descriptions of dionysos in the bakkhai (tr. anne carson) that make me lose my mind a little

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descriptions of dionysos in the bakkhai (tr. anne carson) that make me lose my mind a little
A Modern Understanding of Dionysus Hestios
Photo from a vineyard I worked on.
[ID: A close-up image of a Chardonnay white-wine grapevine with three clusters. The clusters are green with some red. Bright green leaves cover the top of the clusters, while below a black irrigation line is visible. The ground below is covered in woodchips, except for a single plant below the clusters].
HESTIOS IS A FUN YET OBSCURE EPITHET OF DIONYSUS. We can infer some of its context due to Zeus Hestios, that being a protector of the home and hearth. This epithet of Dionysus is a favourite of mine—for my home and hearth, he is a household deity as I am a viticulturist and winemaker. My life and livelihood is partially bound by grapevines as I currently work at an orchard that is establishing a vineyard and my responsibility is to make it happen.
The context of this epithet is little known beyond a passage in Pausanias’ iconic Description of Greece:
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 2. 5 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) : "From the gate to the Kerameikos [in Athens] there are porticoes . . . containing shrines of gods, and a gymnasium called that of Hermes. In it is the house of Poulytion . . . [which] in my time it was devoted to the worship of Dionysos. This Dionysos they call Melpomenos (Minstrel) [i.e. of Melpomene, the muse of tragedy], on the same principle as they call Apollon Mousegetes (Leader of the Muses) . . . After the precinct of Apollon is a building that contains earthen ware images, Amphiktyon, king of Athens, Dionysos Hestios (Feasting or Of the Hearth) and other gods. Here also is Pegasos of Eleutherai, who introduced the god [Dionysos] to the Athenians. Herein he was helped by the oracle at Delphoi, which called to mind that the god once dwelt in Athens in the days of Ikarios."
Dionysus Hestios is mentioned in Athens, along with his myth of his devotee Pegasos bringing his cult to the city. Other than references to Zeus Hestios, I have not found any more context for this epithet beyond protecting the home/hearth. Therefore, this aspect of him will be a contender for a strong upg basis.
In my times in wine, I’ve gathered my own gnosis of Dionysus Hestios. He is a protector of the hearth, but in my personal experience, the table wine aspect of Dionysus.
TABLE WINE IN THE MODERN WORLD
Table wine is named exactly for what it is, a wine that sits at your dinner table and a key part of a meal. Italy especially is famous for its cheap table wines, many of which I’ve had at my own tables and dinners. Most commercial wines these days are made to be drinkable on their own—while table wines are uncomfortable and harsh on the tongue. With food, they transform, turning these harsh and bitter wines into something truly enjoyable. It also makes the food taste better. For anyone unknowing, that’s why wine and food pairing is a thing. Unfortunately, the table wine market is slowly beginning to crumble—most modern wine drinkers enjoy more of a good tasting drink instead of a complement of one’s meal. If you have the chance, I recommend buying some and trying it in pairings—it’s a dying market, sadly, and one that has an ancient history behind it.
While table wines slowly fade, there is always a place for them in our lives. I myself have fond memories of a terribly bitter wine being served at my family’s table, and while I hated the taste, I’ve come to fall in love with them in recent years. Dionysus Hestios as a god of the home is a god of table wine, the happy smiles and festive memories of people having their Chianti with some steak or pasta. It’s the thrill of a good food pairing, a decanter, and the hundred years history of people making wine for the common folk instead of just for the aristocrats and their “noble” grapes.
Dionysus Hestios, Hearth warmer, master Of your craft, joy becoming Protect our heart and wine, Let us dance and joy, Under your blessings Of the woody grapevine.
References
DIONYSUS CULT 1 - Ancient Greek Religion. (n.d.). https://www.theoi.com/Cult/DionysosCult.html
You can do something to honor a god and pray to them for something, even if you don't have a personal relationship with them and don't plan to either.
For thousands of years, people around the world have simply just, prayed and given offerings to various divine beings, regardless of personal devotions.
You can pray to Zeus for rain. You can pray to Hermes for a safe journey. You can pray to Apollo before a surgery. You can pray to Hestia when you move into a new place for a home blessing. You can pray to Athena before an important exam. You can pray to Artemis when your pet is at the vet's.
You can ask for a god's intercession at any time, for any reason, without worshipping them on a regular basis.
It's what people of all cultures and civilizations have done since religions came into the lives of humans.
Time to vote!
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to submit their work for this 2022 edition of the City Dionysia. The link to vote is at the end of this post. You have until April 2nd 11:59pm PST to submit your vote. The winners will be announced on April 3rd.
Poetry
The flower of Delos - to Apollon by @piristephes
Perhaps they can be found by @dogsandlyres (tw: nsfw)
A Hymn to Dionysôs by @kallisto-aglaia (tw: nsfw, sex)
Pomegranate molasses by @verticordial
Messenger of Spring by @matriarca-inodora
To Dionysus, a Hymn, after Seneca the Younger by @imperturbitude
Worshippers by anonymous (tw: drugs, alcohol, mental health)
Art
Dionysos by @verticordial
To the Lords of Wild Spaces by @matriarca-inodora
Retellings
Naughty Boys by @aimee-maroux
First meeting of a dying princess and a stranger god by anonymous
Original Myth
Anthesteria by @nyxshadowhawk (winner by default)
CLICK HERE TO VOTE
‘diana and a actaeon’ - gaston casimir saint-pierre (1833-1916)
It’s Lenaia time! (well, it’s pretty soon) so have the usual cheesy holiday cards.
For those who celebrate this festival, I hope you have a very happy Lenaia!
Happy Lenaia to those who celebrate it!
what's a little ritualistic bleeding between friends
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
Euoi! Hail Dionysos!
Sources: xxx/xxx/xxx
"During the festival, the god was perceived as arriving and being present. But his coming was not to be taken for granted. A god had to be invited in order to come to the celebration. The hymnoi kletikoi presupposed his absence and fulfilled the very function of inviting him to appear in a festival; they were part of a complex set of signals, which were supposed to attract the god’s attention. These included signals that could be seen, such as bright clothes, crowns, beautiful animals with gilded horns, and decorated altars, tables, and klinai; signals that could be heard, such as hymns, prayers, invocations, musical performances, and acclamations; and signals that could be smelled, such as incense, wine, and thighs burning on the altar."
- Balty, Jean Charles, and Mark Greenberg, eds. Thesaurus Cultus Et Rituum Antiquorum (ThesCRA). Vol. 5. Getty Publications, 2004. Chapter 7: Festivals and Contests
Fear
I’m always amused and a little bit taken aback when other Hellenes tell me they’re afraid of Dionysos, to the extent that they won’t (or don’t, as a general rule) call on him. Everyone I meet seems to fall into one of two camps: they work closely, or have worked closely, with him, and are thus perfectly okay with him and what he stands for, or they’ve never encountered him before, have only heard stories, and are terrified of him. (There are, of course, a few notable exceptions to this.)
I even received a message the other day from someone who said they were disassociating with me (unfriended me on facebook) because of my “connections to a deeply disturbing god.”
What?
I do understand, I think, the initial fear of him. He’s a wild god, and there’s I think a lot of confusion between him and Pan (who *I* don’t work with). He’s a bringer of madness, his maenads engaged in everything that was “taboo” in society, and he will. Push. Your. Boundaries. My own personal experience aside, though, I still can’t quite grasp the refusal to associate with those who honor him, or the steadfast refusal to acknowledge him as a god.
Really, if you read the stories, the worst things happened to people who REFUSED to acknowledge him. Yeah, some crappy things happened to his followers, too, but they were always, in the end, rewarded—unlike those who refused him worship or refused his godhood altogether, who were royally screwed.
So it amuses me when I encounter that mindset. It also amuses me when I encounter people (like the aforementioned person) who assume that because I honor him above others, that I must be mad, perverted, wild and chaotic. Anyone who knows me knows that I try my best to be pretty level headed, and Dionysos helped me OUT of madness, rather than leading me to it.
If I leave my grin behind, remind me that we’re all mad here and it’s okay. Sun up, sun down the shadows hide me down in Wonderland, Wonderland, nobody knows the way, but if you find it in your dreams, you can find it at your dayjob somewhere south of Hell Take the path to left or right with just your gut to guide you the story is not for anyone else to tell. Go down the rabbit hole and out the other side you can’t go home in the middle of the magic carpet ride you gotta greet the sun before his lovely daughter moon you can’t forsake the journey for the safety of your room until you learn your lesson well.
—S.J. Tucker, “Cheshire Kitten (We’re all mad here)”
A lot of people are made uneasy by a Godly Presence that traverses what we, as humans, are uncomfortable with.
