Bacchis

“ On either side of the entrance-hall, and just under the archway, was a plaster-of-Paris figure, nearly as large as life—that on the right-hand being a representation of Bacchus, and that on the left of a nymph dancing. But the female image had long since lost its head, and also one of its arms—the latter being still in existence, but being hung for convenience’ sake through the raised arm of Bacchus, making him look like one of those Hindu idols which are preposterously figured with a number of superfluous limbs. ”

“ Bacchus on the wing,
A conquering!
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide.’”
Keats.
The most unruly among his female followers were the Bacchantes, who delighted in revelry, and were in a perpetual state of intoxication as they went with him from land to land, where he taught the people the cultivation of the vine and the art of making wine. He traveled thus, it is said, throughout Greece and Asia Minor, and even ventured as far as India and Ethiopia. ”

“ It was the day of the feast of Bacchus, and through the woods poured Bacchus and his Bacchantes, a shameless rout, satyrs capering around them, centaurs neighing aloud. Long had the Bacchantes hated the loyal poet-lover of one fair woman whose dwelling was with the Shades. His ears were ever deaf to their passionate voices, his eyes blind to their passionate loveliness as they danced through the green trees, a riot of colour, of fierce beauty, of laughter and of mad song. Mad they were indeed this day, and in their madness the very existence of Orpheus was a thing not to be borne. ”

“ As he leaned nearer to the shouting dancers, wondering how his mother came to join in such orgies, she suddenly saw him, and pointing a finger at his shrinking figure cried:—
"There is the monster who prowls in our woods. Come on, sisters. I will be the first to strike the wild boar." Blinded by the madness that Bacchus had purposely inspired, she rushed upon the terrified king, followed by the crowd of half-crazed Bacchantes. In vain did Pentheus cry out that he was her son. ”

“ Not daring to leave the infant Bacchus in such a household, and fearing the further persecutions of Juno, Jupiter took the boy to Mount Nysa, where the nymphs—the Nysiades—guarded him faithfully. During his youth, Bacchus was made god of wine and revels, and was intrusted to the tutorship of Silenus, one of the most famous of the satyrs. This jovial old man had a bald head, pointed ears, a fat red face, and a body that was half man and half goat. ”

“ Bacchus entered the ecclesiastical profession, as a jolly fat monk; at the recurrence of the summer solstice he may still be seen, with his fat friend Silenus, and a riotous crew, brandishing the thyrsus amid the dancing Corybantes.
Poor old Jupiter! His fate is terrible. Banished to an island in the North Sea, called the Island of Rabbits, he sits, withered, old, and decrepit, attended only by a lean, featherless eagle, the picture of grim despair; glad to pick up news from a chance whaler. ”

“ Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old black barque;
And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: "Hi, stop!" cries Hook, "you frantic old boozer!
Belay, below there, don't you go and leave poor pirates to die in the dark!"
And the moon went round, and the stars went round,
As they all pushed off and sung:
Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals
When the world was young!
Over the seas they went and Bacchus he stands, with his yellow-eyed leopards beside him,
High on the poop of rose and pearl, and kisses his hand to us, pleasant as pie! ”

“ At all events, Messer Gallo purchased a Bacchus, which now adorns the sculpture-gallery of the Bargello, and a Cupid, which may possibly be the statue at South Kensington.
Condivi says that this gentleman, "a man of fine intelligence, employed him to execute in his own house a marble Bacchus, ten palms in height, the form and aspect of which correspond in all parts to the meaning of ancient authors. The face of the youth is jocund, the eyes wandering and wanton, as is the wont with those who are too much addicted to a taste for wine. ”

“ Jupiter unwillingly complied and, making his thunder bolts milder than usual, appeared before her. The lightning which played about his head set fire to the palace and Semele was consumed. The child, Bacchus, was snatched from the flames by his brother Mercury98 and borne away to the nymphs, who guarded him most faithfully.
While still a youth Bacchus was appointed god of wine. Spring was a season of gladness for him, winter a time of sorrow. He delighted in roaming over the world borne by his followers or riding in his chariot drawn by wild beasts. ”

