Helen - by Euripides-First Preformed 412 B.C.E. Translated by Emily Wilson -This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation - 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

 Helen - by Euripides-First Preformed 412 B.C.E. Translated by Emily Wilson -This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation - 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

An Ancient Reads Work

Euripides-480 to 406 B.C.E 

Plays by Euripides Previously posted upon

Medea

Trojan Women

Hippolytus 

Electra

Bacchae 

Cast of Characters in Helen in Order of Appearance 

HELEN, wife of Menelaus 

TEUCER, a Greek hero from Salamis

 CHORUS of Greek maidens 

MENELAUS, king of Sparta 

THEONOË, priestess and sister of Theoclymenos 

THEOCLYMENUS, ruler of Egypt

 MESSENGER 

CASTOR and POLLUX, semidivine brothers of Helen (also known as the Dioscuri)SERVANT

 THEONOË, priestess and sister of THEOCLYMENUS

Setting: Helen takes place in front of the palace of Theoclymenos, ruler of Egypt.

"Helen by Euripides presents a very different account of the person of Helen depicted in the Iliad. Homer presented a faithless wife who abandons her much older husband because of an infatuation with a handsome young Trojan prince, Paris, visiting the court of her Macedonian husband, Menelaus, on a diplomatic mission. Her lack of decent morals and unfaithfulness ended up destroying Troy and costing 1000s of Greek lives.

Ever since Homer’s Iliad, Helen had been associated in the Greek mind with beauty, sexual allure, and a faithlessness and cunning born of these two qualities. To build a tragedy around such a woman—the polar opposite, in terms of stature, of Antigone or Medea— as Euripides did in 412 B.C. was a daring move, almost certain to produce a play that was not, in fact, tragic." From the introduction 

Euripides presents a totally different story. His Helen never went to Troy, never was unfaithful. Instead the Goddess Hera, jealous because she lost a beauty contest, created a spirit figure in Helen's and sent this to Troy.

The real Helen made it to Egypt. As I did not already know what was going to happen I found the plotting quite exciting.

EMILY WILSON is Associate Professor in Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work includes Mocked with Death: Tragic Overliving from Sophocles to Milton; The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint; Seneca: A Life; Seneca: Six Tragedies; and a new translation of the Odyssey.

Hippolytus by Euripides- 428 B. C. E. - translated by Rachel Kitzinger- 2016- included in Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

 Hippolytus by Euripides- 428 B. C. E. - translated by Rachel Kitzinger- 2016- included in Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm 

An Ancient Reads Project Work

Euripides:died 7 406 BC (aged approximately 74); Macedonia

Born: c. 480 BC; Salamis

CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) APHRODITE, goddess of sexual love; also known as Cypris HIPPOLYTUS, son of Theseus, the king of Athens, by an Amazon queen HIPPOLYTUS’ FELLOW HUNTERS, a group of slaves from his household OLD SLAVE, an attendant to Hippolytus 

CHORUS of young married women of Troezen 

NURSE, Phaedra’s personal attendant

 PHAEDRA, wife of Theseus; daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae of Crete

 THESEUS, king of Athens

MESSENGER, an attendant of Hippolytus ARTEMIS, virgin goddess of the hunt, of wild things, and of childbirth

Wikipedia has a good summary of the plot and background of the play.

My reading and thinking is now shaped by my intense sorrow over the passing of my beloved wife last year. Tomorrow will be our 17th wedding anniversary.

"THESEUS: I long for the darkness below the earth, I long to die, to dwell in wretched darkness there, now I’ve lost your precious company." 

I felt a deep empathy with the words of Theseus concerning the death of his wife.

The attitude toward the competing Goddesses, APHRODITE and Artemis is that harm to humans is just "collateral damage".

By the time Seneca wrote a play based on this, entitled Phaedra, around 500 years later in 58 A.D., many in his elite audience no longer had a literal belief in these Gods but saw the story as a use of these figures to explain very destructive and irrational human behavior.

