The human epiphany of Dionysus and his duality with Pentheus in the tragedy "The Bacchae"

Shubina Ekaterina Vladislavovna Postgraduate student; Faculty of History; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119234, Russia, Moscow, Ramenki district, Lomonosovsky prospekt, 27 K. 4 shubinaev777@gmail.com

Introduction

The tragedy of the Bacchantes has become one of the few works of Greek drama known to us, where one of the main characters is Dionysus. This dramatic work is full of references not only to God himself, but also to his epiphanies. Of particular interest is Dionysus, who appears as a man, because it was this role that Euripides paid the most attention to, as well as foreign researchers studying "Bacchantes".

The main part

We propose to consider the appearance of God in the form of a man. Sarah Macias Otero notes how in the tragedy of the Bacchantes Dionysus is represented by a handsome, but fragile and harmless young man, whose appearance deceives Pentheus, who did not notice the true power of god behind this appearance ^{[1, P. 332]}. Dionysus in the guise of a young man appears effeminate (Eur. Bacch. 353), with golden curls that smelled great (Eur. Bacch. 235), with the beauty of wine-colored eyes (Eur. Bacch. 236), with a wine-red blush (Eur. Bacch. 438), with white (without sunburn) skin, as if catching Aphrodite with her beauty (Eur. Bacch. 457, 459). The beauty of his body seems to have been specially created for girls (Eur. Bacch. 453-454). In this description, we see references to the beauty of God three times, and twice adjectives with a root identical to the word "wine" are mentioned, which is one of the main symbols of God. The "wine-colored" eyes of Dionysus can be compared to the famous lines from Homer:

The island is Crete in the middle of the wine-colored sea, beautiful,

Stout, surrounded by waters everywhere, abundant with people... (Hom. Il. XIX. 172-173, N.I. Gnedich lane).

Those god's eyes were like the sea, although the adjective itself refers to the color of the wine. The "wine-black Sea" is also mentioned in the Homeric hymn "Dionysus and the Robbers" (Hymn. Hom. VII. 7). Interestingly, Dionysus is often associated with the sea, with moisture, so the mention of both the sea and the eye color of the human epiphany of God seems natural and stable in ancient Greek ^{[2, p. 159]}. In addition, the blue-black eyes of God are mentioned in the same hymn (Hymn. Hom. VII. 15)

But the curls of god in the available sources are not always mentioned as golden ^{[1, p. 332]}. In the same Homeric hymn, god's hair is again referred to as "blue-black" (Hymn. Hom. VII. 5), but Hesiod's Dionysus is again "golden-haired" (Hes. Teog. 947), and chronologically The Theogony was written first, followed by the hymn On Dionysus, and last of all the tragedy of the Bacchantes.

Why is the appearance of God so different in the relatively close sources that undoubtedly influenced the plays of Euripides? Jean-Pierre Vernand, for example, noted Dionysus' "halo of uncertainty in his form and nature" ^{[3, p. 44]}, because God, unlike his brothers and sisters, does not appear as a clear vision, but is what he wants. It seems to us that, being half human and half god, Dionysus, like any god, could change his appearance, so in various sources he appears as both a young man and an old man. And that is why Dionysus has black hair like Poseidon at sea (Hom. Il. XIII. 563; XIV. 390; XV. 174, 201), and when he marries Ariadne, the granddaughter of Helios, a red-haired girl, he appears with golden curls (Hes. Teog. 947-949). But why does Dionysus have golden curls in the Bacchantes? Perhaps this is due to the motive of fire as a destructive force subject to God, and this motive of fire permeates the whole tragedy. There is fire in the thyrsus and narthex, in the vision of the burning house at Pentheus, on the grave of Semele, and Dionysus himself appears as a fire-breathing lion. This vivid rage can also be traced in the motives of blood - Bacchantes tear cows apart, tear apart Pentheus, dogs tear Actaeon, the cousin of both Pentheus and Dionysus, and all this blood stained Cytheron, the sacred mountain of the maenads.

Dionysus, in his human epiphany, is not just a mortal even for the participants of the tragedy ^{[1, 330]}. He is called the enchanted sorcerer (Eur. Bacch. 234), full of many miracles (Eur. Bacch. 449). The spark of the divine remains with him in any form, and this is especially evident in his motive for escape. In our opinion, the image of Dionysus in chains, freeing himself from them, is also borrowed from the Homeric hymn.:

They were going to put heavy bonds on him.

But his bonds could not restrain him, they flew far away.

Knitting of twigs from hands and feet. He sat quietly

He smiled with his black eyes. (Hymn. Hom. VII. 12-15, V.V. Veresaev lane)

Here we can see not only an attempt to capture God, but also his own understanding of the unrestrainedness of his divine power and the futility of attempts to hold on. And we see exactly the same motives in Euripides. To begin with, he allows himself to be captured by the servant of Pentheus, and willingly (Eur. Bacch. 436-437). Laughing (Eur. Bacch. 439), he allows himself to be tied up and led away (Eur. Bacch. 439). And as a result, he saves himself easily and without difficulty (Eur. Bacch. 614). He, watching Pentheus and the shock at home, was calm (Eur. Bacch. 622), and then also calmly left (Eur. Bacch. 636-367). This captivity only allegorically emphasizes the impossibility of containing both the cult and the nature of God.

It makes sense to further consider the human epiphany of Dionysus and Pentheus at the same time, since it is in their antagonism that the essence of the very phenomenon of God as an outsider seems to be embedded. Nina Schwartz notes the otherness of not only Dionysus, but also Pentheus for this world, abandoned at the end by his servants, and this category of alienation of both of them has a metatragic meaning that goes beyond the stage ^{[4, p. 318]}. The scene of Agave's departure is presented as a scene of self-exile from this world, and Dionysus appears ambivalent primarily in his presence and absence ^{[4, p. 318]}. Pascal Notet notes the opposite of Pentheus and Dionysus, and God himself is dual "... only to the extent that his prophetic and divine character forces him to reveal the ambiguity of the human condition" ^{[5, pp. 618-619]}. It is not God who kills the king, but Pentheus who commits suicide by refusing to accept himself, since Dionysus is also in him ^{[5, p. 619]}. The author also argues with the concept of Rene Girard, who sees "Bacchantes" as another proof of his own theory linking religion and violence. According to her, society is based on unanimous violence directed against an arbitrary victim, which was Pentheus ^{[5, pp. 615-616]}. Jean-Pierre Vernand reveals such aspects of the Dionysian cult as the duality of God, with the unity of opposites in the world ^{[3, P. 48]}, considers the mask as a symbol of presence in absence ^{[3, P. 46]}, the idea, like that of Karl Kerenyi, of Dionysus "Arriving" ^{[3, P. 39]}, also the idea of God as Different both on Olympus and in the human world ^{[3, pp. 38, 51]}. Pentheus and his desire to spy on the Bacchantes without being seen is seen as a manifestation of the animal nature ^{[3, p. 43]}. Philippe Adrian considers the actions of the Bacchantes as proselytism ^{[6, P. 192]}, which Pentheus desperately resists ^{[6, P. 195]}, but when Pentheus gives himself to Dionysus, he loses ^{[6, P. 196]}. God himself embodies secret desires, i.e. the unconscious ^{[6, p. 196]}. Hans Oranje denies the theories of his predecessors, that Pentheus in tragedy is the personification of order and rational perception, in a broad sense, even civilization itself, and Dionysus - primitive instincts and chaos, and together they form and show human nature ^{[7, P. 171]}. He considers Pentheus to be an ordinary person who late realizes the nature of the forces he is facing. Charles Segal, talking about the hypotheses of Froma Zeitlina and Richard Seaford (according to the former, Dionysus was a violator of the order of the polis, the latter restored it), comes to the conclusion that they are not contradictory. Thus, having considered the authors' conclusions, it is possible to form a more complete image of God ^{[8, pp. 356-358]}. Finally, Luigi Brazini hypothesizes that early assumptions about the content of the plays, which develop the idea of portraying Pentheus as a rational, traditional ruler, and Dionysus as disturbing this peace and stability, were introduced into historiography due to Nietzsche's views and require revision ^{[9, pp. 124-127]}.

This is just a brief description of those approaches and hypotheses that relate to the nature of Dionysus, based on the analysis of the antagonistic pair that Dionysus and Pentheus form. The main thing in these hypotheses, in our opinion, is the statement of Dionysus' otherness and his duality.

To begin with, let's consider Dionysus as Another One. The human epiphany of Dionysus is represented in the tragedy as "ξένος", i.e. an outsider, many times (Eur. Bacch. 233, 247, 352, 441, 453, 642, 800, 1047, 1059, 1063, 1077), and most often it is called Penfey. And Dionysus himself, in his human form, says that he came to Hellas from Lydia (Eur. Bacch. 464). As mentioned earlier, he has properties that distinguish him from other people (Eur. Bacch. 234, 449). He performs miracles right in front of the distraught Pentheus and his servant (Eur. Bacch. 1069-1072). At the same time, Pentheus himself considers him wise (Eur. Bacch. 824) and gifted as an orator (Eur. Bacch. 491), and also trusts him as a guide to the Bacchantes (Eur. Bacch. 1047). Finally, Dionysus himself gives himself a certain otherness, refusing to reveal the secrets of mysteries and orgies, thus distancing himself from the uninitiated Thebans (Eur. Bacch. 472, 474).