“ Messer Jacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman and a banker, commissioned a Bacchus, now in the Bargello at Florence, and a Cupid, said to be the statue now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Condivi records these commissions.71 [pg 108] This Bacchus is the least dignified work that Michael Angelo ever executed. Perhaps, like a young artist struggling to get on, he listened too much to the wishes and suggestions of his intelligent patron. The finish and the truth to nature of the unpleasant youth are exquisite. ”

“ For God hath rendered every thing cross to the sober; nor do biting cares disperse any otherwise [than by the use of wine] . Who, after wine, complains of the hardships of war or of poverty? Who does not rather [celebrate] thee, Father Bacchus, and thee, comely Venus? Nevertheless, the battle of the Centaurs [93] with the Lapithæ, [94] which was fought in their cups, admonishes us not to exceed a moderate use of the gifts of Bacchus. And Bacchus himself admonishes us in his severity to the Thracians; when greedy to satisfy their lusts, they make little distinction between right and wrong. ”

“ Picagente, the hairy brigand, lay snoring across the threshold, and his dog on him; on a barrel in a corner a gigantic shepherd in leather, with bandaged legs and a patch over one eye, shut the other eye while he roared a hymn to Bacchus at the top stretch of his lungs. The oil-lamp flickered, flared, and gloomed, half drowned in the fumes of wine. A smell of wicked bodies, foul clothes, drink, and bad language made the air well-nigh solid. The hour was at the stroke of ten; outside the streets seemed asleep.
In the middle of the uproar Stefano the host looked up sharply, listening. ”

“ The ass is a well-known phallical symbol, and Bacchus being also a phallical [Pg 340] god, we read in Pliny, "Asellorum duo genera, Callariæ minores, et Bacchi, qui non nisi in alto (in the deep) capiuntur." The Italian name baccalà, given to the cod-fish, seems to me to be derived from the union of the two names Bacchus and Callaria. In the Piedmontese dialect, a stupid man is also called by the name of baccalà. There is also a fish called merula, of which the ancients describe the extraordinary salacity, by indulging which it literally consumes itself away and perishes. ”

“ The genial life of nature is the essential character of Bacchus. One of the names of the Indian Siva is Dionichi, which very nearly resembles the Greek name of Bacchus, Dionysos. He was taken from the Meros, or thigh of Jupiter. Now Mount Meru, in India, is the home of the gods; by a common etymological error the Greeks may have thought it the Greek word for thigh, and so translated it.
The Bacchic worship, in its Thracian form, was always distasteful to the best of the Greeks; it was suspected and disliked by the enlightened, proscribed by kings, and rejected by communities. ”

“ At the base is a mass of bronze which gives stability to the whole, upon which a Silenus is seated, earnestly engaged in trying to pour wine from a skin which he holds in his left hand into a cup in his right. In this figure all the distinctive marks of the companion and tutor of Bacchus are expressed with great skill; the pointed ears, the goat's tail, the shaggy skin, the flat nose, and the ample rotundity of body, leave no doubt on our minds as to the person intended to be represented. The head, especially, is admirable, both in respect of workmanship and expression. ”

“ But since his drawing, to which it is evident that he gave his attention more than to any other thing, was of such a kind and of such excellence that it atones for his every natural defect and makes him known as a rare master of our art, we therefore not only count him among the greatest craftsmen, but also have always paid respect to his works, and have sought not to destroy but to finish them and do them honour, for the reason that it appears to us that Baccio was in truth one of those who deserve honourable praise and everlasting fame. ”

“ We parted at midnight—a very late hour in Switzerland, and as they wished me a good night, each of them made me a sincere offer of his friendship. One of the company at an early period of the supper, before he had begun to get mellow, had condemned the Venetian Republic for banishing the Grisons, but on his intellect being enlightened by Bacchus he made his apologies.
“Every government,” said he, “ought to know its own interests better than strangers, and everybody should be allowed to do what he wills with his own.” ”

