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- [00:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Today on Ascend the Great Books podcast, we plunge into the second part of Euripides, the Bacchae, a harrowing yet gripping Greek tragedy that leads us deeper into the mystery of Dionysian erotics. We'll observe the tragic descent of King Pentheus, the Bacchae as a parasite upon society, and the haunting themes of Eros, justice, and the question of piety under an evil God. I'm utterly captivated by this play. Its visceral intensity, culminating in the horrific dismemberment of a son by his mother, leaves me pondering how the Dionysian cult is antagonistic to the familial and political flourishing and what modern parallels we see today. We welcome back to the podcast Dr. Frank Grabowski, who will help us take a deeper look at this text and what antecedents we see in it in Plato's Symposium and Plato's Euthyphro. Also, don't forget we have a written question and answer guide posted on our Patreon page that is incredibly helpful to you or your small group. So join us today for a fantastic conversation on the dark drama that is the Bacchae. Welcome to Ascend the Great Books podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I'm a husband, father and serve as a chancellor and and general counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. It is a beautiful evening here in rural Oklahoma. You can check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon, and we appreciate all of our supporters on there. You can also check us out@thegreatbookspodcast.com where we have a whole library of guides and articles and resources to help you navigate the great books. Today we are discussing part two of the Bacchae by Euripides. We are once again joined by a friend of the podcast, wonderful guest, Dr. Frank Grabowski, who's a professor of philosophy at Roger State, member of our Sunday Great Books group that meets at my home once a month. Also a teacher at our new classical school and a third order Franciscan. Frank, how are you doing this evening?
- [02:09]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Greetings. Well, if you consider 100 degrees every day, Monday through Sunday, beautiful. Well, then I'll. I'll grant you that it's. It's very hot. We in fact just had a storm blow through, so. No, but I'm looking forward to concluding our discussion. It's a very interesting and very challenging play.
- [02:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay, very good. So we are looking at part two of Euripides the Bacchae. So last time we ended. I really enjoyed our conversation last week. I thought it was excellent. I really appreciate it. I appreciate all the wisdom that you've brought to the table kind of unpacking this text, which I think is a difficult text. It's a difficult text even within, like, the overall corpus of the tragedians, if that makes sense. I think. Yeah, it turns, as we mentioned last week, it turns a lot of the lessons that I think we learned in Aeschylus and in Sophocles, I think it turns them on their head, but in a way that sometimes I'm still bewildered by. Like, I'm still trying to figure out what was Euripides actual intent here, what was he trying to teach us, you know, holding that these poets are actually teachers. And so we. We ended around line 650 or so, really, you know, after there's been this earthquake. You know, we had this almost pilot in Christ scene between Pentheus and Dionysus. And then obviously there was like, an earthquake was almost reminiscent of that story in the New Testament with St. Paul. And his earthquake releases Dionysus to the degree that he really even was a prisoner. It doesn't seem like he really was actually, that this. This bull had been tied up in his place. And so Pentheus is, I think, trying to grasp what has happened. And in the midst of this, like, a messenger runs in to kind of pile on more stuff. And so I just want to kind of, like, lay this out a little bit because I think this is some of the most haunting kind of narratives in the text. So this messenger comes in and he basically tells us, like, what he's seen about the bacchae, about these women that have been driven mad out into the countryside. And so he tells this story in, like, just a few highlights around, like, 695 or so. These women have. Have left their husbands, they've left their families, they've abandoned the polis, they've abandoned the familial strata of society, and they've gone out into the wilderness. And this is something we talked about, that Dionysius's worship is unique. It's not done in a temple. It's not done in this, like, civilized fashion. It's done out in the wilds. It's done ascending the mountain to have the spirituality. And so he tells them, like, what does he see of these women? And he says this is, like, maybe a little bit 4, 700. He says their breasts were swollen with milk. New mothers who had left their babies behind at home, nestled gazelles and young wolves in their arms, suckling them. And he gives this, like, parade that these women, they're. They're nursing wild animals, they're going up the hillside. You know, there's also reports of these orgies and also then eating the animals. And so it's weird because there's this coupling of something that's somewhat feminine, but that's become perverted, like the, the motherhood of abandoning the infant. And you have to imagine like what that means, you know, because there's no formula, there's nothing they can go get. So like they've abandoned these infants, often to death, and then they're nursing these wild animals, which is a perversion. But then coupled with that is this deeply violent character where he says, he says down at like 7:36 or so, he says, you know, I've seen a single woman with bare hands tear a fat calf, still bellowing with fright in two, while others clawed the heifers to pieces. There were ribs, cloven hooves scattered everywhere, and scraps smeared with blood hung from the fir trees. And bulls, the raging fury gathered in their horns, lowered their heads. The charge then fell, stumbling to the earth, pulled down by hordes of women and stripped of flesh and skin more quickly. And what are we to make of these reports?
- [06:15]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, you know, it brings to mind, Deacon, a discussion in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in book seven, where he mentions there there are three different moral states to be avoided. One is vice, another is moral incontinence or weakness of will, what's called Akrasia. And then he mentions a third, a beastial like state or an animal like state. And you know, he'll give examples of, you know, people who bite their nails or who engage in cannibalism. And in describing this bisht like state, he mentions just how terrifying such a person is because in a way they're lacking reason. I mean, even the vicious person has not completely abdicated his reason. He says that the vicious person is like a political state, Apollos, that follows bad laws, but at least there's discernment and choice involved, whereas the bestial individual lacks that. And so, yeah, the scene that Euripides describes here is utterly horrifying because you have a mixture of human and animal relations. It isn't sexual, but it's very intimate where they are actually breastfeeding these, these animals. And so it's a complete and utter collapse, as you said earlier, of political society, of Apollos, where we have structure and order and law. And that becomes even much. I think it becomes clearer even later.
- [07:58]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, I agree. And just a few things to kind of Layer on top of that one. I do agree very much with seeing this too, as like the familial and political instability. Right. So this Dionysian cult that comes in with the Bacchae, this mania that grasps. Grasps the women particularly and first and first and foremost, you know, brings with it a certain collapse of the family and as we'll see, a collapse of the polis as well. And I think. I think that's something that really can't be overlooked. The other thing too then, is that as we've kind of tracked last week, it always brings with it to a blurring of the genders. So these women take on like deeply masculine traits of violence, being able to like rip apart these animals, you know, with their bare hands, even fighting bulls that are trying to defend, you know, the cows and things of this nature. And so I think too, we have to keep track of that, because I think that becomes like a theme in the play, that when this Dionysian erotics, when this certain mania takes hold, Euripides tends to almost then immediately blur the gender. Immediately, yeah.
- [09:01]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I mean, you know, we've seen a similar blurring in Agamemnon with Clytemnestra, obviously not to this extent, but. But these Greek playwrights, Aeschylus and Euripides being these two examples, really do draw attention to gender, sex as being a defining characteristic of a human being. And when that gender becomes blurred or inverted, the implication seems to be, at least from these playwrights, that something has gone desperately wrong. You know, if Dionysus, if the victims were male or were men instead of females, I don't think that we would be as disgusted and horrified by the results. But since this is happening to women, which is not to imply that they're weaker or more vulnerable, but that somehow they really are the cornerstone of a society, if you pervert women in the way that Euripides has, there will be no children. And if there are no children, there will be no future generations. And if no future generations, no polis.
- [10:20]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree. I think there are two, you know, as. As just as like a reminder that, you know, this, this erotics, this like Eros, this love that always comes with it, like, as a certain mania which Dionysus is very much like tied into. And we'll see this in Plato, it also always carries with it an understanding of our self identity, right? That that's what we love, always informs back into us, like who we are. So it's really interesting in this, like Dionysian erotics, which tends to have Like a mania. It's not based in like a logos. It's. It's a. Anti logos in a lot of different ways. It always has to have some type of perversion or twisting or turning inside out of the identity almost immediately. Whether it's a man or a woman, there has to be some type of thing. And if you, if you notice, as throughout this text, you know, one way to kind of track this is just to go through the text and try and track all the different relationships, not just between like, you know, abstract relationships like say mother to infant, but also go back and track the actual relationship, say between like Pentheus and his mother or, or Cadmus and his daughter. Like you track all these different relationships and then see how do these, how's this Dionysian mania come in and pervert every single one of them to the degree that basically the familial structure and the political structure are destabilized.
- [11:37]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And just one more comment, Deacon, and that just. I can't help but be brought back to the question that I think we considered last week, and that is, what is Dionysus up to? What is he doing? Right? I mean, we, we considered revenge, right? There's, there's that, but, but there also seems to be, I guess for the lack of a better word, an evangelical purpose here where he, he wants to convert people to a Dionysian religion. He wants people to believe in him, but if that were the case, he seems to be going about it the wrong way. And so to me that's. This is always lingering in the background. What, you know, what, what is Dionysus? What is his ultimate goal in all of this? Because I mean, to any observer this is completely destructive and nihilistic.
- [12:32]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree, you know, one more thing on kind of the messenger's narrative that he gives here is. Which I wasn't quite sure how to take, but you know, they also attack villages, right? And so not only do you get kind of a blurring of the, of the genders, but then you actually get an explicit, you know, men trying to attack the Bacchae and are basically completely overrun and they can't do anything about that. But notice too like one line here that I wasn't sure what to do with. Line 754, they snatched the children from their homes. So when they attack the village, right, there's this violence, but also they're stealing the children. And I just kind of wrote a note out by the side, like, what happens to the children?
- [13:13]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, that's very good question. I mean, it leads one to wonder if they then become part of some sort of ritual or sacrifice. I mean, there's. They're certainly not incorporated into the cult, or maybe they are, but we never hear about them. They just kind of disappear. But I think what you're saying is really important because it is a mystery. It's a mystery. It's a mystery cult. There are a lot of question marks that only those who belong to the cult know, and to those of us who are just observers or who are victims of their assaults, I mean, this is what is so horrifying and so terrifying is that no one really knows what happened in the forest. Nobody really knows what's. What happens inside of their rituals.
