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mask131 · 4 months

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The myth of Dionysos (3)

For the previous posts, see here and here.

V) The cult of Dionysos : Outside the city, inside the city

Such a god apparently does not have his place in the Ancient Greek city. Séchan-Lévêque reminds us that his religion, at the same time joyful and wild, is centered around the “thiasus”, that is to say a gathering of male and female beings joining outside of any civic or familial setting. According to Euripides’ description and to the various visual depictions of Ancient Greece, all the cultural elements surrounding Dionysos are the very opposite of the rational organization of a State. His cult takes place on the countryside, in woods and mountains. It takes place at night. The participants wear an animal skins over their clothes (or replacing their chiton), their hair is wild or crowned by ivy or laurel, their belt is made of a snake or a baby leopard hangs from it ; in one hand they hold the thyrsus and in the other a small animal (hare or young fawn). The music played for Dionysos is strange: flutes, tympanum and castanets. His ceremonies are chaotic: wild dances, convulsions, exhausting races. His sacrifice is performed by ripping apart animals before eating their raw flesh. The thiasus could be made of men, but the most famous of all the thiasus is the female one, and its members are called the Menads, the Bacchants, the Thyads, the Bassarides… Ordinarily, women of Ancient Greece were locked up inside the gynaeceum, so to have them becoming wild and savage makes the cult of Dionysos a unique one, set apart by the official religious events of the city, since he breaks all urban religious rules. Similarly, the mysteries of Dionysos unite together men and women, citizens and slaves, which meant breaking apart the Ancient Greek social hierarchy.

And yet, this Dionysos that destroys the order of the city is greatly honored at Delphi, the domain of the Greekest of all gods, Apollo. The Pythia reminds the audience, in Aeschylus’ Eumenids, that she honors the nymphs over which rules Bromios and his Bacchants, with explicit references to the story of Pentheus. Every year, during the three months of winter, while Apollo leaves for Hyperborea, Dionysos replaces him. And every two years, the Thyads of Delphi and the Bacchants of Athens, holding torches, celebrate on mount Parnassus the son of Semele. In the adyton of Apollo’s temple, legends claimed Dionysos’ tomb could be found. The poets frequently exchanged the names and nicknames of the two deities: Aeschylus wrote in Bassarids of “Apollo with ivy, a bacchant and a seer”, while Euripides in Likymnion wrote of “Lord Bakchos, friend of the laurel, Pean-Apollon with the beautiful lyre”. As such, despite Nietzsche’s strict opposition between the god of harmonious restraint and the deity of savage drunkenness, the two gods are actually far from being polar opposites.

Dionysos also finds a home at Athens. We already saw several of the festivals in his honor there: Apaturia, Anthesteria, Oschophoria… But to those can be added the agrarian Dionysia, the the Lenaia, and especially the great Dionysia: during those, contests of dithyrambic, of tragedies and of comedies were held, gathering an audience coming from all four corners of Greece. Traditionally, the tragedy, the “tragodia”, is read as meaning “the song of the goat”, tragou-ôdè, since the goat was the animal traditionally sacrificed to the god. During the first day of the Great Dionysia, the statue of Dionysos was carried inside the “orchestra”, at the very heart of the city. And during the contests, a place of honor was kept for the priest of Dionysos. The marginal god clearly earned his place among men and Olympians.

Because, according to the Bacchants, inside the Dionysian chaos, there si a superior order, an “eukosmia” that unfortunately Pentheus fails to see, since he is a young tyrant filled with hubris. However the wise rulers of Athens did perceive and honor this superior order – unlike the Roman Senators that, in 186 BCE, harshly repressed any participations to the Bacchanals.

