King
Pentheus refuses to accept it, and Dionysus gets his revenge.
toxicity of insecticides to the citrus leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella, and its parasitoids, Chrysocharis
pentheus and Sympiesis striatipes (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae).
The figures have been identified as
Pentheus, king of Thebes, and his mother, Agave, in the climactic event of Euripides' Bacchae, in which Agave and her followers mistakenly kill her son in a Bacchic frenzy.
It was just two days after he'd sung the gruelling role of
Pentheus in Krzysztof Warlikowski's hair-raising production of Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids.
This may not be quite as spectacular and suggestive as the same actor doubling as
Pentheus and his mother Agave in Euripides's Bacchae, but it is worth reflecting on the effects of having a slain tyrant return a few moments later as the man who helped to slay himself (in the final tableau, Agamemnon's bloodied body on the ekkyklema can of course be played by a non-speaking actor).
In Euripides's play The Bacchae, Dionysus is placed on trial as a false god but warns King
Pentheus of his power, comparing himself to the kingly ox not being able to kick the small pricks that bind it to the plow.
Pentheus, the king of Thebes, wants to destroy a gang of hedonistic women--which includes his mother, Agave--who worship Dionysos.
Hylas, who might easily be imagined in the mythological role of a male transgressing a sacred female space (like Actaeon or
Pentheus) is instead assimilated to the female role of a Persephone figure by virtue of his task--fetching water--and the vessel Apollonius gives him to carry it in, a kalpis (1.1207).
Agave, driven mad by Dionysus for her "unbridled tongue," doesn't know her son,
Pentheus, and spikes his head on a stake.
Once again, we are reminded of the 'Greek' element in the novel, for it is a deliberately metafictional exercise just as some scenes in Greek tragedies, e.g., Dionysus' staging the costuming of
Pentheus as sacrificial victim in Euripides' Bacchae, is a deliberately metatheatrical exercise.
And the text itself is engaging; here, for example, in the story of Bacchus and
Pentheus, is Acoetes, explaining himself before the angry
Pentheus, '"Myn name', sayde he, 'is Acotes...
Summary: In the classical Greek tragedy The Bacchae, the god Dionysus, powered by a thirst for vengeance, battles the inflexible and closed-minded King
Pentheus for the soul of Thebes.