- [14:08]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that was. That was my read as well, that the. The fate of the children is not actually made explicit. What did you make though, of. So then the. The messenger gives, like, his own commentary on this. And so I found this was really interesting. He says, this is 770. Whoever this God may be, sire, welcome him to Thebes, for he is great in many other ways as well. It was he, or so they say, who gave to mortal men the gift of lovely wine by which our suffering is stopped. And if there is no God of wine, there is no love, no Aphrodite either, nor other pleasures left to men. So two things here that caught my attention. One is, I think. And I think you brought this up last week, and I think it was really hopeful, is you can also read the Bacchae as like, how do particular souls receive religion? How do they receive the divine? And so, you know, remember, Cadmus gave us something almost like a. Like a noble lie, right? Like, this is. This is just good. It's just good. Whether he's a God or not, it's gonna be good for the family. It's gonna be good for Thebes. Like, you know, we need to accept it. Here we get fear. Whoever this God is, just accept him, right? Just. Just accept him. Because look at the violence. Look what he brings. And that's a really fascinating kind of reception of the divine. Like, it's just sheer power and cruelty. And so, of course, we should worship him, because look at what could happen to us. And that, I think, is distinct, though, from trying then to ferret out his comment that if there's no wine, there's no Aphrodite. And just to remind everyone, you know, Dionysus, historically, is the God of wine. That's what he. That's what he gave to man here in Euripides. He's also Very cruel. But like in Homer, even in, even in Aristophanes, right. In the Frogs, Dionysus is like jovial and gives wine, is humorous and he's funny, you know, he's someone you'd want to spend an evening with. It's hilarious here though, he's, he's not like that. But we have to remember that he is the God of wine.
- [16:07]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I guess my comment would be. So we've seen several different approaches to belief in Dionysus. There's Tiresias who seems to be genuine in his belief, seems to be at least. And he articulates this very elaborate theology. I think he tries to provide some kind of rational theology or rational belief system. Then yes, we have Cadmus, who is far more practical. Right. He's giving a pragmatic argument. And the messenger here seems to be motivated entirely by panic. He's stunned. I'm not even sure if he understands what he's saying. You know, this remark that there's no love, no Aphrodite either without Dionysus. That's a very peculiar thing to say, especially if one knows the theogony or the genealogy of the gods, that Dionysus is a far, far younger God than Aphrodite. So it. From a purely, you know, in terms of. Generate the generation of the gods, certainly there could be Aphrodite without Dionysus because there had been Aphrodite without Dionysus in terms of order, of order, of birth. And so that's clearly not what he's saying. He's saying that, you know, this has, he has a different meaning here than just order of birth. But again I just, I see him panicking and grasping at straws and really trying to comprehend, to give, to give some sort of rational account of what he's seen. And this is what he's reduced to.
- [17:50]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I, I agree with you on like the various different know, theogonies. I don't think his statement is one of genealogy.
- [18:02]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No.
- [18:03]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And so then I was. So the wine seems to be something that, like, you know, it, it soothes our souls, it gives us pleasure. It's almost this gatekeeper to all these pleasures and permit particularly like a gatekeeper to love, to Aphrodite. Right. And so the wine, I, I wondered if the wine then was like a common mania. So we see this kind of Dionysian erotics that leads to this like extreme mania, this extreme madness where you abandon your duties, you, you know, frolic in the countryside and do these things. But you Know, does wine then not represent a more common mania, a more common kind of doling of the intellect that then can lead into love, like a sexual love that Aphrodite often presents?
- [18:45]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, and no, I think that's. That's very good. You know, this, this. The comment too, that if there's no God of wine, that then there's no.
- [18:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Love.
- [18:56]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
You know, the. The attachment or the association of wine with. With love in this statement here is. It strikes me as very peculiar because, of course there is love without wine. I mean, that's not only obviously true, but that must be true within the context of this particular play, because, I mean, well, we have sons and we have daughters. And so the fact that he's drawing this strong connection between wine and love, at least in the audience, really raises this question about what the messenger here understands love to be. And if it's only the sort of love that results from a kind of drunkenness. Well, which is manic, as you say right now.
- [19:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree. What about the response then of the leader? So the leader of the bacchae. So the messenger actually exits and then the. The first person to speak in response to this is the leader of the bacchae. How do do. Can you give me a good working pronunciation of her name?
- [20:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I just. I just have chorus leader in my translation. Where, Where.
- [20:09]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Oh, really?
- [20:10]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
What line are you?
- [20:11]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It's a 775.
- [20:13]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, it just shows chorus leader in my translation.
- [20:16]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Oh, that's interesting. Remind us what translation you're reading from.
- [20:19]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I think this is the arrowhead. It may be a different edition.
- [20:23]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Aerosmith.
- [20:25]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Aerosmith, yes.
- [20:27]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's what I have too, is William Aerosmith. And this one, she's actually translated Corypheus something along those lines. Okay, so she. She's the first one.
- [20:37]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [20:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Cora Core. Yeah.
- [20:40]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Coryphoris. Does that sound right?
- [20:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Sure, we'll go with that. So the leader of the chorus is the first one to respond and give a response to the messenger. And she says, I tremble to speak the words of freedom before the tyrant, but let the truth be told, there is no God greater than Dionysus. I mean, is that not blasphemy?
- [21:05]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Insofar as Zeus is quite clearly the greatest of the gods?
- [21:09]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I mean, Zeus is more powerful than all of them. So again, we're trying to. Some of these comments, I think are going into, like, Euripides intent, which I realize is kind of a blood on the floor conversation on the Bacchae, and that there's lots of different interpretations, but it's hard to let a statement like that go because obviously Zeus is the most powerful God, right? He is. Homer makes it very clear that he's more powerful than all of the other gods combined. And Aeschylus, you know, he's becoming like the sign of the all powerful God. Right? Zeus, if that's the name that I call you, you know, he, that's who he is. And so it's hard for me just to let that line go by that this leader of the chorus then says, hey, like, you know, Dionysus is the greatest God. Maybe it's just puffery, maybe it's just, you know, this kind of manic praise. But it seems like Euripides always has a point.
- [21:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, it's, it's, it's interesting because the leader, chorus leader, says this and Zeus doesn't show up to correct her. Right, right. I mean, you would expect there to be a, a lightning or a thunderclap or something that would draw attention to what this person said. And Zeus is objecting to it. Right. Zeus makes no appearance, in fact, none of the other gods make any appearance to assert their superiority over Dionysus. And so, yes, I think that this is getting at a message that Euripides is trying to, is trying to get across, whatever that may be. And we've left that an open question.
- [22:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. I wonder too, though, if so, if we remember from our good Homeric studies and then even leading into all the way into the medieval ages, that piety is threefold, right? That piety, the man is pious towards his family, towards the polis and towards the gods. Right? Because piety reflects a certain gratitude. Right? The pious heart is a grateful heart. And it's a piety too, that always motivates one to act. So if I realize that I'm in debt to my family, to the polis, to the gods, I'm grateful for that. And then that, that gratitude in me then is an impetus for me then to give back, such as the gods.
- [23:21]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
This is very monolithic, this is very one dimensional.
- [23:25]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I was curious then because we've, we've kind of established that both of us agree that the Dionysian cult brings a certain instability to the familial and the political strata. I'm curious whether you could push it, that it also is bringing an instability to the divine, to the cult, the hierarchy.
- [23:41]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, the hierarchy, yeah. I mean, yeah, this, this, this is a, you know, a complete, well, it appears a complete repudiation of the pantheon as it had been understood up to this point. I mean, sure. You know, one must supplicate all the gods, but there was clearly one God supreme overall. And beneath Zeus, there did seem to be a kind of pecking order of sorts. And I think, yeah, you're right. This. This is a complete nutter repudiation of the traditional Greek pantheon.
- [24:25]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. It just seems like it's just a line that, that it can't simply let be let go. Right. It has to be kind of ferreted out. So to push us forward. You know, one thing we talked about last time and it's still true here, is how do we articulate Pentheus's recalcitrants to accept Dionysus as a God? So he's just gone through, you know, last time, right at the end we spoke about, He. He watches all these things happen. He watches the, the earthquake, the trembling, all these things that Dionysus comes out. It's. He seems to be very clearly acting in a divine manner. Now the messenger comes in and says, hey, here's all these wonders slash horrors that I've seen. And Pentheus still, though it doesn't seem to be clicking with him. And I. I'm careful on how to read this because as we mentioned last time, you know, there's like 19th century, 20th century reads on the Bacchae that, you know, Pentheus is the hero. He's. He's like the proto enlightened European man that will just simply just sheer rationality. Which rationality. There's kind of a mask on, kind of an empiricism and just empirical knowledge. And therefore it doesn't matter what I see. I cannot accept these things according to my own reason. You know, obviously that's a certain lens to read that by. But Pentheus, I mean, I think Pentheus is a. Is a complicated character because. Trying to. Because it's hard, in my opinion. It's hard to understand Pentheus on how we're supposed to receive him from Euripides without knowing exactly what Euripides intent is in the play. Right. Is Pentheus virtuous? Is he not? What is he doing? A lot of that comes off of, well, how do you see the context of the play? But here again, he, like, he responds, you know, to the leader of the chorus and, you know, his response is, well, then we're just going to march off to the Bacchae. Like, armor up, let's go boys. We're marching out and we're going to fight them. Which obviously on one hand is. Seems admirable because this has brought so much disorder to the polis, etc. On the other hand, it's like they are tearing apart animals with their bare hands. Like the spears aren't hurting them, but then their wands that they have are, like, opening up huge wounds. Like, none of this is rational. Like, there's some type of, you know, used to use the term mystery cult, right? There's some type of, like, mystery cult, like, deeper workings here that are causing certain disorders. So we again see this where he calls for his armor, and I'm just not. I'm entirely not sure how to parse that out.
- [27:06]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, I mean, miracles, at least from a Catholic point of view, are a motive of credibility. They offer us some evidence that there's some divine activity happening. And, And, And. And, you know, I. When I reread Bacchae for the. For the podcast, I, you know, I kept going back to instances in the Old and New Testaments where people, though faced with miracles, refused to believe. And so, you know, from the Old Testament, the most obvious example, I think, would be Pharaoh and Moses, where he was repeatedly confronted with divine miracles. And yet his heart was. Was hard. It remained hardened. And in the New Testament, you know, we. We hear of Jesus who refused or at least limited the number of miracles that he would perform in Nazareth because people didn't believe. And so it does, I think, raise the question, is Pentheus. You described him as recalcitrant, but is there anything that could possibly soften his heart, that could possibly bring him to believe that Dionysus is who he says he is? And I think that for Euripides, I mean, Euripides wants to leave us with the impression that, no, there isn't. And so Pentheus then does not come across as a very virtuous individual because of his stubbornness.
