Dionysus Quotes

“Crowne ye God Bacchus with a coronall,”

“To the grape-giver Bacchants shout all hail;”

“And cup-like Twillpants, stroude in Bacchus Bowres.”

“Sooty retainer to the vine,
Bacchus’ black servant, negro fine;”

“The olive-trees belong to Pallas and the vines round them to Dionysus.”

“Dionysus”

“Dionysus mingles in the wine new powers,
Sending high adventure to the thoughts of men;”

“Wild I am now with heat:
  O Bacchus, cool thy rays!
Or frantic I shall eat
  Thy thyrse and bite the bays.”

“‘Be of good courage, blest companion mine;
Bacchus am I, the roaring God of Wine;
And well shall this day be, for thee and thine.’”

“When Dionysus leads his jocund quire,
And wingèd songsters tune their various lay,
And bees go labouring on and never tire,
Why shall the singer only not be gay?”

“Fondling forbear, ’tis Heresy to think
There is a Mistress equal to thy Drink;
Or if in love with any, ’t must be rather
With that plump Girl that does call Bacchus Father.”

“For were it not Dionysus to whom they institute a procession and sing songs in honor of the pudenda, it would be the most shameful action. But Dionysus, in whose honor they rave in bacchic frenzy, and Hades are the same.”

“The divine madness was subdivided into four kinds, prophetic, initiatory, poetic, erotic, having four gods presiding over them; the first was the inspiration of Apollo, the second that of Dionysus, the third that of the Muses, the fourth that of Aphrodite and Eros.”

“So faire a church as this, had Venus none,
The wals were of discoloured jasper stone,
Wherein was Proteus carvèd, and o’rehead,
A livelie vine of greene sea agget spread;
Where by one hand, light headed Bacchus hoong,
And with the other, wine from grapes out wroong.”

“O Lord with whom playeth Love the subduer and the dark-eyed Nymphs and rosy Aphrodite as thou wanderest the tops of the lofty hills, to thee I kneel; do thou come unto me kind and lending ear unto a prayer that is acceptable, and give Cleobulus good counsel, O Dionysus, to receive my love.”

“Bacchus must now his power resign—
I am the only God of Wine!
It is not fit the wretch should be
In competition set with me,
Who can drink ten times more than he.Make a new world, ye powers divine!
Stock’d with nothing else but Wine:
Let Wine its only product be,
Let Wine be earth, and air, and sea—
And let that Wine be all for me!”

“I dreamt this mortal part of mine
Was metamorphos’d to a vine;
Which crawling one and every way
Enthrall’d my dainty Lucia.
Methought, her long small legs and thighs
I with my tendrils did surprise;
Her belly, buttocks, and her waist
By my soft nerv’lets were embrac’d.
About her head I writhing hung,
And with rich clusters, hid among
The leaves, her temples I behung:
So that my Lucia seem’d to me
Young Bacchus ravish’d by his tree.”

“Behold, God's Son is come unto this land
Of Thebes, even I, Dionysus, whom the brand
Of heaven's hot splendour lit to life, when she
Who bore me, Cadmus' daughter Semele,
Died here. So, changed in shape from God to man,
I walk again by Dirce's streams and scan
Ismenus' shore. There by the castle side
I see her place, the Tomb of the Lightning's Bride,
The wreck of smouldering chambers, and the great
Faint wreaths of fire undying—as the hate
Dies not, that Hera held for Semele.”

“Frogs and Dionysus:
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dionysus:
Go, hang yourselves; for what care I?
Frogs:
All the same we'll shout and cry,
Stretching all our throats with song,
Shouting, crying, all day long,
Frogs and Dionysus:
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Frogs:
In this you'll never, never win.
This you shall not beat us in.
Dionysus:
No, nor ye prevail o’er me.
Never! never! I'll my song
Shout, if need be, all day long,
Until I’ve learned to master your ko-ax.
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
I thought I’d put a stop to your ko-ax.”

“Chorus:
Him a sad mother, in compulsive woe,
  Untimely gave to birth,
Then perished mid the lightning’s dazzling glow,
  And mid the thunder’s mirth.
The Babe, to his bright chamber in the sky
  Did Zeus immediate bear,
Enclosed with golden cinctures in his thigh,
  And hid from Here there.
And when the destined months had past away,
  He gave him to the light,
An antlered God, more beautiful than Day,
  More marvellously bright.
With braided serpents were his brows entwin’d,
  And thence the Mænads fair,
The thyrsus-bearing Bacchanals still bind
  Wreathed serpents in their hair.”