Yet, though the mystical body of the earth is forgotten in the human
anguish of the mother of Dionysus, the sense of his essence of fire
and dew still lingers in his most sacred name, as the son of Semele,
Dithyrambus. We speak of a certain wild music in words or rhythm as
dithyrambic, like the dithyrambus, that is, the wild choral-singing
of the worshippers of Dionysus. But Dithyrambus seems to have been,
in the first instance, the name, not of the hymn, but of the god to
whom the hymn is sung; and, through a tangle of curious etymological
speculations as to the precise derivation of this name, one thing
seems clearly visible, that it commemorates, namely, the double birth
of the vine-god; that [26] he is born once and again; his birth,
first of fire, and afterwards of dew; the two dangers that beset him;
his victory over two enemies, the capricious, excessive heats and
colds of spring.
He is pyrigenes,+ then, fire-born, the son of lightning; lightning
being to light, as regards concentration, what wine is to the other
strengths of the earth. And who that has rested a hand on the
glittering silex of a vineyard slope in August, where the pale globes
of sweetness are lying, does not feel this? It is out of the bitter
salts of a smitten, volcanic soil that it comes up with the most
curious virtues.
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