- [28:58]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it occurs to me, too. Like, to what degree is. Is Pentheus believing in the tale? So does he. Does he believe that this is a divine culture and he's against it, but not necessarily that the man in front of him is Dionysus. Like, how, like, you know, there's. There's degrees to this too, but it seems like just from, like, the general mythology that we have received, you know, these mortals never armor up and go march against an immortal. Like, this is not going to work on any level. Unless. Unless. Unless you're like Diomedes, where a God has given you permission to do such a thing, will back you, like Athena did against Aries. So, you know, because he seems to, you know, that's another read that he could say that, no, there is. There is a cult here. I don't. I don't believe that this man in front of me is Dionysus. But this cult needs to be eradicated.
- [29:49]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right? The other thing that comes to mind, too, is, you know, Pentheus, although we have the scene very much that very much parallels the exchange between Pilate and Jesus, between Pentheus and Dionysus. I mean, the question I have is, does Pentheus really do everything in his power to allow Dionysus to convince him? Does he ask the right questions? Is he curious enough about the true nature of this stranger who's come to Thebes? And so, yeah, I just. I don't know. I don't know what Pentheus's threshold is when it comes to evidence and. And what it would take for him to believe. It seems as though under no circumstances would he ever come to accept Dionysus as a God.
- [30:49]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I think in certain ways, I don't want to say the conversation becomes moot, but in a lot of ways, Pentheus reminds me of Antigone in a lot of different ways. But one way that he reminds me of Antigone is that he has a pretty strong pivot in the middle of the play on his character. So he seems very recalcitrant. Right. So if you remember with Antigone, you know, she is just like the gods say, you have to bury my brother. There's like a universal right to burial. Like, I'm not giving in. And then, like, you know, towards the end of the play, we find her being like, was I wrong? You know, she doubts herself. And it's really. We even talked about historically, people asking, you know, offering to pay money if someone could prove that these were parts of the text that were added after and kind of grafted on the Sophocles because they're so jarring. They seem to kind of somewhat ruin the. The heroine that Antigone was kind of set up to be. Pentheus kind of has a similar thing right here where he's, like, very recalcitrant. I'm not going to give in. I'm very stubborn. I'm fighting against the God, et cetera. And then he just pivots.
- [31:54]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, actually, not that far from that.
- [31:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, That's. That's why I'm setting it up. That's why I'm setting it up. Because this is the. This is the pivot. Because he. This is 8, 10. He says, Bring me my armor, someone, and you stop Talking, right? So, I mean, he is like, he's still here. He's still headstrong. We're marching off, we're fighting the Bacchae. And Dionysus says, wait, would you like to see the revels on the mountain? And then he just says, I would pay a great sum to see that sight. Why are you so passionately curious? Of course I'd be sorry to see them drunk, but for you, right? For all your sorrow, you'd like to very much see them. Yes, very much. I could crouch beneath the fir trees, out of sight. What? Like, what just happened? So he goes from this, like, you be quiet. We're marching off, we're fighting the Bacchae. The Dionysus, like, says, wait, don't you want to see them? And my take on this, or at least, like, I'm not sure if I'm settled, is that this is his temptation scene, right? Would you. Would you like to see the Bacchae? And I think the underlying, you know, push back, please. But I think the underlying thing here is the orgies, right? It is the sexual component. And it's like, would you like to see them? Would you like to see them, you know, from a distance? So you. They'll just be, you know, doing their actions and you can see them, not fight up against them. And he gives in to this because I think that it's very clear as we'll kind of move through the text, and Dionysus basically says this almost explicitly, that Pentheus has to open himself up to possession. So Dionysus can't. At least it's somewhat presented that Dionysus can't just simply take possession of Pentheus. Pentheus has to open himself up to the possession of the God. And that has all kinds of implications later of the Bacchae. And was that true of the women and things like that? But for Pentheus, it seems to be true. And this seems to be the scene that he opens himself up to that divine possession. And I think then the. Obviously, then the more like the perversions here is not just simply like gallivanting off in the woods to go watch these wild women in an orgy, but also the fact that he has family in it, including his mother.
- [34:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, No, I think that this. Bring us back to Aristotle's discussion of virtue. I mean, this. This is a clear instance of. It seems to be a clear instance of Akrasia or weakness of will. Now, we don't really know much about Pentheus up to this point, and so we've been considering this question of, you know, is, is he virtuous? And this would be evidence of him clearly not being virtuous because he's not able to overcome to. To withstand this temptation of seeing these women engage, engaging in orgy. And so this, I mean, to me, on a personal level, elicits great pity for Pentheus because of how, you know, how easy it is for Dionysus to tempt him and how quickly Pentheus gives in. It's instantaneous, as you say. It's not like he. Dionysus, even has to work on pantheists.
- [35:08]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [35:08]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
All he has to do is say, well, there are women over there having an orgy. Wouldn't that be great to see? And Pentheus is like, yeah, I'd be willing to pay great money to see this.
- [35:18]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You know, two things that occur to me there. One is your mention of Aristotle. I thought of this earlier and failed to mention it. That, you know, the other thing that Aristotle says at the beginning of the. Of his politics, I believe. Right. Is that the man who lives outside of the city has to be either a God or a beast.
- [35:37]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Correct.
- [35:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And that really seems to ring true in this text. I mean, that. That seems to be in, obviously, Aristotle's downstream of this play. That really seems to kind of ring true here, where, you know, being outside the polis, you have Dionysus, a God who doesn't need the political stability. But then the. The women, the humans that then go outside of the political structure basically become bestial.
- [36:01]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That's right.
- [36:02]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
So I think. I think that Aristotle's. I think Aristotle's critique there is really fascinating. The other thing, too, that occurs to me is, you know, I've been reading King Arthur to my boys, and I noticed in the King Arthur tales, a lot of them have to deal with sexual temptation. They have to deal with romance. And I think that one of the lessons that's happening there is you have these. These very chivalrous, These very magnanimous warriors that typically have really habituated themselves to high levels of courage and bravery. So they're jousting, they're doing all these things. And then how much it throws them for a loop. If they're fighting, they're fighting knights, they're jousting, they're doing what they're good at, which is, you know, enduring suffering for the sake of some beauty. And. And then all of a sudden, they're hit with sexual temptation. Because that's not courage, that's temperance. And all of a sudden it switches and you see, in so many of these stories, you know, another great one would be Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He has these acts of bravery he has to overcome. But then all of a sudden he finds himself in a sexual temptation scene. And all of a sudden he has to switch from using his bravery, his courage, to using temperance. And just because you have bravery doesn't mean you have temperance. And also, you might not be prepared for that quick switch, right? To hold your reason and hold your soul to what's good and holy in the midst of a new temptation that quickly. And so I kind of almost saw it like this, where he's like, I'm gonna wear my armor. I'm gonna march out. I'm gonna do these things. He has like, a certain bravery, a certain courage. Let's say he does understand it's a God, right. I'm marching against the divine because it's not good for Thebes. That might be admirable, actually, in a certain way. But all of a sudden he's hit then with a sexual temptation and he just collapses. Right. I mean, his temperance just seems to fold like a chair. It's not there.
- [37:53]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, that's interesting because. Yeah, that does. That brings to mind, you know, the. The traditional Greek understanding of the soul that eventually matures into Plato's understanding where you have these three parts. And so, yeah, you have the spirited part. The virtue typically associated with it is. Is courage or fortitude. And then you have the. The appetite, the appetitive part. And the virtue associated with it is. Is moderation or. Or temperance. And yeah, I mean, this is even developed further in the writings of, like. Of Agrius and. And the Desert Fathers, where he. He refers to, you know, irascibility and the spirited part of the soul and.
- [38:37]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And.
- [38:37]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And conc. Concupiscence and. And the appetitive part of the soul. And these aren't bad things because they can actually be put to good use in. In. In. In fighting off demons and fighting off evil. And so I think what you're suggesting, Deacon, is that Pentheus seems to have a fairly well developed spirited part, but yet he does not have a similarly well developed appetitive part. And he. That allows Dionysus to really tap in to his sexual appetites, exploit them and undermine his moral character.
- [39:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, I like that Platonic veneer there. Right. Because even though we're not to Plato yet, I think Plato is observing human nature. And so you can use that kind of diagram of the soul to look backwards before Plato, too, simply because he's commenting on human nature. Yeah, I agree with you. Courage perfects the spirited part. It seems to be there. But temperance perfects the appetitive. And it just. It just doesn't seem to hold at all for Pentheus. And so he. I mean, again, going back to our theory here of then as soon as this Dionysian erotics, this mania takes hold of you, there's always then some type of perversion of your own identity. So notice how quickly. I mean, Euripides gives us tons of parallels here, but notice how quickly he goes from I'm going to put on my armor to Dionysus dressing him like a woman. Right? Like, well, actually, no, now you're going to put on a dress. And so we get this kind of juxtaposition between the two. And also, we're not even, you know, 10 lines deep in him being possessed by Dionysus. And we have, you know, a perversion of, you know, his own masculinity, his own gender.
- [40:17]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And it's not just. It's not just masquerade. You know, Pentheus says in line around 8, 23, 3 or so, he says, I'm a man. You want me to become a woman. Not that you. It's not that you. You want me to dress as a woman. You want me to become one. And then Dionysus responds, well, if they see you're a man, they'll kill you instantly. So, I mean, it. The question is, well, is. Is this just pantomime? Right? Are we. Are we just pretending to be a woman? And the. At least if we read Pentheus's question, if you will, if you read it literally, I mean, he is actually going to become a woman.
