“Seven Against Thebes” in Mythopoetics of Vyach. Ivanov

Abstract

The article offers an interpretation of Vyach. Ivanov’s dithyramb “Tsari” from his book “Kormchie zvezdy,” namely its final part, written in verset. The seven kings are celebrating a feast when the priest Melamp comes; he transforms the liquids in the kings’ cups into wine, turns himself into Dionysus, and brings seven other kings, who kill their predecessors and put on their masks. The names of the kings originate from Aeschylus’ tragedy “Seven Against Thebes,” which was later partially translated by Ivanov. Ares has a special place in this tragedy, both as the personification of war and as the patron of the Thebans: from the teeth of his sacred dragon, killed by Cadmus, grew the progenitors of the Theban clans. Ivanov suggests that Ares was a hypostasis of Dionysus, and his reasoning is very similar to the conclusions of the German philologist W.-A. Voigt. However, his supposition about the chthonic and Dionysiac nature of some of the characters participating in the campaign against Thebes stems from the opinion of other researchers. The plot of the mystery is inspired by J.G. Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” and by the rite of Lake Nemi, but in Ivanov’s text, the kings and their opponents are not priests of Jupiter but masks of the many-faced Dionysus, who is both priest and victim. Thus, the poet integrates the myth from the Theban cycle into his mythopoetics.

Keywords

• vyacheslav ivanov
• mythopoetics
• dionysism
• “kormchie zvezdy
• ” “tzari
• ” aeschylus
• “seven against thebes.”