A two part question i The heroes of tragedy are very often punished for reasons that are beyond their power to prevent What relation might there be between the outcome of tragedy and the moral lessons of tragedy as represented by the Bacchae ii In contrast to tragedy for what reasons do punishments befall the characters of comedy What relation might there be between the outcome of comedy as represented by the Clouds and its moral lessons According to me the hero of The Bacchae is Pentheus In this tragedy the moral lesson is to keep your desires in control However desire prevails over control Cadmus was initially the one who didn t accept Dionysus to the Thebes Kingdom and his family Why should Pentheus be punished for something that has been engrained into his mind since he was a child Pentheus was a man of preserving law and conduct He liked having some organization in his life However he was victim to a demi god taking over his kingdom and driving the women mad Pentheus had to deal with the chaos in his kingdom with women fleeing to the forest and behaving in a licentious manner Not accustomed to the idea of a demi god he believed that the women were using it as an excuse to behave in that fashion Moreover Pentheus wasn t quite convinced to go into the forest to spy on the women in the first place when he heard how closely his messengers had escaped and the Bacchic women had torn apart the cattle into miniscule pieces He was then victim to the magic powers of Dionysus who cast a spell on him and convinced him to go to the forest to spy on the women This was a part of his evil plan to get rid of Pentheus Once Pentheus reaches the forest Dionysus helps him climb up a tree so that he could get a clear view of the women Once he was in their sight Dionysus signals them to kill him The most tragic part of this play lies in the end when Dionysus orders Pentheus s mother Agave to behead him and carry his head back to the kingdom as if she had killed a lion Agave was clueless about her deeds as she was under a spell One of the moral lessons also says that one mustn t interfere with gods This tragedy shows us the outcome and sorrow a person has to go through because he didn t believe that Dionysus was a demi god The tragedy lies in the fact that Pentheus wasn t the one who started this notion In fact it was his fathers belief he was carrying forward In the play Clouds by Aristophanes Strepsiades and his son Phiddipides are the protagonists Socrates convinces Strepsiades that god doesn t exist and the weather pattern is solely produced due to the clouds Strepsiades seems to be thinking irrationally and making thoughtless decisions This is one of the main reasons why his son Phiddipides beats him up in order to make him realize and get back into senses This raises two issues First of all Phiddipides shouldn t have beaten up his father as that is a disrespectful and immoral thing to do The moral lesson this play teaches us is to respect and treat our elders well Secondly the beating is seen as a necessary evil Only after his son beats him up Strepsiades gets a hold of himself and gets back on track Strepsiades once again begins believing in god again The major difference between the two plays lies in the fact that Pentheus probably didn t deserve his fate and Strepsiades does as he brought it upon himself through impracticality and stubbornness The passage below comes from a Sumerian poem detailing a contest between Dumuzi god of shepherds and Enkimdu god of farmers both of whom seek the hand of the goddess Inanna Which of our readings from the past semester does this most remind you of What differences and similarities between them do you find most important The Sumerian Poem of Dumuzi and Enkimdu remind me of the Babylonian text The Epic of Gilgamesh we read in class There is a semantic parallelism between the two along with a few contrasts differentiating the two Dumuzi or the god of shepherds runs parallel to the King of Uruk Gilgamesh where as Enkimdu as the name suggests runs parallel to Enkidu In the Epic of Gilgamesh we initially see the conflict building between Gilgamesh and Enkidu Gilgamesh is enraged when he hears of a creature present in the wild who is actually stronger and mightier than he is He sends Shamhat the Harlot to see if this was actually true Enkidu mates with her and becomes civilized He comes to the city of Uruk to fight the evil king who had been troubling the citizens of Uruk This conflict is brought out in the Sumerian Poem quite effectively Dumuzi begins the poem by refusing to believe that Enkimdu could be better than him in any way He gives the reader examples of how he could override Enkimdu in every field possible be it garment wine or milk Throughout the beginning of the poem we don t see any physical appearance of Enkimdu which yet again runs parallel to the Epic of Gilgamesh where we notice that Enkidu only enters the play afterwards The first encounter between Enkidu and Gilgamesh is a combat where Gilgamesh defeats Enkidu and then befriends him Similarly Dumuzi and Enkimdu quarrel and at the end of it they become companions or lovers Another striking similarity is the use of the names Enkidu and Enkimdu along with the city of Uruk and Erech have a similar ring to their sounds However the poem and play face a few differences According to me the roles of the protagonists have been reversed In the play Gilgamesh represents civilizations where as Enkidu represents wildlife In the poem it is the other way round Dumuzi is the god of shepherds which represents animals or wildlife whereas Enkimdu is the god of farmers or civilization The use of the words yellow milk white ew honey cheese as opposed to garments and date wine shows the two fields that each character represents An important connecting vehicle that sets the play a part from the poem is Shamhat the harlot and the goddess Inanna Shamhat is the reason Enkidu meets with Gilgamesh Gilgamesh sends Shamhat to Enkidu He doesn t have any feelings for the harlot and objectifies her assuring himself of the fact that any man would fall for her physical characteristics Whereas Dumuzi and Enkimdu both love the goddess and are fighting for her hand Even though both the women might be the medium through which the protagonists meet they both play a different part in the play lust and love