Huaiyuan Zhang, Penn State University
Euripides’ Bacchae is οne of Greek drama’s most dedicated meditations on the nature of wisdom. Through staging a debate over the question, “What is σοφία?”, Euripides takes an active part in exploring this concept in the intellectual sphere of the late fifth century. While the question of the meaning of σοφία in philosophical discourse remains open, the term σοφός is pretty much established with various and even ambiguous senses. Applying the semantic field theory (Saussure; Kittay, 214–157; Buck), I suggest that σοφία in the Bacchae devolves into madness: σοφία is ἀφροσύνη, rather than σωφροσύνη (Segal).
The ἀγών of the Bacchae, on a conceptual level, is a contest between the old form and the new form of σοφία. From the chorus’ perspective, σοφία is generally proclaimed to be religious good sense, that it is wise to worship Dionysus rather than reject his divinity, for it promises success and happiness within the bounds of human life. In the first Stasimon, the chorus problematizes σοφία by distinguishing it from τὸ σοφόν as though τὸ σοφόν were some kind of alternative or challenge to the traditional definition of σοφία the chorus advocates (395). Since σοφία only occurs once in the play as the antithesis of τὸ σοφόν, the ἀγών is not just about σοφία, but also about the meaning of τὸ σοφόν.
The interpretative community generally accepts τὸ σοφόν as cleverness as opposed to the religious interpretation of σοφία (Silva, 17, 24n30). In his recent commentary on the contestation of wisdom in The Philosophical Stage, Billings has tried to reinterpret the term τὸ σοφόν to refer to autonomous intellectual inquiry of an instrumental and value-neutral sort. He thus disagrees with the communis opinio that τὸ σοφόν means “cleverness” in the negative sophistic sense.
Billings redirects our attention to how the new religion of Dionysus appropriates the sophistic feat of arguing in public for traditional cult wisdom. I expand Billings’ idea of discursive ἀγών that synthesizes the binary between the new form and the old form of wisdom by analyzing the semantic synonyms closely grouped with σοφ- language, including σωφρον- or φρεν- words, and the association of σοφ- language with words of soundness of mind and their opposites in the Bacchae. The examination of the wordplay that connects σοφ- words and σωφρον- words facilitated by alliteration and repetition (179, 655–656, 1190), though not etymologizing per se, presents itself as a way of clarifying the possible meanings of τὸ σοφόν motivated by paronomasia and creative Euripidean figura etymologica. These help create a spectrum of meaning to appreciate the paradox and irony of wisdom, where σοφία and τὸ σοφόν are almost indistinguishable and their meaning as religious good sense slides into the danger of intellectualism on the one hand, and a cover for mad savagery on the other. The headstrong resistance of Pentheus might provoke pathos and grief, even if it does not appear heroic. No character exits the ἀγών as the champion of wisdom, and wisdom turns out to be precarious itself.