Apotropaic Dionysos by Δ the Dionysian Artist and Wayne
I really do love Ovid’s account of the origins of the festival. I mean just sit with this isolated bit here and really think about what each line is saying.
The task of this verse is to set out the reasons,
Why a vine-planter sells his cakes to the crowd.
Liber, before your birth the altars were without offerings,
And grass appeared on the stone-cold hearths.
They tell how you set aside the first fruits for Jupiter,
After subduing the Ganges region, and the whole of the East.
You were the first to offer up cinnamon and incense
From conquered lands, and the roast entrails of triumphal oxen.
Libations derive their name from their originator,
And cake (liba) since a part is offered on the sacred hearth.
Honey-cakes are baked for the god, because he delights in sweet
Substances, and they say that Bacchus discovered honey.
Those are some heavy fucking mysteries right there.
You are the blood flowing through my fingers, all through the soil, and up in those trees …
