Kindle Notes & Highlights
I see her place, the Tomb of the Lightning's Bride,
My green and clustered vines to robe it round Far now behind me lies the golden ground
I cry this Thebes to waken; set her hands To clasp my wand, mine ivied javelin, And round her shoulders hang my wild fawn-skin. For they have scorned me whom it least beseemed, Semelê's sisters; mocked by birth, nor deemed That Dionysus sprang from Dian seed.
Thus must they vaunt; and therefore hath my rod On them first fallen, and stung them forth wild-eyed From empty chambers; the bare mountain side Is made their home, and all their hearts are flame. Yea, I have bound upon the necks of them The harness of my rites. And with them all The seed of womankind from hut and hall Of Thebes, hath this my magic goaded out. And there, with the old King's daughters, in a rout Confused, they make their dwelling-place between The roofless rocks and shadowy pine trees green.
So the first of the wild women in Dionysus/Bacchus' cult were his mother's family who shamed her and then blamed her for catching heaven (Hera's) fury, and this was not in guilt nor atoning for their sins of blasphemy that they became the hysterical dwellers of the wild places but as a curse from Bacchus himself, therefore, The Bacchae. (Mention of the wild rites and ceremonial rampages are detailed in Fraser's The Golden Bough)
Learn and forget not, till she crave her part In mine adoring; thus must I speak clear To save my mother's fame, and crown me here, As true God, born by Semelê to Zeus.
My maids, lo, in their path myself shall be, And maniac armies battled after me! For this I veil my godhead with the wan Form of the things that die, and walk as Man.
The animalistic side of Dionysus boasting of his godhood and waging war upon those whom have wronged him
Yea, his own flesh tore to hide him, And with clasps of bitter gold Did a secret son enfold,
Zeus sewed the unborn fetus in his thigh (weird place for pregnancy), and that's another added god-like aspect to Dionysus- this time it may have been because Zeus truly did care for Semele and the baby.
The only other god/goddess that has been born of Zeus' flesh and Ichor being Athena whom he unknowingly bore after swallowing her mother (this time the maiden outwitting Zeus and hiding her pregnancy therefor, Athena) because of a prophecy that his "son" would be more powerful than him (like father like son smh, you're all the same, the men in the circular Zeus family tree)
Hermes (the single serpent around his staff)
Bromios refers to the loud and boisterous chaos that accompanies the cult's rites and gatherings in their "hysterics", it serves as symbolism for leading men astray in strange places they don't remember going to after sobering up
The OG cult description; "the flock"
But the Timbrel, the Timbrel was another's, And away to Mother Rhea it must wend;
Rhea may be particularly respected and worshipped in the cult becajse she gave up her seat, the twelfth seat for Dionysus in Olympus
Maenad
The mad/ the raving followers of Dionysus, the women basically and considered the most important in the sect
O Strength of God, slow art thou and still, Yet failest never!
What flesh bare this child? Never on woman's breast Changeling so evil smiled; Man is he not, but Beast! Loin-shape of the wild, Gorgon-breed of the waste!"
About Dionysus
'Twas his mother stood O'er him, first priestess of those rites of blood. He tore the coif, and from his head away Flung it, that she might know him, and not slay To her own misery. He touched the wild Cheek, crying: "Mother, it is I, thy child, Thy Pentheus, born thee in Echion's hall! Have mercy, Mother! Let it not befall Through sin of mine, that thou shouldst slay thy son!" But she, with lips a-foam and eyes that run Like leaping fire, with thoughts that ne'er should be On earth, possessed by Bacchios utterly, Stays not nor hears. Round his left arm she put Both hands, set hard against
...more
Gore at its best
There saw I plain Actaeon's mother, ranging where he died, Autonoë; and Ino by her side, Wandering ghastly in the pine-copses.
Oh, other Bacchanals be there, Not I, not I, to dream of them!
