burnet pentheus & dionysos _ host & guest

8/3/2019 BURNET Pentheus & Dionysos _ Host & Guest

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Pentheus and Dionysus: Host and GuestAuthor(s): Anne Pippin BurnettSource: Classical Philology, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), pp. 15-29Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/269179 .

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PENTHEUS AND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUESTANNE PIPPIN BURNETT

EURIPIDES' intentions,as he wrotetheBacchae, have been much disputed,but his means, at least, can bedescribed with a decent objectivity, andthe first of these is the plot that he chosefor his play. A rough classification atonce identifies this as a plot of divinepunishment, for the final achievement ofthe Bacchae action is the destruction, byan offended divinity, of a man who hadgone to war with a god. In the beginningof the piece this man is seen at the heightof his youth and his princely power; he isseen at its end, an incoherent collection ofbloody parts that must be reassembledto become a paradigm of the shatteredmortal form. This action of heavenlyrevenge is the one that moderns associatemost closely with antique tragedy; it seemsto have been frequently in Aristotle'smind, too, as he wrote the Poetics, andexamples enough survive to allow a fairdescription of its "normal" form.1 Such adescription is to the point, for it willcause the "abnormalities" of this particu-lar plot to stand out, and so will allow usto approach the play just where it ismost itself.

The unmixed spectacle of a god de-stroying a man was a difficult one to takepleasure in, and it called forth certainconcepts that were unnecessary to anyof the other tragic plots. The Greek re-ligious temper demanded that this actionbe something more than a crude demon-stration of demonic power; the cause of thegod's anger could not be internal buthad to lie outside himself. And the Greek1. The surviving divine punishment tragedies are Persians,

Pronmetheus, Agantemnon, Ajax, Women of Trachis, OedipusRex, Hippolytus, Bacchae; there are also divine punishment

sense of justice specified that this causeshould be contained within some actionthat the sufferer had taken. The anger ofthe god and the punishment he enforcedhad to be, in reference to this cause,exaggerated, for only then would theyseem to be not simply an allegorizedversion of the world's justice but rathertrue emanations of the supernatural.Excessive, demonic anger could best beroused by a direct attack upon divinityitself, and so the initial cause in plots ofthis sort came to be a mortal act ofdyssebeia. When the tragic situation wascreated after this pattern, the final out-come of the piece, the divine action ofdestruction, was seen to be a form ofDike. The excessive punishment dis-criminated between men and gods as anexactly calculated punishment would not,and so it had an inherent quality ofdidacticism about it that made it appro-priate to tragedy. By remindingmen of theabsolute difference between their humanand their divine judges, the punishmentof the theomachos enforced the laws ofeusebeia and so made continuing lifepossible, for those laws were the onlyterms underwhich men could exist.In the plot of divine punishment theprincipal was necessarily of magnifiedstature since he was one who had foundhis enemies among the gods, but he wasalmost as necessarily a passive figure. Hewalked on stage that he might be carriedoff, havingsufferedfor a crimethe audiencehad not seen him commit. The deed whichhad attracted the punitive notice of theactions, as parts of multipleplots, in Madnessof Heracles andAndromache.

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16 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTgods, the aition of the action, belonged topredramatic time for several very goodreasons. The crime was a religious one,and so its direct imitation would be adangerous thing; in addition it would bealmost impossible, aesthetically, for thedramatist could not risk any appearanceof the casual or the ordinaryin the offense,or heaven would seem cruel indeed, andyet he could not give it a heavy or porten-tous treatment either, or the offenderwould seem too brash,if he were knowing,too unfree, if he were blind. Only whenthe heroic offense was pushed safely intothe past could the disaster easily be madeto seem both fated and freely chosen,and this duality was one of the chieftenets of the theology of ancient tragedy.In any case, a play that showed both anoffense and its punishment within a singlefictive day would defy all the old sawsabout the devious slowness with whichheaven was wont to pursue a wrongdoer,whileit likewiseoffended simplecredibility.All of which is another way of saying whatAristotle would have put very simply:thepraxis of this type of play was suffering,not doing, and so, though the old offensemight be recounted or even reduplicatedin the present action,2 it was the pathosof the principal that supplied the properbusinessof the plot.A resume of the cause and a depictionof the resulting anguish were enough forthose who watched the Persians and thePrometheus, but as the drama becamemore sophisticated a more complex stage

2. The offense is recounted at length in the Persians,recounted and re-enacted in the form of defiance in Prome-theus. In Agamemnon there are accounts both of the impietiesat Troy and of their anticipatory duplication at Aulis, thena symbolic re-enactment in the carpet scene. Hippolytus'refusal to worship Aphrodite is recounted by the goddessand re-enacted in small by the prince as soon as he steps onstage; Ajax' denial of Athena is twice recounted; Neoptole-mus' defiance and his re-enactment of that defiance are bothrecounted in the messenger speech of the Andromache. Inboth of the Heracles plays the offense inheres in the hero'sbeing himself a threat to the boundaries between god andman; in both his more than mortal deeds are recounted with,

action could be mounted and indeed wasdemanded by spectators who might atother times watch the elaborate intriguesof the vengeance and escape plots. Thepunishment plot developed its own com-plexities, but continued to center aroundthe pathos, now potentially more bizarreand more wonderfully appropriate to itsprincipal. The spectacle of a Titan struckby lightning had told the tale in a monu-mentalway, butthe victoriousking stabbedin his bath or the chaste huntsman falselydefamed and then mauled by his horsescould suggest a subtlety of transgressionand an artistry of destruction that madeboth god and man far more interesting.3And when the death or the suffering wasno longer personally inflicted by the god,but came instead by way of a humanagent, a new dynamism of action andethos became possible. The hero still hadto be the noble host of a single ritualsin; he could be decked out with obvioussecular qualities-Ajax's savagery, Neop-tolemus' valor, Agamemnon's wisdom orHippolytus' adolescent self-righteousness-but he could not reflect anything ofordinary or slightly subscale humanity,for if he became a shade too frail he wasno longer a fitting target for a god. Thenew role of god's agent, on the other hand,paradoxically allowed for a much fullerportrait of human nature in all its mortallimitations. This second figureencourageddramatists to work out ever more delicatesystems of double motivation as theyshowed a deeply flawed mortal fittingin the Madness, the harrowing of hell especially emphasized.Oedipus is the punishment principal most like Pentheus, forhe has not committed a well-defined act of impiety in thepast, though he has committed crimes; he failed to recognizehimself in the sinner Apollo described to him on his firstvisit to Delphi, and it is this failure that he re-enacts in thecourse of the play, while he also commits a definable religiousoffense in denying, with Jocasta, the power of god and thetruth of his oracles.