- [40:59]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I mean, that's how. That might be how he views himself in that mania. Yeah, right. I mean, two. I mean, when we read it in our Sunday small group, and I actually got a lot of feedback throughout the month. For people who weren't used to the text, the word demonic was used a lot. But this really. This. This scene really reminds me of that, of where Pentheus, the reader sees Pentheus falling into this madness, and then Dionysus just very gently being like, yes, I'll help you get dressed. Yes, I'll help you put on, you know, these curls, which obviously, again, are another parallel to the curls that Dionysus has. Remember, he has these long blonde curls as well. So he's even, like, coming to somewhat resemble Dionysus, who he himself at times tends to blur the genders and be Effeminate while still remaining a certain masculinity. Right. He blurs those lines as well. And so this is really one of the scenes that I found was like most demonic, was like this, just like subtle and gentle, leading him down into madness in a carving out of his own self identity.
- [42:01]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, no, I like that a lot. Where it isn't this the violent seduction of Pentheus, but, yeah, this very paternal or maternal transition of Pentheus from a warrior to this, this very passive girlish woman.
- [42:24]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
The line too, I was mentioning is that then towards the end of this, Pentheus actually leaves the palace and Dionysus speaks directly and he says around like 851, for sane of mind, this man would never wear a woman's dress, but obsess his soul and he will not refuse. So this goes back into the understanding that I mentioned earlier, that I, you have to go back and say, well, when did Dionysus take possession of his soul? Right. When did that actually happen? And I, I think it's that pivot that we discussed. And then a little bit later he says, now I shall go and costume Pentheus in the clothes which he must wear to Hades when he dies, butchered by the hands of his mother, he shall come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate God, most terrible and yet most gentle to mankind. So part of this too has a spiritual. Like there's a spiritual punishment too, because what's going to happen here is Pentheus is going to die without burial rights. He's going to be torn apart, he's going to be dismembered, he's going to have all these things. And then there's always like this understanding that you kind of go into the afterlife with what you have on and how you appear. And so he's going to go into the afterlife, this gory, bloody mess in a wig, dressed as a woman.
- [43:43]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I like how you, you singled out that one line. I hadn't really thought about this. You know, obsess his soul and he will not refuse. You know, we, we, we spent several months going through Homer's Iliad Odyssey, and, and like the worst thing that could possibly happen to somebody is being speared in the nipple by some sort of projectile. I mean, so the gore, I mean, the physical death, I mean, this is something obviously that really characterized the downfall of these heroes. But here Euripides is pointing out, if you really want to destroy a person, if you really want to wreck someone, you don't, you don't hit Their body. You don't torture them physically. You torture them spiritually. You affect their souls.
- [44:41]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. The closest that I can think of that we get of this in Homer is when Achilles is killing the Trojans in the river.
- [44:49]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
In the river, right?
- [44:50]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And it becomes clear that there's, like, a spiritual cruelty. Like, he is.
- [44:53]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
He.
- [44:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
He is desirous. He's satiating in his joy of denying them their burial rites and the ramifications that will have for them in the afterlife. Right. And this is like even a more perverted, malicious understanding of that.
- [45:08]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And it's diabolical. It's diabolical. It's psychological torture. So, you know, it's one thing to lock Antigone in a cave without food, water, but what Dionysus is doing here to Pentheus, in a way, is so much worse because he's destroying Pentheus from the inside out.
- [45:32]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You know, the passage that follows this is the. Is a chorus. And again, this is where the passages that I tend to struggle with, trying to understand what is the perception that we're being presented, because the chorus is the bacchae. And so we have to kind of keep that in mind, because one of the themes of this chorus is wisdom, right? And so one of the things is, like, they're very much presenting Pentheus as someone who is unwise because he has not, you know, submitted. He did not submit himself to Dionysus, and so now he's going to suffer this punishment. But in so many ways, I feel like this turns what we learned about wisdom from Aeschylus and Sophocles on its head. So, like in both of those texts, at least the lesson that I would pull from, it's like both of them are teaching us that there's an ordered cosmos, right? That we have the family, we have the polis, we have the. We have the divine. And man has to understand that order. And him moving in his life with the proper rectitude in that order is ethical, right? That's. That's what virtue is. That's what man needs to do. And then if it becomes disordered, then things become very bad. Like they did for Creon, right? Or they did for Clytemnestra or even to Orestes to a certain degree, until it has to be rectified by what's more just in this scenario. So here, like, on its face, it seems like, well, yeah, Pentheus falls right into that, right? He didn't follow the God, and therefore he's not being sufficiently pious, and therefore he's punished. But the problem is, is how Euripides presents Dionysus as this just like, incredibly cruel anti logos God. And you just have to. You just have to think like most people think here, like he's critiquing religion overall, or he might just be critiquing an aspect of, of the Dionysian cult that has changed right, throughout Athens. And so if he, if that's true, right, if it's true, then that actually he's critiquing the cult itself, then Pentheus was correct to push back against it. Now he's still at fault for his own temptation and falling into it. But his, his original stubbornness to fight against this then is actually correct, which I'm not entirely sure we have a parallel of that we don't have a disordered divine that the mortals push back against in Aeschylus and Sophocles. I mean, something, something internally in the Greek psyche is being turned upside down here.
- [47:54]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah. And I mean, the question, you know, what is wisdom? Or is another translation I have renders it, what, what good is wisdom? I mean, that's a very Socratic question. I mean, this is, this is the sort of question that we would expect from Socrates in the dialogues, right? What is piety? What is, what is love? What is justice? What is wisdom? That's why I think that Plato was, was obviously very much aware of Euripides as playwright and the various themes and concepts that he deals with. But, yeah, I think that this takes us back to what, for me, at any rate, is a central question, and that is piety and the relationship between piety and wisdom or piety and reason and how one goes about what serves as the basis for the relationship that one has to the gods. You know, is there a rational component? Are certain gods more worthy of worship than others? What constitutes holiness or piety? And so I think, at least for the Bacchae or the maenads, wisdom, reason, whatever word you care to use, really doesn't play a part.
- [49:14]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it's an interesting thing to try and ferret out because as a reminder for some of the conversations we had last week, you know, a lot of people read this as Euripides critiquing the pantheon as a whole, like the entire pantheon, because he, he was known for being critical of the gods and being somewhat of a curmudgeon about such things. And then also though, you know, another read of it is that he's not critiquing the gods overall or the divine, but he's critiquing specifically the Dionysian cult. And that that interpretation tends to resonate with me a bit more simply because the way that he presents Dionysus here is so jarring when you compare it to the Homeric understanding of Dionysus. And so the understanding that something has changed in this cult, something that has been imported from the east. Right. This is something he says over and over and over again that something alien has come into Hellas. Right? Something alien has come into the Hellenized mind. I like that that one tends to set and resonate with me more. Right. That there's a certain new erotics that has entered into Greece that is. That's not beneficial for it. And particularly then you have to keep in mind, like, they're all sitting here in a festival dedicated to this God. Like, this God has dominated a lot of the cultural things now in Athens and in Greece, you know, overall. And so that I tend to lead towards that. So then Pentheus was correct in the beginning to push back against something like, is this really a God? Is this really what we should be doing? This really something that, you know, is kind of anti logos, Dionysian erotics mania. But then he fails in his. In his own temperance. And I think that is. I mean, it's very clear here because this. This kind of. After the chorus, this continues. This. This idea of being possessed, the idea of being insane. He's completely given over into the power of the God. Now they're really. I'm not sure to what degree Pentheus even survives at this point point, outside of just simply a puppet of Dionysus. And Dionysus Steele is playing this, like, effeminate, cruel role with him of, like, well, oh, well, let me help you adjust your dress. Let me help you adjust your wigs like you want to look good, right? There's just this, like, very unnatural cruelty coupled with this deep violence that I think makes the Dionysian cult so unsettling.
- [51:35]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, and so undeserving of piety.
- [51:39]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [51:40]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
This is not a God worthy of worship. I mean, sure, he's powerful and sure, he's vengeful. If you don't believe in him, something bad is going to happen to you. But is that truly reason then to believe in him? So, I mean, I suppose, like, this does take us back to, well, what is Dionysus's goal? I mean, if. If Pentheus. I mean, if he scares Pentheus into belief, is that enough? Because, as we'll soon see, Cadmus believing for practical reasons is not. I Mean he gets punished.
- [52:17]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's a good point.
- [52:19]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And. And. And there's. Dionysus constantly plays mind games with Pentheus. You know, there's that line around 947, I think, where he says, you're you addressing Pentheus. Your mind was once unsound, but now you think, as sane men do. It's. Everything that Dionysus is doing here with Pentheus is paradoxical. It's the opposite of what is the case. I mean, Pentheus is not thinking as a sane man does here. He's losing his. He's losing his mind. Or, you know, he. I mean, his. His soul is unsettled. And so he's falling apart. He's falling apart before our eyes. As I said. Then, that to me, generates real, you know, genuine pity because he's no longer. Pentheus is no longer in control of himself.
- [53:10]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, the pity. The pity is really fascinating because I really started to feel a pity for him, you know, around, like, 960 or so, when Dionysus and him talk about, like, you know, him coming back to Thebes, right? You'll meet your mother, right? You'll be carried home. You'll be cradled in your mother's arms.
- [53:30]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Not true.
- [53:33]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, in a certain way it's true. Right.
- [53:35]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, okay, Right.
- [53:37]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Because, I mean, I think that's. I think that's the play, right? Is that he's.
- [53:41]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
It's true, but it's not right.
- [53:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It's not true the way he thinks. Which. This seems to be something that goes all the way back to Homer. This. This duplicity that the gods love, to tell you something, you take it a certain way and they can keep their word, but it actually ends up being, you know, somewhat horrendous. This reminds me of Don's husband, right? Tithonus. Or Tithonus, right. Who. She says, oh, make him immortal. And Zeus says, fine, but Zeus doesn't want to, so he doesn't. He's like, oh, well, you didn't ask for eternal youth. And so then, you know, Don's.
- [54:12]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Gotcha.
- [54:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. Tithon is just like, you know, comes back down, like, becomes this old, crippled, desiccated creature because he can't die, but he keeps getting older. And so there is, like, this. This unfortunate, right? It does. I think it does, is. It's a motivation for pity. As you see, Pentheus kind of going towards very slowly, this horrific death, you know. Then we get another chorus. And this one, the last one, talked about wisdom, and this one talks about justice. And so this is. It mentions it at like, 990. Right? And so it's, oh, justice, principle of order, spirit of custom, come be manifest, Reveal yourself with a sword, stab through the throat, that godless man, the mocker, who goes flouting custom and outraging the God. So here. Right. I mean, it's. It's. It's. Justice is the. The virtue of being well ordered. Dionysus is the God. We have an impious man, Pentheus, who has kicked out against the divine order. He's been impious. And so now he has to get his comeuppance, right? He. He deserves. I mean, Dr. Kabowski, he deserves to be torn apart because of his impiety. Right.