It is true that Dionysos is a God of Madness - because he was driven by Mad by Hera. He was, however, also taught the Rites of Purification which cleanse and purify the soul of the ‘destructive’ aspects of madness by Rhea (or Cybele, or another Goddess, depending on which stream of myth we follow along).
Have you ever gotten drunk and suddenly been filled with ecstasy and love for all of humanity? Felt the sudden surge of love towards those you are drinking with? This is a form of madness.
So, too, if we look at Plato’s tale of the death of Socrates, will we see divination (Manteia) compared with ‘madness’:
“And this which I am about to utter is the recantation of Stesichorus the son of Godly Man (Euphemus), who comes from the town of Desire (Himera), and is to the following effect: “I told a lie when I said” that the beloved ought to accept the non-lover when he might have the lover, because the one is sane, and the other mad. It might be so if madness were simply an evil; but there is also a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men. For prophecy is a madness, and the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona when out of their senses have conferred great benefits on Hellas, both in public and private life, but when in their senses few or none. And I might also tell you how the Sibyl and other inspired persons have given to many an one many an intimation of the future which has saved them from falling. But it would be tedious to speak of what every one knows. There will be more reason in appealing to the ancient inventors of names, who would never have connected prophecy (mantike) which foretells the future and is the noblest of arts, with madness (manike), or called them both by the same name, if they had deemed madness to be a disgrace or dishonour;-they must have thought that there was an inspired madness which was a noble thing; for the two words, mantike and manike, are really the same, and the letter t is only a modern and tasteless insertion. And this is confirmed by the name which was given by them to the rational investigation of futurity, whether made by the help of birds or of other signs-this, for as much as it is an art which supplies from the reasoning faculty mind (nous) and information (istoria) to human thought (oiesis) they originally termed oionoistike, but the word has been lately altered and made sonorous by the modern introduction of the letter Omega (oionoistike and oionistike), and in proportion prophecy (mantike) is more perfect and august than augury, both in name and fact, in the same proportion, as the ancients testify, is madness superior to a sane mind (sophrosune) for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin. Again, where plagues and mightiest woes have bred in certain families, owing to some ancient blood-guiltiness, there madness has entered with holy prayers and rites, and by inspired utterances found a way of deliverance for those who are in need; and he who has part in this gift, and is truly possessed and duly out of his mind, is by the use of purifications and mysteries made whole and except from evil, future as well as present, and has a release from the calamity which was afflicting him. The third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity. But he who, having no touch of the Muses’ madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art-he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman.” - Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedrus. (Italix mine.)
These are not simple matters. You cannot simply reduce ‘madness’ as understood back in the day to ‘mental illness,’ because that is not all it was. It was many, many things.
I strongly suspect that those who push away from such realizations are afraid of what they have within themselves. They are afraid that if they begin being pushed towards the boundaries of their comfort zones, they will reveal the darkness in their hearts, or be ‘consumed’ by the ‘madness.’
But the madness is not consumptive. It is ecstasy, and the rites of the Mad God are Rites of Ecstasy and of recognizing that within ourselves are the roots of divine nature. It is not those who embrace the God that are consumed: it is those who have rejected Him.
You need only read The Bacchae to come to this realization.
But then… There will always be those who are fearful.
And perhaps the worship of Dionysos is not for them.
Prayer to Dionysus
Dionysus, Lord of Madness and Frenzy, I give into the pleasures of life
To live fully and freely.
We find passion in life and celebrate your wild presence.
I honor you.
Dionysus, of the Flowers, the earth grows from you.
Ivy and grape, vine and seed.
God of Vegetation, we consume you,
Foldly and happily.
I honor you.
Dionysus, Torch Bearer,
Ignite our hearts in strife and struggle.
Holy Eternal youth, share with us your zest for life
And show us the joys that wait beyond.
We devote ourselves to you,
Through love and care of self.
I honor you.
Thank you, Dionysus.
I honor and praise you.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: wine vinegar is a proper non-alcoholic libation choice for Dionysus. Hell, you could even go the whole posca way by watering it down and adding herbs/spices. The fact it was a lower-class drink probably also means it was very widespread.
Thyme, Fennel and Rosemary infused vinegar reduced in three times its volume of water and honey to taste is an excellent summer drink for digestion. Add black pepper and replace with white wine for a really neat cocktail.
Mad god, drunken lord, raving god, roaring lord,
I write for your honour, Dionysus, and your amusement:
Of how you came to the title of twice-born,
Of deliverer unto madness and saviour from it,
Of good spirited one, and of man-slayer,
Of the mad, the drunken, and the wild god.
