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


 

flame. (Naturally, the weapon of Dionysus is fire,
because it.is his father’s and comes from the thunderbolt. Zeus, the father of Dionysys, revealed himself to Semele,
his mother, in all his glory, at her own request. Killed by
his thunderbolt, she gave untimely birth to Dionysus, whom
Zeus stitched into his own thigh and in due time brought
into the world. ) Then at last they hurriedly took arms,
saddled and bridled their elephants and put the
towers on them, and sallied out against the enemy.
Even then they despised them, but were angry at
them all the same, and eager to crush the life out of
the beardless general and his army. 

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. οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον· ἐπὶ τῶν τὰ μὴ προσήκοντα τοῖς
ὑποκειμένοις λεγόντων. Explained by Zenobius as said in the
theatre, when poets began to write about Ajax and the
Centaurs and other things not in the Dionysiac legend.
See Paroemiographi Graeci i. p. 137. 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” The source of the anapaest κώμων κοινῶν τῶν τότε καιρῶν
is unknown. 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.”