- [55:21]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, and this segues nicely. And I don't want to necessarily skip over anything here that's important, but, you know, if we move then down to, you know, 385 like this, this, to me, this exchange between the messenger and the chorus, and this does tie back to the. The course mentioning justice, I think that, you know, it would be. It would behoove us to spend a little bit of time asking, well, what exactly is the implication for Thebes if the Dionysian cult takes over? And so the messenger, to begin, asks, well, what is this? You say, woman, you dare to rejoice at these disasters which destroy this house? The chorus sing, I am no Greek. I hail my God in barbarian song. No longer need I shrink with fear of prison. And later the chorus says, tell us how this lawless man died. And this reminded me of the chorus line, oh, justice, come be manifest. Stabbed through the throat, that godless, lawless, unjust man. Like the reference. The. It's in the Greek. It is adikos, or, you know, lawless. DK is. Is. Is justice. Adikos is. Is injustice or lawlessness. What kind of lawlessness are we even talking about here when they completely reject Thebes as their homeland as. As. As. As. As their polis? So I guess, you know what I'm. What I'm getting at here is something that we've. We've talked about before, and that is, you know, the Dionysian cult, if successful, does. I mean, it necessarily brings about the destruction of the state. And if it brings about the destruction of the state, then how can we meaningfully speak of justice or injustice or lawfulness or unlawfulness?
- [57:22]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. One thing that occurs to me here is that virtue is always reinterpreted according to the highest good. And so, for instance, like you mentioned Machiavelli earlier, and like Machiavelli is like a really difficult read because he uses a lot of jargon of the ancients, but he's changed, you know, what the highest good is, what the final good is. And when the final good shifts, it shifts all of virtue as well. Right. And so I would say that, you know, virtue for Machiavelli becomes, you know, the. The capacity to gain and maintain power. And because of that, because he's reinterpreted what it means to be good, what it means to be a good man. And here, too, it seems the same thing is occurring, that the Bacchae are talking about wisdom and justice, they're talking about virtues, but we're equivocating. We're not actually talking about the same things that we talked about in Aeschylus and Sophocles because they have shifted the good. And the good is something with Dionysus that I think is foreign to Greece. And I am so glad that you focused on the sentence, because I think the sentence is one of the most dispositive lines in the entire text. And the reason I think that is, is because it. It shows itself to be anti. Antigone. So the whole point, Antigone, was that the cosmos, this kind of family, polis, divine triad, had become disordered. And so Antigone is thrown as a dark sign of the gods to restructure it, to reorder it. And so if the. If the divine gets its way, then all three of these things are always aligned. Right? So what's really interesting here is that in the mouth of the bacchae, they don't care about the destruction of Thebes. And again, the. The chorus is. Is specifically the Bacchae that came from the east, right? They're his original Bacchae. And so they do not care about Thebes, they don't care about the political instability, they don't care about the familial stability. And so her response there, I am no Greek, I hail my God in my own way. I. I think that. I think that might be one of the most dispositive lines of the entire text, because what it shows you is, is that the Dionysian cult is not there to align the cosmos. It doesn't care about aligning the cosmos. It's going to cause familial and political instability that is alien and outside the benefit of Greece. And so I don't know. And then, like, you kind of put yourself as a listener to this in a Dionysian festival, and all of a sudden you're realizing that this God that saturates. So much of our culture has been corrupted with certain Eastern influences that are anti logos and anti Greek. And it's killing us. Right. Because I think that, again, I lean pretty heavily into that. The tragedians are teachers. And even you see this with Aristophanes, right, Where when we look at the play the Frogs, it's hilarious. It's a funny play, but its purpose is really clear that the tragedians are teachers and all the new tragedy and suck. They're all dead. Euripides is dead, Sophocles is dead. Aeschylus is dead. And so it's a funny play, but the whole point of it is that Dionysus has to go down and get. Aeschylus actually originally wants to get Euripides back up because Athens is falling in the moral decay. And so we need the tragedians. We need these people to teach Athens who she is. And I. I think this is like. It's hard for me not to take this as one of the most warning, cautionary tales to the Athenians in the entire play, that there is something in this cult that is antithetical to your own common good as an Athenian people.
- [61:06]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I mean, I would just. I would add that, you know, the Dionysian cult to me, seems parasitic in the sense that it requires there to be structure, political law and order in order for it to exist. But then it sucks the. The life out of that political structure. And ultimately, I think in that respect, it is nihilistic. During deconformation, Dr. Richard Milan was walking us through many of Paul's early letters, and he emphasized the need to understand Paul in terms of his. Well, the historical context, the cultural context, that there's a Jewish component, there is a Greek component, a Roman component, and ultimately a Christian component. And so just from a historical point of view, the fact that Christianity emerges, when it does, in the great, you know, infinite wisdom of God, there was a need for there to be peace. There was a need for there to be at least an empire that was relatively stable if Christianity was to originate and come to fruition. And so, you know, it's not to say that Christianity somehow derives from the Pax Romani, but the Pax Romani was kind of a necessary precondition in order for Christianity to flourish. And so in a similar way, you know, the Dionysian culture appears in thieves and is able to spread only because thieves is thieves. But if the Dionysians have their way, if the Bacchae have their way, ultimately the. I mean, they will erode the very fabric of society and bring about their own demise. And I'm not sure this. I'm not sure if this is a point that. That Euripides is trying to make. But. But that certainly seems to be an.
- [63:19]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Implication because ultimately they're sterile, right? They don't. They don't replicate themselves, right? So they. They capture the children. God knows what they do with them. But their own children are left, you know, to die unnursed in their homes. And so, yeah, it's a sterile. No, I really like the idea of it being parasitic. I really like that.
- [63:39]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And, you know, Christ himself says, render unto Caesar. What is Caesar? Render under God. What is God? And so there's always, at least within the Christian faith, there's this acknowledgment that, yes, one must give God his due, but that we belong to a nation or a society and there has to be some recognition of the laws and the norms of the land. And I don't know if I mentioned this last week, I can't remember, but it brings to mind Sir Thomas More, St. Thomas More. You know, he had a similar view where, you know, yes, he was a faithful Catholic, but he was also a lawyer and deacon. You know, as well. As well as anyone as a lawyer. Laws are whether. Whether you like them or not, you need them, right? And I. And I think that, you know, in. In denying nationality and saying, I am no Greek, I hail my God in barbarian song. Dionysus, not thieves, has power over me. This is this repudiation of any sort of national identity or connection with any state. You know, we go back to Aristotle and what you said, what you noted earlier about Aristotle's comment that he who has no connection with the state is either a God or an animal. And so since we can't elevate ourselves to the level of gods, then we are thereby condemned if we take this route to become beasts.
- [65:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it reminds me. That's all very good. I like that. And one thing it reminds me of is that in Plato's Symposium, which. One of the reasons we read the Bacchae is to set up our imaginations to receive, I think, the lessons that Plato has for us. In the Symposium, one of the playwrights there, one of the tragedians, Agathon, when he gives his speech about Eros, he very much presents Eros as a civilizing force. Eros binds men together, right? It's. It's actually, it's very. It's very reminiscent of Hesiod, right, that it's this cosmic force that is generative, that actually binds things together. And so it's ultimately, it's a force of civilization. And it's so interesting here that Dionysian erotics are presented as the exact opposite.
- [65:59]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
It.
- [65:59]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
They're a force of destruction, they're parasitic, but it is a parasite that kills its host.
- [66:05]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That's right. Exactly.
- [66:06]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a parasite that kills its host. And I. That's just a wonderful juxtaposition, because I think, you see, then what we're preparing ourselves for is that Plato in the Symposium is going to try and rescue Eros from Dionysus, that there's a better way to see Eros. This erotic mania is not always a descent into kind of a beastial release, but actually it's an ascent right into the divine, the true divine. And because Dionysus is actually presented as an ascent to the God, it's an ascent to a false God. So I think seeing Euripides here is kind of skewering a false divinity, a divinity that is anti logos and bad for Greece, I think, in a lot of ways has some fruit in Plato's Symposium as well.
- [66:50]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And even in his first Alcibiades, as I'm sure you'll discuss in a future podcast, this is here, there we find Socrates trying to rescue Alcibiades from the destructive tendencies of arrows, and he's trying to pry Alcibiades away from all of these erotic passions and leanings toward power and fame and glory, wanting him to become a philosopher.
- [67:22]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I very much agree. So, I mean, let's kind of get to the crux here to jump ahead a bit. So a little bit before 11:15, we're kind of like most times I think we've seen in the plays, the action happens off stage, and so the messenger is the one that comes in. We became very habituated to this when we worked through the Oresteia.
- [67:43]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right.
- [67:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
This is like the method that they have. And so we're hearing now what happened to Pentheus. And he says, his own mother, like a priestess with her victim, fell upon him first. But snatching off his wig and snood so she would recognize his face, he touched her cheeks, screaming, no, Mother. I am Pentheus, your own son. Pity me. Spare me, mother. I have done a wrong, but do not kill your own son for my offense. But she was foaming at the mouth and her crazed eyes rolling with frenzy. And so then it says a little later, she basically wrenches his arm out of his shoulder and it talks about everyone. Then these Women basically tearing him apart as he's alive. And it's very explicit, right? One tore off an arm, another a foot, still warm in its shoe. His ribs were clawed clean of flesh and every hand was smeared with blood as they played with ball, with scraps of Pentheus's body. So it's an incredibly violent. But also, of course, like Dionysus has to twist that knife, right? So it. What ends up happening is that he gives. Well, I guess the way I would phrase it, push back on me. But he seems to give Pentheus consciousness again only for a cruel reason. He gives him. He gives him his consciousness enough to recognize his own mother and to realize his life is in danger, only to cry out to her. But she has crazed eyes, she's foaming at the mouth for her and her own Dionysian erotics in mania and madness to tear him apart. So the cruelty of this scene is tremendous.
- [69:32]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
It's sadistic, right? It isn't enough for Pentheus to die for his unbelief. He has to die in the most horrible way at the hands of his mother. And as you say, just as he's going to be ripped limb from limb, become conscious or aware. And of course, there's. There's. There's no. At that point, there's. There's. There's no. How should I put this? I mean, he. There's no moral turning there. There's no metanoia. There's no. Like, He's. He's not. Like the fact that he is now aware of it. How does the. How does this improve him morally or spiritually?
- [70:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You know, the other thing too, that I. That occurs to me here is that the zenith of this Dionysian perversion of all these different relationships, et cetera, is mother and child, right? Particularly a mother dismembering her child like this is. This is the zenith of this Dionysian madness is a mother murdering her own child.
- [70:39]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And that's why I don't think anyone reading this play or anyone at the time witnessed this play perform, could possibly have any kind of sympathy or any kind of positive feelings about the Dionysian cult. I mean, it is thoroughly corrupt and malevolent and sadistic and, you know, simply put, evil.
- [71:05]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It's just demonic and unnatural to an unsettling degree when these Dionysian erotics grasp a polis and how perverted all of these relationships come. Also just really interested the relationship between sex and violence, right? Are these two kind of bestial releases that Then when they are not bridled by reason, become so destructive. Right. Again, going back to. Well, another Aristotelian quote, right? We're the worst animals when it comes to sex and food. Right? We. We, when we are lower passions or baser appetites, are not bridled by the intellectual. The destruction that it brings is. Well, it can. It can bring civilizational collapse.
- [71:51]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right. And I, and I come back. I have to return to my previous question. Where's Zeus? Where's Athena? And when all of this is happening, you. You would think as you're watching this, this would be going through the minds of the audience. You know, at some point there has to be. Superman would have to come down from the heavens to set things right. And yet none of that happens.
- [72:16]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, you need it. That's interesting. You would need a deus ex machina to save you from a God. Right. You would actually need the God of the machine to come down and save you from a God, because we mentioned it last week, but it is really interesting. The other unique aspect of this play is that its main protagonist is a. Is a God, not a man. Right, That's. That's fascinating. I like your juxtaposition, though, because it's not simply that Zeus has the power to step in, so where is he? But what I hear you saying is the juxtaposition that Dionysius's cult is destructive towards civilization. And what we see from Hesiod, and I think you've helped us understand it even in Homer, is that Zeus is a force of civilization. Right. Zeus is the one that brings civilization. So you think that this would be repugnant to him in a. In a particular way? Yeah.
- [73:06]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I mean, even in Oresteia, you have Athena intervening.
- [73:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [73:13]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
So the. The fact that other gods don't intervene, at least within the reader and. Or the audience member, I think that really calls into question then not only the. The moral status of the other gods, but possibly even their existence. It's a kind of absence. Right. That would. That would make one wonder whether or not these other gods even exist.
- [73:37]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Which be interesting to tether that back to the statement by the head of the chorus where the Dionysus is the greatest God.
- [73:44]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
There is no God. She says there is no God but Dionysus.
- [73:50]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's. That's. That's worth thinking about. So we push into. I mean, you know, we've. Now we've hit the high point of the tragedy and now we're playing. Playing out its ramifications. Right. The ripple effect and so his mother, Agave. Agave, right. Is. Is basically carrying his head back into the town. She is still, however, under this madness, right. She. She thinks that she has killed an animal. And she's. She's very proud of this. And she. She asks for Cadmus, who's her father. Right. So Cadmus is Pentheus's grandfather. She asked for him around 12:10. She also asks where Pentheus is. Right. So this is, again, this is just terribly tragic, right. We're watching this play out in this madness, I think too, like, do we have a good understanding about whether agave. Agave, like, deserve this? Like, do we have a good understanding of what she did to merit being part of the Bacchae? Like, does she because of Pentheus is example. Like, do we hold that you have to open yourself to the possession of the God to become mad? Or can he just simply do it? Or is this just not in the play because it all happened. You know, we started somewhat in media res.
- [75:07]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, well, I. You know, I think. No, we're told that Dionysus is angry with Semeles sisters because they didn't believe that she had sired Dionysus. And so he drives them mad. That's all of them, in fact. Not. I mean, I think. I'm trying to remember. I'm going back. I think it's like all. All the women, but the. Certainly the sisters were his target and Agave is one of Semile's sisters. And so that, you know, so. So the. The fact that again, this is all because they didn't believe that Semele was the mother of Dionysus, that he is now going to destroy not only the family, but the entire polis. I mean, not physically destroy, because we see that that isn't something that Dionysus does. Dionysus does not physically injure people, but he destroys them from the inside. He corrupts them and. And then allows them to destroy each other, which again is just so hideously perverse.
- [76:23]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. Let's look at Cadmus coming in. So Cadmus comes in actually with people attendance, carrying the body of Pentheus. So, you know, something's happened off scene. He's. He's realized what's happened and he's carrying in the dismembered body of Pentheus. Pentheus's mother gave a. Is still holding his head. And so what's interesting here about Cadmus, a few things. One, in Cadmus talk around 1223 or so, he does talk about that he and Tiresias have engaged in orgies up on the mountain. The only reason I bring that out is because I could be wrong here. There's certain distinctions I'm not, I'm not making. But sometimes when people read this, because we never see the orgies explicitly, sometimes people say like they don't happen or that's. That's not actually what's happening in the cult. And also Dionysus talks about like how chaste the Bacchae are, but again, I think it's an ironic statement. So here at least Cadmus is saying that he and Tiresias have presented themselves and engaging in orgies as part of like the cult and the worship of the gods. And so I think that's a. It's interesting to kind of note that if that's a sticking point for some. But what really caught my attention though was the response of his daughter. She says, now father, yours can be the proudest boast of living men, for you are now the father of the bravest daughters in the world. All of your daughters are brave, but I above them. The rest, I have left my shuttle at the loom. I raised my sight to higher things, to hunting animals with my bare hands. So I see this very clearly as another. It's another blending of the identity and of gender. Right. So she's like, look, I. I've less. I've left as a woman, I've left these lower feminine things, right. I'm not just sitting here at the loom, etc. But now I'm hunting animals, right. They take on the bacchae, have taken on these deeply kind of masculine traits. And she's like, look, I've become better for it. And it's interesting is still note that she's speaking out of this madness, but.
- [78:27]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
She'S not mad enough though to not recognize her father.
- [78:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Correct.
- [78:31]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
So there's at least a semble, some semblance of rationality.
- [78:37]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. So she does have some capacity, but it's limited. Right, because she's holding Pentheus's head and still hasn't recognized it for what it is. But again, we've been tracking this theme of like the blurring of the genders, but also how the Dionysian erotics skew your own self identity. Right. And really like for the Greek notion, your station in life, that's another thing that's wrong here, right. Is that these people are leaving their station in life and the polis isn't going to be able to survive if everyone does this.
- [79:08]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, Just in, just One brief comment, too. I mean, this. This seems to be something that the Greeks really understood. Well, that, you know, if you want to shock your audience, you know, if you want to upset your audience intellectually and emotionally, you play with categories. Now, the Greeks were very much, you know, they understood the world as being structured, as being rational. And. And, you know, this obviously is most clear when reading, you know, Plato and Aristotle. But even back in these. These tragic playwrights and Homer, I mean, if we want. In order to comprehend, you divide, you classify. This is different from that. You have men and women, you have the. And so if you want to upset a person's ability to rationally understand the world, and you really want to disorder them internally, emotionally, you play with these categories. You blur lines of rational categorization. And so I just find that to be really insightful that Euripides and some of these other Greek playwrights understood that to really get to hit within one's soul of the soul of the audience. Yeah, you draw these ambiguous lines or, you know, you. You begin to blur the distinction between these categories.
- [80:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I like that a lot. Yeah, because the. The sensitivity to the. To the cosmos being ordered, which we, again, we see in Homer, we see really in Hesiod as well, and I think we do see in Aeschlus and Sophocles. Right. This kind of ordered cosmos then, also lends to a sensitivity to disorder and what that means and the.
- [81:01]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
How it's unsettling.
- [81:03]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It's very unsettling.
- [81:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
You become disoriented.
- [81:07]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I think, too. I think is a good philosophical principle that we should always note is that disorder always begets disorder. So once something becomes disordered, it's. The fecundity about it actually only bears more and more disorder. And that's true within the polis and the family and the divine as well. So did you find, though, like, what's really fascinating about the scene to me, is how gentle it is. So Cadmus seems to understand that his daughter is insane or suffering a madness. I found the scene very gentle where, you know, she's. Because you. You would imagine that for a lot of people, their passions would take over. So here he is in front of this beer with his dismembered grandson, and she's holding his head and she's inviting him to the feast. Come and feast upon the animal that I have killed. Right. So the polis now is being asked, the feast upon their king, right? Come and feast upon him. And Cadmus is, like, remarkably calm and gentle to then walk her back into sanity and I found this, like. I'm not sure if I find Cadmus to be a terribly empathetic character, but I found this scene to be very beautiful between the father and the daughter.
- [82:17]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And I think Euripides writes it that way for dramatic effect because this is all going to culminate in Agave's realization that she has, in fact, murdered her son. And so I think that in order for that to have the impact that Euripides wants it to have, there needs to be quiet before the inevitable emotional explosion, if that makes sense.
- [82:55]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. And she has to move back into sanity. So she has to move back into sanity.
- [82:59]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And. And it's. It is interesting how Cadmus does this. He's very quiet. It's. It's very deliberate. You know, as you'll point out soon, I'm sure that she, or he. Cadmus, encourages her to look up.
- [83:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Mm.
- [83:15]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right. Which. Which. Which is, you know, a direction to look outside of oneself, to not look within for the truth, but rather to direct one's vision outward, to reorient oneself to reality.
- [83:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. And it's hard not to read that. Yeah, I apologize.
- [83:35]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No, it's.
