating read, particularly after rereading The Secret History not too long ago, where the Bacchae plays a pretty important role. If you know, you know. Vellacott's translation was beautifully written and easy to read, too. Dark, compulsive, frightening.

The main idea is communal intoxication and insanity through ritualistic practice. But I don't think Euripides' language or portrayal of violent scenery conveys the sense very strongly.

deserved

Whiplash!How else can I describe the quick transition from Pearl S. Buck’s Korea to Euripides’ Greece?This play would be authentic and current in any era, including today. Amazing. Stunning. Euripides lived from 480-406 BCE. In this play, the protagonist, Dionysus, is the son of a mortal mother, Semele, and a divine ruler of the world, Zeus. He appears on Earth in human form, he is killed and resurrected. Sound like any other figure in history you might have heard about?Dionysus, young and immor...

Dionysus is the true God of Tits and Wine and there is a lot of that in here. Also madness, death, orgies, cross dressing and suckling wildlife. Imagine reading the script to some x-rated and campy, 80's video-nasty, but you can feel smugly pretentious about it.Story wise, this is one of vengeance, with the debauched God returning to his late mother's homeland to avenge himself on his maternal family, those who dared deny both his greatness and his mother's story that her boyfriend was an Olypmi...

essentially copied straight from my very incoherent email to a friend and not at all edited for clarity, grammar or sense:holy shit. this translation. this--holy shit. i'm wholly overcome, i read it straight through on the bus to and from my grandmother's tonight, and i can't--the LANGUAGE. the choruses. the dialogue of the theatrical parts that are so well translated that you understand exactly what is happening and i just. oh god. and then martha nussbaum wrote the introduction about balancing...

We have forgotten "that agreement, age with age, we made to deck our wands, to dress in skins of fawn and crown our heads with ivy."* * *Oh Bacchae! Oh Bacchae!Follow, glory of golden Tmolushymning Dionysus with a rumble of drums,with the cry,Euhoi! to the Euhoian God,with the cries in Phrygian melodies,when the holy pipe like honey playsthe sacred song for those who go to the mountain!to the mountain!* * *We do not trifle with divinity.No, we are the heirs of customs and traditions hallowed by

I've read this before, but I just had to experience it again. I'm sure we've all had some experience with lunacy, whether in our reading or in the soft whisper of our lives. When I bring this story in to my imagination and let it grow, it becomes so horrifying that I can barely stand it. It may not be as flashy as anything modern usually is, but deep down, it cannot help but disturb. Crazy mobs? Impiety? Drunken revelry or plentiful bounty or peace from mortal woes? Or is it truly the bald-face

This is a marvelous play and one of my favorites. Anne Carson's new translation is poetic and lovely, but in some places I think she takes the modernization a little too far and some words feel anachronistic and jarring.

Anne Carson's translation really captures a lot of nuance in the story that I haven't picked up in other versions. Very powerful and with a lot of complexity. Her introductory poem is also really enjoyable.

"Gods should not be like mortals in temper"

no thoughts just city state identity

Reading Daisy Dunn’s Not Far from Brideshead reminded me of E. R. Dodds’ superb edition of Euripides’ Bacchae and revived my desire to revive my long dormant Greek. Along with the aid of the Perseus Word Study app and Arrowsmith’s translation, I’ve read The Bacchae again, this time the entire Greek text. And what a splendid vade mecum Dodds’ commentary has been! In my days of teaching Greek tragedy in translation I loved presenting The Bacchae with its chorus of wild women from Asia to students

Totally insane story. For those who believe that videogames, TV shows and films are making us all a little more violent -- I present to you this classic play written somewhere between 485 and 406 BC. It contains unapologetic and gratuitous violence. Just for shits n giggles. This is open to interpretation, but I find that the point of this play is to reveal two messages: (1) "Don't mess with higher powers" or you'll die. And (2) humans are bloodthirsty (yes, this is a pessimistic and unpopular v...