Dionysus: an Introduction (1-5)

When Dionysus led his host against the men of Ind (surely there is nothing to prevent my telling you a tale of Bacchus!), he was held at first in such contempt, they say, by the people there, that they laughed at his advance; more than that, they pitied him for his hardihood, because he was certain to be trampled under foot in an instant by the elephants if he deployed against them. No doubt they heard curious reports about his army from their scouts: “His rank and file are crack-brained, crazy women, wreathed with ivy, dressed in fawn-skins, carrying little headless spears which are of ivy too, and light targes that boom if you do but touch them”—for they supposed, no doubt, that the tambours were shields. ‘A few young clodhoppers are with them, dancing the can-can without any clothes on; they have tails, and have horns like those which start from the foreheads of new-born kids.

As for the general himself, he rides on a car behind a team of panthers; he is quite beardless, without even the least bit of down on his cheek, has horns, wears a garland of grape clusters, ties up his hair with

On hearing this, the Hindoos and their king roared with laughter, as well they might, and did not care to take the field against them or to deploy their troops; at most, they said, they would turn their women loose on them if they came near. They themselves thought it a shame to defeat them and kill crazy women, a hair-ribboned leader, a drunken little old man, a goat-soldie? and a lot of naked dancers— ridiculous, every one of them! But word soon came that the god was setting the country in a blaze, burning up cities and their inhabitants and firing the forests, and that he had speedily filled all India with

When the forces came together and saw one another, the Hindoos posted their elephants in the van and moved forward in close array. Dionysus had the centre in person; Silenus commanded on the right ‘wing and Pan on the left. The Satyrs were commissioned as colonels and captains, and the general watchword was ‘ Evoe.’ In a trice the tambours were beat, the cymbals gave the signal for battle, one of the Satyrs took his horn and sounded the charge, Silenus’ jackass gave a martial hee-haw, and the Maenads, serpent-girdled, baring the steel of their thyrsus-points, fell on with a shriek. The Hindoos and their elephants gave way at once and fled in utter disorder, not even daring to get within range. The outcome was that they were captured by force of arms and led off prisoners by those whom they had formerly laughed at, taught by experience that strange armies should not have been despised on hearsay.

“But what has your Dionysus to do with Dionysus?”’ someone may say.[*] This much: that in my opinion (and in the name of the Graces don’t suppose me in a corybantic frenzy or downright drunk if I compare myself to the gods!) most people are in the same state of mind as the Hindoos when they encounter literary novelties, like mine for example. Thinking that.what they hear from me will smack of Satyrs and of jokes, in short, of comedy—for that is the conviction they have formed, holding I know not what opinion of me—some of them do not come at all, believing it unseemly to come off their elephants and give their attention to the revels of women and the skippings of Satyrs, while others apparently come for something of that kind, and when they find steel instead of ivy, are even then slow to applaud, confused by the unexpectedness of the thing. But I promise confidently that if they are willing this time as they were before to look often upon the mystic rites, and if my booncompanions of old remember “the revels we shared in the days that are gone”[*] and do not despise my Satyrs and Sileni, but drink their fill of this bowl, they too will know the Bacchic frenzy once again, and will often join me in the “Evoe.”