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Here there showed a Venus sculptured in some Ionian isle before ever Caesar and his cohorts had pressed the soil of Gallia beneath their Roman sandals; there, a Ganymede or a Ceres or a Minerva gleamed wan and beautiful; beneath an ilex-tree a Bacchus leaned lightly on his marble thyrsus.
The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak when compared with that spirit full of grace, which I was privileged to hear. But it will be an image to recall the archetype to him who was struck with the Thyrsus." Many things, well I know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped away unwritten.
The actor playing the part of Agave, who in her Dionysiac frenzy has torn in pieces her son and returns from Cithaeron carrying his head on the thyrsus, exchanged this for the bloody head of Crassus, and to the infinite delight of his audience of half-Hellenized barbarians began afresh the well-known song: pheromin ex oreos elika neotomon epi melathra makarian theiran .
In his hand he holds a long thyrsus. Behind him is borne aloft a chaplet of seven gold stars. Ariadne is but a little waif in the god's power. Not Theseus himself could protect her. One tap of the god's wand, and, lo! she, too, would be filled with the frenzy of worship, and, with a wild cry, would join the dancers, his for ever. But the god is not unscrupulous.
Then all the sports of pleasure disappear, Then Venus, then gay youth removes: No Thyrsus then which Bacchus loves; But all is clouded and o'erspread with care.
The world I proudly wander o'er, And plume myself and sing I am a man! Whoe'er is more? Then leap on high, and spring! Religion 'twas produced this poem's fire; Perverted also? prithee, don't inquire! What mean the joyous sounds from yonder vine-clad height? What the exulting Evoe? Why glows the cheek? Whom is't that I, with pinions light, Swinging the lofty Thyrsus see?
Take from Apollo his Lyre, from Bacchus his Thyrsus and Vine-leaves, and Meleager the Boar's Head, and there will remain little or no difference in their characters. In a Juno, Minerva, or Flora, the idea of the artist seems to have gone no further than representing perfect beauty, and afterwards adding the proper attributes, with a total indifference to which they gave them.
And if you would like to know wherein the son of Severus resembles the giant of Macedon, you shall hear." He thrummed his thyrsus as though he struck the strings of a lyre, and, having ended the dumb prelude, he sang: "Wherein hath the knave Caracalla outdone Alexander? He killed a brother, the hero a friend, in his rage."
The Graceful Superstition was never silent; every, the most household, action of their lives was entwined with it it was a portion of life itself, as the flowers are a part of the thyrsus.
Thus the torch, flame of fire, cone, serpent, thyrsus, triangle, letter T, cross, crosier, sceptre, caduceus, knobbed stick, tall tree, upright stone, spire, tower, minaret, upright pole, arrow, spear, sword, club, upright stump, etc., are all symbols of the generative force of the male energy in Nature of the Supreme God.
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