I have on my reading list Phèdre by Racine first preformed in 1677 in Paris.

The anthology pictured in this post is an excellent starting point in Greek Drama.

Mel Ulm

Medea by Euripides 431 B.C. E. - translated by Rachel Kitzinger - 2016 This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

 Medea by Euripides- 431 B.C. E. - translated by Rachel Kitzinger - 2016 This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm 

 Euripides- 480 to 406 BCE- Athens CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) NURSE, Medea’s personal attendant TUTOR, teacher and minder of Medea and Jason’s two sons MEDEA, member of the royal family of Colchis, on the Black Sea; granddaughter of the Sun-god; wife of Jason CHORUS of Corinthian women CREON, king of Corinth JASON, heir to the throne of Iolcus, living in exile in Corinth AEGEUS, king of Athens CHILDREN, Jason and Medea’s two sons MESSENGER, a slave in the royal house of Creon 

In Greek mythology, Medea was the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and ran away from her father’s house to marry the hero Jason. Euripides re-sculpted her story in his play, adding the element that made her the Medea we know today – the woman who kills her own children to avenge her husband’s betrayal.

So the first  audience who saw Euripides’s play would have been in for something incredibly shocking, unfamiliar as they were with a Medea who kills her children for vengeance. When the play was first performed in an Athenian tragedy competition of 431 BC, it came in last place, and it’s often thought that this was because of the heroine’s dreadful actions. But regardless of the first audience’s response, the play quickly became a classic, and Medea’s infanticide supplanted all other versions of the story

The play takes place in front of Medea and Jason’s house in Corinth. Of the two entrances to the stage, one is understood to come from the royal palace where Creon and his daughter live, the other from the town and surrounding countryside. My main purpose here is to just keep a record of my reading. Wikipedia has a decent overall article on the play. YouTube has videos of Plays, an opera and a movie based on the play. Medea seeks revenge, she is known as a sourcer and a witch. The plot centers on Medea's, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life. The depth of hatred felt by Medea is startling even when we know before we read the play what will happen. Like other Greek and Roman dramas I have recently read, the precarious nature of life, which can change in a moment at the whims of the Gods, is on center stage in Medea.

"Professor Kitzinger began teaching at Vassar in January, 1982. She taught courses in Greek and Latin literature, specializing in Greek tragedy, her field of research.She was involved in the development of the college course, Civilization in Question, which she taught for many years, often with Professor Mitch Miller from the Philosophy Department. In addition to articles on Sophokles, she published The Choruses of Sophokles’ Antigone and Philoktetes: A Dance of Words, translations of Sophokles’ “Oedipus at Colonus” and “Women of Trachis”; translations of Euripides’ “Medea,” “Hippolytus” and “Alcestis” in Greek Plays (Modern Library); she also edited with Michael Grant the three-volume Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean. She directed a production of “Oedipus at Colonus” in collaboration with the Drama Department and gave frequent recitals of Greek poetry using the restored pronunciation of Ancient Greek. She sat on the Matthew Vassar Junior Chair of Greek and Latin Languages and Literature. Professor Kitzinger also worked in the administration in various roles: Advisor to the Junior Class, Director of Teaching Development and the Freshman Seminar; Associate Dean of the Faculty." From vassar.edu

I hope to soon read Seneca's Medea.

Trojan Women by Euripides - first produced 415 B. C. E. - Translated by Emily Wilson 2016-This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

 Trojan Women by Euripides - first produced 415 B. C. E. - Translated by Emily Wilson -This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

Ancient Reads

The Trojan Women-A 1971 movie with Katherine Hepburn as Hecuba and Vanessa Redgrave as Andromache 

Greek Theater 2001 Production of Trojan Women

Translations of Euripides by Emily Wilson I have so far read 

Electra -420 B. C. E.

Trojan Women -415 B. C. E.

