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In the BACCHAE of Euripides there is an extremely interesting passage in which the immoral stories of the Greek mythology are accounted for on the principle of that misunderstanding of words and metaphors to which modern science has given the name of a disease of language.
No one can think of Greek literature without thinking of them; they live on the lips of its admirers, and in them the inspiration of Greek literature is chiefly enshrined. These essential qualities are Simplicity, Perfection of Form, Truth and Beauty. Greek literature is much more than these qualities. The Agamemnon, the Oedipus, the Bacchae are not to be explained wholly by them.
The Bacchae represents the infectious and tumultuous enthusiasm of the worship of Bacchus, with great sensuous power and vividness of conception. The obstinate unbelief of Pentheus, his infatuation, and terrible punishment by the hands of his own mother, form a bold picture. The effect on the stage must have been extraordinary.
Plautus also alludes to this usage, when, in his "Miles Gloriosus," act iv. sc. 2, he makes Milphidippa say to Pyrgopolonices, "Cedo signum, si harunc Baccharum es;" i.e., "Give the sign if you are one of these Bacchae," or initiates into the Mysteries of Bacchus. Clemens Alexandrinus calls these modes of recognition σωθηματα, as if means of safety.
Her mind kept on stretching; it held three years in one span like one year. The large rhythm of time appeased and exalted her. In the long summers while Mamma worked in the garden she translated Euripides. The Bacchae. You could do it after you had read Whitman. If you gave up the superstition of singing; the little tunes of rhyme.
Now, if we had nineteen plays of Sophocles, of which twelve or thirteen should be no better than the Trachiniae, and if, on the other hand, only seven pieces of Euripides had come down to us, and if those seven had been the Medea, the Bacchae, the Iphigenia in Aulis, the Orestes, the Phoenissae, the Hippolytus, and the Alcestis, I am not sure that the relative position which the two poets now hold in our estimation would not be greatly altered.
Burgess has been reading and commending the papers, and has brought me from him a newly discovered scene of the 'Bacchae' of Euripides, edited by Mr. Burgess himself for the 'Gentlemen's Magazine, and of which he considers that the 'Planctus Mariae, at least the passage I extracted from it, is an imitation. Should you care to see it? Say 'Yes, and I will send it to you.
Hence the very Bacchae use measure, and the inspired give their oracles in measure. And we shall see very few madmen but are frantic in rhyme and rave in verse.
Mârkaṇḍeya, Vâmana and Varâha. Vanaparvan, 11001 ff. XII. sec. 283. In the same way the worship of Dionysus was once a novelty in Greece and not countenanced by the more conservative and respectable party. See Eur. Bacchae, 45. The Varâha-Purâna relates that the Śivaite scriptures were revealed for the benefit of certain Brahmans whose sins had rendered them incapable of performing Vedic rites.
But what a poet! The Medea, the Alcestis, the Troades, the Bacchae, are alone sufficient to place him in the very first rank. Instead of depreciating him, as I have done, I may, for aught I know, end by editing him. I have read Pindar, with less pleasure than I feel in reading the great Attic poets, but still with admiration.
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