The Tragic Hubris of Pentheus Against Dionysus in Euripides' "The Bacchae"

The stories of men whose fortunes are reversed are told in many of the surviving tragedies and tales of ancient Greece: Herodotus begins with Croesus, then names king after king whose hubris brought their empire crashing upon their head. Sophocles tells us first of brilliant Oedipus, whom knew not who he was, and in moving to knowledge from ignorance, discovered his damnation; then of Creon, defiant of divine laws in preference of his own - and thus he saw his rule laid low. Finally, Euripides tells us of Pentheus, a fellow of Oedipus and Creon in the sufferings of the house of Cadmus, and of his tragic hubris, offensive to the Gods, unmatched even by that of Creon. For Creon would not heed the urgings of his countrymen to honor the laws of above; he sinned from afar, and so was punished from afar, shot down with Apollo's shining darts. But Pentheus blasphemed and disrespected to the immortal's very face - though he knew it not. His hubris was bared before the God. Only Pentheus would've made war against the divine, and thus he suffered the unfettered wrath of Dionysus, of all the Gods gentlest to mankind. He believed unwaveringly in the one-sidedness of what he knew - or rather, thought he knew - and was shown how little that really was; thus, The Bacchae is an illustration of the short reach of mortal wisdom, and of the total inability of reason to stand up against divine duality.

The play begins in the realm of reason, but not very firmly; the entry of Dionysus as a "god incognito" establishes that the time is not one of normalcy. Yet, at first the God is disguised as a man, his glory and power unrevealed; Bacchus is making the argument to join him, as it were, in a reasonable manner. This rational argument is presented by two avenues to Pentheus, when he confronts the spectacle of his grandfather Cadmus and the seer Teiresias decked out in bacchic costume, heading to the mountains to join the revels. Cadmus' less-than-deeply-pious suggestion to his grandson at lines 333 - 337, that Pentheus persuade himself of Dionysus' divinity as a "noble fiction" on account of the honor it would afford their family is roundly rejected and decried as madness by the now enraged ruler of Thebes. This is one avenue of the reasoned argument for Bacchus: that his worship is fashionable and harmless (though before long its harmlessness is cast into doubt). On the other hand, the second tack, presented by Teiresias, seems to show real piety. On their way to the bacchic dances, Cadmus asks the seer if they should take their chariots; Teiresias replies, "Walking would be better. It shows more honor / to the god." Agreeing, Cadmus offers to lead the blind Teiresias, who enjoins, "The god will guide us there / with no effort on our part." (The Bacchae ll. 191-197) While these sayings of the prophet's are minor, his real point is made to the irate Pentheus:

Someday you shall even see him bounding with his torches among the crags at Delphi, leaping the pastures that stretch between the peaks, whirling and waving his thyrsus: great throughout Hellas. Mark my words, Pentheus. Do not be so certain that power is what matters in the life of man; do not mistake for wisdom the fantasies of your sick mind. Welcome the god to Thebes; crown your head; pour him libations and join his revels. (The Bacchae ll. 305-314)

Teiresias has accepted Dionysus not because to do so is popular or because it would confer distinction upon his city, but because he is humble before the divine and respects the fact that this most pleasant of immortals can also be the harshest. Of course, Teiresias' prophetic vision may've assisted him in deciding his allegiance; however, even if this is so, and the seer knows that Bromius' hammer blow will land upon those in denial, he speaks not out of fear, but in honor of the God. "Nothing you have said would make me / change my mind," he tells Pentheus, "or flout the will of heaven." (The Bacchae ll. 324-325)
Pentheus himself is the manifestation of the argument of normal reason; that is, the argument against accepting Dionysus. This argument is not baseless: Pentheus is king, and he seeks to preserve and defend the social order which Bacchus has disturbed. This purpose is laid out immediately, in his first lines:

I happened to be away, out of the city, but reports reached me of some strange mischief here, stories of our women leaving home to frisk in mock ecstasies among the thickets on the mountain, dancing in honor of the latest divinity,
a certain Dionysus, whoever he may be! ... In no time at all I shall have them trapped in iron nets and stop this obscene disorder. (The Bacchae ll. 215-232)

We cannot blame the king for wishing to defend the order of his city; in that he isn't at fault at all. His error lies in his unwavering singularity, his unbending insistence upon this order. His failure is not recognizing that he is up against the divine, and that against the divine reason lasts not long.