VI) Dionysos in service of political and religious doctrines: various uses

Multiple, complex, contradictory and shapeshifting: the god offered to the political and religious domains a very malleable material. For example, there are obvious links and mutual influences between the eastward journey of Dionysos and the eastward journey of Alexander. Alexander, just like his soldiers, and just like his historians, know of the story of the god’s travel to the East – the Dionysos of Euripides, in the Bacchants, said himself: “I left Lydia with his gold-fertile fields, I left the plains of Phrygia for the sun-burned plateaus of Persia, the walled cities of Bactrian, and the land of the Medes, frozen by winter ; and happy Arabia ; and finally all of Asia, laying by the salted waters…” Alexander took his army on the very steps of Dionysos. Of course, the Great was going to make the god the patron of his expedition, and as such Alexander was celebrated as the “new Dionysos” (a title that future rulers of Alexandria will also bear). The parallel grows stronger with the encounter by Alexander’s army of a town named Nysa, located near the mount Meros (a word that sounds similar to the Greek word for “thigh”) – the prince claimed the people of Nysa were descendants of the Greek people that Dionysos took with his on his own journey. However, in a complete circle, the adventure of Alexander the Great influenced greatly Dionysos’ own travels. India, for example, was never named in the tale of the Bacchants. But after the exploits of Alexander, Dionysos became the conqueror of India. Poets, painters and sculptors all depicted him taking part in this “war of India” that Euripides had never heard about. In the 5th century CE, this tale grew to enormous proportions thanks to Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, an epic in 48 chants, and where the Indian travel is described from chant 13 to 40.

Despite the recent doubts of some scholars, there is a possibility that Cesar and Augustus used for their political agenda the glory of this god celebrated everywhere in the oriental part of the Roman empire, and even in Rome itself – by both the Greco-Oriental population and the administrative elite of the Hellenism. Indeed, the assimilation between Dionysos and the Latium god Liber Pater had been done for a long time by now, and that despite some strong oppositions (such as the stern repression of the cult of Dionysos in 186). And the success of this religion was noticed by the political authorities. Servius commented what Virgil wrote in his Bucolics, about how Daphnis, on a “chariot pulled by Armenian tigers”, was the first to introduce the “thiasos of Bacchus”. Servius reminds his reader that in truth, it was Cesar that first brought the “mysteries of Liber Pater” to Rome – and as such behind the triumph of Daphnis, one reads as much the travels of Alexander as the exploits of Cesar… Two men that Augustus claims to be the heir of.

This “politic of Dionysos” knew its climax between the second and third century CE, through Hadrian the philhellenic, who demanded to be called the “new Dionysos”. In the same tradition as Alexander the Great, and as the many Hellenistic rulers, from Gallian (who, while leading a double fight against the Barbarians and the Christians, wanted to return to the Greek tradition) to Elagabalus (who had the habit of driving a chariot pulled by lions and tigers).

Dionysos was also used for philosophical and religious agendas. As such, the Orphics, reused in their beliefs the myth of the god’s murder by the Titans. Marcel Detienne wrote about how the myth of Dionysos was the perfect illustration for the main teaching of Orpheus: refrain from murder. In its double sense of 1) do not kill your fellow human being ; but also as 2) do not eat meat. On top of that, Dionysos’ resurrection echoed the belief in palingenesis of the disciples of Orpheus.

With this context, it makes sense that Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria or Firmicus Maternus, focused their attacks onto a myth that, for them, was a caricature of their beliefs and a parody of the sacraments of their own religion. Passion and Resurrection (Gregory of Nazianzus even used three hundred verses of the Bacchants in his Christus Patiem), Eucharist, and even the concept of Original Sin – because Dion Chrysostom wrote that mankind was born from the ashes of the Titans mixed with the earth. As such, humanity was part at the same time of the crime of the Titans, and of the divinity of Dionysos (who had been eaten by the Titans). The Christian attacks were also very strong because Orphism, through this myth, had brought to the cult of Dionysos the theology that it lacked (since in the Mysteries of Dionysos, the ritual had a larger and stronger place than the theory).

VII) A diversity of interpretations

In front of such a complex and elusive personality, it is impossible to give just one interpretation of the character of Dionysos. From the third millennium BCE to the fall of the Roman Empire, the god constantly played a role – his figure was constantly shaped by societies, governments and people. As such, the interpretations offered by mythologists allow us to better understand Dionysos, but they will never be complete or exhaustive. As much, all they can do is bring to light some key elements of his being.

