Bacchae -- Outline
Prologue -- spoken by Dionysus:
- his birth, his history, his mother’s grave, his rites:
- his divinity -- 3 times (18, 42, 47) -- the power and -- the difference
Parodos -- cult hymn to Dionysus
(use of cult names)
Note: doublings: two sets of Bacchae (native and foreign)
First Episode -- Teiresias and Cadmus
- Enter Pentheus -- Teiresias’ speech "worthy of Apollo"
First Stasimon
-- Pentheus’ u(/brij
-- generalizations of the struggle as a type -- longing to escape
Second Episode
-- capture of Dionysus,
escape of women (445), meeting of cousins
- 507 self-definition of Pentheus "Son of the snake, son of glory"
Second Stasimon
-- song for deliverance
Third Episode
--
- escape of Dionysus, mockery of Pentheus
- Messenger’s speech: the Bacchae on the hill: nature, power: hunter>hunted
- The seduction of Pentheus
860 "most terrible and most gentle to mankind"
Third Stasimon
(862-911)
- Two aspects of the god: freedom, joy: hunt, ambush
Fourth Episode
- Pentheus under the influence -- two suns--the beast in Dionysus
Fourth Stasimon
- Picture of what will happen, a song of vengeance
Exodos
- Messenger’s speech
- The chorus’ cruelty
- Agave’s fantasy
- Cadmus’ mourning: another side of Pentheus (1308)
- Exile
NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS!