- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Euripides’s Poetic Game and Law of Composition
- 2. Anthropomorphism
- 3. The Protection of the Self and the Role of <i>Sophia</i>
- 4. Some Connotations of <i>Sophia</i>
- 5. Polyneices’s Truth
- 6. Hecuba’s Rhetoric
- 7. Eros in Euripides’s Poetics: Sex as the Cause of the Trojan War
- 8. The Lewd Gaze of the Eye
- 9. The Power of Love: Who Is Aphrodite?
- 10. Phaedra
- 11. Hermione: The <i>Andromache</i>
- 12. Female Victims of War: The <i>Troades</i>
- 13. The Survival in Poetry
- 14. Figures of Metalepsis: The Invention of “Literature”
- 15. The Failure of Politics in Euripides’s Poetics: Politics in the <i>Suppliant Women</i>
- 16. Political Philosophy: A Universal Program of Peace and Progress
- 17. How to Deliberate a War
- 18. Democracy and Monarchy
- 19. The Battle
- 20. The Rescue of the Corpses
- 21. Return to Arms
- 22. The Polis’s Loss of Control and Authority
- 23. The Bacchants’ Gospel and the Greek City
- 24. Pentheus and Teiresias
- 25. Dionysus’s Revenge: First Round
- 26. Revenge Prepares Its Murderous Weapon
- 27. Initiation and Sacrifice
- 28. Victory and Defeat
- 29. Euripides’s Poetry
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Index Locorum
Pentheus and Teiresias
Pentheus and Teiresias
- Chapter:
- 24. Pentheus and Teiresias
- Source:
- Euripides’s Revolution under Cover
- Author(s):
Pietro Pucci
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter examines Teiresias's attempt to convince Pentheus to accept Dionysism. In the first part of his appeal to Pentheus, before the king orders his men to destroy Teiresias's religious seat, Teiresias says: “Come on, Pentheus, believe me, do not be too confident that sovereignty rules men.” Teiresias could not be more explicit about the weakness of political power in relation to other powers, especially in satisfying the human need to forget everyday sufferings. However, Pentheus rejects Teiresias's and Cadmus's political advice and replaces their arguments with his own perverse obsessions. This chapter discusses Bacchae's presentation of a city-state in which sexual seduction satisfies the leaders' lechery and/or helps their political success. It also considers Teiresias's response to Pentheus's misrepresentation of the Bacchants' sexuality.
Keywords: sexuality, Teiresias, Pentheus, Dionysism, sovereignty, political power, Bacchae, city-state, sexual seduction, Bacchants
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Euripides’s Poetic Game and Law of Composition
- 2. Anthropomorphism
- 3. The Protection of the Self and the Role of <i>Sophia</i>
- 4. Some Connotations of <i>Sophia</i>
- 5. Polyneices’s Truth
- 6. Hecuba’s Rhetoric
- 7. Eros in Euripides’s Poetics: Sex as the Cause of the Trojan War
- 8. The Lewd Gaze of the Eye
- 9. The Power of Love: Who Is Aphrodite?
- 10. Phaedra
- 11. Hermione: The <i>Andromache</i>
- 12. Female Victims of War: The <i>Troades</i>
- 13. The Survival in Poetry
- 14. Figures of Metalepsis: The Invention of “Literature”
- 15. The Failure of Politics in Euripides’s Poetics: Politics in the <i>Suppliant Women</i>
- 16. Political Philosophy: A Universal Program of Peace and Progress
- 17. How to Deliberate a War
- 18. Democracy and Monarchy
- 19. The Battle
- 20. The Rescue of the Corpses
- 21. Return to Arms
- 22. The Polis’s Loss of Control and Authority
- 23. The Bacchants’ Gospel and the Greek City
- 24. Pentheus and Teiresias
- 25. Dionysus’s Revenge: First Round
- 26. Revenge Prepares Its Murderous Weapon
- 27. Initiation and Sacrifice
- 28. Victory and Defeat
- 29. Euripides’s Poetry
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Index Locorum