3. This does not mean that the Prometheus must be archaic;the poet may have felt that an archaizing plot form wasmost suitable to his subject.


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PENTHEUSAND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUEST 17himself with apparent freedom into thedivine hand to which he was merely anecessarytool.4Of the nine surviving tragic actions ofdivine punishment (in addition to theBacchae) four are of the archaic typeconcerned simply with the display ofa pathos. These are the Prometheus,the Oedipus Rex, the first section of theAjax, and the central section of theMadness of Heracles. Four others are ofthe more complex type, with a humanagent who is the direct instrument of thehero's suffering: these are Agamemnon,Womnen f Trachis, Hippolytus, and theNeoptolemus section of the Andromache.The final example, the Persians, is of apeculiar type all its own since its action ismade, not of the immediate experience ofsufferingbut of its retrospectiveexperience,felt first by a sounding-board figure,Atossa (the prototype of the figures ofTheseus, Hyllus, Peleus, and Cadmus),and then by the principal. It should benoted however that in the fiction of thePersians, as distinct from the stage action,there was a human agent, the Greekarmy.The simpler and the more complexversions of this plot show each its dis-tinctive pattern. In the first the principal ispresent from the beginning of the action;his pathos is drawn out, resisted, self-molded; it may or may not require amessenger speech for its full delineation,but it is always itself on display. Suffering,not death, is plainly the subject; in three ofthe four examples the principal survives,and even Ajax dies by his own hand, notby a direct blow from heaven. The other

4. In the Prometheus the agent is another divinity, Hermes,and he might be considered an aspect of Zeus. The Agamem-non overtly expresses the idea that a human agent is both freeand unfree by giving Clytemnestra fully effective humanreasons for her action while simultaneously describing her asa menis, an erinys, or an alastor. Deianira, Phaedra, and theOrestes of the Andromache are particularly notable for theirhuman weakness, testifying to a kind of tact in the divinities

four examples, the punishments that makeuse of a human agent, show a radicalchange in the orientation of the stageaction. In every case the first major sectionof the drama (one third to one half ofits length) is given over to the agent-tothe investigation of his character and thedevelopment of his motives. (In one case,the Hippolytus, there is a second divineagent, the Nurse, who must work upon thefirst before she is ready to fulfil herdestructive assignment, which in turnrequires a third agent for its completion.)In these actions the principal does notmake a significant appearance until theplot is well begun, sometimes not untilthe drama is half over, and when he doesenter it is not to resist (to any appreciabledegree) the religio-secularmachine that hasbeen preparedfor his demolition. He doesnot always walk his carpet as smoothlyas Agamemnon did-he may turn andfight at the last minute like a Neoptole-mus, he may protest like a Hippolytus-but his punishment comes swiftly on,well before the end of the play.In the dramas of divine punishmentthat make use of a humanagent the ration-ale of suffering has replaced sufferingitself as the true meat of the drama. Thepathos proper occurs briefly, about two-thirds of the way through the total stagedaction; its preparation has occupied theopening section and its interpretation willaccount for the post-pathos scenes. Thislatter tendency is plainest in the Womenof Trachis and Hippolytus (where thedramatists counterbalance it with a pro-longation of the agony), but it is per-fectly clear too in Clytemnestra's finalwho chose these inherently flawed creatures as their tools.The only case of a knowing and virtuous agent is that of theGreek army in the Persians, and there of course the agent doesnot appear. Conscious virtue in this figure would put the wholeaction out of balance by bringing the agent's heroism toour attention and making of the whole a sort of police actionagainst a malefactor.


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18 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTscenes and in the staged part of the Neop-tolemus tragedy, the exodus of the An-dromache. The god's means are displayedas the agent is manipulated to his purpose;his anger and his power are felt in thepathos proper; then his act is investigatedand elucidated in scenes which make thisparticular divine vendetta a part of ageneral description of the way heavenworks. Thus the dramaturgical practicesthat developed around the secondaryfigure of the human agent meant that theprincipal, the mortal offender, while hewas punished by the outraged divinity,was also obscured as a stage personage.

IIThe Bacchae clearly belongs to thesecond type of the divine punishmentaction, for the dismemberment of Pen-theus is achieved by means of a humanagent. Indeed, the play's entire lattersection, from line 811 to the end, is a

faithful formal replica of the other punish-ment tragedies. Except for the split in theagent's role (seen also in Hippolytus)all goes according to rule: the robingscene is parallelto Clytemnestra'swelcomeas the hero is tempted to give a symbolicre-enactment to his deed of impiety; themessenger describes the physical pathos,as do similar messengers in six otherpunishment actions (Persians, Women ofTrachis, Oedipus Rex, Hippolytus, An-dromache, and the Madness of Heracles);the final scene with its tableau of agentand victim repeats the formal arrange-ments found at the end of Agamemnonand Hippolytus.5 Yet in spite of thisperfect conformity as the play closes, wesee at once that the Bacchae is absolutelyand essentially different from the otherplays of divine punishment. It is different

5. The exact formalparalleloccursat the end of the punish-ment section of the Madnessof Heracles, where there is like-wise an agent of destruction who must be led by his old

formally, for its opening scenes areunlike those of any of the others, and it isalso different in subject. In every othercase, though with all the marvelousvariety that great dramatists broughtto the plot, the praxis was a monolithicrepresentation of suffering, whereas herein the Bacchae the pathos, sensationalwhen it does come, can only be said to bethe subject of the second half of the play.An unprecedentedrelationship betweenthe god and his victim is established atthe outset of the Bacchae. Dionysuscomes on in his own person to speak theprologue speech, and in this he is formallylike the other prologue divinities ofpunishment tragedy, the Kratos of thePrometheus, the Athena of the Ajax,the Iris of the second prologue of theMadness of Heracles, and the Aphroditeof the Hippolytus. Dionysus, however,does not say what these others say. Eachof them makes a statement of his own(or anothergod's) determinationto punishthe principalof the piece, and most of themindicate the crime that has so offendedthem or their masters. Dionysus, however,announces quite a differentdetermination,a positive one, for he says that it is hisdesire to establish certain rites at Thebes(25; 39-42; 49). He has already beendefied by the city, but punishment is only apotential contingency (50-52); Dionysushas chosen thus far to destroy the defiance,not those who are guilty of it, and he hassent the women out, possessed, to under-take the rites they should have embracedbefore (26-38). Pentheus is mentioned inpassing, and is called a theomachos (45;cf. 1255)because he has refused to includeDionysus among the gods he would havehis city honor, but there is no fixeddivine purpose attached to him when thefather to recognize what he has done. That play, however,has managed to make its apparent agent actually the victim ofHera's punishment.