While the mythologists of the early 20th century were prone to excesses, the interpretations of names such as Frazer, Farnell or Miss Harrison are still very interesting. Dionysos is first and foremost a vegetation god, a fecundity god, a chthonian god. Many of his ceremonies are rituals celebrating renewal. He is a god of plants; his emblem if the thyrsus, a branch or a reed stalk crowned by leaves of ivy/vine, or by a pine cone. All these plants play a important role in both the rites and the myth of Dionysos, even though from the 7th century BCE onward he specializes himself as the god of the grapevine and of wine. Dionysos is the lord of the tree. As we saw before, he is related to the Oriental mother-goddesses and to the Aegean world. His wife is Ariadne – who might have been during the Classical era a human, but that was once an Aegean goddess of vegetation. Dionysos is the master of both animal and human fecundity – his favorite companions, the satyrs, the donkeys, the goats, the bulls, are all depicted with a very large phallus. He went down into the Underworld to bring back his mother Semele, and he presides over the Anthesteria, which was a celebration of the dead. Zagreus was believed to have for a mother Persephone, and for a father either Zeus or Hades – and in fact, Zagreus was sometimes identified as being an alternate identity of Hades. This chthonian side of Dionysos was developed in his mysteries: the initiation, the purifications, the teaches of sacred formulas have for a main purpose to allow the dead to escape all the dangers that threaten their travel to the afterlife ; and ultimately, to allow them to find happiness in the Hades.

The Bacchic drunkenness and the possessios/trances of the Menads have also brought forward numerous psychological, psychoanalytical and ethnological commentaries. The dances of the Bacchants were compared to those of the whirling dervishes, of the Jewish Hasidim, of the Siberian shamans and of the American Shakers. This phenomenon was proven to have been widespread throughout all of the Antique Mediterranean world – and to still be existing today in a part of Africa. Séchan-Lévêque noted that the “delirium of the Bacchants” was in many ways similar to neuropathic manifestations. Convulsive and spasmodic movements, the body bending backwards, the neck being thrown around… Both also involve a feeling of depersonalization, the feeling of the self being invaded by an outside persona or entity. Psychanalysts saw a parallel between the mechanisms of the Dionysian possession and various concepts of child-psychanalysis: they claimed that the ritual of the god had a therapeutic effect. The Dionysos-Hades becomes a Dionsyso-Asclepios.

Another theory that should not be ignored is the theory of the “pharmakos”, or the theory of the “scape-goat”, that was popularized by Frazer and then by René Girard in his interpretation of Euripides’ play. The tragedy of the Bacchants presents itself at first like a ritual bacchanal. All differences are erased: all take part in the celebration, be them old or young, male or female, citizens or slaves. But the party goes wrong, violence arrives. The difference becomes an inversion: women perform martial activities, men disguise themselves into women. Human and animal worlds are confused for one another: the Bacchants rip apart of a herd of cow they mistake for men, Pentheus ties up a bull he thought was Dionysos, Agave murders Pentheus while seeing before her a lion. Pentheus, in his transvestite outfit, is a Carnival prince, a temporary king – as Jeanne Roux notes, he is at the same time the scape-goat carrying with him all the soiling and vices of the past year, and the sacrificial victim to open a new and clean year. The symbolism becomes even more obvious due to the fact that Pentheus, in his female disguise, climbs on top of a pine and falls from it. A. G. Bather, in The Problem of the Bacchae (Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1894), noted that in Russia, during Pentecost Thursday, there was a very similar ritual. Villagers had to cut down a young pine-tree and disguise it as a woman before bringing “her” to the village in great joy. Three days later, on Trinity Sunday, the wooden figure was taken out of the village and thrown in a body of water. In Euripides’ play, at the end of the party, the pine-tree is ripped away, the king is killed and torn apart: Pentheus is inflicted a diasparagmos (a dismemberment) by the hands of his own mother and of his aunts. Which in turn will become new scapegoats, as they will be banished from the city afterwar. A new order will rule over Thebes: as René Girard notes in La Violence et le sacré (Violence and the sacred), Dionysos is the god “of the successful lynching”. However we saw previously that Pentheus is the double of Dionysos. Just like his adversary/reflection, the god, in the myth of the Titans, also suffers a diasparagmos. As such there is an identification between the pine-tree that is uprooted, and Dionysos Dendritès, god of the trees. While in Euripides’ play the god appears as the organizer and the force behind the scapegoat ceremony, it is possible that in ancient times he used to be the victim of said ceremony.

