Observations placeholder
Euripides - The Bacchae
Identifier
002240
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Bacchae – Euripides
On comrades of my progress here
Come and with your native Phrygian drum
Rhea’s drum and muse – pound at the palace doors
Of Pentheus! Let the city of Thebes behold you
While I return among Cithaeron’s forest glens
Where my Bacchae wait and join the whirling dances
….
Blessed, blessed are those who know the mysteries of god
Blessed is he who hallows his life in the worship of god
He whom the spirit of god possesseth, who is one
With those who belong to the holy body of god
Blessed are the dancers and those who are purified
Who dance on the hill in the holy dance of god
…..
where helmed in triple tier
around the primal drum
the Korybates danced. They,
they were the first of all
whose whirling feet kept time
to the strict beat of the taut hide
and the squeal of the wailing flute
then from them to Rhea’s hands
the holy drum was handed down
but, stolen by the raving Satyrs,
fell at last to me and now
accompanies the dance
which every other year
celebrates your name:
Dionysos!
The triumph of Dionysus, with a maenad playing a tympanum, on a Roman mosaic from Tunisia (3rd century AD)