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PENTHEUSAND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUEST 19play begins.6 Dionysus and Pentheus arenot yet inextricablyconnected as the authorand the subject of a particular fate; warhas not yet been declared between them,and Pentheus is, at this moment, free.The prologue thus at once establishes anunconventional tragic situation, and an-other anomaly is evident when the firstepisode begins, for the opening sceneshave been cleared of their usual content.Ordinarily this part of the play belongedto the agent, but we find that Agave hasbeen ejected from it. When the crucialtime comes she will do her work withterrible effectiveness, and certainly shefulfills all the external requirements ofher role; she is a woman (and a womanmay be put to such a use and retain hernobility, as a man cannot; viz., Orestesin the Andromache), close kin to theprincipal, and obedient to the divinepower that is inimical to that principal.Yet Agave does not function dramaturgi-cally as the other agents do; she does notappear when they do, nor is she de-scribed as they are, and this means that thepreparation of the divine plot against aman is not given its ordinary exposition.Clytemnestra, Deianira, and Phaedra takealmost exclusive possession of the stagein the beginning of their respective pieces;their motives and their characters aredescribed in firsthandaction as they movewith varying degrees of blindness into therole they have been called upon to play.Not so with Agave, who is not evenallowed to appear until after the disasteris complete, her part in it already playedwith thorough effect. She has no dramaticexistence at all until the exodus; she ismerely one of the host of absent women,and there is no memory of Iphigenia,no heart-piercing lole figure, no genial,

6. Compare Aphrodite's gwp4lcaogac 'ImrWAvTovdv irM'tiAspq (Hipp. 21-22), and Iris' "Hpa rpoa4ar KoV6V a4&'a)Ti04Ac&HF 831).

fawning Nurse to explain how she becamean agent of destruction. Agave is blatantlya tool, literally possessed by the super-human force at work in this tragedy;her only stage function is to lament, for allher other visible duties have been repos-sessed by the god who is making use of her.Instead of the agent and the preparationof the mechanism of the pathos, the open-ing scenes of the Bacchae show us thevictim, and he is a victim unlike any of theothers. In his dominance of this part of hisdrama he can be compared to a Prome-theus or to an Oedipus, victims of simpler,agentless punishments, but his actionsare not like theirs. He is not strugglingmagnificently within the meshes of hisdetermined fate, he is not moving blindlyor open-eyed along the path that leadsfrom transgression to punishment. Hisfree mobility and easy assertiveness arenot deceptive, as they are in Oedipus'case, but actual, for no god has yetdecided upon his destruction. Pentheus,unlike any other hero of punishmenttragedy, begins his play before he hascommitted a decisive offense. He willoutrage his divine antagonist here, on thisstage, as a part of the action of thisplay, making the Bacchae the one tragedythat encompasses in its spectacle both anact of hybrisand its consequent experienceof nemesis.

The drama of Bacchae 1-810 is theimitation of the commission of a religiouscrime. In choosing to depict this subjectEuripides chose to run all the risks men-tioned above, and his consummate tech-nique can be observed as he brings offthe impossible. The poet treats his offenderlike a vengeance or a sacrifice hero,depicting his resolution in the normal way,with a series of situations that tempt him


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20 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTto abandon his purpose. His task is madeto look now unnecessary, now impossiblydifficult, but Pentheus brushes aside allwho would dissuade him. The scenes areso contrived, however, that his firmnessdoes not evoke a wholeheartedresponse ofadmiration; rather the audience experi-ences an increasing sense of fear, shame,and apprehension, for these persuaders,unlike the usual Chrysothemis or Ismenefigures, are urging truth and promisingblessedness instead of dealing in compro-mise and inglorious survival. They are thedramatist's means of insisting that Pen-theus' crime is freely and knowinglycommitted, and one by one they removefrom it all claim to virtue, reason, oreven magnificence.There is no ignoranceorblindness, either, to serve as a palliative,aside from the ignorance that the princeinsists upon preserving; there is noironic concatenation of events that keepshim from a recognition of his deed. True,he mistakes the exact identity of hisopponent, but he knows his affiliation,andhis mistake is made in spite of a fullsequence of instructions and demon-strations meant to reveal the nature of thedivine enemy he would attack. It isprecisely this attempt to enlighten the"victim" that has replaced the settingof the catastrophic trap as the subjectmatter of the drama'sopening scenes.

When Pentheus arrives before thepalace he knows the situation at Thebesonly by hearsay. He has been told that arepresentative of the cult of Dionysushas come with his band of followers,and he has been told that the womenof the city have been seized with an en-thusiasm and have run raving to the hills.It is his conviction that the Stranger is acharlatan, his "religion" a form ofdepravity, and it is his intention toprotect his city from an influence not onlydisgusting but dangerous. Civil order andthe peaceable transfer of property depend

upon legitimacy in the family and arethreatened by widespread promiscuityamong the wives of citizens, and for thisreason the women must be brought downfrom the mountain. Cadmus speaks for theroyal house and Tiresias for the establishedchurch in the first attempt to make himsee matters differently, but neither is inhimself a very powerful advocate, and it isperfectly possible to make a case forPentheus' refusal to hear their testimony,though his actions toward them dobetray a portentous lack of aidos. Hebreaks every unwritten law, showingdisrespect for parent, stranger, and god,but he does this believing that there is aclear and present danger to Thebes whichmust be dealt with strenuously.It is on the basis of imperfect informa-tion as to the nature of his visitor thatPentheus determines to imprison theforeign Bacchants, to hunt down andincarcerate the Theban Maenads, and toput the Strangerto death. He soon has theopportunity to learnmuch more, however,and to check his judgment of the sup-posed threat against the actualities of thesituation. He hears the guard who hascapturedthe Stranger testify to the gentle-ness of the "beast" (436-40); he hears tooof the miracles that accompanied anattempt to imprison the Stranger's band(443-50), and then he hears from theStranger himself. As he interviews hisprisoner and finds, becauseof his prejudice,that everything the other says confirmshis worst suspicions, the scene measures,in its likeness to another from anotherpunishment tragedy, the degree of aberra-tion that is present here. F1Ikmiteus akesthe same stance that Theseus (a secondaryagent of destruction) does in his firstscene with his son, while the "destroying"god plays the victim's role! We beginto see why an earthquake was necessary,for the words of family, city, church, andnow of god himself have failed to reach


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PENTHEUS AND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUEST 21the mind of this prince, nor has he been inthe least impressed by the miraculousescape of the Maenads from his prison.If the god really means to persuade him,the obvious next step is some form ofdirect revelation, and so, when the princeactually seizes his adversary and attemptsto lock him up, he is answered first by adisplay of the god's animal forms, and thenby a display of his power over nature.When Pentheus re-enters at 641 he isno longer uninstructed as to the demonicnature of the visitors to his city. With theearthquake and the thunderbolt the dem-onstration of the divinity of Dionysus(though not of the Stranger) is complete,and consequently Pentheus' error is mani-fest. He knows now, and at firsthand, thatthe power he means to defy is not humanand he knows too that his original justi-fication for that defiance is at least prag-matically at fault. He had intended tofight off corruption and preserve his city,but his defense has come close to de-stroying Thebes physically, and the earth-quake is plainly only a hint of what maycome if he continues in his present course.The Stranger marks the fact that theearthquake was meant to be instructive,and might well be enough to changePentheus' attitude when he says at 639,"It will be interesting to see what hesays to all this." Then Pentheus comes on,having just confronted a prophet whocan change his form and a force that canshake the earth; as soon as he sees that hisprey has not got away, he makes a ruderemark about the god whom this prophetproclaims,7and then he orders the lockingof the city gates! His wits do seem to havebeen affected-he thinks wood and stonecan coerce the maker of an earthquake-but his temper has not been altered by therecent revelations; his anger (649) hasonly increased.

7. The remark is lost, but must be inferred from thedivl8wacgr f 652.

The Stranger'swords (639) have createdthe impression that this postearthquakemoment may be the crucial test point forthe defiant prince. His offense might wellseem to be complete in its definition at thismoment, but this is not the case, for thepoet is still at work, eliminating the lastirrelevant aspects of Pentheus' defianceso that he can show an absolute purity inhis blasphemy.For the momentthe prince'scontinued impiety provokes no alterationin the manner of his adversary;there is noretaliation, only further instruction. Ti-resias had warned that Pentheus mightactually harm the city (217; 367) and theBacchants have reminded all who wouldlisten that only piety can preserve thesocial order, but still it might be arguedthat something is missing from thisrhetoric of word and deed. PerhapsPentheus, as ruler of Thebes, might yetbe justified in continuing to resist if it weretrue that the effects of this now obviouslydangerous and demonic power wereharmful.As if to elucidate just this point, amessenger now arrives, and the Strangerwith his usual forked speech smilinglyreassures the impatient tyrant. "Learnfrom him," he urges (mathe, 657; cf. theekmatheinof his statement of purpose at39, and the charges of amathiaat 480 and490 and in the god's ultimate reproach,1345). "I'll not run away. I shall wait foryou.''The whole demonstration now beginsagain, and this time it is complete. Thestatesman hears the direct testimony of hiscity as the Messengerexplains that he is inerror about the Theban Bacchants (686)and therefore about the nature of the newcult, and that he is also in error about itsgod, Dionysus (712-13). The women inthe mountains are not engaged in libidi-nous orgies but are organized and chaste;their activities do not threaten the city's


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22 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTmorals or its property-owning structure,and the women clearly should be treatedwith respect, for they have a terriblepower and can kill a bull with ease. Moreimportant, the god they serve is plainlyone who is intent upon benefactions andnot upon evil, for he manifests himselfin the kindly miracles of gushing water,wine, milk, and honey (704-11). TheMessenger, as citizen and rational man,concludes that this is a cult and a godthat should be made welcome at Thebes(769-70), but when he has done Pen-theus, exactly as if he had been deaf,labels the Bacchic rite a shameful out-rage that threatens to sweep throughGreece like a fire. And then he orders amilitary action against that conflagration(778-86).Pentheus' offense now appears to besecular as well as religious. The princehas refused to "learn"; he means torisk his city against a beneficent butpowerful god, and neither reason norrevelation, neither citizen nor prophet,has been able to reach him in his stubbornimpiety (502-6). He has orderedan attackupon his own family and his own city andhas become a kind of Polynices, engagedno longer in the preservation but in thedestruction of Thebes. With his commandhe has stepped across the line laid downby the prologue, and seems now to havemade its contingent punishment neces-sary. There Dionysus had said: "If thecity of Thebes attemptsto bringthe womendown by force then, with the Maenads, Ishall marchagainstthem" (50-52). And sofor a second time we expect the god tolay aside his disguise and to turn hisnow fully provoked anger upon thistramplerof sacredthings, but for a secondtime we are disappointed. The Strangerneither rages nor withdraws to the moun-tain to prepare this unnatural war; hestays, quieter now than ever, and a scene

unlike any other in tragedy is playedbetween the god and the mortal prince(787-810)."Have you then learned nothing asyou listened to me, Pentheus? Though Ihave suffered at your hands I wouldyet adviseyou: do not take up armsagainsta god, but hold your peace! Bromios willnot tolerate an attempt to move hisBacchants from the mountain of theirdelight." So the Stranger begins, almostpleading, but Pentheus exhibits all thefolly of his wilful blindness in his answer.Forgetting his recent experiences with theAsiatic Maenads and with this form-changer, he growls with arrogant con-tempt, "As one who hasjust escaped fromjail you'd best keep your advice to your-self, or do you wishto be locked up again?"The Stranger tries a mixture of pun andgnome for his next admonition: "Smokeof incense, not insensate wrath, a manshould offer to a god, and never kickagainst the goad." This, however, onlyprovokes another ugly irreverence fromPentheus. "Better than that!" he boasts,"I'll offer blood-women's blood toa women's god, and shed on Cithaeron'sslopes!" The Stranger warns him directlythat he would be humiliated and defeatedif he were to attempt such a thing, forhis armed men would be put to flight bythe women's wands. At this Pentheusturns aside and says with unknowingirony, "You wrestle with this fellow butyou can never get a grip on him, andwhether he's up or down he will not holdhis tongue!"There is a deadlock between them, andthe beginning of a new phase in thisstrangely intimate scene is signalized by ashift from speeches of two lines each tosimple stichomythia. The style of anelegantduel of wits is abandonedfor a newone of paralyzingdirectnessas the Strangersays with solemn courtesy: "My lord, there