Finally, numerous analogies bring Dionysos close to the “kouroi”, the novices that undergo initiation-trials. Pausanias describes how Cadmos placed Semele and young Dionysos in a chest that was thrown in the water and ended in Brasiai/Prasiai (a port of Laconia). This type of trial was also known by other great heroes – Perseus, Moises, Romulus. Just like the initiated ones of the three first classes of Ancient India (the dvija), Dionysos is “twice-born”. Just like Achilles, Herakles and Jason, who were all raised by the horse-man Chiron, Dionysos knew animal-men during his childhood: the goat-men that were the satyrs and the silenes ; but also wolf-men, such as Lycurgus (whose name means “He who acts as a wolf, from lukos “wolf” and “ergon”, action), or Athamas (that Apollodorus compares to a wolf). Just like Achilles that was disguised as a girl, just like Theseus that was mocked for his dress and braided hair, just like Herakles that had put on a dress before queen Omphalus, Dionysos knew the experience of the feminine cross-dressing. Just like Achilles, Melicertes, Herakles, Pelops and Jason, there is the trial of the cauldron – killed, dismembered and boiled, he was resurrected. (Jeanmaire wrote that it is a legend with a strong initiation symbolism, and that seems to answer to very archaic practices explaining or interpreting the dangers that threaten children and teenagers). Just like in African initiation rituals, the rhombus played a key part in his death-resurrection. Just like Pelops, whose homosexual loves for Poseidon have analogies with the initiation of young Cretans, Dionysos, with the mysterious Prosumnos, acts as the hero of an initiation-adventure. Just like Odysseus, Herakles, Orpheus, Theseus, Aeneas or Jason (the latter only through symbolism), he went into the Underworld. Finally, just like Theseus and Gilgamesh, he plunged in the water (and even twice) to escape Lycurgus and to find his mother in the Hades. All those trials are so many shapes of initiation rituals, of obligatory rites of passages allowing the teenager to leave the world of childhood and to join the world of adults.

As such, despite all the critical efforts to understand Dionysos’ personality, to bring an exhaustive interpretation including both his complexity and diversity, the god keeps escaping our minds, breaking our settings, removing the chains with which we would try to bind him. All the way until the end, he will stay elusive. So let us remember how, in both the Homeric hymn to Dionysos, and the Bacchants, Dionysos is always presented as the “un-binder”, as the “Eleuthereus”, the “Luaios”, the “Lusios”, the one that detaches, that sets free ; the god on who all ropes and all binds fall to the ground, the god who can escape any net without effort, the entity that can never be trapped because all those that think they caught him are in fact not even touching him.

#dionysos #dionysus #greek god #greek gods #mythology #ancient greece #ancient rome #roman religion #greek religion #roman gods #roman mythology #alexander the great #bacchants #pentheus #orphic cult #orphic religion

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emblematicemblazer · 4 months

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World building and theories of Engage

Griss

Griss's name is derived from the Old French word for grey, ‘gris'. I believe that the botanical reference for his name is the pinot gris grape vine. The grape vine is an important symbol in many religions and mythologies, I shall start with the Bible where the grapes and grapevine can represent abundance, as well as the blood shed by Jesus Christ for our sins. The shedding of blood and the suffering of The Passion by Jesus Christ link suffering to bring a sacred passage. Griss endures pain and sheds blood in devotion to the Fell Dragon. The symbolism of the grapevine as abundance is echoed by the connection to fertility deities such as Hathor and Dionysus.

I believe that Dionysus’s thiasus represents many of Griss's qualities; lusty, devotional, excessive and intoxication. In Greek mythology, Dionysus fell In love/lust with a satyr named Ampelos and pursued him violently and lustfully. Ampelos died when he was tossed from a wild bull and fired to death. The blood of Ampelos was used to create the first grapevine.

Dionysus's thiasus included unsavoury individuals, depicted as inebriated revellers, such as maenads, satyrs, silenus and centaurs. Satyrs loved excess of wine, music, dancing and women and would often try to seduce it rape nymphs and mortals. Images of satyrs depict them pleasuring themselves or engaging in bestiality. The Silenus ruled over daimons and were associated with joyful drunkenness and drunken dances. The centaurs who followed Dionysus were as wild as untamed horses and were associated with rape and fighting. All of Dionysus's companions engaged in ribaldry.

The female followers of Dionysus were known as the maenads. They were often depicted in a state of ecstatic frenzy due to dancing and intoxication. In their ritualistic frenzy they would carry a thyrsus wrapped in ivy, vine leaves or both. The state Griss joined The Four Hounds is not dissimilar to the ecstatic frenzy and drunkenness of Dionysus's thiasus. In the B support conversation between Gregory and Mauvier we learn that Griss was ‘almost incapable of ordinary conversation. A complete pariah.’ Griss displays lusty behaviour when openly drools over pain, an example is in Chapter 20 - The Kingless Castle when Marni and Mauvier are punished for losing two rings and In the same chapter engages in ribaldry with Alear where he lustily dares the Dragon to ‘tear him limb from limb from limb.’