- [83:37]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It's hard not to read that too, through a Platonic lens. Right. So they're suffering from. They're suffering from this Dionysian madness erotics, which is a decent. It's a. It's a spiraling down to bestial releases. And so, no, I think to have Cadmus gently walk his daughter back into sanity, particularly then the. The. The apogee of. Which tends to be asking her to look up until. And in looking up until she really starts to actually grasp her own sanity again and come back into reality. And, yeah, it's hard not to read that in retrospect as, you know, reorienting that Eros back into its natural state, which is to ascend. Right. So you have to look up to then regain who you are. And this whole theme has been that in. In your Eros and your love, right, You. You find yourself. And so it's almost like the soul. It's almost like a reboot of the soul. Right. You have to look up, remember who you are. Right. The. The medieval Neoplatonics will talk about the soul has the nature, like fire, to ascend. It always wants to move upward. And so this is kind of a very beautiful moment, I think, of Cadmus gently walking his daughter to look up, to remember who she is and kind of reset the soul. Okay. So she. She obviously comes to, you know, that she's the one that has has done this. You know, who killed him? Why am I holding him? You know, you killed him. You and your sisters. It's interesting, Cadmus, the. The mother asks, but why. Why had Pentheus gone. Right. Why was he even out there? And Cadmus says he went to your rebels to mock the God. And I just kind of put an ellipses out there. I'm like.
- [85:22]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Which is not true.
- [85:24]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I don't think that's actually. I don't think that's accurate. Right. That's how Cadmus probably reads it. But has anyone really actually noticed that he's in a dress? Or is that even like. Like, is that. Does he still have the curls on? Like. You know, there's some questions there I would have. Not to kind of debunk what I think is an overall beautiful scene, but obviously there's some other things that could give rise there.
- [85:46]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right? Yeah. I'm not sure if he's saying this, knowing it to be, or thinking it to be true or knowing it to be false to somehow soothe, to whatever extent possible, Agave. Agave's feelings for what had just happened. I guess this is like rewriting. Rewriting history in a sense.
- [86:10]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Like.
- [86:10]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, you know, Pentheus was actually trying. He was actually mocking Dionysus. He had not already been completely won over by Dionysus. And. And his.
- [86:23]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And this might be slightly too pessimistic, but kind of like Odysseus, like, once you learn that someone will lie for benefit, it's hard then to track anything they say as being authentic. Right. So Cadmus has already shown that he will adhere to a noble lie.
- [86:39]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That's right.
- [86:39]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It's beneficial. And so it's like, are you. Do you know why he was out there? And so now you're telling the mother in her grief, a noble lie. I mean, it's a question I would have. I don't think it's like resolvable, but it's. It's this one that I suspect when you find out that you have a rhetorician like that, what really caught my attention too is that a little bit forward. 1305, he's speaking to Agave and says he, like, you blasphemed the God.
- [87:07]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I was struggled by that. I didn't know what to make of that.
- [87:11]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. So he's critiqued them that. That the reason this has happened is because you've engaged in blasphemy. Pentheus is, I guess, is because you didn't believe in him. And. And Agave's is similar, I guess. Right. Because she denied a Dionysus's divinity in the beginning. And so it's a blasphemy. And notice that Cadmus then still, I. I guess from the beginning of the play, he's still presenting himself as someone who has engaged in the cult. Right. Who's accepted Dionysus. Right. He doesn't see himself as being blasphemous. So. So the end of the play is a little bit frustrating because we're actually missing a lot of it.
- [87:47]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right.
- [87:47]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And so. But I think that, I guess the main thing I pull out of this is that Cadmus is punished.
- [87:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right.
- [87:55]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And I think that's. That's one thing to talk about here. So that was one thing that surprised me because it's hard to tell through all the missing things exactly what happens. But we do get that Cadmus is punished. I think it's really fascinating because Cadmus is pushed out that like, well, you're. Of course, you guys were punished by Dionysus because you blasphemed, etc. And so then Cadmus is punished pretty, pretty severely, if I remember right. Right. He and his wife are gonna be turned into snakes and they kind of have to go on this, like, penitential journey. And then, you know, eventually things will be okay for them. Also, if I understood correctly, his wife is an immortal.
- [88:29]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, Harmonia.
- [88:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And that was really shocking to me that. That Dionysus had the right or the power to punish her in that same capacity that he would punish a mortal. But I think what ends up happening here, the first time I read it, I was a little confused. Like, wait, I thought Cadmus, you know, Cadmus and Tiresia seemed to present themselves as. As advocates of this cult, and I think. I think you. You already mentioned it or alluded to it, is that Cadmus doesn't really actually give intellectual assent to this. Right. He doesn't. I don't think he actually believes. He just finds that this could be a noble lie, it could be beneficial. So why not? I mean, why not dress up like this and go have an orgy on the mountain? Like, what harm is it going to cause? And that doesn't seem to be enough for Dionysus. That's not true belief.
- [89:14]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
But that does raise, I think, the very important question, you know, what does true belief entail? We can draw a distinction between believing in something and merely accepting it. You know, and this is, you know, we. We could even apply this to our own Catholic faith. I mean, take. Take, you know, whatever random Catholic belief or doctrine you will The Assumption, for instance. And you know, there, you know, there will be some who, who believe it, who, I mean, who like have an intentional state by which they, you know, recognize this as a truth. And you'll have other who. Others who will just simply accept it because it's what the church has taught. And so there seems to be a difference between saying, well yeah, I mean, I believe it because the church is telling me I ought to believe it and to actually like believe it to be true. And the question is, well, do they both count as equal, epistemically speaking? Because they seem to be different. And you know, Cadmus is someone who isn't, as you say, a true believer. He doesn't really believe that Dionysus, I mean, he's not saying Dionysus isn't the God. He's not saying Dionysus is a God. He's saying, well, you know, it's. It's to my benefit or it's to our benefit. And so we will act as if. And so Dionysus seems to have privileged access to Cadmus's mental state. Like he can actually like somehow read Cadmus's mind. He could peer into Cadmus soul and discern true belief from false belief. But then it begs the question about the Minads, say the Eastern Bacchae, and do they really believe? I mean, because their actions don't really seem to have anything to do with their belief, but it has more to do with their actions. So in that respect it's just very confusing to me. What, what would count to Dionysus as a true belief? Because belief really doesn't seem to matter. What matters more is that one engages in these rituals with some authenticity.
- [91:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. It's interesting to have a pre Christian religious concept that demands obedience of the interior life. Right. That you can't simply go through the actions. Right. Don't murder. That's great. But you also need to not be angry with your brother or you actually have to like mean this. And so, you know, the other thing too there is, I'm not sure how much Cadmus own view can be divorced from the blasphemy of his children and how much of that he's. He's probably integrated with. Right. Like how much of that he, he's probably held accountable to. Can he step back away from that? I'm not entirely sure. You know, the other thing too that, that really struck me about Cadmus is that, you know, he argues with Dionysus afterwards, right. That this is too harsh, you know, etc. And then Cadmus has this line where he says, well, Dionysus says I am a God and I was blasphemed by you. So first thing I will point out is that I found Dionysus, even this kind of broken section, to be very petty. What I mean by that is like, listen, brother, everyone understands that you're a God now. You have turned people inside out, madness, etc. He says I am a God over and over again in this passage, right? It's funny that he's almost read him as insecure and actually that kind of.
- [92:54]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah.
- [92:55]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And that almost read into this whole play, right? So he, like they're saying he's not a God, like you've mentioned several times, he could have come here and actually really converted the town if that was his purpose. But he doesn't. He has this like, shallowness of, of wanting to punish them, if that makes sense. And so now at the end he just like keeps repeating this like, I'm a God. I'm a real God. And I found it very petty and almost like insecure, which kind of plays into his somewhat like, effeminate nature. You know, almost having like a child, an adolescent that has all this extreme power but doesn't actually have like a secure interior life, to use that term. The other thing too that I, that I really found fascinating was then Cadmus response to this, right? Gods should be exempt from human passions. And Dionysus response then is, long ago my father Zeus ordained these things. Then Agave says it is fated, Father, we must go. I mean, the amount of theological statements that are in these like three lines are tremendous. So if you take the first one, God should be exempt from human passions. I have no idea how Cadmus says this, being downstream from the entire Homeric tradition. What, what God is he referring to? Like, honestly, I mean, honestly, in all, in all seriousness, what God is he referring to? The Homeric gods are deeply, deeply imploded into their passions to a point where they're just like simply blind. I mean, in Zeus, as much as a Zeus is a mastermind and sees all these things, he also is, is very subject to his passions and has very human passions too. I mean, the, the back and forth between him sleeping with mortals and Hera punishing them and him having to save them is a soap opera. I mean, it's, that's not high level, that's, that's baser appetites that Zeus continues to give in to, right? And so like, who are these gods? Who, who is Cadmus even referring to? And so I think this is another statement. It's not as dispositive, but it's another statement in Euripides that I think is really telling because it seems to be a critique on the entire pantheon in the entire Homeric tradition. Right. Gods should not be subject to human passions. Well, that's true. Then, you know, our history since, you know, 750 BC is wrong on this point.
- [95:13]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I would just, my quick comment would be, you know, Cadmus has shown himself to be very, oh, utilitarian with his religious belief. So, you know, he'll believe it if it's beneficial and he won't. Right. So we should expect anything to come from Cadmus so long as it would benefit him.
- [95:35]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. Okay.
- [95:36]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
However, you know, that being said, God should be exempt from human passions. This is coming from somewhere. So. So obviously at the time Euripides is writing this, there is discussion about the nature of the gods and whether the gods are as they were depicted in Homer, you know, very thematic in some respects, very appetitive and others. But then, you know, eventually we do arrive at, at Plato in, in Republic in particular, where, you know, he is scrutinizing this question about, you know, how should the gods be characterized? And Socrates is very critical of, of the way that Homer depicts them because of how ungodlike or, you know, how, how inappropriate it is to, to depict them as engaging in, you know, these liaisons with humans. And so the, the argument that Socrates there makes is that, well, we, we need to remove Homer from the curriculum because gods are really the only thing that gods are capable of doing is what is good and noble. So only good things come from the gods, nothing bad. And so this is a legitimate position that Cadmus, it's, it's challenge that the gods should be exempt from human path. Well, the word should is, I think, you know, they should be exempt from human passion. Well, but, but I think that Euripides here is raising this very interesting, as you say, theological question of, you know, we, we're worshiping these gods, but who or what is it that we're actually worshiping?
- [97:21]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Correct.