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PENTHEUS ND DIoNysus: HOSTAND GUEST 23is yet a way to set this matter right"(812). His words revivein the rememberingear those of the prologue's end, and theybear out the god's statement there that hisultimate purpose in coming to Thebeswas the setting right of affairs of cult in hisholy city (49).Pentheus' answer is rough: "What amI expected to do, enslave myself to mywomen?" The Stranger ignores his rude-ness and goes quietly on to make hisoffer clear in its details. "I shall bringthe women back, without the use of arms."Pentheus accuses him of trickery, and theStranger picks up his word to make hisintention as plain and perfect as he can."Suppose," he urges, "that my 'tricks' aremeant for your salvation?" UnfortunatelyPentheus, in spite of all he has seen andheard this day, has no suspicion that hestands in need of saving. He simplyrepeats his charge. "You are in leaguewith the women," he says, and once more,with loaded emphasis, the Strangertries toenlighten him and make clear the sub-stance of his own proposal. "I am inleague (and such a league is possible!)only with the god."Here at the heart of this play of de-struction the divinity has offered hisvictim peace (804), rescue (806), alliance(808), and blessedness (note the retro-spective 1343, EV&8at1ovELr av UvIOtIUtaxovKEKTVrqLEVOt, and cf. the chorus' descriptionof the Bacchic life, 135 ff.; 416 ff.).It is as if the prayers of the two old men(360 ff.) had reachedhim, for he has lookedinto the face of a man who has offendedhim and has proposed salvation for thatoffender and his city. In response Pen-theus performs his quintessential deed,the one for which he pays in blood. It isone that can be staged, for it is not rituallyill-omened, and yet it is the most dangerousand blasphemous act of man. Pentheus,who has been offered the love of god,

refusesit, and turnshis back upon divinity.Once again he gives the formal commandfor troops, and once again, as after theearthquake, as after the command at 780,we expect Dionysus to reveal himself in allhisjustified wrath.There is no new earthquake, however,nor does a ravening lion stand where theStranger had stood; there is not even amiracle that carries the prophet suddenlyout of the locked city and up to the moun-tain forces of Dionysus. And yet a wonderdoes occur, and appropriately enoughit is a version of the peculiarly Dionysiacfeat of form-changing. Quite suddenly aprophet who has been kind, effeminate,languid, weak, scorned and threatenedwith death, imaged as a hunted animal,becomes hard, bull-like, energetic andpowerful, one who controls the lives ofothers and is described as a hunter is. Inexactly the same moment a ruling princeundergoes the reverse transformation;forgetting his cruel, masculine strength,his contempt, and his public role, hebecomes a creaturewho is pliable, woman-ish and weak, who is scorned,disguisedandhunted like a beast. In the next moment theBacchants'persecutor will out-maenad theMaenad in his fussy ritual concern. Allthis happens in a swift and magical pausethat is marked by a break in the sticho-mythia and signalized by an apparentlysenseless sound that issues from the lipsof the god."Ah! " says Dionysus to himself, speak-ing outside the measured iambics of thedialogue (810). It is an exclamation not ofpain or disappointment, for a god knowsno such feelings; it is the sound of re-adjustment.At this point, and only at thispoint, Pentheus becomes an object not ofbeneficence but of justice and Dionysusbegins to function as an agent of punish-ment. Not a second is wasted; his smile,his richcolor, his sweet insinuations in this


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24 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTinstant become the instruments for thedestruction of an enemy, and the divinevengeance begins with his very next word."You wish, I think, to see the womenat their rites?" the Stranger suavelyasks (811), and with this suggestionPentheus' carpet scene is inaugurated, hisdismembermentbegun.

IIIIf it is true that up to line 810 the Euripi-dean Dionysus has refused to play therole of agent of destruction left emptyby the absent Agave-if indeed he hasrefused to view the Bacchae as a punish-ment tragedy until this moment, it issurely important to consider just howhe has been cast and what sort of an actionhe has been attempting to promote. Thecrime of Pentheus can only be fullyunderstood when we understand exactlywhat it was that Dionysus was trying to

do. Certainly he has not been presentedsimply as a fixed and rigid target forblasphemy-a mere statue, like that ofAphrodite in the Hippolytus, would havesufficed for that. This Dionysus has beenshown to be a vital and flexible creature,at one moment thundering, at anotherpleading softly, and at the crucial turn inthe action he was seen to break unex-8. Gods in service with mortals: Apollo with Admetus(Paus. 3. 18. 6; Apollod. Bibl. 1. 9. 15; Hyg. Fab. 50, 51;Eur. Alc. 1-14; the details may have originated with Hesiod

according to Wilamowitz, Isyllos, pp. 68 ff.; see also J. T.Kakrides, AJMHTOY EPAYTAI, Hermes, LXVI [1931],235 ff.); Apollo and Poseidon with Laomedon (11.21. 441-57;Pindar O. 8. 31 and schol. ad loc.; Apollod. BibI. 3. 12. 3 and 8);Heracles with Syleus (Apollod. Bibl. 2. 6. 3; Diod. Sic.4. 31; Philo Quod omnis probus liber sit 101; Tzetz. Chil.2. 429 ff.; Conon Narr. 17; Euripides, Frags. 687-94, Nauck 2);Heracles with Omphale (Soph. Trach. 247 ff.; Diod. Sic. 4. 31.5-8; Lucian Dialog. deorum 13. 2; Apollod. Bibl. 2. 6. 3).

Gods in exile: Dionysus and Amphictyon (Paus. 1. 2. 5;Apollod. Bibl. 1. 7. 2; 3. 14. 6; schol. Acharn., p. 383 G.;Athen. Deipn. 2. 38c); and Brongos (Nonnus Dionys. 17.37-86); and Eleuther (Hyg. Fab. 225); and Falernus (Sil.Ital. Pun. 7. 161 ff.); and Oeneus (Apollod. Bibl. 1. 8. 1;Hyg. Fab. 129); and Icarius (see E. Maas, Analect. Eratosth.,106 ff.; Frazer ad Paus. 1. 33. 8; Nonnus Dionys. 47. 35-264;Hyg. Astron. 2. 4; Fab. 130; Apollod. Bibl. 3. 14. 7; Serv. ad

pectedly with a previously announced in-tention and to make a direct and friendlyoffer to a man he still treated with civility.It is plain that Dionysus, in the earlyscenes, has a purpose, that his passivity isonly apparent and that in fact he isgently striving for a particular end. Andit is equally plain that he is not, in thosescenes, trying to provoke Pentheus' blas-phemy-he does that only in the momentsimmediately after 810 but is workingfor something else entirely. He has come,as he explained in the prologue, with theintention of having his rites received.As a god in disguise, seeking a humanreception, Dionysus' only tragic analogueis the (no longer disguised, no longerseeking) Apollo of the Alcestis, but heis a familiar figure all the same, forepic and folk tale had told of many suchdivinities. Gods often wandered on earthincognito, as Antinous was reminded:

Kat TE 0QEoELVOCOLV EOLKOTESAAOSXTOrLUL,7aVT-rOLOt TEAEOOVTES, ErnUTpW+WUloroAtAas,(Xv0pW7bTV V:plV TE Kat EVVO[wqV EJOpwVTEs-[Od. 17. 485-87].