The struggle of Pentheus, then, becomes a metaphor for the struggle of reason with double-edged divine power, which renders to mortals both what they think is good and what they think is evil. As soon as Pentheus begins this struggle, the solid realm of reason is left behind, and the play crosses the blurry line into the fluid domain of the immortals, and everything begins to become its opposite. As the still disguised Bacchus is chained, Pentheus' grand palace is reduced to ruins by the God's first show of force - the high house is brought low. (The Bacchae ll. 585-595) In a wonderfully divine juxtaposition, Dionysus then steps from the ruins of the palace - note that he who was chained has become free again. His calm words sharply contrast with the disorder of the destroyed scene and the crazed fear of the chorus: "What, women of Asia? Were you so overcome with fright / you fell to the ground? I think then you must have seen / how Bacchus jostled the palace of Pentheus. But come, rise. / Do not be afraid." (The Bacchae ll. 604-607) The flustered king then emerges as well, and rapidly moves to make war on Dionysus, though the hidden God repeatedly warns him against this:

Pentheus, you do not hear, or else you disregard my words of warning. You have done me wrong, and yet, in spite of that, I warn you once again: do not take arms against a god. Stay quiet here. Bromius will not let you drive his women from their revels on the mountain. (The Bacchae ll. 787-791)

If I were you, I would offer him a sacrifice, not rage and kick against necessity, a man defying god. (The Bacchae ll. 794-796)
And even after Pentheus rejects these words of caution, Bacchus offers to lead the women back himself, without spilling blood, saying "Friend, / you can still save the situation." (The Bacchae ll. 802-803) The king seals his fate when, turning away even this offer, he calls for his armor; Pentheus has chosen to be broken rather than to yield, and the God immediately seduces him to that end. The dressing of Pentheus is the play's ultimate inversion: Dionysus takes hold of the stubborn ruler and turns him inside out. His change of costume reverses his manhood to womanliness; his change of character spins on its head his earlier refusal and resistance, and now he goes eagerly with Bromius.

At the center of this storm of inversion stands Dionysus, now declaring himself "most terrible, and yet most gentle, to mankind." (The Bacchae ll. 861) The audience is acquainted with his gentle side as God of wine and merrymaking; now they get to know the other side of him, as he crushes the helpless Pentheus, who is entirely in the God's hands, as he ironically acknowledges at lines 933 - 934. Dionysus gently tells the almost senseless king what awaits him; it is his doom, but Pentheus thinks it is his reward for being bravest of the Thebans, the only one daring to go look upon the bacchant's orgies: "You and you alone will suffer for your city. / A great ordeal awaits you. But you are worthy / of your fate. I shall lead you safely there; / someone else shall bring you back." (The Bacchae ll. 963-966) Told how he will return in the arms of his mother, he says "You will spoil me." Dionysus replies, "I mean to spoil you." (The Bacchae ll. 968-969)

Dionysus revealed thus leads Pentheus to his terrible death, and returns to pronounce the doom of the remaining house of Cadmus. Speaking of the dismembered king, the epiphanic God explains Pentheus' fate: "doing what he should least of all have done... he has rightly perished by the hands / of those who should the least of all have murdered him." (The Bacchae c. ll. 1330)* The last lines of the play repeat Dionysus' revelation: "And what was most expected / has not been accomplished. / But god has found his way / for what no man expected." (The Bacchae ll. 1390-1393). What no man expected was such total divine destruction, on the superficial level. Subliminally, though, what was unexpected was that reason should be so utterly powerless before Bacchus; for the whole normal world of man is reasonably built, and it is the only strength we know. What terror, then, to see it inverted from prosperity to ruin in a day by the Gods' power. Therefore, lines 1003 - 1005 may be the best summation of the play: "[The Gods] humble us with death / that we remember what we are who are not god, / but men. We run to death. Wherefore, I say, / accept, accept: / humility is wise; humility is blest. / But what the world calls wise I do not want."

* This quotation is from the speech of Dionysus in the reconstructed lacuna which is itself unnumbered and inserted between lines 1329 and 1330 in the Arrowsmith translation.