Born first of Dread Persephone, Zeus’ begotten son,
You were given to fell giants by Stern Hera,
For in you she saw foe of jealousy, and of sobriety,
And by those giants you were rent asunder and devoured.
But from annihilation you were saved, by Wisdom’s hand,
Your heart snatched away and safely implanted,
In fair Semele’s mortal womb, to grow anew a divine form,
Alas for her your divine birth no mortal could survive.
So it was that you were born once, of the Great Goddess,
Then torn and devoured, only to be born anew of mortal womb,
So came you to be called Dionysus the twice born,
As the seed is born of the plant, then of the earth wherein it is planted.
Now to your famous madness I shall speak, gift and curse that it is.
As you were trusted to Ancient Silenus, who taught you the making of wine,
To be fostered and raised, and sheltered from adversity,
And protected in wild freedom you were, until as an adult you said farewell.
Going forth from Nysa, you left the shelter of Wise Silenus,
To bring the world wine and the ecstasies that attend it,
And were seen once more by Hera of the long grudge,
Who struck you mad, knowing she could not slay you.
In your madness you travelled far, knowing not yourself
Nor where you were, nor whence you came,
But even so, you spread your teachings, gained followers,
And taught the making and drinking of blessed wine.
And in the rages, ecstasies, despairs, and terrors of your madness,
You led your followers in many drunken revels and riots,
Tearing asunder those who denied you as you were once torn,
And rending the night with the shrieks and howls of your celebration.
After some indeterminate time in this maddened state,
You slew a king of Phrygia, whose name is lost,
But who complained of the mad youth who ripped him apart
To Dread Persephone, who recognised her son in the tale.
So she travelled to the world under cover of Solemn Night,
Wearing the face of a young girl and a wreath of asphodel blooms,
Once there she sought you, and on finding you saw the curse upon you,
A madness married to your mind as only Jealous Hera could wed two things.
Your hallowed mother then sought her mother’s mother,
Great Rhea, of the unceasing flow, who heals all wounds,
And brought her to you, that she might heal your mind from Hera’s curse,
But try as she might, madness from your mind could not be unbound.
She instead restored you to your mind yourself,
That you could ride the madness, rather than be ridden by it,
And in so doing she gave you the knowledge of yourself back,
Of who you are, where you were, and whence you had come.
It was after you were given yourself back, mad though you remain,
That you travelled home, with all your famous exploits,
From the maenads of Thebes, to the ship of Tyrrhenian pirates,
For you are not only the drunken master of drunkenness,
But the mad master of madness, to inflict it or cure it as you wish.
And so I have written for you, mad god, drunken lord, roaring Dionysus,
May it amuse you, and show to all your glory, might, and majesty.
For Dionysos
Heady, sun-drenched amethysts
Dripping from the vines
Their juices transformed;
Jewelled elixirs of revelry
Your smile flashes in every glass,
Laughter, delighting in our mortal joy
Bright, ecstasy-glazed eyes
Perfumed mouths, gleaming skin,
Wild tresses dancing around our limbs
Expectations and inhibitions-
Released, unbound
Worries and thoughts-
Forgotten, dismissed
Pleasure and entertainment
Are the rulers for now
Our laughter mingles
With that of the vine-draped God
u heard him ladies
so many mornings I need Dionysus to do this for me
Decorative Papers
This week we present selected decorative papers from Matrix 3 (Winter 1983) and Matrix 5 (Winter 1985) published by John and Rosalind Randle at their Whittington Press.
The decorative papers are from several different articles. From top to bottom:
1. Examples of Curwen pattern papers designed by Albert Rutherston, Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, and Graham Sutherland. From the article “The Curwen Press Collection in Cambridge University Library” by John Dreyfus in Matrix 5, p. 23-32.
2 – 8. Paper samples from Hans Schmoller’s article “An Italian Paperchase: The Decorated Papers of Flavia Farina Cini, Pia Vitali, and Eleonora dei Conti Gallo,” from Matrix 5, p. 1-14.
9. Wrapping papers designed for Gordon Fraser from the article “The Wood-Engravings of John Lawrence” by Peter Guy from Matrix 3, p. 21-41.
10. Marbled paper samples from Anne Chambers article “Techniques of Marbling Paper,” Matrix 3, p. 53-59.
Our copies of Matrix are another donation from our friend Jerry Buff.
View more posts from Matrix.
View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.
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–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern