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LITR 4370 Tragedy
lecture notes Spring 2017 Hippolytos |
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Reactions to midterm2
Will review again next week, but chance to preview and reinforce
unusual grading / revision process for instructor as well as student
good surface quality, "clean copy"
Thanks for following suggestions, attending to assignment (essential test-taking skill)
instructor's grade reports:
may be surprised by how much I'm writing
"reading notes" as close reading usu. reserved for advanced grad students
all comments not equal weight--some punctuation / typographic advice but may not affect grade seriously
Essay 2 as biggest revision challenge: not just extending but revising introduction and Midterm1 body to incorporate or preview additions
Midterm1: Tragedy & Comedy > Midterm2 & Final: Tragedy, Comedy, and Romance
assignments:
Romance appears strongly in last two plays (Phaedra & Desire Under the Elms) + some Comedy
Student comments 28 Jn 2016
chorus different, less elderly and authoritative, language like conversations
lower character like nurse propels action without overpowering sense of right and wrong
Euripides offers instant gratification in contrast to investment required for Aeschylus & Sophocles (so much behind curtain, history)
more tragic b/c more real
Gods humanized--must follow laws
Discussion questions:
Euripides keeps Nurse-Hippolytos proposition offstage, then won't let Hippolytos share it
two things we didn't see: proposition, + oath of confidentiality
6.3
1.1 Aphrodite: my plot, long planned
[10.10L] My king, I know I’m just a household slave,
but I’ll say this, and I don’t care who hears:
I’ll never believe your son did what you charged,
[3.59] PHAEDRA: My fall is deeply rooted, not new grown.
[Scene 7]
[7.1] NURSE:
[from within the palace]
[spectacle of hanging repressed]
[10.10g] And then from out of this huge, this monstrous tide,
there came a huge, a monstrous bull
10.10i that bull appears in front and heads them off,
making the chariot team veer off in panic,
but when they blindly rush towards the rocks,
it herds them silently along that course,
until it trips them up and makes them stumble,
crashing the chariot wheels against the stones,
and then the chariot explodes in parts:
wheels, axles, linchpins tossed high in a whirl,
and our master’s broken arms and legs get tangled
in the reins that wrap him round too tight to move.
[10.10j] His skull gets smashed against the rocks, his flesh
is scoured along his body, and he screams,
8.22] THESEUS: This wooden tablet fastened to her hand,
will it tell us what’s happened? Or does she mean [hidden notes a stock element of melodrama]
2.22] OLD MAN: But I myself, speaking within my station,
. . . I’d hate to believe
the gods are just as bad as human beings. [Euripides brings gods & myths to level of humanity?]
3.26c If you die, then you will betray your children.
8.12] THESEUS: Oh family, children, wife, what ancient curse*
has worked its way through time for our destruction?
[*Instructor's note: In Euripides's tragedies, curses really aren't so ancient, unless you count Phaedra's family's sexual misadventures as continuing with unnatural lust for Hippolytos]
Phaedra’s love for you will not be lost
in the endless depths of time’s oblivious ocean.
[11.33] HIPPOLYTOS: And may you fare well too, beloved queen. . .
I release my father from all blame,
obedient now and always to your will.
3.72f I must never forget that I’m a woman:
we always walk a tight-rope over blame.
[3.1e] Yet there are illnesses inherent in our kind:
it is a woman’s nature to bring forth new life in sorrow,
and through a helpless disarray of flesh and mind
let form within us flesh and mind which will create tomorrow.
3. Compare character in Euripides with character in Aeschylus and Sophocles.
Phaedra betrays Hippolytos unjustly but for sake of her children; compare Agamemnon sacrificing
Nurse 3.74f keep scandal under wraps.
We should not try to make our whole lives perfect . . .
like decorating a closet
[3.76] PHAEDRA: This is what ruins cities in their prime
and wrecks their homes: seductive rhetoric.
3.79 better to choose reality and life
than die rejoicing in your phantom honor.
6.3 Phaedra: so I must die
dishonored. Now I need another plan.
9.2 Hippolytos: . . . It isn’t right to hide your suffering
from one who loves you more than any friend.
9.6] HIPPOLYTOS: But is it me someone has slandered to you,
so that I’m suspect, though I’ve done no wrong?
9.9a yet the case itself,
if you’d consider it, is not so clear.
9.9b Look on this light, this earth: you’ll nowhere find
a soul more chaste than mine, though you deny it.
[9.9c] I know what it means to reverence the gods,
9.9e You won’t believe I’m pure. Well, let it go.
[9.9f] But logically, how could I have been corrupted?
[9.9g]
No, no
is first place prizes in our sacred games.
[9.9i] But now I swear by Zeus, Guardian of Oaths,
and by this earth, I never touched your wife,
nor ever wanted to or thought of it,
[9.9j] . . . Perhaps she saved what honor that she could.
9.33c O ruined prince, O vanished purity:
how can the gods allow such things to be?
4. Is Nietzsche justified in criticizing Euripides for losing the mythic and Dionysian grandeur of Aeschylus & Sophocles?
Tragedy written by men, but concerns women--Euripides women chorus
6.1] PHAEDRA: [sings . . . ] To be a woman is a curse.
Regret and pain are all we find.
Reading notes for Hippolytus
The
setting for all scenes
is the palace of Theseus at Trozen,
with its gates stage center.
Flanking the palace gates are
cult statues of Artemis
and Aphrodite.
[Scene 1]
[Enter Aphrodite.]
[1.1] APHRODITE: I am in everyone. I’m Aphrodite.
The gods rule everything: I rule the gods,
People just naturally like to be admired;
why should the gods be any different?
What you see today will show you what I mean.
Theseus
[disrespectful backstory]
[1.2] Well, this Hippolytos is always saying
that I’m the ickiest goddess in the world.
He disapproves of sex . . .
His reverence all is spent on Artemis,
the virgin silver-arrowed huntress goddess,
1.3 today brings him a bitter education.
My plot, long planned, is pretty much prepared.
1.4 a year’s exile from Athens as a penance.
Now, you can imagine what this does to Phaedra,
. . . his son, my enemy,
will be consumed by Theseus’s own curse,
[1.5] Phaedra will keep her honor but lose her life.
A regrettable necessity, . . . need
to show the world what happens when I’m scorned.
[Scene 2]
Enter Hippolytos,
holding a wreath, with several companions, one of whom is an Old Man.]
[2.2] ALL: [sing] Flower of purity and wonder,
2.3 chastity remains an absolute,
[2.4] OLD MAN: Young sir – not master, that word’s for the gods –
would you take my advice for your own good? [theme of tragedy as learning]
[2.8] OLD MAN: When someone gets too proud, nobody likes it. [pride or hubris as tragic flaw]
[2.10] OLD MAN: But people like it when you’re not stand-offish?
[2.12] OLD MAN: How is it then you don’t greet this proud goddess?
[2.15] HIPPOLYTOS: At distance I salute her, keeping pure.
[2.20] OLD MAN: Dear boy, all gods must have their due respect. [cf. Dionysus in Bacchae]
2.22 make my own prayer here before your image,
Aphrodite, Queen . . .
I’d hate to believe
the gods are just as bad as human beings.
[Scene 3]
[Enter CHORUS:
respectable married women of Trozen. . . . ]
3.1a] CHORUS: There is a towering rock . . . our city’s daughters
were gathered round t. . . made
aware our queen was suffering from some dread disease and dying. [queen = Phaedra]
3.1b she refuses to eat
or tell what makes her so afraid
[3.1e] Yet there are illnesses inherent in our kind:
it is a woman’s nature to bring forth new life in sorrow,
and through a helpless disarray of flesh and mind
let form within us flesh and mind which will create tomorrow.
[Phaedra, accompanied
by the Nurse and female attendants, is brought out of the palace on her
sickbed.]
[3.2] NURSE: Nothing but trouble and pain! . . .
You can’t be satisfied
with how things are, but always
go stumbling after something you don’t have. . . .
Well, worry and work are life,
there’s nothing we can do.
We weren’t put in this world to be at peace. [Nurse as lower-type character w/ comic potential]
3.3 Hold me up by my arms, beautiful, useless arms. My hair
feels like a massive weight
3.4 You have to bear your troubles royally. . . .
Show me life, and I’ll show you things that hurt.
3.8 What’s hunting to do with you?
[3.9] PHAEDRA: Artemis Queen of the salt lagoon and the race-course’s rattling gallop,
may I too dwell in thy precinct, taming the whinnying high bred steeds!
3.12a I’ve learned this much from having lived so long:
we human beings should mold
our loves out gently, not
allowing them to sink deep in our souls.
Affections should be easy
to rouse and to dissolve. [potentially comic, esp. in contrast to heroic suffering]
3.12b They say expecting too much of yourself
will far more likely bring
a sick, unhappy fall
than make you happy. That’s why I advise [lower-class common sense]
[3.24] NURSE: He’s had no chance. He’s absent from the city,
traveling to consult some oracle.
3.26c If you die, then you will betray your children.
You’ll make them orphans in their father’s house,
and sure as that Amazon queen could ride a horse,
they’ll be passed over for that smarmy bastard
she bore to be their master, and I mean
Hippolytos.
3.30 save your life and spare your children.
[3.31] PHAEDRA: I love them. But I’m whirled beyond all hope
[3.32] NURSE: You talk like you’ve committed some blood crime.
[3.33] PHAEDRA: My hands are clean: the stain is in my heart.
[3.53] PHAEDRA: My mother, that sexual monster, she—she—she—
[3.54] NURSE: We all know how the Minotaur was born.*
[3.56] NURSE: What’s wrong, dear? Why bring up these family scandals?
[3.59] PHAEDRA: My fall is deeply rooted, not new grown.
you’re in love, dear child? Who is it?
[3.67] PHAEDRA: He’s—he’s—you know, the son of the Amazon . . . . [the Amazon = Hippolyta]
[3.68] NURSE: You mean Hippolytos?
[3.69] PHAEDRA: You, not I, have said it.
[3.70] NURSE: No, no, child. What are you saying? This is disaster.
3.72b it’s not through ignorance
we fail in our behavior. We all know
what’s right. No, there’s another explanation:
we see and understand what we should do,
but cannot brace ourselves to do it,
3.72c two types of honor, one benign,
and another which makes us act disastrously.
[3.72e] When I was first assaulted by this passion,
I gave some thought how best to manage it.
At first I tried to drown my pain in silence,
[3.72f] . . . exercising self-control. . . .
my obvious only option was to die, . . .
My sick desire would lead me into scandal,
and I must never forget that I’m a woman:
we always walk a tight-rope over blame.
3.72g when the leaders think disgrace is glory,
it makes the rest consider evil good.
[3.72h] Just this, friends, is what’s driving me toward death:
the very thought I could betray my husband
or my own children.
3.74a nothing strange or inexplicable
in what you feel: it’s Aphrodite’s anger.
So you’re in love. So what? So many are. [lower-class common sense?]
And because you’ve lost your heart you’ll lose your life?
[Here the Nurse resembles the dramatic character mentioned by Nietzsche (BT 55) as the Graeculus, the hero of New Attic Comedy, a cheerful, irrepressible, cunning Greek slave]
3.74d they couldn’t fight what happened.
[3.74e] But you will? . . . How many husbands, whose marriages go sour,
decide to just ignore their wives’ affairs?
How many sons are winked and nudged towards
sowing their wild oats – by their own fathers?
3.74f keep scandal under wraps.
We should not try to make our whole lives perfect . . .
like decorating a closet
3.74g nothing more
than arrogance to struggle against the gods.
Endure your love: it is a god at work,
[3.76] PHAEDRA: This is what ruins cities in their prime
and wrecks their homes: seductive rhetoric.
3.77 do you think I would have urged such desperate measures
so you could just enjoy some fun in bed?
But now your life’s at stake
3.79 better to choose reality and life
than die rejoicing in your phantom honor.
3.81 in the house I have a formula,
guaranteed to gain control of love
discreetly, while it leaves the mind unharmed.
This formula will cure you
[Scene 4]
4.1c O my country, why do you never
make oblation in honor of Eros, [Eros = Greek god of sexual love]
born of the Queen of Love to rule the minds of all?
4.1d Aphrodite kindled in Helen
a passion stronger than duty or shame:
Priam’s city, ancient and splendid,
is nothing now but a song and a name.
[4.2] PHAEDRA: Silence, women: I think the worst has come.
[4.10]
PHAEDRA: Him
Hippolytos, hurling curses at my servant.
4.14 Her cure for my disease has made it fatal.
4.16 just one way out: to die. To die,
and let death finally heal me of my pain.
[Scene 5]
[Enter Nurse and
Hippolytos from palace.]
[5.5] HIPPOLYTOS: Don't touch me, don't you even touch my clothes.
[5.14] NURSE: Forgive me, human beings can sometimes stumble.
[5.15a] HIPPOLYTOS: Oh Zeus, why did you make this poison candy,
women, and turn them loose upon the world?
Once you'd decided men should reproduce,
you never should have managed this with women, . . .
live in houses free of women.
5.15c God save my hearth
from the pestilence of an over-intelligent woman!
5.15e plot their nasty schemes at home . . .
my father's sacred bedroom as a brothel,
[5.15g] God damn you c--ts – yes you and Phaedra both!
I'll never get my fill of hating women,
not even if they say that I'm obsessed.
They're all the same: they're bitches, sluts and whores!
[Scene 6]
[6.1] PHAEDRA: [sings . . . ] To be a woman is a curse.
Regret and pain are all we find. . . .
Redemption only comes in death.
6.3 so I must die
dishonored. Now I need another plan.
6.4 Yet I have my defense, if you will hear it.
I raised you and care for you. I tried to heal
your pain with an approach that didn’t work.
[6.6] NURSE: We’re wasting time in words. I went too far,
but there are ways, dear child, to still recover.
6.9 an idea which I believe
will free me from this trouble in a way
that will both save my children from disgrace
and yield me some requital for my pain.
I will not stain the royal line of Crete
or let my husband look on me in shame,
merely to save a single person’s life.
6.11 mine will be a special death.
6.13 I will have a partner in my death,
and he will find it educational
to see what can result from too much pride.
6.14c]
To fly away, away, away, away, away on wings of wishing,
where the golden apples swell in ripeness,
and the fertile meadows
bloom abundantly,
[Scene 7]
[7.1] NURSE:
[from within the palace]
[spectacle of hanging repressed]
[Scene 8]
[Enter
Theseus, with attendants.]
[8.4] CHORUS: They live, but motherless, and you are widowed.
[Palace doors open to
reveal Phaedra’s body, laid out, a wooden tablet hanging from her wrist.]
[Chorus now sings as
before, two lines at a time, with Theseus speaking.]
[8.12] THESEUS: Oh family, children, wife, what ancient curse
has worked its way through time for our destruction?
[8.18] THESEUS: What forced her to this act?
[8.22] THESEUS: This wooden tablet fastened to her hand,
will it tell us what’s happened?
[8.26] THESEUS: This wooden tablet cries
things too dread for speech.. . . the funeral dirge
for the royal house of Theseus, King of Athens.
8.28 Hippolytos has dared
defile the sacred marriage of your king, . . .
8.28 O Ocean Lord Poseidon, God of Sea,
since I, as all men say, am your own son*,
though I am mortal man and you a god,
you vowed me once three curses. One of these
I hereby now invoke against my son:
destroy Hippolytos this very day,
8.29
recall your curse, or else you may regret it.
[Scene 9]
[9.1] CHORUS: And even as we speak, Hippolytos
your son approaches. But oh Lord Theseus,
9.2 Hippolytos: . . . It isn’t right to hide your suffering
from one who loves you more than any friend.
[9.5] THESEUS: If only men were stamped with some clear mark,
some imprint to infallibly distinguish
the good and true ones from our enemies,
9.6] HIPPOLYTOS: But is it me someone has slandered to you,
so that I’m suspect, though I’ve done no wrong?
9.7a flesh of my own blood,
who has befouled his father’s marriage bed
and stands condemned by his dead victim here.
[9.7f]
In short
when this poor murdered corpse speaks loud and clear?
Now leave this land at once as one cast out,
and never return to Athens, home of gods,
nor any other land my power rules,
9.9a yet the case itself,
if you’d consider it, is not so clear.
9.9b Look on this light, this earth: you’ll nowhere find
a soul more chaste than mine, though you deny it.
[9.9c] I know what it means to reverence the gods,
9.9e You won’t believe I’m pure. Well, let it go.
[9.9f] But logically, how could I have been corrupted?
[9.9g]
No, no
is first place prizes in our sacred games.
[9.9i] But now I swear by Zeus, Guardian of Oaths,
and by this earth, I never touched your wife,
nor ever wanted to or thought of it,
[9.9j] . . . Perhaps she saved what honor that she could.
The honor that is mine won’t help me now.
[9.14] HIPPOLYTOS: You’ll really cast me out, not letting time,
however brief, reveal the truth at last?
9.16 not hearing witnesses, nor asking
the oracles of the gods for confirmation?
[9.17] THESEUS: This tablet here is oracle enough,
[9.26] HIPPOLYTOS: This misery overwhelms. I’d need to be
a second self to mourn myself enough.
[9.32] HIPPOLYTOS: It’s settled, then. And now my life is ruined
by knowing things I don’t know how to say.
9.33c O ruined prince, O vanished purity:
how can the gods allow such things to be?
[Scene 10]
[Enter Old Man.]
[10.1] CHORUS: But here’s the aged serving man who left
with Hippolytos. His face reflects disaster.
[10.6] OLD MAN: Hippolytos is gone, or as good as gone:
he sees this light, but his life hangs by a thread.
[10.8] OLD MAN: No stranger’s hand, but his own chariot team
has killed him before he could leave, that, and the curse
you called down on him from your father Poseidon.
[10.9] THESEUS: O gods! O Lord Poseidon! Then you are
my father: you’ve granted me my prayer.
[10.10b] And then Hippolytos came himself, all tears,
and joined us there, and with him a mournful throng
of friends, retainers, people he’d grown up with,
[10.10c] . . . he snatches up the reins and jumps right in
landing instinctively in a driver’s stance;
and the last thing that he does before departing
is to look up at the brightness of the sky
and pray, “May Zeus the Lord of Justice blast
and wither my life if I’m an evil man,
and may he lead my father to the truth
after I’m dead, if not while I still live.”
10.10e a huge rumbling roar, like Zeus’s thunder,
but underground
[10.10g] And then from out of this huge, this monstrous tide,
there came a huge, a monstrous bull
10.10i that bull appears in front and heads them off,
making the chariot team veer off in panic,
but when they blindly rush towards the rocks,
it herds them silently along that course,
until it trips them up and makes them stumble,
crashing the chariot wheels against the stones,
and then the chariot explodes in parts:
wheels, axles, linchpins tossed high in a whirl,
and our master’s broken arms and legs get tangled
in the reins that wrap him round too tight to move.
[10.10j] His skull gets smashed against the rocks, his flesh
is scoured along his body, and he screams,
[10.10L] My king, I know I’m just a household slave,
but I’ll say this, and I don’t care who hears:
I’ll never believe your son did what you charged,
[10.12] THESEUS: My hatred for this man prompts satisfaction,
and yet he is my son, a family tie
which reverence demands receive respect.
Between the two, there’s nothing I can feel.
[Scene 11]
[Enter Artemis.]
[11.1a] ARTEMIS: Hear me, Theseus, king
[11.1c] Now, Theseus, you will hear the truth of things,
and it will be a bane and not a blessing.
This is my purpose here: to make you know
11.3 you have manifestly sinned against
both him and me: not waiting for confirmation
from oracles or oath-bound witnesses
or calm investigation, you instantly
unleashed your curse against your guiltless son.
11.5 The laws of Zeus forbid
that any god should thwart another’s will,
but we must stand aside. . . .
Though this is your disaster, do not think
it is not also mine. Gods also grieve
when reverent mortals die, but on the evil
we send a plague consuming all their line.
[11.7f] O my father’s curse, my father’s curse!
Some ancient evil stains the generations
of all our house, blindly striking down
an innocent such as I: why do the gods
inflict such torment on the innocent?
[11.9] HIPPOLYTOS: Ah!
This air is suddenly suffused with light.
Through death and pain I feel the presence here
of Artemis, and agony recedes.
[11.23] HIPPOLYTOS: Father, my poor father, I mourn your grief.
[11.25] HIPPOLYTOS: I grieve for your mistake more than myself.
11.32 but for you,
my ruined worshipper, I will decree
the honor of a divinity here in Trozen.
Through all the future, virgins when they wed
will dedicate their girlhood locks of hair
upon your altar, singing a honeyed dirge
for maiden purity’s sweet perishing,
and Phaedra’s love for you will not be lost
in the endless depths of time’s oblivious ocean.
[11.33] HIPPOLYTOS: And may you fare well too, beloved queen. . .
I release my father from all blame,
obedient now and always to your will.
Bacchae Presentation Six (lines 1126-1431):
1126
DIONYSUS: [admiringly, as he
escorts Pentheus from the doors]
You
look just like one of Cadmus's daughters.
1130
you look like a bull leading me out here,
1130
with those horns growing
from your head.
Were you once
upon a time a beast?
It's
certain now you've changed into a bull.
DIONYSUS:
The god walks here. He's made a pact with us.
[cf. Nietzsche
on confusion of actor / hero & Dionysus as god]
1137
PENTHEUS:
How do I look? Am I holding myself
just like Ino or my mother, Agave?
1142 PENTHEUS: [demonstrating his dancing steps]
[Dionysus begins adjusting Pentheus's hair and clothing]
now that I've transformed myself for you.
1155
DIONYSUS:
Once you see
those Bacchic women
acting modestly,
[confusion whether Bacchic women are "girls gone wild" or consciousness-raising]
once you
confront something you don't expect,
you'll consider me your dearest friend.
1161
[Dionysus observes Pentheus trying out the dance step]
DIONYSUS:
Your mind has changed. I applaud you for it.
1174
I'll use no force
to get the better of these women.
I'll conceal myself there in the pine
trees.
1180
I can picture them right now,
1180
in the woods, going at it
like rutting birds,
clutching
each other as they make sweet love.
1192
Follow
me. I'm the guide who'll rescue you.
When you return someone else will bring you back.
PENTHEUS:
That will be my mother.
1198
PENTHEUS:
You've really made up your mind to spoil me.
DIONYSUS:
To spoil you? That's true, but in my own way.
PENTHEUS:
Then I'll be off to get what I deserve.
1200
1201
DIONYSUS: [speaking in the
direction Pentheus has gone, but not speaking to him]
You fearful, terrifying man—on your way
to horrific suffering.
1210
CHORUS 1:
Up now, you hounds of madness, [hounds
of madness = maenads as furies?]
1210
go up now into the
mountains,
go where Cadmus's
daughters
keep their company of
worshippers,
goad them into
furious revenge
against that
man, that raving spy,
all
dressed up in his women's clothes,
so keen to glimpse the Maenads.
1230
CHORUS:
Let justice manifest itself—
1230
let justice march, sword in
hand,
to stab him in the throat,
that godless, lawless man,
1265
cast your deadly noose upon
that hunter of the Bacchae,
as the group of Maenads brings him down.
[Enter Second Messenger, one of Pentheus's attendants]
1278
SECOND MESSENGER:
Pentheus, child of Echion, is dead.
CHORUS:
O my lord Bromius,
Now your
divine greatness
is here made
manifest!
1280
SECOND MESSENGER:
What are you saying? Why that song?
Women, how can you now rejoice like this
for the death of one who was my master?
CHORUS LEADER:
We're strangers here in
1291
CHORUS:
Dionysus, oh Dionysus,
he's the
one with power over me—
not
1305 The stranger was our guide, scouting the way. [The stranger = Dionysus]
1309
a valley there shut in by
cliffs.
Through it refreshing waters flowed, with pines
1310
providing shade. The
Maenads sat there,
their hands
all busy with delightful work—
1321
on that hill, a pine tree stands.
If I climbed that, I might see those women,
and witness the disgraceful things they do."
Then I saw that stranger work a marvel.
He seized that pine tree's topmost branch—
it stretched up to heaven—and brought it down,
pulling it to the dark earth, bending it
as if it were a bow
1336
So that pine
towered straight up to heaven, with my king
[my
king = Pentheus]
perched on its back.
1342
some voice—I guess
it was Dionysus—
cried out from
the sky, "Young women,
I've
brought you the man who laughed at you,
who ridiculed my rites. Now punish him!"
As he shouted this, a dreadful fire arose,
blazing between the earth and heaven.
1357
His mother Agave with both her sisters
and all the Bacchae charged straight through
the valley, the torrents, the mountain cliffs,
pushed to a god-inspired frenzy.
1360
1375
catch the climbing beast up there,
stop him making our god's secret dances known."
Thousands of hands grabbed the tree
and pulled.
They yanked it from
the ground. Pentheus fell,
crashing to earth down from his lofty perch,
screaming in distress
1382
His priestess mother first began the slaughter.
[his priestess mother = Agave, Pentheus's mother
She hurled herself at him. Pentheus tore off
his headband, untying it from his head,
so wretched Agave would recognize him,
so she wouldn't kill him. Touching her cheek,
he cried out, "It's me, mother, Pentheus,
your child. You gave birth to me
1391
But Agave was foaming at
the mouth,
eyes rolling in their
sockets, her mind not set
on
what she ought to think—she didn't listen—
she was possessed, in a Bacchic frenzy.
1397
tore his shoulder out. The strength she had—
it was not her own. The god put power
into those hands of hers. Meanwhile Ino,
her sister, went at the other side,
1400
ripping off chunks of
Pentheus's flesh,
while Autonoe
and all the Bacchae,
the whole crowd of them,
attacked as well,
all of them
howling out together.
1405
The women cried in triumph—
one brandished an arm, another held a foot—
complete with hunting boot—the women's nails
tore his ribs apart. Their hands grew bloody,
tossing bits of his flesh back and forth, for fun.
1410
1414
As for the poor victim's head, his mother
stumbled on it. Her hands picked it
up,
then stuck it on a thyrsus,
at the tip.
1420 She's coming here, inside these very walls, 1420
1427
The best thing is to keep one's mind controlled,
and worship all that comes down
from the gods.