“ But now the attendants returned whom he had despatched to seize Bacchus. They had been driven away by the Bacchanals, but had succeeded in taking one of them prisoner, whom, with his hands tied behind him, they brought before the king. Pentheus, beholding him with wrathful countenance, said, "Fellow! you shall speedily be put to death, that your fate may be a warning to others; but though I grudge the delay of your punishment, speak, tell us who you are, and what are these new rites you presume to celebrate." ”

“ This spring revel affords another resemblance between this æsthetic people and the old Romans, and one half expects to find a flower-crowned statue of Bacchus in some lovely little landscape garden beside the Mukojima. Men dance like satyrs, cup and gourd in hand, or, extending a hand, make orations to the crowd—natural actors, orators, and pantomimists every one of them. ”

“ He brings the ancient gods to Kentucky, and it is marvelous how quickly they learn to be at home there. Here is Bacchus, with a spicy fragment of calamus-root in his hand, trampling the blue-eyed grass, and skipping, with the air of a hunter born, into the hickory thicket, to escape Artemis, whose robes, as she passes swiftly with her dogs through the woods, startle the humming-birds, silence the green tree-frogs, and fill the hot still air with the perfumes of peppermint and pennyroyal. ”

“ He was hardly ever sober, but he knew so much and understood the world so well, that one of the gods, named Bacchus, made Silenus his chief adviser and counselor. You will hear more of Bacchus later on. I will only tell you now that he was not one of the great gods of Olympus, but lived on the earth, like Pan. Only, while Pan was the god of all wild, savage nature, Bacchus was the god of nature as men make it: Bacchus taught men to turn Pan’s wild woods into corn-fields and gardens, to put bees into hives, and to make wine. ”

“ And out of the cave there also rose two fountains, one of milk and one of wine, and around it all the nymphs had garlands of gold, and Mercury had a golden herald's wand, and very superb raiment. And on another four-wheeled wagon, on which the return of Bacchus from the Indians was represented, there was a figure of Bacchus twelve cubits high, riding upon an elephant, clad in a purple robe, and having on a crown of vine-leaves, and ivy-leaves of gold, and bearing in his hands a spear like a thyrsus, made also of gold ”

“ Bacchus was exposed in an ark upon a river: a double coincidence with Noah and Moses, which is exactly in the spirit of the old mythologists. Nonnus, in his Dionysiacs, mentions the flight of Bacchus to the red sea, and his battles with the Princes of Arabia; and relates that he touched the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with his thyrsus, and that the rivers dried up, and he passed through dry-shod. The Indians are in darkness, while the Bacchic army are in light. The ivy-rod of Bacchus is thrown on the ground, and creeps to and fro like a live serpent. ”

“ Meanwhile a little Faun lifts the veil that covers her, and with an attitude indicating surprise at her beauty, turns to Bacchus and seems to invite him to contemplate her charms. The deity himself, crowned with ivy and berries, clothed in a short tunic and a pallium agitated by the breeze, holds in his right hand the thyrsus, and lifts his left in token of admiration. In the background a Bacchante sounds her tympanum, and invites the followers of the god to descend from the mountains. These, preceded by Silenus, obey the summons ”

“ The songs he offered for these barbarian entertainments are perfect in character and form. Harmless mirth, a spirit of generous good-fellowship, a clean and manly heart disarm, or should disarm, all moral judgment, while the grace and vigor of every line leave the critic powerless to complain. "Hail to the Headlong," and "A Heel-tap! a Heel-tap!" are the poet's earliest tributes at the shrine of Bacchus. ”

“ But why should I confine my discourse to the narrow subject of mankind only? View the whole heaven itself, and then tell me what one of that divine tribe would not be mean and despicable, if my name did not lend him some respect and authority. Why is Bacchus always painted as a young man, but only because he is freakish, drunk, and mad; and spending his time in toping, dancing, masking, and revelling, seems to have nothing in the least to do with wisdom? ”