HUM 4825 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Silenus, Pentheus, Maenad
Document Summary
Befriends semele, puts doubt into her mind- he is not really zeus. It is this side of dionysus associated with mystery religions. In a basic sense- dionysus is a fertility/wine/revelry god. Sublimity and terror of the spiritual message are inescapable . Madness and death to those who oppose. Never alone- worshipped in the thiasos of his. Torches, animal skin, holding animals, wild hair, ecstatic postures. Leather phallus in state of permanent sexual excitement. I have compelled [the sisters] to take up the symbols of my rituals, and all the women of thebes the entire female population i have driven from there homes in frenzy . Tiresias and cadmus go to join in rites at beginning of play. Dionysus plays on pentheus" represses sexual desires and draw to look. Nevertheless you would be pleased to see what is painful to you? .