Sometimes they took service with mortals;sometimes they were in exile; sometimesthey were engaged in quests or on generaltours of inspection, but the patternof theiradventures was always roughly the same.8Virg. Georg. 2. 384; Lucian Dial. deorum 18. 4; J. E. Harri-son, M.yths and Monuments, xxxviii ff.; M. P. Nilsson,Eranos, XV [1915], 188-96); and Lycurgus (Aesch., Frags.23-25; 57-67; 146-49; 124-26, Nauck2; 1l. 6. 130 ff.; Diod.Sic. 3. 64; Apollod. Bibl. 3. 5. 1; Hyg. Fab. 132; NonnusDionys. 20. 149-81); and Pegasus (Paus. 1. 2. 5; schol. adAcharn. 243; Lobeck, Aglaophamus, pp. 659 ff.); and Sema-chus (Steph. Byz., s.v. ecgaXl8tL;Euseb. Chron. 30; Gruppe,Gr. Myth., 737, 4); and Staphylus (schol. ad Plutus 1022;Pliny NH 7. 199; NonnLis Dionys. 17. 37 ff; 18. 13 ff.).

Gods on quests: Heracles and Admetus (Eur. Alc.); andanonymous lady (Alkimos, FHG, IV, p. 296); Leto andDelos (Hom. Hymn Apollo 25-88; Callim. 4. 55-204); andnameless mortal who gave onion (as implied in ritual attheoxenia at Delphi, Athen. Deipn. 9. 372A); Demeterand Atheras (Paus. 2. 35. 3); and Dysaules and Baubo(Pap. Ber. 44, Bucheler; Paus. 1. 14. 3; Ovid Fasti 4. 507 ff.;Virg. Georg. 1. 165; Clement Protr. 15 f., Stahl; L. Malten,ARW, XII [1909], 417 ff.; Hermes, XLV [1910], 506 ff.);and Hecale-lambe (A. Korte, Hermes, LXVI [1931], 449);


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PENTHEUSAND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUEST 25Seeking aid or acceptance or hospitality,they were either rejected or received, andin response they visited those who refusedthem with flood, plague, or other naturaldisaster (like the exemplary earthquakeof the Bacchae), while they rescued theirhosts and rewarded them with plenty(crops, marriage, children, victory).9The story of the divine visitor, likemost friry tales and unlike most survivingtragedy, is quite devoid of the sense offate; it shows a mortal who either does ordoes not pass a test and who is thenrewarded or punished, in exaggerationbut according to his performance. Thefiction could thus exist in a positive or anegative form, but most often it mixed thetwo as does, for example, the story ofDionysus and the pirates in the HomericHymn to Dionysus. This particular anec-dote nicely embodies another point,which is that the god is usually not quiteperfectly disguised.10 In crudest fairytale mere foolish good nature can winthe god's reward (as it does in the caseof Simpleton and the dwarf, in theGolden Goose), but in more sophisticatedmyths the welcoming host displays hisand Mysios (Paus. 7. 27. 9); and Metanira and Keleus(Hom. Hymn Demeter 101; 185 ff.; Paus. 1. 39. 1-2; Apollod.Bibl. 1. 5. 1; Nonnus Dionys. 19. 80 ff.; Ovid Fasti 4. 539);and Pelasgus (schol. ad Eur. Or. 920; Hyg. Fab. 145; Paus. 1.14. 2; 2. 24. 1); and Phytalus (Paus. 1. 37. 2-4; Plut. Thes. 12).Gods on tours of inspection: Zeus-Apollo (?) with Maceloand Dexithea (Bacchyl. 1, see Jebb, p. 443; schol. ad OvidIbis 475, see CR, XII [1898], 66; Nonnus Dionys. 18. 35;Serv. ad Virg. Aen. 6. 618); Zeus-Poseidon-Hermes withHyrieus (Ovid Fasti 5. 495-536); Zeus-Hermes with Philemonand Baucis (Ovid Metam. 8. 618-724; see Fontenrose,CPCP, XIII [1944-50], 97 ff.); Zeus with Lycaon (OvidMetam. 1. 211-41; Apollod. BibI. 3. 8. 1 f.; Nic. Damasc.Frag. 43, Mueller; Eratosthenes Catast. 8; see Fontenrose,ibid. p 98, n. 17).

Castor and Pollux wandered for various purposes; they hadbeen received by Pamphaes (Pindar N. 10) and had theoxeniacommemorating their reception by the Emmenidae at Agri-gentum (Pindar 0. 3 and schol.) and at Paros (Rangab6,Ant. hell., 770c); other theoxenia were celebrated, for Demeterat Pellene (Paus. 7. 27. 9), for Apollo at Delphi (Athen.Deipn. 9. 372A), for Isis at Ceos (LeBas Waddington, Voy.arch. As. min., 1143); Heracles was honored with a xenismosat many places (Kos: Roscher s.v. Heros, 2508 f.; Plut.Quaest. gr. 58; Mesogeia: IG, 112, 1245; Athens: Athen.Deipn. 6. 239D; cf. Gruppe in RE, Suppl. III [1918], 925 and

innate piety by his suspicion of the specialquality of those he entertains. Any manwho has a true sense of the divine willpresumablyfeel, if only dimly, the physicalpresence of god."The visiting divinity masquerades n partthat he may discriminate between thosewho do and those who do not keep theancient rules of pious conduct in theirdaily actions (cf. Bacchae 201), but hemasquerades also to shield mortals froma fate like that of Semele. Thus his verydisguise is an indication of potentialbenevolence and also of power; disguisebelongs only to the greater deities, forfrom the glory of a nymph or satyr, or evenfrom a rivergod, a man did not have to bescreened.12 Dionysus announces himself,in the Bacchae, as a wandering god with amission; he has come to demonstrate hisdivinity, that he shall no longer be ignoredin the city's festivals (45-48), but he hashad to assume a disguise (53-54). In thefirst section of the play he behaves as anyvisiting god might, walking about Thebesin his gentle mufti while his followers begthe citizens to receive them. The onlyexceptional thing about him is that he,930; see in general, Arist. Lysist. 928 and schol. ad loc.;J. E. Harrison, Themis, p. 372 and note; 0. Walter, AM,LXII [1937], 41 ff.).

On the wandering gods, see L. Malten, " Motivgeschicht-liche Unters. zur Sagenforschung," Hermes, LXXIV (1939),176-206, esp. 179 ff., " Theoxenie u. Bewirtung."

9. A variant on the refused reception is the flawed receptionthat can be seen in the tales of Tantalus, Lycaon, Laomedon,and Metanira. Laomedon and Lycaon (in the versions inwhich he is guilty) are given the normal punishment; Metanirasimply has her reward withdrawn (the child is not madeimmortal, and she is not excepted from the general disaster),but Tantalus has his reward withdrawn and also gets a specialpunishment.

10. H. J. Rose, "Divine Disguisings," HTR, XLIX (1956),63 ff., points out that in Homer the rear view often gives thegod away, as if he or she had been somewhat carelessly cos-tumed.