Trojan Women is the second translation of Euripides by Emily Wilson I have so far read

CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) POSEIDON, ATHENA, HECUBA, widow of Priam; queen of Troy, CHORUS of captured Trojan women, TALTHYBIUS, herald of the Greek army, CASSANDRA, Trojan prophetess; daughter of Hecuba and Priam, the late king of Troy ANDROMACHE, Trojan noblewoman; widow of the Trojan hero Hector, ASTYANAX, young son of Andromache by Hector MENELAUS, king of Sparta and co-leader of the Greek army HELEN, wife of Menelaus, whom she left for the Trojan prince Paris (the cause of the Trojan War)

"Homer’s Iliad was already some three hundred years old during the golden age of Athenian tragedy, but it remained the central literary text for the Greeks and colored all their thinking about war and loss. The downfall of the Trojans, made inevitable by the death" from the introduction by James Romm 

The coda of the Iliad consists of a long dirge for the fallen Hector, as his corpse is lamented by his sister, Cassandra, his widow, Andromache, his mother, Hecuba, and even his sister-in-law, Helen— widely considered the cause of the war. The center of the play is in the laments of these four women.

Trojan Women focuses on the horrible impact of the war on aristocratic Trojan women. An extreme denunciation of Helen is prominent. The capricious of the Gods is paramount.

There are translations of two more Plays of Euripides by Emily Wison, Bacchae and Helen, that I hope to read soon.

Mel Ulm 

Clouds- A Comedy by Aristophenes-First Produced 423 B.C.E.- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021

 Clouds- A Comedy by Aristophenes-First Produced 423 B.C.E.- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021 

An Ancient Reads Work.

Aristophanes, (born c. 450 BCE—died c. 388 BCE), 

Emily Wilson's Review of Aaron Poochigian Collection of four comedies by Aristophenes- A Marvelous Introduction to the Comedies of Aristophenes - at Emilyrcwilson.com

This is the fourth comedy by Aristophenes I have so read. Prior to this I have posted on Lysistrata, his most famous work, Birds and Women of the Assembly. These works are included in Aaron Poochigan's collection.

In his introduction Poochigan says that Clouds, unlike the other three plays focuses on one person and his attempt to improve his financial situation. (But similarly to Lysistrata and Women of the Assembly, strap on dildos are a big factor. Here is my suggestion for a Dissertation- "Dildos in Classical Drama").

Characters 

Socrates, the philosopher who runs The Thinkery[9]

Strepsiades, student who joins The Thinkery

Pheidippides, his son

Chaerephon, disciple of Socrates

The Clouds, who form the chorus

Chorus Leader

Slave

Students

First Student

Wrong Argument

Right Argument

First Creditor

Second Creditor

Witness

Xanthias

As the play opens Strepsiades is in bed but he cannot sleep because he is very stressed by the debts he has run up to support son's, Pheidippides betting on horse races. Strepsiades tells the audience that his wife, from a wealthy clan, encourages the son Pheidippides in his interest in horses as it is regarded as a hobby for aristocrats. Strepsiades's creditors keep adding on interest and are now threatening to sue him which could cause him to lose all he owns.  

Strepsiades tries to get his son to enroll in an academy run by Socrates, The Thinkery, in which young men are taught to win arguments. When his spoiled son refuses he enrolls himself even though he is way older than the other students. It seems that the students are expected to allow their instructors to work them over with strepon dildos. All Strepsiades wants to do is learn how to refute the true claims of his creditors when he appears in court.

Wikipedia has a decent article laying out the plot. Strepsiades learns of the absurd doctrines taught at the school. Clouds is a savage attack on the perceived by Aristophenes decay of Athenian morality caused by Socrates.  

The Persians by Aeschylus -479 B. C. E. -translated by James Romm - 2009- The Most Ancient of Dramas

 The Persians by Aeschylus -479 B. C. E. -translated by James Romm - 2016- The Most Ancient of any drama

An Ancient Times Project Work

  Aeschylus- 525 B. C. E. to 456 B.C. E. Only seven of his estimated 80 dramas survived.

