PHILOS 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Euripides, Dangerous Power, Pentheus
11 Apr 2015
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Document Summary
Dionysian mysteries secret religious rites known only to the initiated. Best picture of mystery cults comes from euripides" bacchae. All mystery cults claim to know the secret to immortality. Written for festival of tragedy held every spring. Invoked the gods to come watch with them. Pentheus, new king, is visited by dionysus in disguised as a mortal, promises to bring him to observe the mystery rites of a cult. Celebrants are all women, including pentheus" own mother. Dionysus makes pentheus known to the women but in guise of a deer; his mother mistakenly tears o deer"s antlers aka his head and parades around with it. Tragedies are not presented as cases against sexuality; rather its darker connections to death and su ering. Sex is the most essential argument to our need for pain. Socrates promised pain/wrong would be eliminated by science. All becoming and growing all that guarantees a future involves pain. (276)
