After hearing the Herdsman’s first report in Soyinka’s play, Pentheus is afraid that the women of Thebes on the mountain of Kithairon will

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Examining the prompt, we are asked to consider Pentheus’s fear after hearing the Herdsman’s first report in Soyinka’s play and what he fears the Theban women on the mountain of Kithairon will do.
Option 1: 're-enter the city and get the vestals (the women-participants in the Feast of Eleusis) to join them.' This choice suggests a plan to bring the vestals back to Thebes to reinforce a political or religious alliance. However, the Herdsman’s report and Pentheus’s fear are more directly tied to insurrectionary mobilization among the women on the mountain, rather than assembling temple-associated women from Eleusis. The motivation here seems less in line with a slave uprising and more with cultic or ceremonial coalition-building, making this option less plausible given the context.
Option 2: 'stage a slave uprising.' This option aligns with Pentheus’s acute fear that the female followers on the mountain could overturn the social order by rising up against male authority. In the dramatic arc, the women’s gathering on Kithairon is depicted as a potential political danger: a collective uprising that could threaten the patriarchal control of Thebes. This reading coheres with the themes of rebellion, gendered power, and the destabilization of conventional authority in the play, making this the strongest match to Pentheus’s stated fear.
Option 3: 'continue their rampage in the country and destroy the grape harvest.' While upheaval in the countryside would be disruptive, Pentheus’s fear does not primarily focus on economic damage or rural violence. The more salient threat he perceives is the overthrow of social and political order through an organized uprising of women, not incidental damage to agriculture. This option, though not impossible in a broader sense, does not capture the central fear described in relation to the Herdsman’s report.
In summary, option 1 centers on reintegration and cultic association rather than insurgent action; option 2 directly embodies the feared political threat of a slave uprising by the women on the mountain; option 3 emphasizes rural disruption rather than the structural challenge to patriarchal authority. The most coherent and context-fitting interpretation is that Pentheus fears a slave uprising staged by the women on Kithairon, which verticalizes the tension between gendered power and rebellion in the play.

COM LIT 60A LEC A: WOR... Reading Comprehension Quiz #9 on Soyinka, The Bacchae of Euripides. A Communion Rite

After hearing the Herdsman’s first report in Soyinka’s play, Pentheus is afraid that the women of Thebes on the mountain of Kithairon will

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