Wine, Women, Woes, Wrath, and the Wild: A Review of Euripides' 'Bacchae'

'[Pentheus] shall learn that Dionysus, son of Zeus, is by turns a god most terrible and most gracious to mankind.'

Euripides' Bacchae is a gripping tragedy that explores the tension between reason and instinct, civilisation and chaos. It is one of the most bewildering yet rich tragedies from the Greek canon, and arguably Euripides' magnum opus and the swan song of his playwrighting career.

The focus of the play is on Dionysus, the beloved wine-god, who comes back to Thebes, the land of his mother, accompanied by his maenads (female devotees), to introduce his worship and brutally discipline those who do not accept his godhood, notably the doubtful and principled King Pentheus (incidentally, Dionysus' cousin).

Dionysus, in Euripides' portrayal, is equally terrifying and tantalising, playful and petrifying, embodying nature's intoxicating potential to both liberate and annihilate. The play's runtime showcases a society's dramatic fall from grace, progressing from a monarchy predicated by order and conservatism to one swept up in a whirlwind of raucous barbarity, hierarchical disestablishment, and, at its most shocking climax, festive 'sparagmos' (tearing people apart with bare hands), including Agaue, Pentheus' mother, ritually decapitating her son's head as a trophy.

The play serves as a powerful commentary on the dangers associated with repressing the irrational and more primordial elements inherent in human nature. Despite this, Euripides' Bacchae continues to be enigmatic, defying any definitive understanding or interpretation. This unsettled and ambiguous quality of the play is what secures its position as a classic of Greek tragedy, appreciated, performed, and theorised upon over millennia.

If there was one recommendation I could make for a Greek tragedy, it would undoubtedly be the 'Bacchae'.