- [97:22]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Are there souls? We, we talked about the tripartite division. Do, does the divine soul have the very same composition that human souls have? And then if they do, what's the difference between a God and man?
- [97:40]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You know, one of the things that we're going to see in Plato's Euthyphro, which I think, like, if you've been following along with us the year of Homer and now working through the playwrights and things like this, you know, you can tell that these questions about the pantheon are. Are brimming, right? They're like. They're boiling over. And so Plato takes this up pretty explicitly in his dialogue, the Euthyphro, which will. I think it's a second dialogue that we're going to read after first Alcibiades. But one of the things that's kind of implicit in that dialogue that I've really only recently come to appreciate is that it has a section there in which it implies that piety is imitating the gods, and it doesn't really take root. And we'll kind of. When we take. When we talk about the dialogue, Euthyphro, we'll kind of see what it is. But one of the things that's really fascinating in that dialogue is that that concept is incredibly alien to the Greek concept of religion. No one ever says, like, hey, I need to be, you know, like Aphrodite. I need to be like, we don't. They don't mimic the gods. Like, we. We've become very accustomed to that language because of Jesus Christ, right? We always talk about, you know, the imitation of Christ. We want to imitate him, we want to be like him. But the Greeks didn't see it like that. They didn't say, you know, well, I'm really working on my piety. I'm trying to imitate Poseidon, right? Or I'm trying to imitate Zeus. Like, there's. There's aspects of it, right? In the. In the Iliad, Odysseus says that the kings imitate Zeus, right? They're close to him in his madness. But the imitation is that they're all lying to each other. So it's not. That's not really how piety is seen, right? I don't join the cult of Aries to then, you know, imitate him, right? I ask him for his blessings. But in many ways, our mortal heroes are more virtuous and more excellent than the gods, right? And this is actually to tie this back into our year of Homer. I actually think this was one of the reasons that Odysseus says no to Calypso on her island is because the gods, this life they live is actually not one of glory, right? To. To remove death and just satiate your. Your baser appetites. And pleasure in Calypso's cave is not a life worth living for man. And you get this kind of weird dynamic where it's man that's actually living an excellent moral life. But we happen to be subject to these gods that I have to ask for favors of, but I don't really actually want to be like them. Right. I just. That. But they're in charge. And so it's interesting here to say here again that the God should not be subject to human passions. It's a question that. I agree with you. This is a question that's brimming in Greek thought, and I think it comes to a crux in Plato's Euthyphro.
- [100:20]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No, I do. And I've Going through Bacchae with. With you in the Sunday group has, has really forced me to, To. To draw. I. I think that Euripides. I think that Bacchae and, And. And Plato's Euthyphro really do make wonderful companion pieces with each other. I think that reading them together can help shed light on both.
- [100:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree. Yeah. I mean, it's setting us up for this. I mean, I, I put it on our agenda to read on our docket because I wanted to set us up to understand Plato, Symposium. But the more I've worked through Homer, the playwrights, and now the Bacchae, the more I realize how much of these bring. They just bring a lot of wealth to your reading of the Euthyphro. That I just don't think. You don't. You don't have that unless you read these in order. Which is why on Ascend, we have this kind of slow burn in which we're reading the great books, you know, one week at a time. Because then when you get to a text that say, like, you know, a lot of people when they start reading the great books, the Euthyphro sometimes is the first one they read. But you come to it with all of this wealth and knowledge. Right. So anyway, we will, we will get there. But I think this, this critique right here that, hey, God should not be subject to human passions sounds very good to our Christian ears. Like, that makes sense to us. But if you're not looking at back through Christ, but actually looking at it through Homer and coming forward to this sentence, it's a monumental sentence, I think.
- [101:47]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yep. But then, you know, as you say Dionysus, we here, we slip back into this kind of Homeric understanding of the relationship between the will of Zeus and fate, where Dionysus says, well, long ago my father Zeus ordained these things. And then Agave just says, well, dad, it's fated. We must go without necessarily challenging what Dionysus said. And really, we're not given any kind of argument. I mean, Dionysus just simply asserts that. This as though as. As. It's as though it's a stated fact. And again, I think that, you know, going back to Iliad, it's. It. It's an open question as to what the relationship is between the will of Zeus and fate, if fate is just the kind of determined outcome or if it means something else.
- [102:40]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Do you have any illumination that you want to bring to this final chorus? I mean, this is really. I mean, I found this fascinating. The gods have many shapes. The gods bring many things to their accomplishment. And what was most expected has not been accomplished. But God has found his way for what no man expected. So ends the play.
- [103:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I don't know. Do I have any illumination? No, I mean, it's just a very puzzling. It sounds like a riddle. But this is sort of an odd way. Well, odd. I mean, we've just seen Pentheus or, well, seen Pentheus dismembered, Cadmus, Agave, Cadmus wife. They've all gone off to their respective punishments. This is not an uplifting ending. I mean, where's the redemption. Where's the redemption in Pentheus? Well, I mean, I guess there were moments before he died, he came to the realization that, you know, Agave was going to dish out Dionysus's punishment. Did you. I mean, what did you make of this course? Because truly, I. I don't have anything deep and meaningful or profound to say about it.
- [104:05]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I'm not sure what others have said either. No, I wasn't setting you up for. For some, you know, grand take that. I had to kind of unravel this. I mean, no, I. I found it very mysterious. I mean, it does strike like a riddle. I mean, we could sit here and. And kind of parse out certain things. But all the. All the rabbit trails that I go down, you know, I have maybe a few senses to say, but then they all terminate. And I don't know. Right. This is kind of implications and impressions. And so, I mean, part of it, too, is that I think he. I think he ends the play intentionally with a certain level of ambiguity. Because it's hard for me not to imagine that the original audience on this also has kind of a what just happened? Mindset. Right? That's their. Their general, like, what. What has happened here? And so I think this kind of ambiguous ending only plays. I think it only shows to push that. That. That is actually his purpose, right? To have that kind of unsettled what just happened. Because it doesn't. You know, if you think back to Sophocles, Sophocles has these choruses that are incredibly pedagogical. Like it's really clear what he's trying to teach. They kind of give a commentary on his own narrative. And Euripides doesn't do that. He doesn't spoon feed us what he's trying to do. And so he kind of just leaves us, I think, in this grayness to struggle with the text.
- [105:25]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I mean, I, I do have a commentary here by William Allen and Laura Swift. This is published by Cambridge. And they write. By hearing the course deliver such a trite explanation of the terrible events they have witnessed, the audience is prompted to reflect anew on the God's role in the human suffering of the drama, which I think sums it up as well as one can, because, I mean, we've witnessed the most, I mean, brutal, horrific. I, this. I, you know, I'm not well versed enough in Greek literature tragedy. But I, I would venture to say that Pentheus's death is unprecedented in, in terms of, you know, the, the Greek dramatic stage that, that audiences would. Would never have witnessed or heard of such a horrible death take place. Dismemberment. A son dismembered by his mother in such a gruesome way. And so at the very end, we get just a very short. Yeah, the gods have many shapes. They bring many things to accomplishment unhoped. And it seems like we would want more of an explanation, right? This is like the problem of evil, Right. And Dostoevsky, he lays it all out in rebellion in Brothers K. And we want, like, we desperately want a theological explanation. We want a theodicy to try to square how it is that a God could have allowed this to happen. And this does not really amount to a satisfactory theodicy.
- [107:09]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree. Any other final thoughts?
- [107:11]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No, I, you know, you know, I really enjoyed the play. I know that it's a difficult play to approach, whether you're a Catholic or not. It raises more questions than it answers. But I think my one closing remark would be that I think, you know, as we work our way through Greek literature and as we enter the philosophical stage of the, of the podcast, it's really interesting to me to see these authors interact with each other, you know, having conversations with each other. I don't mean like, literally, but I mean in terms of their writing that, you know, Euripides is obviously having a conversation with Sophocles, who's having a conversation with Aeschylus, who's having a conversation with Homer. And as we'll see, Plato is having a conversation with all of them. And so it's their awareness of each other and the respect that they show each other that it's worth. Plato understood that it's worth keeping Homer alive. That though having written several hundred years prior to Plato, that there was still something of great importance and substance that needs to be, you know, gone over again and again. And so that's. That's just something I think, you know, I've always loved and respected about the Greeks is that they kept the literature alive over the centuries. And for them it was. It was. It was never. Homer was never too old and he was never too dead to. To reinvigorate.
- [109:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree. Yeah. I mean, the whole Great Books tradition, Right. A lot of times is. Is discussed as like joining the great conversation. These great authors are in dialogue with each other in Greek culture. Seems to be a microcosm of that. Right. All their great thinkers seem to be immediately in dialogue with one another and kind of pulling from the same. Well, which is why then I think there's such a richness to it. Because if you actually think about how short a time period this is and how many thinkers and great playwrights, even from Homer to Hesiod, then to Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and then just an immediate shift into Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, that is a lot of intellectual heft in a very short period of time that then I think, yeah, providentially, then plays into cultivating the world to receive Jesus Christ. So. No. Very good. Well, Dr. Kabrowski, I greatly appreciate it. Thank you for walking us through Euripides, the Bacchae. It was very good. I appreciate a lot of your thoughts. I hope our readers, our listeners did as well moving forward. So next week we will be reading, if you want to read along with us, we'll be doing Aristophanes, the clouds, and we'll have Xena hits on to lead us through that. And then after that we will doing Aristophanes the Frogs and. And we'll have Tish Oxenrider on to discuss that play. And then we will get into Homer or not Homer. We already did our year of Homer. We're not going back. We're going to get into Plato and the first, which I'm very excited about. We'll have an intro episode on Plato and then we will read first Alcibiades. So I appreciate everyone.
- [110:30]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I'm pretty sure we'll be going back. You can't escape the shadow of Homer.
- [110:34]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's true. Homer is one of Plato's or Socrates's interlocutors. So we'll be. We'll be going back to Homer more than we probably think. But I'm looking forward to kind of shifting a bit and getting into some comedy that's new for me. I'm new to Aristophanes. I think it'll be very good. And then I am very much looking forward to getting into Plato, and we'll be spending a good amount of time through there. So, again, Dr. Grabowski, I highly appreciate it.
- [110:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
God bless.
- [110:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Thank you so much. Take care, everyone.