Almost all works devoted to the nature of Dionysus are based in one way or another on philosophical concepts, whether it is the Apollonian and Dionysian principles in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, later interpreted in the works of many researchers as the dual principle of God himself, or the idea of the relationship and definition of presence and absence, which has been of interest to philosophers since Immanuel Kant, or, for example, the perception of Dionysus as the personification of the unconscious, borrowed from Sigmund Freud. Therefore, without departing from tradition, it is possible to deduce the hypothesis of Dionysus as Another from the theory of Martin Heidegger [For more information: 10, pp. 144-149]. For Pentheus, Dionysus is co-present in his world, moreover, one way or another he is a duplicate of his self, and only through the knowledge of God does Pentheus know himself. Without honoring his relative, he denies his family and, consequently, himself, but by wearing the clothes of maenads (Eur. Bacch. 915-917), which he likes (Eur. Bacch. 930-931), he accepts within himself what Dionysus revealed to him as Another. And so Pentheus says: "καὶ μὴν..." (Eur. Bacch. 918) is a stable form for introducing a new character ^{[11, P. 62]}, but there is no such thing, and Pentheus became new, he changed thanks to God. And these two characters are really the same, not in essence, but in actions in the tragedy.: as Dionysus goes to Thebes to his mother (Eur. Bacch. 6-12), so Pentheus goes to his Cytheron (Eur. Bacch. 955-965), how Dionysus appears in human form (Eur. Bacch. 7), and Pentheus puts on the clothes of maenads (Eur. Bacch. 915-917), and finally, just as the bull, the symbol of Dionysus [More about the bull as a symbol of Dionysus: 12, P. 112-113] was torn apart by Bacchantes (Eur. Bacch. 743), so Pentheus was killed by them (Eur. Bacch. 1125-1136).

Here we see the physical embodiment of the duality of Dionysus. Having accepted God, Pentheus says:

And indeed, it seems to me that I see two suns.,

Double Thebes is a sevenfold city (Eur. Bacch. 918-919).

It is believed that this passage demonstrates Pentheus' simultaneous immersion in the divine world and the mortal world ^{[1, p. 45]}. But we can assume that this is exactly how Dionysus sees the world - as a man thanks to his mother and as a god thanks to his father. We observe this unity of opposites in the nature of Dionysus. God in tragedy is represented as punishing (Eur. Bacch. 32-36; 516-517; 860-861; 1021-1022; 1080-1081; 1249-1250; 1296; 1374-1376), so it is with those who bring joy (Eur. Bacch. 151; 377-379; 381; 421-423; 772; 860-861), both actively involved in the action (for example, when he destroys a palace or takes part in rituals), and just watching (for example, when he is interrogated by Pentheus or when he ascends Cytheron), both by god and man. But to a greater extent, this duality is revealed at the moment when Dionysus in human form says that Pentheus:

...And recognizes the son of Zeus,

Dionysus, who grew up as a result of God

The scariest and most benevolent for people. (Eur. Bacch. 859-861)

Dionysus also says in the form of a man: "That is, you could look with pleasure at what grieves you" (Eur. Bacch. 815). However, in all cases, it is not the duality of God's nature that is mentioned, but only the effect that this nature has on people. Dionysus may be ambivalent to people, but he doesn't seem contradictory to himself. On the contrary, he seems to be the personification of life in its entirety, which is very clearly seen in the excerpts of the choir, consisting of Dionysus' companions, in which there are discussions about life, such as:

What happens every day is what life is all about.

If you are happy, I bless you (Eur. Bacch. 910-911).

A life free from suffering is to live like a mortal (Eur. Bacch. 1004).

And it is better to reason sensibly and honor that,

Which is from the gods, and I think that (life) itself is

The wisest acquisition for mortals who use it (Eur. Bacch. 1150-1152).

Life is short, and therefore

No one can reach

True great aspirations (Eur. Bacch. 397-399).

But driven mad by God, these companions, on his orders, kill animals and people, and bring destruction. And here Karl Kerenyi, relying on Hegel's philosophy, draws an interesting conclusion about the connection of destruction and death with life itself, because one does not exist without the other ^{[13, p. 135]}.

Conclusion

And this, it seems, is precisely the duality of Dionysus' nature in the duality and inevitability of life itself. At the same time, Dionysus himself is not an "imperfect" dual and, accordingly, a rushing god, he is a force dominating people and at the same time close to them by nature. Therefore, his phenomena are different, because Dionysus himself is in constant change. Finally, the Choir also speaks about the imminent power of God.:

It's hard to move, but still

Surely some kind of divine

Power. (Eur. Bacch. 882-884)

Thus, it is possible to hypothesize about the representation of Dionysus' human epiphany in "Bacchantes" as non-dual in the sense that transpersonal psychology puts into this term, namely in the absence of fundamental differences between dual categories such as good and evil, love and hate, life and death, and the idea of it as parts of a single ^{[14, p. 7]}. It seems that Dionysus appears to us exactly like this - aware of the duality that he brings to people's lives, and at the same time perceiving it as his single divine nature. Mircea Eliade wrote about the same thing, developing his theory of Coincidentia oppositorum or "equality of opposites", only in relation to more archaic deities ^{[15, P. 382]}.

It is also interesting that Dionysus creates a vision of his human epiphany (Eur. Bacch. 630), i.e. it appears through a phenomenon. Vernan considers this ambiguity of vision to be the uncertainty of God in his own form and nature ^{[1, p. 44]}. However, it seems to us that this is a repetition of the plot about Dionysus-Melangais, who sent madness to the girls who did not recognize him in an obscure vision ^{[13, P. 113]}. But the very depth of the possibility of creating such a phenomenon within a phenomenon seems interesting and deserves further study.

The article is published in the version approved by the reviewers (after receiving a positive review recommending the manuscript for publication) with corrections made by the author (after receiving the editor’s comments, if any).
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