11. Rose, ibid., p. 71, remarks, "An observant man, at allevents one of high and so partly divine lineage, can sometimespenetrate the disguise, at least enough to know that he isconfronted with something more than a fellow-mortal."12. "If they do not come to destroy..., they veil theirterrible splendor, though they may do so but thinly," Rose,ibid., p. 71.


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26 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTunlike most such visitors, gives outrightpromises of blissful rewards to any whowill accept him (105 ff.). When Pentheusproves unfriendly, the chorus woulddepart for other places where welcomeis secure (402 ff.), but Dionysus stays on,spending his stage time in giving signs andbetraying, to an ever increasing degree,hisreal identity. Like Zeus before Lycaonl3(or like Aphrodite before Anchises!) hedrops repeated hints and finally lets hisdivinity plainly show through his assumedmortal form. Pentheus, however, is notlike the other hosts; the god tries everywile, and still he cannot persuade theprinceto take him in.Dionysus is a sociable god (416 ff.).The chorus describesthe kind of receptionhe is looking for (430-32), but there isalso another way to understand what it isthat Pentheus is refusing to do. WhatDionysus expected can be seen in the manypopular tales of the other princely hostswho did not refuse him and his cult,but caused their cities to welcome him.These, in Attic myth, were Eleuther,Semachus, and Amphictyon, and they,when amalgamated, are seen to haveoffered a three-part reception to the god.They feasted him; they gave physicalexpression to the acceptance of his cult bypaying honor to an image, altar, or shrine;and one of them dedicated a female rela-tive to the service of the god. This wasSemachus, who became a priest himselfand made a priestess of his daughter; shewas rewardedwith the gift of the nebrisandso became the first Bacchant of Attica(Euseb. Chron.30).The tale that offers the closest parallelto the Bacchaeplot is that of Pegasus, whocame, like the Stranger, bringing the newreligionto Attica. What he actuallycarried

13. J. Fontenrose, "Philemon, Lot, and Lycaon," CPCP,XIII (1944), 100, notes, of the Lycaon story: "Zeus givessigns of his divine nature ... It appears to be an important

was a phallic image, and the people, likethose of Thebes, were shocked and refusedthe new cult out of a false sense of pro-priety. As a result they too were strickenwith a general disorder; it was not theirwomen, however, who felt the god'sdispleasure, but their men, who weresuddenly afflicted in their private parts.At this point the Attic case is roughlythat of Thebes at the start of Euripides'play, but there are two differences ofenormous significance. The people ofAttica had no proud prince to prolongtheir defiance, and they, unlike Pentheus,saw that their problem was not physicalbut spiritual. In direct contrast to theprince who insults Tiresias, the Athenianstook the advice of Apollo and learned howto appease the god they had made angry.They received him and commemoratedboth his first agalma and their ownexpiation by placing phallic images inhouses and market places everywhere(schol. ad Acharn. 243). As at Thebes,the, god was interested primarily in theestablishment of his cult, not in punish-ment, and so those who had refused him awelcome weregiven a second chance.The rewards,in the Attic tales of Diony-sus' reception, are particularly relevantto the case of Pentheus. These stories donot show the standard gifts of plenty butinstead portray the god's gratitude interms of cult; Semachus and his de-scendants become priests and priestesses,while both Amphictyon and Pegasus areinstructed in the mixing of water withwine. These offices and honors remindus ofPentheus' final unwilling participation ina Dionysiac ritual where memh-rs of hisown family function as priestesses, andthey also remind -3 that the Thebanstory, like these Attic ones, represents thedevice in this type; the god comes in disguise, but he gives asign that no ordinary visitor has come."


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PENTHEUS AND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUEST 27religion of Dionysus as in an advancedstate already characterized by solemnritual (and even by rationalizingtheology,judging from Tiresias), not by orgiasticviolence.All of the stories mentioned so far werein a sense sequels to (or bowdlerizedduplicates of) the older, violent tale ofIcarius. This was the poor man's countryversion of the Dionysiac reception; itssubject was the introduction not of certainreligious practices, but of the vine itself,and its mood was very different. Icariuswas Dionysus' first Attic host; likeFalernus he was a simple man, but hewelcomed the god and in return he wastaught to plant the vine and to use itsfruit. He was made a missionary and toldto carrythe wine to his countrymenbut he,like the god, was attackedby rude creatureswho did not understand his gift. Hisdaughter grieved and killed herself, butthe peasants were punished while she andIcarius weregiven eventual immortality.The story of Icarius, complemented bythose of Amphictyon and Semachus andPegasus, reflects the popular notion thatthere were two forms that the Dionysiacexperience might take. The religion ofDionysus had a pure, wild form that wasinfinitely dangerous, tainted with humansacrifice, but suggestive of life after death.It also had a familiar form as part of theordinary festival round of the civilizedpolis. In this second form, wine was mixedwith water, animal sparagmos replacedthe tearing of human flesh, and orderlyMaenadism gave a pale imitation of thefrenzy of Erigone and the girls whohanged themselves after her example.14Inthe Bacchae Euripides has made hisDionysus come to Pentheus in person,as he came to Icarius, but he has made him

14. The Icarius story seems to have Orphic connections;cf. the low-life versions of Demeter's reception, especially thetale of Dysaules and Baubo, where the same motifs of the

offer the civilized, public cult that wasreceived by Eleuther and Amphictyon.The chorus make this plain in their de-scription of the Bacchic life, and the Mes-senger bears them out when he describesthe women on the mountain; water andmilk join wine as their drink; they are notinebriate nor do they want human blood;the capturing and tearing of animalssatisfies the extremes of their frenzy.Only when the wateredwine of these moreadvanced cult practices has been refuseddoes the god cause the women to recapitu-late the rage of the Attic peasants whoattacked Icarius.Dionysus, then, playsdivine visitorin thetraditional way, but his adventures showa remarkable deviation from the norm.The divinity as a rule is unrecognized bythe many but known and taken in by one,and as a result he often destroys wholecommunities while he rescues and rewardshis friendly host. Here at Thebes thesituation is reversed. Agave and thewomen have slandered Semele, but theyhave now, though all unwillingly, putthemselves in the service of her son;Cadmus had formally recognized Diony-sus even in the past, keeping Semele'stomb as a shrine, and in the staged actionboth he and Tiresias(for whateverreasons)act out their welcome of the god. Theydedicate themselves formally with thyrsusand garland, quite as an Amphictyonor a Semachus might. The guard whocaptures the Stranger s filledwith awesomerespect for the curious quality of ac-quiescence that his ward shows, and heseparates himself expressly from theintentions of Pentheus (441-42). Andfinally the Messenger resumes this popularunanimity when he pleads for the receptionof the new cult and its god (769-70).female double and the divine gift misunderstood are present;see L. Malten, "Altorphische Demetersage," ARW, XI(1909), 417 ff.


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28 ANNE PIPPIN BURNETTIt is as if all the pirates of the HomericHymn had honored the beautiful youngman who came aboard their ship, andonly the steersman had urged his exploita-tion, and this means, of course, that thetraditional ending of the story cannotstand. Its ordinary rewards and punish-ments must be dealt out differently.Here is the reason for the notoriouschange in Dionysus' stated program. Thegod had said that if the city (50) shouldtry to attack the women on the mountain,he would see to its defeat, but by the timethat Pentheus has issued his first call fortroops it is apparentthat though an attackmay be made, it will not be made accordingto the will of the city. There has been adivision between Thebes and its leader, thecity wishing now to take the foreigners inand to learn to worshiptheirgod, while theprince, not to be satisfiedwith merely driv-ing them out, means to enslave (511-14)and to kill (241). The Messenger knowsthat an expedition against possessedwomen would be madness (758 if.) andPentheus' is the only voice in favor of thecall to arms. He has decided that all themen of Thebes shall share in his chosencrime which is, as far as he can recognizeit, the shedding of female kin-blood. This,according to the dispensation of theprologue, is tantamount to condemninghis city to a grotesque defeat, for the armsof masculine Thebes would necessarily bedestroyed by the female rageof the Bacchicwand. In fact, however, though he hasdecided his own fate, Pentheus does notthus condemn his citizen subjects. He hasbeen shown to have a terrible freedomin his refusalto learn,but the god, afterall,is no less free. He can dissolve his owndispensation, and can in the space of asyllable create an alternate fate for thecity, one that takes cognizance of itstardy decision to make him welcome.The wandering god has made his dis-

crimination and he arranges his appro-priate punishments. He does not cause ageneral holocaust from which he exceptshis host; ratherhe invents a particular de-struction for the inhospitable man that willitself be a means of salvation for the manywho would have taken him in (yow'voso )vTO'A,EcoWsr18' v7TIEPKacVEtS, ,uovos, 963). Theprince who could not be persuaded eitherto call off his attack or to accept theStranger'speaceable intervention is simplybewitched into forgetting the attack andhimself playing the Stranger's proposedpart. He alone brings back the women andmakes civil war unnecessary, just as theStranger had earlier offered to do. Morethan this, he is bewitched into becoming aworthy substitute for the Stranger and asuitable ransom for his now Dionysiaccity. He is made to become, in externalsat least, a devotee of the god he scorned,before he becomes an imitator of thatgod in his passion. He could not be forced

into faith, but he is cozened into makingits outward gestures, and so is given apunishmentthat is a frightfulreverseof thereward of Semachus.Pentheus' free decision had been todestroy the city that he ruled; his unfreeaction in going to the women destroyshimself but saves Thebes and his subjects.Tiresias had seen part of this in thebeginning when he said that Pentheus waspoisoned beyond the power of any charmto cure (326-27). He had foreseenthat evenrevelation would not be able to heal theimpiety of this prince, but he had not seenthat this tainted man could become thepharmakosfor the cure of his community.The crime of Thebes was its earlyrefusal toaccept the gentle god and his civilizedrite of animal sparagmos(1341-43; 1351);this crime had been exacerbated by thestubborn impiety of Pentheus and so, inatonement, Thebes had to go furtherthanthe merefoundingof a festivalor erectionof


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PENTHEUSAND DIONYSUS: HOST AND GUEST 29sacred monuments. The city had to satisfya harsh god under the old dispensation ofhuman sacrifice, before it could knowpeace and that milder version of his cultthat the Asiatic Bacchants had described(417 ff.).The essentially merciful quality of thisresolution is demonstrated by the finaldramaticsituation. The resultsof Pentheus'death are the results that he himself, whennot maddened by impiety, had alwayswished to obtain. Thebes is in the end theDionysus-worshiping city the god hadmeant it to be, but it is also the healthy andunited city that Pentheus was ready todefend. The Theban women will returnto hearth and sanity, their piety now alltheir own, not forced on them by posses-sion; from now on they will rave only asthe city directs, for the god's anger isappeased. Agave and her sisters of coursemust go into exile, forthey are touched withkin-blood, but so would they have been,if Pentheus had had his way andthe womenhad massacred all the Theban men insteadof only one.15Cadmus and Harmonia aregiven the Dionysiac punishment of thepirates, it is true, but they will later receivethe reward of Icarius and Erigone, forthough they are to be beasts for a time,they will finally become immortals livingin the Blessed Isles. The Asiatic womendepart and Thebes enters a new phase inher history.In the Bacchae Euripides has used amixing of plots, as he did in the Ion,to describe the mixing wills of god andman. In the opening section of his playhe showed the head-on collision of agod-come-to-visit piece with a drama of

15. Hyg. Fab. 184, 240, 254, reports Agave's journey toIllyria and her marriage there with King Lycotherses, whomshe later murdered that she might give his throne to Cadmus.16. Philoctetes surely deserves comparison, for he spendshis entire play in defiance of the will of heaven. What he

hybris, and let a happy action that tendstoward the reward of its principal beblighted by that principal's inability topenetrate the Stranger's disguise, hisrefusal of all instruction, and his belief thathe could bully the supernatural.Pentheuswould not play host to the god in dis-guise; he gave him, in fact, the only kindof defeat a god can know, for he refusedeven to be pardoned for his errors andfinally left his visitor with no alternativeto making a punishment tragedy of thepiece.In the Ion the god's benevolent willwas particular: Ion's return to Athenshad to take place and therefore the mortalvengeance tragedy that threatened tointerrupt was itself interrupted and en-compassed in a divine action of positiveoverturn. In the Bacchae, however, thegod's will is general; Thebes must be con-verted and the Asiatic Bacchants mustsurvive to continue their proselytizingjourneys. Pentheus, though he might haveserved them, is not necessary to theseends and therefore Pentheus, unlikeCreusa,can beallowed to playout the tragedyhe hasfashioned as his vehicle. Measured by hispower to resist heaven he is perhaps thestrongestand freestof all the heroesof trag-edy,16but his self-determination is finallyonly that of another Ajax. In the libertyof his stubborn blindness he makes hisown way toward his unnecessary death,after a scene of temptation that hasshown how easily even titanic strengthcanmelt into witless effeminate foolishness,when a god has been forced to design apunitivecatastrophe.UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOresists is no mere gracious divine whim but one of the gods'settled purposes, and so his near success would seem to provehim stronger than Pentheus, though the fact that he, when herecognizes a divine ally beside him, capitulates at once, hasmade him seem weak to some.

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