What is the chorus in The Bacchae?

The chorus is a group of Bacchae that Dionysus accumulated during his journeying through Asia. They don’t get involved in the action, but serve as a way of heightening the drama. For example, they invoke the “hounds of madness” in anticipation of Pentheus’ murder.

Who comprises the chorus in The Bacchae?

Greek plays start from the idea of a chorus or “dance troupe,” composed of 12 (or earlier probably 15) young Athenian citizen men, who have been practicing four to six months in order to wow their audience of friends, neighbors, and family members.

What is the message of The Bacchae?

The Bacchae depicts a struggle to the death between the twin forces of control (restraint) and freedom (release), and permits Dionysus to provide an answer to this question.

What happened to Pentheus in Euripides Bacchae?

The tragedy is based on the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, and their punishment by the god Dionysus (who is Pentheus’s cousin). At the end of the play, Pentheus is torn apart by the women of Thebes and his mother Agave bears his head on a pike to her father Cadmus.

What is Pentheus doing when his mother and aunts find him and kill him?

Pentheus climbs a tree to peep in on the Maenads. The King’s aunts Ino and Autonoe take the lead in ripping off Pentheus ‘ legs and arms. His mom finishes him off by tearing his head from his shoulders with her bare hands.

What is Dionysos?

Dionysus, also spelled Dionysos, also called Bacchus or (in Rome) Liber Pater, in Greco-Roman religion, a nature god of fruitfulness and vegetation, especially known as a god of wine and ecstasy. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, a daughter of Cadmus (king of Thebes).

What was the fate of Semele?

Semele died of fright, and Zeus grabbed from the fire her sixth-month aborted baby, which he sewed into his thigh. After Semele’s death the remaining daughters of Kadmos (Cadmus) circulated the story that she had slept with a mortal, thereafter accusing Zeus, and because of this had been killed by a thunderbolt.”

Why has Dionysus returned to Thebes in The Bacchae of Euripides?

Dionysus, the god of wine, prophecy, religious ecstasy, and fertility, returns to his birthplace in Thebes in order to clear his mother’s name and to punish the insolent city state for refusing to allow people to worship him.

Why is Bacchae important?

“The Bacchae ” deals with the different relationships of theatre to various aspects of society, including its relationship to art itself. Dionysus offers his worshippers the freedom to be someone other than themselves and, in doing so, the chance to achieve a religious ecstasy through theatre itself.

Why does Pentheus dressed as a woman?

Because of this, Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus, thinking the man simply a follower, but his chains fell off and the jail doors opened for him. Dionysus lured Pentheus, disguised as a woman, out to spy on the Bacchic rites, where Pentheus expected to see sexual activities.

What aspects of the god Dionysus do we see in the Bacchae?

Dionysus, the protagonist of the play, is the Greek god of wine, fertility, ritual madness, and theater. He inspires the kind of devotion in his followers, the Bacchae, that Pentheus can only dream of as king.

What prophecy does Cadmus hear after killing the serpent?

What prophecy does Cadmus hear after killing the serpent? He found their slain bodies and the great serpent, and after a great struggle, Cadmus killed the snake. He stood staring at the snake when Athene descended and told him not to stare at the snake and warned that one day he would be a snake as well.

How is Pentheus killed?

Pentheus climbed up to the top of a tree for a better view of the Maenads but he was then spotted by the women who thought him to be a wild animal. Driven wild by this intrusion, the women tore the trapped Pentheus down and ripped his body apart, piece by piece (called “sparagmos” in Greek).

How did Actaeon die?

According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Actaeon accidentally saw Artemis (goddess of wild animals, vegetation, and childbirth) while she was bathing on Mount Cithaeron; for this reason he was changed by her into a stag and was pursued and killed by his own 50 hounds.