Upon his cloak are symbols of eyes. The symbol of eyes are associated with worshippers of The Fell Dragon. Visit Zelkov's page for more about the meaning of the eye.

The black and grey colours of his attire represent his name. A character called grey should be dressed in similar tones. Black is also a colour associated with darkness and villains. The spikes and belts are edgy features designed to create an intimidating look. They are also a nod to his sadistic nature. The fuschia flames also feature on Mauvier's attire and I believe they represent the Fell Dragon. In his early teachings, Buddha taught that there fires of the mind burn the mind and the world. These fires are raga (lust), dvesha (anger) and moha (delusion). There are also symbols of diamonds, In Buddhism the diamond is indestructible, clear, yet reflects every colour and symbolises the nature of the mind. His garments also depict the naga, particularly on his face and the front part of his skirt. Due to the shedding of their skin, nagas represent the cycle of birth, mortality, death, rebirth, mortality, death. Snakes also symbolise the Buddha and other powerful deities.

#fire emblem engage #fe engage #fe griss

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dionysus-complex · 3 months

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hello! I read you're "predominantly a Romanist" so I'm not really sure if you can help me but I have this question bugging me for weeks and I thought some clarity from people more expert than me could probably be insightful, so here's the tea: many generations of Italian high schoolers have been taught that Sappho was the headmaster of some sort of college (the term used in lit history books is "thiasus", but I'm 99% sure this is some wild anachronism, and that if such institution even existed it was certainly not called that); according to Ye Olde Books, this thiasus was some sort of bon ton academy to prep young girls for womanhood and marriage, and Sappho's homoerotic poetry must be therefore viewed through this "socratic" lens. Herein lies the issue, that while there seems to be no ancient evidence to prove or disprove this fact, every Italian schoolbook I've stumbled upon either in high school or university never provided a source for this (they all mention the Souda which is problematic in itself, but even there it's only said that her pupils were so and so and so, not that she was actually the head of any formal institution). Plus, looking over on wikipedia, the Italian one takes the thiasus claim at face value without even giving a source (again), while the English wikipedia goes at a length to explain that this idea has no historical grounds and it's just a xix century suggestion. I've even stumbled upon this Maximus Tyrius rhetorician from the second century and he quotes Sappho's views on love and the women she loved, without explicitly saying they were her pupils or part of an academic circle.

So, here's my question: is this concept actually still taught in the Anglo world, and is there any substantial evidence for it? Is it just a weird little straightwashing lie that is still taught in my home country to try and justify any homoerotic reading of the Lesbian, or is there possibly any truth in it?

Sorry for the long ask but I'm going kinda insane here, and i thought one thing i could do is hear from some non Italians cause it's clear to me that all Italian texts are more or less a copypaste of each other on this subject; if you could please tell me anything about this I'd be so thankful, thanks a lot xoxo

Hello! It's been a minute since I've been seriously engaged with Sappho scholarship, but this is something I am familiar with.

The short answer is, no, as far as I know there is no real ancient evidence for it and the concept has generally been regarded as debunked in English-language scholarship since the 90s. The oldest source we have for the concept is the 10th c. CE Souda, which (as you mention) is deeply problematic for a variety of reasons, and it seems probable that the idea of Sappho's thiasos originates with one of the many Greek comedies about Sappho (Sappho was something of a stock character in Greek comedy, with the joke typically being her excessive (hetero-)sexuality rather than homosexuality). The idea seems to have been picked up by 19th century German scholars, and the argument for it relies on the testimony in the Souda along with apparent parallels between Sappho's expression of homoerotic desire and the homoerotic language between women and girls in Alcman's parthenaia, which do have a context of chorus trainer/trainee relationships. However, there is probably no good reason to assume that Alcman/Sappho parallels make for a strong argument considering that the texts come from entirely different city-states and social contexts. I do know that Renate Schlesier has argued for a much less heteronormative and IMO more plausible version of the thiasos idea, which is essentially that the circle of women mentioned in Sappho's poetry is not any kind of "academy to prepare (aristocratic) young women for marriage" but a circle of enslaved sex workers/courtesans (hetairai). Schlesier cites the fact that the female personal names mentioned in Sappho's poetry are all names that would typically be associated with enslaved women and hetairai, at least prior to the Hellenistic period, and considering that the symposium was probably the main venue for the performance of erotic lyric in antiquity this seems to make a good deal of sense.