This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) CHORUS of Persian elders ATOSSA, queen of the Persians; mother of Xerxes; widow of Darius MESSENGER from the retreating Persian army GHOST OF DARIUS, former king of the Persians; father of Xerxes XERXES, king of Persia 

In his informative introduction to The Persians James Romm explains that Aeschylus and much of his audience had fought in the a seemingly miraculous Greek victory over the Persian navy at the island of Salamis, off the west coast of Attica. That victory, achieved despite long odds, had saved most of Greece, and especially Athens, from a fearsome choice between annihilation and subjection to the might of imperial Persia. 

The Persians is the final drama in a Trilogy, the first two works were lost. My research indicates it is one of the very few Greek dramas based on actual events.

The Persians most powerful segment to me is a very amazing account of the army assembled by the Persian Emperor Xerxes to conquer Greece. The play takes place in Susa, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire and opens with a chorus of old men of Susa, who are soon joined by the Queen Mother, Atossa, as they await news of her son King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks. Expressing her anxiety Antossa feared this vast assembly of warriors would be destroyed by the Greeks under the leadership of Athens. Xerxes the Emperor escapes capture. His mother Atossa is harshly critical of her son, blaming his hubris for the death of many thousands of Persisns.

Contemporary scholars seem divided as to how one might view the play. Some see it as a celebration of the Greek victory others see compassion for the "warriors of Asia" sent to die in a war that meant nothing to them. 

At the tomb of her dead husband Darius, Atossa asks the chorus to summon his ghost: "Some remedy he knows, perhaps,/Knows ruin's cure". On learning of the Persian defeat, Darius condemns the hubris behind his son's decision to invade Greece. 

God's are depicted as favoring the Greeks but they demand obedience and punish those they find disrespect them.

Mel Ulm

The Reading Life 

Birds by Aristophenes- A Comedy- first preformed 414 BCE- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021 - plus a new Project Begins, Ancient Readings

 Since the start of The Reading Life in July of 2009 I have employed Reading Life Projects to help me structure the blog. My first two projects were on Japanese Literature and Katherine Mansfield. I now have projects on Irish Short Stories, early Australian Literature among others. Projects also give blog visitors a sense of what can be found on The Reading Life. Once I begin a project it is permanent.

Today I am initiating The Ancient Readings Project encompassing Literature from Sumeria, Greece, India, China, Rome as well as historical narratives on this era.

As of now I have as potential works for the projects, six plays by Senaca, eleven comedies by Aristophenes, New translations of Gilgamesh, Ovid, The Illiad by Homer, Virgil's Aneid as well as plays by Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Hopefully I will be able to acquire modern translations of The Vedas and Buddhist Sutras. Perhaps portions of The Old Testament can be included. This is for me an ambitious project. (I am limited to works available as Kindle Editions)

"Not only was Aristophanes one of the greatest poets of antiquity but, in the words of Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, “the greatest comic dramatist in world literature: by his side Molière seems dull and Shakespeare clownish.” - From New Translations of the Complete Plays by Paul Roche 

Aristophenes wrote 44 plays, as documented by Paul Roche, but only 11 survive still. Prior to today I have posted on two of his works. These are Lysistrata, his most famous work, and Women of the Assembly. Both these comedies have focus on the sex lives of Athenian women in very explicit language. Birds is very different.

The first work to be included going forward is Birds by Aristophenes.

Birds was first preformed in 414 BCE at Dionysius where it won second place. It is the longest of the 11 surviving works. Set in the wilderness outside of Athens, Pisthetaerus, an Athenian, persuades the birds in the area to form a great city in the sky, reclaiming their ancient place as Gods. 

Wikipedia has a decent plot summary so I will forgo that. I liked the satire of Athenian society, the way the birds were given personalities fitting their species. No doubt ornithologists would enjoy deciding which species are represented. Birds is a deep mockery of Greece's myth based religion.

I will next read his play Clouds.