I won't recommend the article that essentially debunked the thiasos idea on account of its author being a truly awful person for unrelated reasons, but I would recommend this excellent Eidolon piece on "Re-Queering Sappho" as well as Melissa Mueller's 2021 chapter "Sappho and Sexuality" in The Cambridge Companion to Sappho (link here, but probably requires a library subscription) which covers the history of the idea very well and presents a compelling reworking of the idea of Sappho's circle in a way that embraces rather than resists the queerness of Sappho's poetry.

#sappho #asks

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nyxshadowhawk · 2 years

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Hellenic Gods Fact Sheets and Hymns: Dionysus

Dionysus

Other Names: Bacchus, Zagreus, Liber Epithets: Bakkhos (frenzied), Bromios (the roaring), Eleutheros (the liberator), Meilichios (the mild/gracious), Maenoles (the mad), Nyctelius (of the night), Nyctipolos (night-stalker), Staphylites (of the grape), Theoineos (god of wine), Agathos Daimon (good spirit), Oenops (wine-faced), Antheos (the blooming), Kisseus (of the ivy), Kittophoros (ivy-bearer), Dimetor (twice-born/of two mothers), Dimorphos (two-formed), Dithyrambos (of the dithyramb), Areios (warlike), Kryphios (hidden), Karpios (of the harvest), Hyes (of moisture/the dripping), Ekstatophoros (bringer of ecstasy), Boukeros (bull-horned), Aigobolus (goat-slayer), Melanaegis (of the black goat-skin), Lysios (loosener/deliverer), Lenaeus (of the wine-press), Limnaios (of the marsh/liminal), Psilas (giver of wings), Psilax (uplifted on wings), Soter (savior), Khthoinios (of the Underworld), Dendrites (of trees), Eubouleos (of good counsel), Polymorphos (many-formed), Khryphion (hidden), Khoreutes (the dancer), Melpomenus (singer/of the tragedy play), Phleon (the luxuriant), Omadios/Omaphagos/Omestes (flesh-eater), Bassareus (the fox), Androgynos (androgynous), Agronios (wild, savage), Oinops (wine-dark/wine-faced). Domains: Wine, ritual ecstasy and trance, festivals and revelry, pleasure, madness, hallucinations, intoxication, liberation, fruit, androgyny, GNC and LGBTQ+ people, viticulture, theater and choral songs, life-force, reincarnation. Appearance: He appears to me as an androgynous and beautiful young man with long, curly hair that flows over his shoulders (it’s usually dark brown but seems to change color, being occasionally blond, black, strawberry, etc.). He has wild eyes that are vine-green or the pinkish-purple of grapes, and they’re usually either bright and laughing or disturbingly mad-looking. He typically has ruddy cheeks and a bright smile. He’s usually not wearing much beyond a cloth draped over his body (in white or purple) and/or a leopard pelt, but sometimes appears in in casual modern clothing with a leopard-print jacket. He often wears a grape headdress, and he sometimes has horns resembling a bull’s, ram’s, or goat’s. His laughter is both musical and utterly insane. His aura is the reddish-purple of grapes. Sacred Days and Festivals: Greater/City Dionysia (10-17 Elaphebolion). Lesser/Rural Dionysia (10 Poseideon). Lenaia (12-15 Gamelion). Anthesteria (11-13 Anthesterion). Oskophoria (8 Pynapsion). Haloa (26 Poseideon). Agrionia (nocturnal women’s festival). Symbols/Attributes: Grapes, thyrsus, masks, drinking cups, ivy leaves, tambourine, winnowing basket, honey, phallus, animal skins, leopard-print fabric. Sacred Animals: Leopard/panther, bull, serpent, goat, fox, bee, frog, bat Sacred Plants: Grapevine, ivy, fig, pine, fennel, orchis, thistle. Elemental Affinity: Earth, water, darkness. Planet: Neptune (modern) Colors: Purple, green, gold, burgundy, black. Crystals: Amethyst, grape agate, black diamond Incense: Grape, fig, fennel, musk, cinnamon, frankincense, storax, vanilla, cannabis. Tarot Cards: Temperance, The Hanged Man, The Fool, The Devil, The Hierophant, The King of Pentacles. Retinue: (called the thiasus) Maenads/Bacchantes, satyrs, seilenoi, Ariadne, Silenus, Pan, Thyone (Semele), Kotys, Korymbos, Aristaios, Phales, Methe, Telete Associated People: Actors, social outcasts, women, androgynous/LGBT+ people. Offerings: Wine, honey, grapes, figs, other fruit, ivy, pinecones, milk with honey, mead, sparkling juice, masks, stories/poetry/plays, dance, donations to community theaters or big cat conservation. Syncretized With: Liber Pater, Sabazius, Osiris (though personally I think Shezmu fits better), Serapis, Tammuz, Shiva, Flufluns

Hymns to Dionysus

Homeric Hymn 26 to Dionysus

I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying god, Splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-haired Nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his father And fostered and nurtured him carefully in the dells of Nysa, Where by the will of his father He grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, Being reckoned among the immortals. But when the goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, Then began he to wander continually through the woody coombes, Thickly wreathed with ivy and laurel. And the Nymphs followed in his train with him for their leader; And the boundless forest was filled with their outcry. And so hail to you, Dionysus, god of abundant clusters! Grant that we may come again rejoicing to this season, And from that season onwards for many a year.

Orphic Hymn to Dionysus

Dionysos I call, loud-roaring and divine, Primeval God, a two-fold shape is thine:  Thy various names and attributes I sing, O, twice-born, thrice begotten, Bacchic king:   Wild, ineffable, two-form'd, obscure, two-horn'd, With ivy crown'd, howling, pure.  Bull-fac'd, and warlike, bearer of the vine, Endowed with counsel prudent [Eubouleos] and divine:  Triennial, whom the leaves of vines adorn, Of Zeus and Persephone, occultly born.  Immortal daimon, hear my suppliant voice, Give me in blameless plenty to rejoice;  And listen gracious to my mystic pray'r, Surrounded with thy choir of nurses fair.

Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Khthonios

Dionysos Khthonios, hear my pray’r, Awakened rise with nymphs of lovely hair: Great Amphietos Bakkhos, annual god, Who laid asleep in Persephone’s abode, Did’st lull to drowsy and oblivious rest, The rites triennial, and the sacred feast; Which rous’d again by thee, in graceful ring, Thy nurses round thee mystic anthems sing; When briskly dancing with rejoicing pow’rs, Thou move’st in concert with the circling hours. Come, blessed, fruitful, horned, and divine, And on these rites with joyful aspect shine. Accept the general incense and pray’r, And make prolific holy fruits thy care.

Orphic Hymn to Dionysos Lenaios

Hear me, Zeus’s son, blest Bacchus, god of wine, Born of two mothers, honor’d and divine, Lysian, Euion Bacchus, various-nam’d, Secret child of gods, holy, fam’d Fertile and nourishing, in whose liberal care Earth’s fruits increases, flourishing and fair; Sounding, magnanimous, Lenaean pow’r O various-form’d, medicinal, holy flow’r: Mortals in thee, repose from labour find, Delightful charm, desir’d by all mankind: Fair-hair’d Euion, Bromios, joyful God, Lysian, invested in the leafy rod. To these our rites, benignant pow’r incline, When fav’ring men, or when on Gods you shine; Be present to thy mystic’s suppliant pray’r, Rejoicing come, and fruits abundant bear.

Orphic Hymn to Triennial Dionysus

Bacchus frantic, many-nam’d, blest, divine, Bull-faced Lenaean, bearer of the vine, From fire descended, raging, Nysian king, From whom initial ceremonies spring: Liknitan Dionysos, pure and firey bright, Eubouleos, crown-bearer, wandering in the night: Pupil of Persephone, mysterious pow’r, Triple, ineffable, Zeus’ secret flow’r, Ericapaeus, first-begotten nam’d, Of Gods the father, and the child fam’d, Bearing a scepter, leader of the choir, Whose dancing feat, frantic Furies fire, When the triennial band thou dost inspire. Loud-sounding, Tages, of a firey light, Born of two mothers, Amphitios bright: Wand’ring on mountains, cloth’d with skins of deer, Apollo, golden-ray’d, whom all revere. God of the grape with leaves of ivy crown’d, Bassarian, lovely, virgin-like, renown’d, Come blessed pow’r, regard thy mystic’s voice, Propitious come, and in these rites rejoice.

Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Bassarius:

Come, blessed Dionysus, various nam’d, bull-faced, Begot from Thunder, Bacchus fam’d Bassarian God, of universal might, Whom swords and blood and sacred rage delight: In heav’n rejoicing, mad, loud-sounding God Furious inspirer, bearer of the Rod By Gods rever’d, who dwells’t with humankind, Propitious come, with much-rejoicing mind.

Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Liknitos:

Liknitan Dionysos, bearer of the vine, Thee I invoke to bless these rites divine: Florid and gay, of nymphs the blossom bright, And of fair Venus, goddess of delight, Tis thine mad footsteps with mad nymphs to beat Dancing thro’ groves with lightly leaping feet: From Zeus’ high counsels nursed by Proserpine And born the dread of all pow’rs divine: Come, blessed daimon, regard thy suppliant’s voice, Propitious come, and in these rites rejoice.

Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Perikionios:

Dionysos Perikionios, hear my pray’r, Who mad’st the house of Cadmus once thy care, With matchless force, his pillars twining round When burning thunders shook the solid ground In flaming, founding torrents borne along, Propt by thy grasp indissolubly strong. Come mighty Bacchus to these rites inclin’d, And bless thy suppliant with rejoicing mind.

Verses from the first Hymn to Dionysus in Euripedes’ Bacchae

O blessed is he who, happy in his heart, Knows the initiation rites of the gods, Purifies his life and Joins his soul to the cult, Dancing on the mountains, with holy purifications Celebrating the Bacchic rituals. O blessed the man who dutifully observes The mysteries of the Great Mother, Kybele. Swinging high the thyrsus And crowned with ivy He serves Dionysus. Onward you Bacchae, onward Bacchae, Escort the roaring Bromios home, A god an the son of a god! Escort him Down from the Phrygian mountains into Greece’s wide-wayed streets, Streets wide for dancing, Bromios the Roaring God! […] Sweet is the pleasure the god brings us in the mountains. when from the running revelers he falls to the ground clad in his sacred fawnskin. Hunting the blood of slaughtered goats for the joy of devouring raw flesh he rushes through the mountains of Lydia, of Phrygia. Hail to the Roaring God, Bromios our leader! Euoi! The ground flows with milk, Flows with wine, Flows with the nectar of bees. The Bacchic One, lifting high the bright-burning flame of the pine-torch, like the smoke of Syrian frankincense, springs up and rushes along with his thyrsus. Running and dancing he incites any wanderers, shakes them with shouts of joy tossing his luxuriant locks to the wind.

(Translation by Stephen Esposito)

Horace’s Hymn to Bacchus

Bacchus on the far-off rocky hills, teaching his chants – you who are still to come, believe me – I saw him and his student Nymphs and goat-footed Satyrs and their pointed ears.

Euhoë! – my soul trembles with that moment's fear, Bacchus possesses my breast and I madly rejoice. Euhoë!, spare me, god of freedom [Liber], spare me, god of the fearful thyrsus of power.

I must celebrate your inexhaustible revelers, and the fountains of wine and full rivers of milk, and mirror in song honey dripping from the hollows of trees;

I must celebrate your bride and her constellated crown, and Pentheus' palace shaken to bits in a mighty downfall, and the destruction of Lycurgus of Thrace.

You control the streams, the savage sea, you are hot with wine as on distant hilltops you bind Bistonian [Thracian] women's hair with a knot of vipers that do not harm them.

And when the rebellious army of giants tried to climb the heights to the Father's kingdom, you were the one who threw back Rhoetus and his terrible lion's claws and teeth;

Although you were said to be more suitable for dances and fun and games and were labeled unfit for a battle, yet you took your part in war as well as in peacetime.

You were graced with golden horn when Cerberus saw you: he was harmless, and softly wagged his tail, and as you were leaving, he licked your legs and feet with all three of his tongues.

(Translation by Joseph P. Clancy, University of Chicago Press, 1960)

Disclaimers: Descriptions of the gods’ appearances are purely a record of how I personally see them. Gods are shapeshifters that can appear however they wish, and will be perceived differently by different people. My own perceptions of them may or may not match ancient artwork. Correspondences listed are mostly modern. Festival dates are based on the Attic calendar. Offerings listed are all specific to the deity in addition to standard ones. Translations of hymns are from Theoi unless otherwise specified. Sources: THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY, neosalexandria, HellenicGods.org, κοράκι/crow's grimoire

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