Mel Ulm

Women of the Assembly by Aristophenes- 392 BCE -Translated by Aaron Poochigian-2021

 

Born: 445 BC, Athens 

Died: 386 BC, Delphi

Last month I read his Lysistrata 

Lysistrata is by far the most famous ancient comedy. The central theme is that the women of Greece ban together refuse to have sex with their husbands or lovers unless the men restrain from all forms of warfare. There is very explicit sexual language. Some of the women complain that they cannot go without sex and talk about dildos. The husbands are very upset, they walk around with huge erections protruding from their tunics.

Women of the Assembly opens during a festival only for Women.  The women there agree to disguise them selves as men.  The plan is they will go to the Assembly and vote to turn the government of Athens over to Women.  They also want to do away with the notion of property, with marriages, nuclear families.  Sex is not confined to marriage.  If  a man wants to have sex with an attractive woman he must first have xex with an ugly one.  This way old or unattractive Women are not deprived of sex.

There are lengthy arguments about the soundness of these ideas.  Children will not have a designated father but will be a community responsibility.  There is debate about motivation for working if everything is owned in common.  Everyone is guaranteed an equal subsistence, no rich no poor. Slaves, not being citizens, are owned in common.

As in Poochigian's translation of Lysistrata, there is very  explicit language, that now would make the work at least R rated.  As I read this I wondered if this language was meant to shock the audience or was it just how people  in Athens in 351 BCE  talked?. Women are depicted as craving sex but tired of just being a vehicle for the penises of men. Older women resent younger women getting all the sex.

I found the debates interesting.  The depiction of women is kind of amusing.

A blog I have followed for many years, Wuthering Expectations, is doing a read through of all the surviving Greek Plays, a marvelous endeavor I wish I could have emulated.

If you are new to Aristophenes first read Lysistrata. I will in December read his Birds

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. He is the translator of, among other classical works, Sappho’s poetry (published under the title Stung with Love), Apollonius’s Jason and the Argonauts, and Euripides’s Bacchae, and has published two books of poetry—The Cosmic Purr and Manhattanite—and a novel-in-verse, Mr. Either/Or. His poems have appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, the Paris Review, and Poetry. He lives in New York.

Lysistrata by Aristophenes - first preformed 411 BCE - translated by Aaron Poochigian - 2021

 

Lysistrata by Aristophenes - first preformed 411 BCE - translated by and with an Introduction by Aaron Poochigian - 2021

Born: 445 BC, Athens 

Died: 386 BC, Delphi

Lysistrata is by far the most famous ancient comedy.  The central theme is that the women of Greece ban together refuse to have sex with their husbands or lovers unless the men restrain from all forms of warfare.  There is very explicit sexual language.  Some of the women complain that they cannot go without sex and talk about dildos.  The husbands are very upset, they walk around with huge erections protruding from their tunics.

Lysistrata is the organizer of this sexual strike.  When asked what to do if your husband forces himself on you she says “just lay totally stiff, don’t grind back”.  Female actresses lift up each others tunics for inspection purposes, commenting on what they see.

The men are very upset insisting the women have no reason to complain about wars as they do not participate.  Lysistrata  explains that they lose sons and husbands in war.  All of the women involved are aristocratic though they live in a society where slaves out number the free.  A slave woman plays a minor role, and is  treated with no respect by her owner, Lysistrata.

From the play as the women take an oath to withhold sex:

“Hey there, Lampito, everyone, lay your hands upon the wine cup.One of you will repeat, for all, the terms of our agreement after me, and then the rest will swear to keep them once we’re done. No man, be he a lover or a husband . . . CALONICE: (stepping up as the representative for all the women) No man, be he a lover or a husband . . . LYSISTRATA: No man, be he a lover or a husband . . . LYSISTRATA: . . . shall come up to me with a boner. Say it! CALONICE: . . . shall come up to me with a boner. ​Ah! My knees are going to buckle, Lysistrata! LYSISTRATA: And I shall pass the time in celibacy”.

In what Aaron Poochigian says is very unusual in Ancient Greek Drama, there are two choruses, one of old men, one of old women. The old women play a big part in the action, seizing the treasury Athens needs to wage war.  The two choruses converse with each other about the sex strike as well as making comments to the audience.

There are three videos on YouTube of staged performances.  The actors are college students and to me they seemed overacting and the choruses did not seem very well done.  

A blog I have followed for many years, Wuthering Expectations, is doing a read through of all the surviving Greek Plays, a marvelous endeavor I wish I could have emulated.

There are three other comedies in the collection,  Birds, Women of the Assembly and Clouds.  I am hopeful I can read and post on them by the end of 2022.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. He is the translator of, among other classical works, Sappho’s poetry (published under the title Stung with Love), Apollonius’s Jason and the Argonauts, and Euripides’s Bacchae, and has published two books of poetry—The Cosmic Purr and Manhattanite—and a novel-in-verse, Mr. Either/Or. His poems have appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, the Paris Review, and Poetry. He lives in New York.

Mel Ulm

The Bacchae by Euripides-True Blood and Greek Drama

The Bacchae by Euripides (405 BC, translated 1911 by Gilbert Murray)

This is my post for the Classics Circuit Ancient Greece Tour  (The full schedule can be found at the tour web page).

"And deep beneath the Maenad cry
His proud voice rings:
"Come, O ye Bacchae, come!"

As I read this work by one of the "big three" ancient Greek Dramatists (the other two being Sophocles and Aeschylus)   I knew it was a very high canon status work.    My reading of older literature in translation is largely done online and this limits me in most cases to older public domain translations.   There are no public libraries here in Manila and I need to keep some control on my book buying expenses.        I know in cases of translations of Greek dramas I am missing out on great new translations.  

My comments here will not be at all a general summing up of the play just a few sort of random observations stimulated by my reading.   (Wikipedia has good articles on Euripides (480 to 406-Athens) and The Bacchae.)

My first question as I read the play (read via Dailylit.com) was am I really having a reading experience anything like that of reading it in the original or am I reading an early 20th century English drama inspired by a Greek Drama?     The translator, Gilbert Murray (1866 to 1957) was born and spent his early years in New South Wales Australia.    At age 11 Murray's father died and he and his mother emigrated to the UK.   Murray studied the classics at Oxford.      He translated many classic Greek Dramas.    Most English speaking non Ancient Greek readers up until 1965 or so got there Greek Drama from Murray.     Sometimes people used to say that Constant Garnett made all of the great Russian writers sound the same.  Some say Murray did did the same thing to Greek Drama.     My conclusion here is I read more a early post-Victorian drama based on Greek roots than a Greek Drama.    My feeling on this is hard to explain or justify.   When I read the translations of Homer by Robert Fagles I felt I was reading a very old work.   I did not feel that way when I read this work.

Another Maiden_
Then streams the earth with milk, yea, streams
With wine and nectar of the bee,
And through the air dim perfume steams
Of Syrian frankincense; and He,
Our leader, from his thyrsus spray
A torchlight tosses high and higher,
A torchlight like a beacon-fire,
To waken all that faint and stray;
And sets them leaping as he sings,
His tresses rippling to the sky,
And deep beneath the Maenad cry
His proud voice rings:
"Come, O ye Bacchae, come!"

Are you a fan of the cable TV series True Blood?    I admit I am  and  I am looking forward to the next season.      The character in the series "Mary Anne" was a Maenad.   Maenads were the hand maidens of the God Dionysus.     In Euripides play Dionysus is a God who allows us to celebrate our irrational side, to give play to our darker less civilized instincts.    He is surrounded by a group of female followers who worship him.    Of course there are themes here suggesting Dionysus is to be taken as an eastern cult religion attempting to subvert the rational codes of the Greek and that the Maenads represent a latent fear of uncontrolled female impulses.

I thank Rebecca for her hard work in hosting the classics circuit.  I know my post is a bit unorthodox.

Mel u